Digital Commons Network^™

Maximizing Inclusionary Zoning’S Contributions To Both Affordable Housing And Residential Integration, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

Inclusionary zoning is a popular policy that can uniquely serve both affordable housing and fair housing goals at the same time. Assuming the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development finalizes its proposed “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” regulation, inclusionary zoning will become more broadly used. But more extensive use of inclusionary zoning poses both opportunities and risks for housing advocates because of the following three issues: (1) Unacknowledged tradeoffs between affordable housing and fair housing goals in inclusionary zoning design and implementation; (2) Conflicting concepts of residential integration; and (3) Legal challenges to inclusionary zoning. The challenge facing inclusionary zoning …

There Goes The Neighborhood: Florida's Crackdown On Adverse Possession In The Wake Of The Foreclosure Crisis, Phillip V. Urban

Phillip V Urban

An examination of the creative use of adverse possession in Florida following the foreclosure crisis, and the State's heavy-handed reaction to the practice.

Rights, Privileges, And The Future Of Marriage, Adam Macleod

Adam MacLeod

On the eve of its final triumph, has the cause of marriage equality fallen short? This essay discusses persistent differences in the incidents that attach to same-sex marriages versus man-woman marriages. It examines these in light of the distinction between fundamental rights and concessions of privilege in marriage law, and in common law constitutionalism generally. The Obergefell majority's premise that the marriage right is created and conferred by positive law renders the rights and duties of same-sex marriage unstable. By contrast, the rights and duties of the natural family have proven surprisingly resilient, despite their incompatibility with full marriage equality, …

Searching For Equity Amid A System Of Schools: The View From New Orleans, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Hurricane Katrina leveled both the buildings and governance structure of the New Orleans school system. The system was transformed from one elected school board controlling nearly all the schools to a system of schools with sixty-three school districts operating within the city’s geographic boundaries that are run by forty-four independent school boards. There is not a more decentralized school governance structure in the United States. This article discusses how this new system of schools is attempting to achieve equal educational opportunities for its most vulnerable and at-risk student populations: the poor, minorities, students with disabilities, and English Language Learners.

For …

The History Of Firearm Magazines And Magazine Prohibitions, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

In recent years, the prohibition of firearms magazines has become an important topic of law and policy debate. This Article details the history of magazines and of magazine prohibition.

Because ten rounds is an oft-proposed figure for magazine bans, Part I of the Article provides the story of such magazines from the earliest sixteenth century onward. Although some people think that multi-shot guns did not appear until Samuel Colt invented the revolver in the 1830s, multi-shot guns predate Col. Colt by over two centuries.

Especially because the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller considers whether arms are …

Accidentally On Purpose: Intent In Disability Discrimination Law, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

American disability discrimination laws contain few intent requirements. Yet courts frequently demand showings of intent in disability discrimination lawsuits. Intent requirements arose almost by accident: through a false statutory analogy; by repetition of obsolete judicial language; and by doctrine developed to avoid a nonexistent conflict with another law. Demanding that section 504 and Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) claimants show intent imposes a burden not found in those statutes or their interpretive regulations. This Article provides reasons not to impose intent requirements for liability or monetary relief in section 504 and ADA cases concerning reasonable accommodations. It demonstrates that no …

Torch (January 2015), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Process Of Marriage Equality, Josh Blackman, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America’s Civil Rights Murders is an exceptional work by Renee C. Romano. This review will first discuss a concern I had prior to reading her book. Discussion of this alleviated concern will be followed by brief consideration of Romano’s well selected titled, which will be followed by a discussion of what I see as major contributions of the book.

From Outsider Status To Insider And Outsider Again: Interest Convergence Theory And Normalization Of Lgbt Identity, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Alexander Nourafshan

Faculty Scholarship

After the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, which declared the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional,and after the granting of certiorari in Obergell v. Hodges, where the Supreme Court will decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to provide a marriage license to same-sex couples, national marriage equality seems like a legal inevitability.However, Windsor and Obergell, along with other state-level advances toward marriage equality, are not equally promising for all members of the lesbian and gay community. Although Windsor and the revolution of cases that have led to Obergell hold significant promise for one privileged subset …

The Color Of Pain: Blacks And The U.S. Health Care System--Can The Affordable Care Act Help To Heal A History Of Injustice?, Part I, Jennifer M. Smith

Journal Publications

Discrimination in its various forms has contributed to the exclusion of blacks and other people of color from the field of medicine both as health care providers and as patients in the United States. Dr. Robinson's story is but one example. Racism has significantly harmed the health care of black people in the U.S. Generally speaking, those with the poorest health and the greatest need have had the poorest access to medical care, as well as lower quality health care than their white counterparts. To understand this, we must consider the historical context of blacks in America and in America's …

Ties That Bind? The Questionable Consent Justification For Hosanna-Tabor, Jessie Hill

Northwestern University Law Review

Arguments in favor of religious sovereignty often emphasize the benefits of autonomy for religious institutions while ignoring the civil rights of individuals who belong to or work for those institutions. To justify intrusions on individual civil rights, proponents of strong religious autonomy generally rely on the concept of implied consent. According to this rationale, individuals willingly give up the protection of civil rights laws when they voluntarily join religious organizations. This Essay responds to one scholar’s account of the consent rationale as undergirding the Supreme Court’s recognition of the ministerial exception: Christopher Lund’s excellent article, Free Exercise Reconceived: The Logic …

Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth And Nicholas Kristof: 2013 Recipients, Priya Walia

Freedom Center Journal

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center proudly presented the 2013 recipients the International Freedom Conductor Award to Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Nicholas Kristof. Rev. Shuttlesworth was known as the courageous, charismatic, blunt preacher who vowed to "kill segregation or be killed by it." After his successes with racial desegregation, Shuttlesworth spent the rest of his life fighting for equality for impoverished people. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Nicholas Kristof changed the course of social justice philanthropy through his work. Through individual personal narratives, Kristof compels the audience to delve further into seemingly remote global issues and inspires the American public …

Corporate Piety And Impropriety: Hobby Lobby's Extension Of Rfra Rights To For-Profit Corporations, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court held, for the first time, that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) applied to for-profit corporations and, on that basis, it allowed Hobby Lobby to omit otherwise mandated contraceptive coverage from its employee healthcare package. Critics argue that the Court’s novel expansion of corporate rights is fundamentally inconsistent with the basic principles of corporate law. In particular, they contend that the decision ignores the fact that the corporation, as an artificial entity, cannot exercise religion in its own right, and they decry the notion that the law might look through the corporate …

Systemic Lying, Julia Simon-Kerr

Julia Simon-Kerr

This Article offers the foundational account of systemic lying from a definitional and theoretical perspective. Systemic lying involves the cooperation of multiple actors in the legal system who lie or violate their oaths across cases for a consistent reason that is linked to their conception of justice. It becomes a functioning mechanism within the legal system and changes the operation of the law as written. By identifying systemic lying, this Article challenges the assumption that all lying in the legal system is the same. It argues that systemic lying poses a particular threat to the legal system. This means that …

Conscience And Complicity: Assessing Pleas For Religious Exemptions After Hobby Lobby, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

In the paradigmatic case of conscientious objection, the objector claims that his religion forbids him from actively participating in a wrong (e.g., by fighting in a war). In the religious challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, on the other hand, employers claim that their religious convictions forbid them from merely subsidizing insurance through which their employees might commit a wrong (e.g., by using contraception). The understanding of complicity underpinning these challenges is vastly more expansive than what standard legal doctrine or moral theory contemplates. Courts routinely reject claims of conscientious objection to taxes that fund military initiatives, or …

Religious Exemptions, Marriage Equality, And The Establishment Of Religion, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The advent of nationwide marriage equality has sparked a robust debate over the extent of religious liberties and the limits of civil rights protections. As public opinion regarding LGBT individuals and the families they form has evolved, religious beliefs that once served as the basis for law and policy have been increasing marginalized. Various efforts have been made to protect religious objectors who continue to believe that marriage is only between one man and one woman. For example, all of the states that had enacted marriage equality legislation included exceptions for clergy and religious organizations to ensure that they would …