Law · Boston College
For much of the twentieth century, courts, led by the Supreme Court, moved in the direction of construing the First and Fourteenth Amendments so as to remove some of the barriers impeding women, people of color, First Nation people, poor people, queer people, people with disablities, immigrants and other disfavored groups (including certain religious groups) from participating more fully in the common life of our country. The pace was halting and grudging often hypocritical and there were setbacks; but it can be argued that there was some kind of rights-based liberal consensus to which most
