Battle for the Constitution: Week of June 14th, 2021 Roundup

Below is a round-up of the latest from the Battle for the Constitution: a special project on the constitutional debates in American life, in partnership with The Atlantic.

America’s ‘Great Chief Justice’ Was an Unrepentant Slaveholder

By Paul Finkelman, President, Gratz College

Paul Finkelman writes that John Marshall, the Chief Justice in the early 1800s, owned many slaves, consistently ruled in favor of slaveholders while on the Supreme Court, and authored racist opinions about Native Americans—and argues we must honestly confront these aspects of Marshall’s legacy.

The Next Major Challenge to the Affordable Care Act

By Nicholas Bagley, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School

Nicholas Bagley discusses Kelley v. Becerra, a case currently in front of a United States District Court that centers on whether a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires insurance providers to cover certain services and medicines without cost-sharing is unconstitutional, and contends that there is a good chance that part of the law will be struck down.