Constitutional Law: 2025

On my schedule senior year in college: Spanish Literature, Math (the lowest level possible, for the 3rd or 4th time), some communications class, some English literature class, a political science class or two, and constitutional law, the only thing that really held my interest in that last semester. The final project was a very long and in depth paper researching a historic court decision, my assignment: Brown v. Board of Education.

Interesting case but as a 22 year old college student, whose class study partner was a person with brown skin, really difficult to understand. Brown originated not far from where I went to school, and was decided less than 40 years prior. My dad, who was in high school at the time of the Brown decision, tried to help me make sense of what I was reading but the truth was that it didn't make sense and it was maddening to think that the issues presented were ever so divisive as to require Supreme Court level intervention.

Someday, twelve years from now, my children might find themselves in a classroom, assigned to study and write about United States v. Windsor, and I hope they find it just as infuriating as I found Brown.