Brooklyn Law School Assistant Professor of Law Christina Mulligan, who recently joined the faculty of the Law School where she will be teaching Internet Law, Cybercrime, and Intellectual Property, has co-authored an interesting new article. Written with Michael Douma of James Madison University, Hans Lind of Yale University, and Brian Patrick Quinn, the article is entitled Founding-Era Translations of the United States Constitution. It is posted on SSRN. The abstract reads:
Before its ratification, the United States Constitution was translated into German and Dutch for the German- and Dutch-speaking populations of Pennsylvania and New York. Although copies of both the German- and Dutch-language translations have been preserved, they have largely escaped analysis — and public awareness — until now. This paper provides historical context for these translations and analyzes how they might aid our interpretation of the U.S. Constitution in the present day.
Supplemental to this article is an appendix containing the German and Dutch translations, as well as extensive commentary on the translations, also available at SSRN at this link.
The BLS Library has two books on the subject of the Magna Carta that are well worth reading. From the perspective of the English is 
The second book is
The BLS Library recently added to its collection Thurgood Marshall: Race, Rights, and the Struggle for a More Perfect Union by Charles L. Zelden (Call #KF8745.M34 Z45 2013). This 232 page biography, accompanied by primary sources that present Marshall in his own words, will help students learn what Marshall did (and did not do) during his life, why those actions were important, and what effects his efforts had on the larger course of American history. The book has content as follows: Introduction: The Struggle for a More Perfect Union; Chapter 1 – The Education of Thurgood Marshall; Chapter 2 – “Thurgood’s Coming”; Chapter 3 – Social Engineer Lawyer; Chapter 4 – Going for the “Whole Hog”; Chapter 5 – All Deliberate Speed Means S-L-O-W; Chapter 6 – “I AM the Establishment”; Chapter 7 – Not Only the Robe Was Black; Chapter 8 – How Do You Feel About Writing Dissents?; Postscript: Thurgood Marshall, Activist Judge; and an Appendix of Documents.
Today, August 30, 2014 marks the anniversary of the confirmation by the Senate in 1967 of Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) as a Supreme Court justice. As the Court’s 96th justice and its first African American justice serving from 1967 to 1991, he was one of the most influential legal actors of his time. Before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson, Marshall was a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Federal Judge (1961-1965), and Solicitor General of the United States (1965-1966). He won twenty-nine of thirty-two cases before the Supreme Court including the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. Marshall spent his career fighting racial segregation and legal inequality, and his time on the court establishing a record for supporting the “voiceless American.”
Marshall was an outspoken liberal on a court dominated by conservatives. In his twenty-four year tenure, he voted to uphold gender and racial affirmative action policies in every case in which they were challenged. He dissented in every case in which the Supreme Court failed to overturn a death sentence and opposed all efforts to narrow or burden the right of women to obtain abortions. No justice has been more forceful in opposing government regulation of speech or private sexual conduct. Nor has any justice been more egalitarian in terms of advancing a view of the Constitution that imposes positive duties on government to provide important benefits to people such as education, legal services, and access to courts regardless of their ability to pay for them. The legacy of change that he left behind continues to affect American society today.
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