African Americans, Labor Regulations, and the Courts: From Reconstruction to the New Deal

Conventional wisdom has it that economic regulation, labor unions, and the civil rights movement have long been fast friends. Not so, says George Mason University law professor David Bernstein in a new book, Only One Place of Redress. Applying the insights of public choice theory to legal history, Bernstein argues that the much-maligned jurisprudence of the Lochner era-with its emphasis on freedom of contract and private market ordering-actually discouraged discrimination and assisted groups with little political clout. Please join us for a discussion of this provocative thesis with its author.