May It Please the Court
May It Please the Court immerses listeners in the dramatic history of the Supreme Court’s most consequential rulings and unpacks how the same constitutional sentence has been reinterpreted across generations, shaping the world we live in today.
Episodes
15 episodes
Centennial Crisis (The Election of 1876) | The Equal Protection Clause, Pt. 1
Alex discusses the chaotic 1876 Presidential election, involving disputed ballots, voter suppression, and political brinkmanship that led to end of Reconstruction Era and turned the tide against racial equality.
Radical Republicans (The Reconstruction Amendments) | The Equal Protection Clause, Pt. 1
Alex retells the story of Abraham Lincoln navigating the Civil War, Radical Republicans, and a divided nation to abolish slavery and secure equal rights. From the abolition of slavery to the drafting of the 14th Amendment, this episode explores...
A House Divided (Dred Scott v. Sandford) | The Equal Protection Clause, Pt. 1
Alex retells the dramatic story of Charles Sumner’s fiery Senate speech, the brutal caning that followed, and the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, showing how these events set the stage for Abraham Lincoln, the 14th Amendm...
Introduction to Season 2 | The Equal Protection Clause
Creator and host Alex Akhavan introduces Season 2 of May It Please The Court: the story of the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Effectively the story of race and discrimination in the United States from the lens of the...
#LoveWins (Obergefell v. Hodges) | The Due Process Clause
In the season finale of May It Please The Court, the justices decide the issue of same-sex marriage. In 2015, twelve years after the Court's landmark decision that had invalidated anti-sodomy laws, Justice Anthony Kennedy is once again the tieb...
A Lover's Quarrel (Lawrence v. Texas) | The Due Process Clause
It's a new millennium, and gay rights advocates take another stab at invalidating anti-sodomy laws in the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas. The mainstream public's views on homosexuality have evolved considerably as the legal world waits to f...
The O'Connor Burden (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) | The Due Process Clause
It’s a Roe v. Wade rematch when the Supreme Court hears the case of Planned Parenthood vs. Casey in 1992. As a new split forms among the Court’s conservatives, Sandra Day O’Connor, the country’s first female justice, is the deciding vote to det...
No Conceivable Limit (Bowers v. Hardwick) | The Due Process Clause
Substantive due process is now a political issue. Republicans start appointing justices willing to reverse or limit the doctrine responsible for Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, progressives try to expand interpretations of the 14th amendment to start p...
Jane Roe (Roe v. Wade) | The Due Process Clause
With substantive due process back in full force, the Supreme Court takes up the issue of abortion and decides its most controversial case in recent history: Roe v. Wade. [Originally Aired August 13, 2018]
Loving (Loving v. Virginia) | The Due Process Clause
Just two years after its historic decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court decides a landmark case about interracial marriage. While the case could have been decided based only on the Equal Protection clause, the Court went furthe...
A Fundamental Right to Privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut) | The Due Process Clause
After 30 years without a landmark substantive due process case, the clause makes a roaring comeback in the 1960s when civil rights attorneys revive an old legal doctrine. A new liberty is recognized that will shape the modern world, and it star...
Delano's Wrath (West Coast Hotel v. Parrish) | The Due Process Clause
The Lochner Era continues well into the 1930s. The Supreme Court was as divided as ever and starts to become a problem for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal policies. So FDR comes up with a drastic plan to free himself and th...
The Baker's Arrest (Lochner v. New York) | The Due Process Clause
Justice Rufus Peckham gets his chance to make history by writing a new precedent that would dictate American domestic economic policy for a generation. Hear how the arrest of a baker named Joseph Lochner ushered in the infamous era in constitut...
Defining Liberty | The Due Process Clause
In the pilot, Alex Akhavan traces the origins of the Due Process clause starting with the ratification of the 14th amendment and the birth of a legal debate that continues to divide the Supreme Court today. Is the clause only concerned with fai...
Introduction to Season 1 | The Due Process Clause
Creator and host Alex Akhavan introduces listeners to Season 1 of May It Please The Court, which narrates the riveting events that connect the most important cases in U.S. history. Each season is one story about one part of the Constituti...
