The United States of America has a rich and diverse history despite existing as an independent nation for less than three hundred years already. As one of the first modern democracies, nowhere is this more evident than in the process and history of how Americans have elected their leaders; the presidents of the United States of America. In total, there have been forty-three different presidents, with wildly different histories and backgrounds. Here is a short overview of the presidents of the United States of America.

There are very few requirements to be one of the presidents of the United States of America. This is by design, as the founders of the country wanted to extend this opportunity to as many people as possible. The only requirements are that the person be over the age of thirty-five and a natural born citizen of the United States of America. For this reason, the country have seen many different sorts of people as the presidents of the United States of America.

Now, the presidents of the United States of America are not entirely different, unfortunately. Though the founders of the country wanted diversity, sadly, that has not entirely happened. For example, every single president has been a man. This has been a problem for many years, especially in modern times, as sexism continues to prevail, despite women proving over and over again that they are capable as the presidents of the United States of America. By and large, the majority of the successful presidents of the United States of America have been white Protestant men with law degrees or military experience. The most recent of the presidents of the United States of America, the current president, is Barack Obama, the first non-white President. This is surely a huge step forward in achieving the initial goal of the founders of the United States of America, who wished this opportunity for any citizen of the nation, regardless of color, gender, or background.

There have been many of the presidents of the United States of America already, and despite the differences between them, including coming from a variety of regions of the United States had having different political beliefs, there is still a long way to go in terms of having the presidents of the United States of America truly represent the state of the nation and the varied and diverse people that live in it.

The University of Michigan law school is a notable law school for several reasons. First off, of course, is the fact that it’s a fine law school that produces lawyers of national renown. It’s also one of the largest “great” law schools in America, and is part of the larger University of Michigan system that itself is considered one of the finest public institutions of higher learning in the United States of America.

But what really put university of michigan law school on front page is the issue of affirmative action. We see in the case “Gutter v Bollinger”, which was brought to the Supreme Court of the United States of America in 2003, that university of michigan law school was at the center of this hot-button issue.

Wikipedia’s entry on the case reads in part as follows:

The case originated in 1996 when Barbara Grutter, a White Michigan resident with a 3.8 GPA and 161 Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) score, was rejected by the University of Michigan Law School. She contacted the Center for Individual Rights which filed suit on her behalf in December 1997, alleging that the university had discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She said she was rejected because the Law School used race as the main factor, giving applicants belonging to underrepresented minority groups (African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) a significantly greater chance of admission than White and Asian American applicants with similar credentials. She argued that the university had no compelling interest to justify that use of race.

The named defendant in the case was Lee Bollinger, who was at that time the president of the university, who fought for the university’s status quo, with the purpose of achieving racial diversity in the student body.

Fortunately for the university of michigan law school and for civil rights and equality in the country as a whole, the Supreme Court found 5-4 in the favor of Bollinger. As such, it was upheld that schools pursuing diversity in the student body was not a violation of the equal protection clause under the law.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, was the author of the majority opinion in the case. Chief justice Rehnquist authored the dissent.
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The 1787 constitution is the set of laws and freedoms upon which the liberty of the United States of America is built. It is not just a historic document, but a living code that guarantees certain inalienable rights to all citizens of the united states, and is the first document of its kind in the western world.

The 1787 constitution is described by Wikipedia, which has an extensive article on the document:

The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention (or Constitutional Congress) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and later ratified by conventions in each U.S. state in the name of “The People”; it has since been amended twenty-seven times, the first ten amendments being known as the Bill of Rights. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was actually the first constitution of the United States of America. The U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation as the governing document for the United States after being ratified by nine states. The Constitution has a central place in United States law and political culture. The handwritten, or “engrossed”, original document penned by Jacob Shallus is on display at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

Though the constitution was written and fully completed on September 17th, 1787, it didn’t actually take effect until the following year, 1788. The document it replaced as the basic law of the united states was the Articles of Confederation.

Perhaps the most important part of the 1787 constitution is the preamble, which states “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The idea of a “more perfect union” has resonated through American politics, society and culture since it was written. Establishing justice, as well, has become a political catch-phrase usually used by those who represent groups that are marginalized or downtrodden.

The 1787 constitution also established the three branches of government. The executive branch is the president; the legislative branch is the congress – the House of Representatives and Senate; the judicial branch is the supreme court. These three branches act as a system of checks and balances, with the other two restraining the power of the one so as to prevent our republic from falling into despotism.