More Perfect

“Equal protection of the laws” was granted to all persons by the 14th Amendment in 1868. But for nearly a century after that, women had a hard time convincing the courts that they should be allowed to be jurors, lawyers, and bartenders, just the same as men. A then-lawyer at the ACLU named Ruth Bader Ginsburg set out to convince an all-male Supreme Court to take sex discrimination seriously with an unconventional strategy. She didn’t just bring cases where women were the victims of discrimination; she also brought cases where men were the victims. In this episode, we look at how a key battle for gender equality was won with frat boys and beer.

Dred Scott v. Sandford is one of the most infamous cases in Supreme Court history: in 1857, an enslaved person named Dred Scott filed a suit for his freedom and lost. In his decision, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney wrote that Black men “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” One Civil War and more than a century later, the Taneys and the Scotts reunite at a Hilton in Missouri to figure out what reconciliation looks like in the 21st century.

Voices in the episode include:

• Lynne Jackson — great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott, and president and founder of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation

• Dred Scott Madison — great-great-grandson of Dred Scott

• Barbara McGregory — great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott

• Charlie Taney — great-great-grandnephew of Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision

• Richard Josey — Manager of Programs at the Minnesota Historical Society

Learn more:

• 1857: Dred Scott v. Sandford

• The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation

Special thanks to Kate Taney Billingsley, whose play, "A Man of His Time," inspired the episode; and to Soren Shade for production help. Additional music for this episode by Gyan Riley.

Shadow dockets, term limits, amicus briefs — what puzzles you about the Supreme Court? What stories are you curious about? We want to answer your questions in our next season. Click here to leave us a voice memo.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

This week, we revisit one of the most important Supreme Court cases you’ve probably never heard of: Baker v. Carr, a redistricting case from the 1960s, which challenged the justices to consider what might happen if they stepped into the world of electoral politics. It’s a case so stressful that it pushed one justice to a nervous breakdown, put another justice in the hospital, brought a boiling feud to a head, and changed the course of the Supreme Court — and the nation — forever.

Voices in the episode include:

• Tara Grove — More Perfect legal advisor, University of Texas at Austin law professor

• Guy-Uriel Charles — Harvard Law School professor

• Louis Michael Seidman — Georgetown Law School professor

• Sam Issacharoff — NYU law school professor

• Craig A. Smith — PennWest California humanities professor and Charles Whittaker's biographer

• J. Douglas Smith — author of "On Democracy's Doorstep"

• Alan Kohn — former Supreme Court clerk for Charles Whittaker (1957 term)

• Kent Whittaker — Charles Whittaker's son

• Kate Whittaker — Charles Whittaker's granddaughter

Learn more:

• 1962: Baker v. Carr

• 2000: Bush v. Gore

• 2016: Evenwel v. Abbott

Music in this episode by Gyan Riley, Alex Overington, David Herman, Tobin Low and Jad Abumrad.

Archival interviews with Justice William O. Douglas come from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library.

Special thanks to Jerry Goldman and to Whittaker's clerks: Heywood Davis, Jerry Libin and James Adler.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

To many Americans, Clarence Thomas makes no sense. For more than 30 years on the Court, he seems to have been on a mission — to take away rights that benefit Black people. As a young man, though, Thomas listened to records of Malcolm X speeches on a loop and strongly identified with the tenets of Black Nationalism. This week on More Perfect, we dig into his writings and lectures, talk to scholars and confidants, and explore his past, all in an attempt to answer: what does Clarence Thomas think Clarence Thomas is doing?

Voices in the episode include:

• Juan Williams — senior political analyst at Fox News

• Corey Robin — professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

• Angela Onwuachi-Willig — Dean of Boston University School of Law

• Stephen F. Smith — Notre Dame Law School professor

Learn more:

• 1993: Graham v. Collins

• 1994: Holder v. Hall

• 1999: Chicago v. Morales

• 2003: Grutter v. Bollinger

• 2022: Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College

• 2022: Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina

• “The Enigma of Clarence Thomas” by Corey Robin

• “Black Conservatives, Center Stage” by Juan Williams

• “Just Another Brother on the SCT?: What Justice Clarence Thomas Teaches Us About the Influence of Racial Identity” by Angela Onwuachi-Willig

• “Clarence X?: The Black Nationalist Behind Justice Thomas's Constitutionalism” by Stephen F. Smith

• “My Grandfather’s Son” by Justice Clarence Thomas

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

Recently, On the Media’s Micah Loewinger was called to testify in court. He had reported on militia groups who’d helped lead the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Now the government was using his work as evidence in a case against them. Micah wanted nothing to do with it — he worried that participating in the trial would signal to sources that he couldn’t be trusted, which would compromise his work.

As he considered his options, he uncovered a 1972 case called Branzburg v. Hayes. It involved New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell, who was approached multiple times by the FBI to testify against sources in the Black Panther Party. His case — and its decision — transformed the relationship between journalists and the government.

Voices in the episode include:

• Micah Loewinger — correspondent for WNYC Studios' On the Media

• Earl Caldwell — former New York Times reporter

• Lee Levine — attorney and media law expert

• Congressman Jamie Raskin — representing Maryland’s 8th District

Learn more:

• 1972: Branzburg v. Hayes

• Listen to On the Media's "Seditious Conspiracy" episode. Subscribe to On the Media here.

Shadow dockets, term limits, amicus briefs — what puzzles you about the Supreme Court? What stories are you curious about? We want to answer your questions in our next season. Click here to leave us a voice memo.

Special thanks to the Maynard Institute For Journalism Education for allowing the use of its Earl Caldwell oral history.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.