Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently published an opinion piece in The Boston Globe. Titled “The Supreme Court’s starring role in democracy’s demise,” the article critiques the Supreme Court’s lack of action to protect Black Americans’ voting rights in the midst of increasing disenfranchisement due to voter suppression tactics and the COVID-19 pandemic. Read an excerpt below along with the full article here.

“In a series of recent decisions imperiling voters’ access to the ballot box, the Supreme Court acted as if COVID-19 barely existed and the laws Republicans passed for absentee ballots were actually about election security and not outright disfranchisement. The first instance was the stunning decision in April that forced Wisconsin voters, in the middle of a pandemic, to make a Hobson’s choice between the right to vote or their own safety. In an unsigned decision by the five conservative justices, COVID-19 was barely mentioned, only that the tens of thousands of requested absentee ballots, which had not yet even arrived in the homes of voters by that night, still had to be postmarked by the next day to count. The result was that many in Wisconsin stood in line, risked their health to vote, and paid the horrible price by contracting the virus.“

– Carol Anderson, “The Supreme Court’s starring role in democracy’s demise,” The Boston Globe