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Boy Scouts & Burning Crosses: Bringing Balance To The Court’S Lopsided Approach To The Intersection Of Equality And Speech, Russell K. Robinson

Russell K Robinson

This article identifies a previously-ignored pattern of Supreme Court decisions that privilege one competing constitutional value, either speech or equality, and subordinate the other—with little or no reasoning explaining its choice. In adjudicating such cases, including two cases decided last term, the Supreme Court has steadfastly treated these disputes as either a basic equality case or a simple speech case. This dichotomy is a problem because once the Court places a case within either a speech or equality paradigm, it is constrained by certain rigid analytical presumptions. These presumptions threaten to stunt the analysis and to deprive the Court of …

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Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Discrimination, Holning Lau

Holning Lau

Laws concerning sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) have undergone a sea change. Still, legal protections against SOGI discrimination vary widely around the world. As jurisdictions wrestle with whether and how to protect people against SOGI discrimination, several conceptual questions emerge. This Brill volume reviews and discusses legal developments and scholarly commentary concerning these questions. Specifically, this volume examines the following five questions: (1) Is SOGI discrimination encompassed by existing laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex? (2) Should sexual orientation and gender identity be considered protected categories in and of themselves? (3) Is there a standard sequence of steps for …

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From Loving To Obergefell: Elevating The Significance Of Discriminatory Effects, Holning Lau

Holning Lau

Loving v. Virginia and Obergefell v. Hodges are both landmark Supreme Court cases that advanced marriage equality. In Obergefell, the Court invalidated bans on same-sex marriage by building upon precedent it set nearly five decades earlier in Loving, which declared antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional. Indeed, commentators often describe Loving as an important precursor to Obergefell. Yet Obergefell’s reasoning deviated from that of Loving. The differences between the two cases are all too often overlooked. This Essay thus seeks to address this blind spot by drawing attention to a critical distinction: Loving and Obergefell differ in their …

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Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Boy Scouts & Burning Crosses: Bringing Balance To The Court’S Lopsided Approach To The Intersection Of Equality And Speech, Russell K. Robinson

Russell K Robinson

Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Discrimination, Holning Lau

Holning Lau

From Loving To Obergefell: Elevating The Significance Of Discriminatory Effects, Holning Lau

Holning Lau