BLS Library Blog

Among the 54 items in Brooklyn Law School Library’s New Books List dated February 22 is Controversies: A Legal and Ethical History of Photography (Call #TR15 .G5713 2012) by Daniel Girardin and Christian Pirker. The book contains a collection of about 75 photos that show that photography is a medium that has provoked controversy since its invention. Each photograph has a complex and often serious story. Whether representing photography as art or as documentary fact, photography has come under attack and engaged discussion both informally and through the courtroom. From the 1840 photo by Hyppolyte Bayard Self Portrait as a Drowned Man to the more recent photos of Abu Ghraib prisoners from 2004, the book shows how photography has provoked legal controversy. It reviews the main cases where photographers have found themselves in court or that have led to the censuring of images. 

The authors observe that the issues involved are associated with money, politics, morality (both lay and religious), sexuality or the acknowledgement of the artistic status of the author. The preface references four cases from 2007 that were all related to financial, moral or political matters, similar to those that have appeared throughout the history of photography: the March 2007 case of fashion designer John Galliano whom a Paris tribunal order to pay €200,000 to photographer William Klein for plagiarizing his contact sheet graphic work in an ad campaign; the June 2007 California case of Christoff v. Nestle where a jury awarded the plaintiff $15.6 million on the basis that Nestlé used the plaintiff model’s image without his permission; the September 2007 case where a photograph by Nan Goldin, Klara and Adda Belly Dancing was removed from a British art exhibition for indecency; and the October 2007 case where Alexander Sokolov’s photo Police Officers Kissing was excluded from a Russian gallery on the grounds that the work would be a “disgrace to Russia.”

The US Supreme Court has set February 27 for oral argument in Shelby County v. Holder dealing with Congress’ reauthorization of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Almost 50 years ago, Congress enacted the VRA to prevent state and local governments from adopting any new election laws aimed at keeping minorities from voting until they could prove that those laws would not discriminate. The issue before the Court is “Whether Congress’ decision in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act exceeded its authority under the Fifteenth Amendment and thus violated the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the United States Constitution.”

In Northwest Austin Municipal Utility Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009), the Court ruled that political subdivisions may seek relief from the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance obligations noting that “Things have changed in the South.” It considered striking down Section 5, the key part of the 1965 law, on the theory that “the evil that Section 5 is meant to address may no longer be concentrated” in the states, counties, and cities that must obey that section. Section 5 currently applies to nine states (Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia and Alaska) as well as parts of Florida, California, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan and New Hampshire. They are required to get permission from the Department of Justice before they may change any law dealing with voting. 

The Court granted certiorari to review Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848 (D.C. Cir. 2012). Shelby County, southeast of Birmingham, has a population of nearly 200,000 people, more than eighty-three percent of whom are white. Instead of seeking Justice Department approval for any voting change, it made a plea to strike down Section 5 as written. It lost in both the federal district court and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Shelby County is asking the Court to rule on the constitutionality of Section 5 under three provisions of the Constitution: the Tenth Amendment, which seeks to protect the sovereignty of states by preserving their rights of self-government; the Fifteenth Amendment, which gives Congress authority to pass laws to end the denial of voting rights based on race, and Article IV, which guarantees each state that it will have “a republican form of government,” meaning the power to govern itself without excessive interference from the national government.