The Supreme Court Historical Society invites submissions for the Hughes-Gossett Award for the best student paper submitted to the Journal of Supreme Court History. The winner will be awarded a $500 cash prize and publication in the Journal.
The paper must be on some aspect of the Supreme Court’s history. Authors must have been enrolled as students at the time the paper was written. Past winners have been law school students or doctoral students in the departments of history, government, and political science.
Papers may be of any length and may be submitted on an ongoing basis to Clare Cushman, Managing Editor, at: ccushman@supremecourthistory.org
Past Winners
2023 :
“FDR’s Court-packing and the Struggle for Civil Rights” by Zach Jonas
2021-22 :
“Earl Warren’s Last Stand:Powell v. McCormack, Race, and the Political Question Doctrine” by Olivia O’Hea
2020 :
“Rosenberger’s Unexplored History: Politics, the Press, and the University” by Rachael E. Jones
2018 :
“Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: The Subtle Rapture of Postponed Power” by Adam H. Hines
2016 :
“The Font of Federal Power: Wickard v. Filburn and the Aggregation Principle” by James B. Barnes
2015 :
“The Tenacious ‘Twin Relic’: Republicans, Polygamy and the Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints v. United States” by Evan C. Rothera
2014 :
“‘The Silent Man’: From Lochner to Hammer v. Dagenhart, a Reevaluation of Justice William R. Day” by Jesse Bair
2013 :
“Doing Brandeis Justice: The Development of the Liebman Dissent” by Jessie Steffan
2012 :
“Heating Up a Case Gone Cold: Revisiting the Charges of Bribery and Official Misconduct Made Against Supreme Court Justice Robert Cooper Grier in 1854-55” by Daniel J. Wisniewski
2011 :
“Courting the Right: Richard Nixon’s 1968 Campaign against the Warren Court” by Christopher Hickman
2010 :
“’Because of his Spotless Integrity of Character:’ The Story of Salmon P. Chase: Cabinets, Courts, and Currencies” by Emily Kendall Callan
2009 :
“Edward Bennett Williams for the Petitioner: Profile of a Supreme Court Advocate” by Connor Mullin
2008 :
“William Wirt” by Galen N. Thorp
2007 :
“The Life and Career of Justice Robert H. Jackson” by Constance L. Martin
2006 :
“A New Standard of Review: Craig v. Boren and Brennan’s “Heightened Scrutiny” Test in Historical Perspective” by Jeremy Bressman
2005 :
“May It Please the Court?: The Solicitor General’s Not So ‘Special’ Relationship–Archibald Cox and the 1963-1964 Reapportionment Cases” by Helen J. Knowles
2004 :
“A New Right to Property: Civil War Confiscation in the Reconstruction Supreme Court” by Daniel W. Hamilton
2003 :
“The Exception That Defines the Rule: Marshall’s Marbury Strategy and the Development of Supreme Court Doctrine” by Scott E. Lemieux
2002 :
“Just What the Doctor Ordered: the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act, the Supreme Court, and the Federal Regulation of Medical Practice, 1915-1919” by Kurt Hohenstein
2001 :
Conscience on the Court, 1931-1946: Religion as Duty and Choice” by Jeffrey M. Anderson
2000 :
“The Tenth Justice: The Retirement of William O. Douglas” by Artemus Ward
1999 :
“Ohio v. The Bank: An Historical Examination of Osborn v. The Bank of the United States” by Patricia L. Franz
1998 :
“Public Wrongs, Personal Rights: The Gaines Decision and the Beginning of the End of Segregation” by Kevin M Kruse
1997 :
“The Demise of ‘An extraordinary Criminal Procedure’: Klopfer v. North Carolina and the Incorporation of the Sixth Amendment’s Speedy Trial Provision” by Joseph Mosnier
1996 :
“Legitimating Liberalism: the New Deal Image-Makers and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.” by I. Scott Messinger
1995 :
“In Black and White: Chinese in the Mississippi Delta” by Jeannie Rhee