Melvin I. Urofsky has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 1 narrator. The most-rated is The Affirmative Action Puzzle.
Dissent and the Supreme Court
Summary
From the admired judicial authority, author of Louis D. Brandeis ("Remarkable" - Anthony Lewis, The New York Review of Books; "Monumental" - Alan M. Dershowitz, The New York Times Book Review), Division and Discord, and Supreme Decisions - Melvin Urofsky's major new audiobook looks at the role of dissent in the Supreme Court and the meaning of the Constitution through the greatest and longest lasting public-policy debate in the country's history, among members of the Supreme Court, between the Court and the other branches of government, and between the Court and the people of the United States. Urofsky writes of the necessity of constitutional dialogue as one of the ways in which we as a people reinvent and reinvigorate our democratic society. In Dissent and the Supreme Court, he explores the great dissents throughout the Court's 225-year history. He discusses in detail the role the Supreme Court has played in helping to define what the Constitution means, how the Court's majority opinions have not always been right, and how the dissenters, by positing alternative interpretations, have initiated a critical dialogue about what a particular decision should mean. This dialogue is sometimes resolved quickly; other times it may take decades before the Court adjusts its position. Louis Brandeis' dissenting opinion about wiretapping became the position of the Court four decades after it was written. The Court took six decades to adopt the dissenting opinion of the first Justice John Harlan in Plessy v. Ferguson - that segregation on the basis of race violated the Constitution - in Brown v. Board of Education. Urofsky shows that the practice of dissent grew slowly but steadily and that in the 19th century dissents became more frequent. In the (in)famous case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, Chief Justice Roger Taney's opinion upheld slavery, declaring that blacks could never be citizens.
©2015 Melvin I. Urofsky (P)2015 Random House Audio
The Affirmative Action Puzzle
Summary
A rich, multifaceted history of affirmative action from the Civil Rights Act of 1866 through today’s tumultuous times From acclaimed legal historian, author of a biography of Louis Brandeis - "Remarkable" (Anthony Lewis, The New York Review of Books), "Definitive" (Jeffrey Rosen, The New Republic) - and Dissent and the Supreme Court - "Riveting" (Dahlia Lithwick, The New York Times Book Review) - a history of affirmative action from its beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to the first use of the term in 1935 with the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) to 1961 and John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, mandating that federal contractors take "affirmative action" to ensure that there be no discrimination by "race, creed, color, or national origin" down to today’s American society. Melvin Urofsky explores affirmative action in relation to sex, gender, and education and shows that nearly every public university in the country has at one time or another instituted some form of affirmative action plan - some successful, others not. Urofsky traces the evolution of affirmative action through labor and the struggle for racial equality, writing of World War I and the exodus that began when some six million African Americans moved northward between 1910 and 1960, one of the greatest internal migrations in the country’s history. He describes how Harry Truman, after becoming president in 1945, fought for Roosevelt’s Fair Employment Practice Act and, surprising everyone, appointed a distinguished panel to serve as the President’s Commission on Civil Rights, as well as appointing the first black judge on a federal appeals court in 1948 and, by executive order later that year, ordering full racial integration in the armed forces. In this important, ambitious, far-reaching audiobook, Urofsky writes about the affirmative action cases decided by the Supreme Court: cases that either upheld or struck down particular plans that affected both governmental and private entities. We come to fully understand the societal impact of affirmative action: how and why it has helped, and inflamed, people of all walks of life; how it has evolved; and how, and why, it is still needed.
©2020 Melvin I. Urofsky (P)2020 Random House Audio