Digital Commons Network^™

Noncitizen Students And Immigration Policy Post-9/11, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

The purpose of this article is to describe the post-9/11 world for noncitizen students and scholars in light of recent federal legislation, specifically focusing on three laws: the USA-PATRIOT Act of 2001, the Border Commuter Student Act of 2002, and the proposed Capital Student Adjustment Act, currently pending in Congress. In all three, Congress is seen trying to walk the fine line between providing fair access to postsecondary education to noncitizen students and guarding against the possibility that such institutions are being used as a springboard for terrorist activity.

The Child Citizenship Act And The Family Reunification Act: Valuing The Citizen Child As Well As The Citizen Parent, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

Leading civil rights advocates today lament the degree to which current immigration law fails to maintain family unity. The recent passage of the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 is a rare bipartisan step in the right direction because it grants automatic citizenship to foreign-born children of U.S. citizens upon receipt of their permanent resident status and finalization of their adoption. Congress now has before it the Family Reunification Act of 2001, which aims to restore certain procedural safeguards relaxed in 1996 to ensure that foreign-born parents are not summarily separated from their children, many of whom may be U.S. citizens. …

Rethinking Minority Coalition Building: Valuing Self-Sacrifice, Stewardship And Anti-Subordination, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

This essay provides an alternative to the conventional self-interest model of coalition building to explore one that relies instead on the three concepts of self-sacrifice, stewardship, and anti-subordination, addressing anticipated counterarguments and providing concrete examples of how this model might work.

Whatever Happened To The Fourth Amendment: Undocumented Immigrants' Rights After Ins V. Lopenz-Mendoza And United States V. Verdugo-Urquidez, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

This Note rejects the Court's approach to the Fourth Amendment in Lopez and Verdugo and attempts to redefine the boundaries of Fourth Amendment protections for undocumented immigrants. Part I examines the impact of the Lopez and Verdugo decisions upon undocumented immigrants' Fourth Amendment rights. Part II evaluates the arguments for extending Fourth Amendment protections to undocumented immigrants. Viewing the Fourth Amendment as a restriction on government intrusion, Part III examines the constitutional remedies available to undocumented immigrants. This part rejects the Lopez restrictions on the applicability of the exclusionary rule and concludes that the Fourth Amendment neither draws distinctions among …

Race, Immigration, And The Department Of Homeland Security, Victor Romero

Victor C. Romero

No abstract provided.

Promoting Diversity In The Criminal Justice System, R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

U.S. Police Officers Kill Primarily Because They Are Attacked, Not To Disrupt Crime, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Grutter V. Bollinger/Gratz V. Bollinger: View From A Limestone Ledge, Gerald Torres

Gerald Torres

No abstract provided.

Fisher V. Texas: The Limits Of Exhaustion And The Future Of Race-Conscious University Admissions, John Powell, Stephen Menendian

john a. powell

This Article investigates the potential ramifications of Fisher v. Texas and the future of race-conscious university admissions. Although one cannot predict the ultimate significance of the Fisher decision, its brief and pregnant statements of law portends an increasingly perilous course for traditional affirmative action programs. Part I explores the opinions filed in Fisher, with a particular emphasis on Justice Kennedy’s opinion on behalf of the Court. We focus on the ways in which the Fisher decision departs from precedent, proscribes new limits on the use of race in university admissions, and tightens requirements for narrow tailoring. Part II investigates the …

Democracy's Handmaid, Robert Tsai

Robert L. Tsai

Democratic theory presupposes open channels of dialogue, but focuses almost exclusively on matters of institutional design writ large. The philosophy of language explicates linguistic infrastructure, but often avoids exploring the political significance of its findings. In this Article, Tsai draws from the two disciplines to reach new insights about the democracy enhancing qualities of popular constitutional language. Employing examples from the founding era, the struggle for black civil rights, the religious awakening of the last two decades, and the search for gay equality, he presents a model of constitutional dialogue that emphasizes common modalities and mobilized vernacular. According to this …

War Against Muslims Post 9/11?, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Levels Of Generality In The Definition Of Rights, Laurence Tribe, Michael Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

This article focuses on one important aspect of the quest for constitutional meaning: how to determine whether a particular liberty-whether or not expressly enumerated in the Bill of Rights-is a "fundamental" right. Whether under the somewhat tarnished banner of substantive due process or under a different rubric, the designation of a right as fundamental requires that the state offer a compelling justification for limitations of that right. In addition, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, state-sanctioned inequalities that bear upon the exercise of a fundamental right will be upheld only if they serve a compelling governmental interest. …

Rights And Rules: An Overview, Matthew Adler, Michael Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

Prior to recent decades, the United States Supreme Court often invoked the political question doctrine to avoid deciding controversial questions of individual rights. By the 1970s and 1980s, standing limits traced to Article III’s case-or-controversy language had replaced the political question doctrine as the favored justiciability device. Although both political question and standing doctrines remain tools in the Court’s arsenal of threshold decision making,3 in the last decade the Court has turned with increasing frequency to the distinction between facial and as-applied challenges to perform the gatekeeping function. However, although there is a considerable body of scholarship concerning the conventional …

Thurgood Marshall's Improbable But Brilliant Choice, Michael Meltsner

Michael Meltsner

No abstract provided.

Disqualifiying Universality Under The Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act, Michelle Travis

Michelle A. Travis

This Article reveals a new resistance strategy to disability rights in the workplace. The initial backlash against the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) targeted protected class status by characterizing the ADA's accommodation mandate as special treatment that benefitted the disabled at the expense of the nondisabled workforce. As a result, federal courts treated the ADA as a welfare statute rather than a civil rights law, which resulted in the Supreme Court dramatically narrowing the definition of disability. Congress responded with sweeping amendments in 2008 to expand the class of individuals with disabilities who are entitled to accommodations and …