Digital Commons Network^™

"Alien" Litigation As Polity-Participation: The Positive Power Of A "Voteless Class Of Litigants", Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Race Talk: Patricia J. Williams' Seeing A Color-Blind Future: The Paradox Of Race, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

No abstract provided.

How Myth-Busting About The Historical Goals Of Civil Rights Activism Can Illuminate Paths For The Future, Susan D. Carle

Susan D. Carle

• This article considers four myths about the history of civil rights activism, taht have tended to cloud assessments about current current civil rights law and its potential future directions. I argue that correcting those myths can help illunundile promising paths for the future. In each instance, alternative historical narrative routes for further development of core principles of civil rights law, including further theoretical and practical work to pursue long-standing concepts of structural discrimination, the promise of experimentalist approaches to regulation and enforcement, increased interdisciplinary colaboration between law and other social science fields, and more focus on matters of economic inequality …

First Amendment Investigations And The Inescapable Pragmatism Of The Common Law Of Free Speech, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

Scholars have struggled to explain our sprawling First Amendment doctrine – once described by Justice Stevens as “an elaborate mosaic of specific judicial decisions, characteristic of the common law process of case-by-case adjudication.” The position that has gained the most traction in recent scholarship has stressed the primacy of governmental motive – this school of thought argues that the degree of scrutiny to be afforded a challenged regulation is based on an assessment of the likelihood that the regulation reflects a governmental motive to burden disfavored speech or speakers.

This article offers a challenge to the purposivist account. It begins, …

Grutter's Regrets: An Empirical Investigation Of How Affirmative Action Is(N'T) Working, Deirdre Bowen

Deirdre M Bowen

This exploratory empirical work examines whether students of color enjoy the benefits articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Grutter decision that rationalized the continuation of affirmative action based on diversity interests. Specifically, the Court stated that affirmative action was permissible because students of all backgrounds would increase their racial understanding and decrease their racial stereotyping of minorities. Supporters and opponents were skeptical that such benefits would really materialize for students of color. Supporters argued that minority students would merely be tokens in which only white students would benefit from a diverse classroom. Opponents argued that this diversity rationale …

A Social Movement History Of Title Vii Disparate Impact Analysis, Susan D. Carle

Susan D. Carle

This Article examines the social movement history of Title VII disparate impact law in light of the policy and potential constitutional questions the Court=s recent decision in Ricci v. DeStefano raises. My analysis shows that, contrary to popular assumptions, disparate impact doctrine was not a last-minute, ill-conceived invention of the EEOC following Title VII=s passage, but instead arose out of a moderate, experimentalist regulatory tradition that sought to use law to create incentives to motivate employers to scrutinize and reform employment practices that posed structural bars to employment opportunities for racial minorities, regardless of invidious intent. Non-lawyer activists within the …

A Post-Racial Voting Rights Act, Jason Rathod (R-Z)

Jason Rathod (R-Z)

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was enacted “to foster our transformation to a society that is no longer fixated on race.” Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U.S. 461, 490 (2003). This article critiques the prevailing election law scholarship and jurisprudence as out of step with VRA’s post-racial aspirations and offers proposals for Congress to correct course. The United States has long been torn between civic nationalism and racial nationalism. By the mid-20th Century, the uneasy interplay of these visions had produced a remarkable expansion of citizenship to all migrants from Europe alongside appalling discrimination against, or outright exclusion of, …

How The Cleveland Bar Became Segregated: 1870-1930, Robert N. Strassfeld

Robert N. Strassfeld

Abstract

Paper Title: How the Cleveland Bar Became Segregated: 1900-1930

This article examines the changing perimeters of professional opportunity and the professional choices made by Cleveland’s African American lawyers in the early twentieth century. At the turn of the century, the Cleveland bar could fairly be described as racially integrated. The openness of the bar and the response of African American lawyers shaped the day-to-day professional lives of those lawyers. This openness manifested itself in a number of interracial law practices, in a client base for black lawyers that was predominantly white, in the court appointment practices of white judges, …

Debunking The Myth Of Civil Rights Liberalism: Visions Of Racial Justice In The Thought Of T. Thomas Fortune, 1880-1890 Symposium: The Lawyer's Role In A Contemporary Democracy: Promoting Social Change And Political Values, Susan D. Carle

Susan D. Carle