Background
Strum, Philippa was born on December 14, 1938 in New York City. Daughter of Joseph B. and Ida P. Strum.
(In June 2001, there was a decidedly new look to the gradu...)
In June 2001, there was a decidedly new look to the graduating class at Virginia Military Institute. For the first time ever, the line of graduates who received their degrees at the "West Point of the South" included women who had spent four years at VMI. For 150 years, VMI had operated as a revered, state-funded institution—an amalgam of Southern history, military tradition, and male bonding rituals—and throughout that long history, no one had ever questioned the fact that only males were admitted. Then in 1989 a female applicant complained of discrimination to the Justice Department, which brought suit the following year to integrate women into VMI. In a book that poses serious questions about equal rights in America, Philippa Strum traces the origins of this landmark case back to VMI's founding, its evolution over fifteen decades, and through competing notions about women's proper place. Unlike most works on women in military institutions, this one also provides a complete legal history—from the initial complaint to final resolution in United States v. Virginia—and shows how the Supreme Court's ruling against VMI reflected changing societal ideas about gender roles. At the heart of the VMI case was the "rat line": a ritualized form of hazing geared toward instilling male solidarity. VMI claimed that its system of toughening individuals for leadership was even more stringent than military service and that the system would be destroyed if the Institute were forced to accommodate women. Strum interviewed lawyers from Justice and VMI, heads of concerned women's groups, and VMI administrators, faculty, and cadets to reconstruct the arguments in this important case. She was granted interviews with both Justice Ginsburg, author of the majority opinion, and Justice Scalia, the lone dissenter on the bench, and meticulously analyzes both viewpoints. She shows how Ginsburg's opinion not only articulated a new constitutional standard for institutions accused of gender discrimination but also represented the culmination of gender equality litigation in the twentieth century. Women in the Barracks is a case study that combines both legal and cultural history, reviewing the long history of male elitism in the military as it explores how new ideas about gender equality have developed in the United States. It is an engrossing story of change versus tradition, clear and accessible for general readers yet highly instructive and valuable for students and scholars. Now as questions continue to loom concerning the role of state funding for single-sex education, Strum's book squarely addresses competing notions of women's place and capabilities in American society.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0700613366/?tag=2022091-20
(In the Chicago suburb of Skokie, one out of every six Jew...)
In the Chicago suburb of Skokie, one out of every six Jewish citizens in the late 1970s was a survivor or was directly related to a survivor of the Holocaust. These victims of terror had resettled in America expecting to lead peaceful lives free from persecution. But their safe haven was shattered when a neo-Nazi group announced its intention to parade there in 1977. Philippa Strum's dramatic retelling of the events in Skokie (and in the courts) shows why the case ignited such enormous controversy and challenged our understanding of and commitment to First Amendment values. The debate was clear-cut: American Nazis claimed the right of free speech while their Jewish "targets" claimed the right to live without intimidation. The town, arguing that the march would assault the sensibilities of its citizens and spark violence, managed to win a court injunction against the marchers. In response, the American Civil Liberties Union took the case and successfully defended the Nazis' right to free speech. Skokie had all the elements of a difficult case: a clash of absolutes, prior restraint of speech, and heated public sentiment. In recreating it, Strum presents a detailed account and analysis of the legal proceedings as well as finely delineated portraits of the protagonists: Frank Collin, National Socialist Party of America leader and the son of a Jewish Holocaust survivor; Skokie community leader Sol Goldstein, a Holocaust survivor who planned a counterdemonstration against the Nazis; Skokie mayor Albert Smith, who wanted only to protect his townspeople; and ACLU attorney David Goldberger, caught in the ironic position of being a Jew defending the rights of Nazis against fellow Jews. While the ACLU did win the case, it was a costly victory-30,000 of its members left the organization. And in the end, ironically, the Nazis never did march in Skokie. Forcefully argued, Strum's book shows that freedom of speech must be defended even when the beneficiaries of that defense are far from admirable individuals. It raises both constitutional and moral issues critical to our understanding of free speech and carries important lessons for current controversies over hate speech on college campuses, inviting readers to think more carefully about what the First Amendment really means.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0700609415/?tag=2022091-20
( Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) played a role in almost ...)
Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) played a role in almost every important social and economic movement during his long life: trade unionism, trust busting, progressivism, woman suffrage, scientific management, expansion of civil liberties, hours, wages, and unemployment legislation, Wilson's New Freedom, Roosevelt's New Deal. He invented savings bank life insurance and the preferential union shop, became known as the "People's Attorney," and altered American jurisprudence as a lawyer and Supreme Court judge. Brandeis led American Zionism from 1914 through 1921 and again from 1930 until his death. He earned over two million dollars practicing law between 1878 and 1916 and used his wealth to foster public causes. He was adviser to leaders from Robert La Follette to Frances Perkins, William McAdoo to Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson to Harry Truman. This lively account of Brandeis's life and legacy, based on ten years of research in sources not available to previous biographers, reveals much that is new and gives fuller context to personal and historical events. The most significant revelations have to do with his intellectual development. That Brandeis opposed political and economic "bigness" and excessive concentration of wealth is well known. What was not known prior to Strum's research is how far Brandeis carried his beliefs, becoming committed to the goals of worker participation--the sharing of profits and decision making by workers in "manageable"-sized firms. So it happened that the man who was sometimes dismissed as an outmoded horse-and-buggy liberal championed a cause too radical even for the New Deal braintrusters who were quick to follow his advice in other areas Strum charts Brandeis's development as a kind of industrial-era Jeffersonian deeply influenced by the classical ideals of Periclean Athens. She shows that this was the source not only of his vision of a democracy based on a human-scaled polis, but also of his sudden emergence, in his late fifties, as the leading American Zionist: he had come to regard Palestine as the locus of a new Athens. And later, on the Supreme Court, this Athenian conception of human potential took justice Brandeis beyond even Justice Holmes in the determined use of judicial power to protect civil liberties and democracy in an industrialized society.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805208844/?tag=2022091-20
(While Brown v. Board of Education remains much more famou...)
While Brown v. Board of Education remains much more famous, Mendez v. Westminster School District (1947) was actually the first case in which segregation in education was successfully challenged in federal court. Finally giving Mendez its due, Philippa Strum provides a concise and compelling account of its legal issues and legacy, while retaining its essential human face: that of Mexican Americans unwilling to accept second-class citizenship. 1945 Gonzalo and Felcitas Mendez, California farmers, sent their children off to the local school, only to be told that the youngsters would have to attend a separate facility reserved for Mexican Americans. In response the Mndezes and other aggrieved parents from nearby school districts went to federal court to challenge the segregation. Uniquely, they did not claim racial discrimination, since Mexicans were legally considered white, but rather discrimination based on ancestry and supposed "language deficiency" that denied their children their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. In 1945 Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, California farmers, sent their children off to the local school, only to be told that the youngsters would have to attend a separate facility reserved for Mexican Americans. In response the Mendezes and other aggrieved parents from nearby school districts went to federal court to challenge the segregation. Uniquely, they did not claim racial discrimination, since Mexicans were legally considered white, but rather discrimination based on ancestry and supposed "language deficiency" that denied their children their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. Strum tells how, thanks to attorney David Marcus's carefully crafted arguments, federal district court judge Paul McCormick came to support the plaintiffs on the grounds that the social, psychological, and pedagogical costs of segregated education were damaging to Mexican-American children. The school districts claimed that federal courts had no jurisdiction over education, but the Ninth Circuit upheld McCormick's decision, ruling that the schools' actions violated California law. The appeal to the Ninth Circuit was supported by amicus briefs from leading civil liberties organizations, including the NAACP, which a few years later would adapt the arguments of Mendez in representing the plaintiffs in Brown. Strum effectively weaves together narrative and analysis with personality portraits to create a highly readable and accessible story, allowing us to hear the voices of all the protagonists. She also presents the issues evenhandedly, effectively balancing her presentation of arguments by both the plaintiffs and the schools that sought to continue the segregation of Mexican-American students. Ultimately, Mendez highlights how Mexican Americans took the lead to secure their civil rights and demonstrates how organization, courage, and persistence in the Mexican-American communities could overcome the racism of the school boards. Their inspiring example is particularly timely given the current controversies over immigration and the growing national interest in Latino life.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0700617191/?tag=2022091-20
(Providing a historical overview of current privacy issues...)
Providing a historical overview of current privacy issues, PRIVACY IN THE U.S. approaches its subject in a scholarly and accessible manner. The text contains chapters on genetic testing, personal information in databases, sexual privacy, the criminal justice system, and coverage of relevant Supreme Court cases and rulings.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0155018809/?tag=2022091-20
political science professor researcher
Strum, Philippa was born on December 14, 1938 in New York City. Daughter of Joseph B. and Ida P. Strum.
Bachelor, Brandeis University, 1959. Master of Education, Harvard University, 1960. Doctor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, 1964.
From instructor to associate professor Rutgers University, Newark, 1964-1972. Visiting professor Barnard College, New York City, 1978-1979. Visiting scholar New York University, 1982-1983.
Professor political science City University of New York, 1972-1999, professor political science emeritus, since 1999. Director United States Studies Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2001—2008, senior scholar, since 2008. Visiting professor constitutional law Wayne State University, 2000—2001.
Senior Fulbright lecturer Bosphorus University, Istanbul, 1995.
(In the Chicago suburb of Skokie, one out of every six Jew...)
(Anyone with an interest in this icon of our law and publi...)
(In June 2001, there was a decidedly new look to the gradu...)
(Providing a historical overview of current privacy issues...)
(While Brown v. Board of Education remains much more famou...)
( Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) played a role in almost ...)
Board directors American Civil Liberties Union, New York City, since 1979. President American-Israeli Civil Liberties Coalition, New York City, 1981-1991.
1 child, David Strum Weiss.