Mia Brett

Mia Brett, PhD, is the Editorial Board's legal historian. She lives with her gorgeous dog, Tchotchke. You can find her @queenmab87.

If ‘secularists’ are waging war on Christmas, where does that leave the Supreme Court? It said Christmas trees are secular

December 17, 2021 /

They actually serve Christian hegemony in America.

Lose Roe, lose right to privacy

December 9, 2021 /

Abortion, birth control, Internet usage, same-sex marriage, sexual privacy and even healthcare privacy are on the line.

The anti-Roe movement is rooted in the history of chattel slavery

December 1, 2021 /

They are not respecting “life.” They are fearing “race suicide.”

The Rittenhouse verdict isn’t a win for self-defense. It’s another example of white men having better rights than the rest of us

November 24, 2021 /

American history has plenty examples of whole classes of people that were explicitly excluded from claiming self-defense in court.

A 150-year-old anti-Klan law is being used in lawsuit against organizers of Unite the Right

November 18, 2021 /

By using the Ku Klux Klan Act, or the Enforcement Act of 1871, the suit links the alt-right to a century and a half of white violence. 

Kyle Rittenhouse’s actions fit into a long history of state-supported white vigilantism in America

November 15, 2021 /

His defense hopes to capitalize on white panic.

Could Texas’ abortion vigilante law sabotage the open-carry goals of gun-rights groups? Justice Kavanaugh seems worried

November 5, 2021 /

A bizarre twist of fate.

White America likes to pretend antisemitism is a bug, not a feature. The history of Jews in America tells a different story

October 28, 2021 /

Marginalization, systemic violence and discrimination.

What is gerrymandering and why does a democracy allow it to be used to protect white power?

October 21, 2021 /

A legal history of congressional district map-making.

Preventing felons from voting is just how it is, right? Wrong. There’s a history. There were choices. And we can change it.

October 17, 2021 /

With our democracy under siege, we should use all legal arguments to restore voting rights to as many people as possible.