Justice Department Condemns Supreme Court’s ‘Racist’ Century-Old Insular Cases

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) this week condemned as “racist” the century-old Insular Cases, a series of Supreme Court decisions that affect U.S. overseas territories. Critics have long condemned the rulings because they prevent territorial inhabitants from being treated as full U.S. citizens. More recently, ideologues have denounced the legal precedents as examples of the nation’s supposed systemic racism. The Insular Cases were decided in the early 1900s and concerned the status of territories the United States acquired as a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898 which brought the era of colonial Spanish rule in the Americas to a close. The word “insular” is a reference to the fact that the island territories were administered by the then-Department of War’s Bureau of Insular Affairs....