I’m quoted in this report today in the Washington Times by Annie Yu:

“It’s often not realized that much of the civil rights movement in the 20th century was a movement for economic liberty against economic restrictions,” said Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. “Many of the landmark decisions in the courts were on the basis of economic liberty.”

David Bernstein of George Mason has written in detail about how the old Jim Crow system was based on massive regulation of private economic decision-making, and how reformers often managed to chip away at it in court by invoking rights of contract, property, and free association. A sampling here and here (Buchanan v. Warley), here (labor regulations, and related), here, and in papers here.

Filed under: constitutional law, discrimination law