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Critical Race Action: Queer Lessons And Seven Legacies From The One And Only Professor Bell, Francisco Valdes

Western New England Law Review

This Article considers Professor Bell’s legacy as a pioneer of critical race theory. The Author first looks back at Professor Bell’s scholarship and the controversy that surrounded it. The author briefly survey’s Bells contributions to tell a tale of personal struggle against hegemonic systems of injustice base on race and/or other axes of identities. The special alchemy of Bell’s intellectual work and personal experience led him to insights and conclusions that stirred unprecedented controversy among minority and allied scholars. For more than a quarter century he labored to help foment awareness of racial inequality and promote solidarity in the face …

Dispelling Alimony Myths: The Continuing Need For Alimony And The Alimony Reform Act Of 2011, Rachel Biscardi

Western New England Law Review

This Article examines alimony in Massachusetts through the lens of the Alimony Reform Act of 2011. The first half of the Article focuses on why alimony recipients continue to need alimony despite the economic gains made by women in the past fifty years. This section identifies some, but not all, of the factors that make alimony an equitable remedy in a divorce, including: (a) the stay at home spouse’s professional sacrifices; (b) the wage gap; (c) the glass ceiling; and (d) marketable skills post-divorce. This section further dispels the arguments made by alimony opponents that the equitable division of assets …

What’S Love Got To Do With It? Interest-Convergence As A Lens To View State Ratification Of Post Emancipation Slave Marriages, Danne L. Johnson

Western New England Law Review

This Article examines whether interest-convergence and/or critical legal theory more thoroughly explains post-emancipation state ratification of former Slave marriages. Section I discusses interest-convergence theory and critical legal theory. Section II discusses the disruption of the Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction to the American South and its attempts to reestablish normalcy. Section III examines the contours of Pre-Civil War Marriage. Section IV discusses the competing interests of the Freedmen and whites, and the convergence of those interests resulting in post-emancipation state ratification of former Slave marriages.

“Was The First Justice Harlan Anti-Chinese?”, James W. Gordon

Western New England Law Review

The first Justice John Marshall Harlan has long been recognized as a defender of Black civil rights. Yet some scholars challenge Harlan’s egalitarian reputation by arguing that he was anti-Chinese. In this Article, the Author discusses the evidence which has been offered to support the claim that Harlan was anti-Chinese and offers additional evidence never before presented to argue against this hypothesis. Harlan’s critics have assembled some evidence in a way that suggests Harlan had an anti-Chinese bias. The Author suggests that the evidence is ambiguous and that it can be assembled to produce a different picture from the one …

Splitting The Baby: Avoiding Foreclosure When Homeowners Have Uncertain Or Conflicting Interests, Daniel Bahls

Western New England Law Review

Avoiding preventable foreclosure has become a common theme for lenders, consumer advocates, and policymakers. Finding alternatives to foreclosure has been difficult, even in the best of circumstances. Past scholarship has explored conflicts of interest between the various lenderside entities and suggested ways to promote foreclosure alternatives despite these conflicts. Thus far, insufficient attention has been given to avoiding foreclosure where homeowners are similarly unable to speak with a clear and united voice. This Article explores how homeownership can be preserved in cases where a homeowner is not able to secure the full cooperation of all borrowers on the account.

This …

Symposium: Building The Arc Of Justice: The Life And Legal Thought Of Derrick Bell: Foreword, Matthew H. Charity

Western New England Law Review

The four articles in this Symposium issue pay tribute to the work of Professor Derrick Bell by building on his challenges to the permanence of racial domination, to the potential limitations of good will inherent in the concept of interest convergence, and to the question of permanence not just of racism, but of other systemic biases since recognized, written on, and litigated. The articles range from the 19th century to the hegemonic war on terror; from Latin@ identity as a disruptive force, to recognition of subjugated identities allowing for the creation of coalitions to end oppression.

Latin@S, Disrupting Racial Normativity In Derrick Bell's The Space Traders, Geiza Vargas-Vargas

Western New England Law Review

In this Essay tribute to Professor Bell, the Author chooses to examine the ever-controversial science fiction narrative, The Space Traders, for its paradox. In one instance, The Space Traders is arguably a myopic representation of race insofar as it operates within a very specific theoretical race construct, the Black/White binary. But almost at once, in another instance, the paradox seems to precisely capture the truth of racial experience: we all are reduced to and defined by the Black/White binary.

For Professor Bell, as a critical race theorist, race is located strictly within the binary. But experience, for those that …

Family Law—The Rehabilitation Illusion: How Alimony Reform In Massachusetts Fails To Compensate For Caregiving, Julie-Anne G. Stebbins

Western New England Law Review

When the Massachusetts Legislature unanimously passed the Alimony Reform Act of 2011, the bill was heralded as a “sweeping overhaul,” a long overdue change that would improve the predictability of divorce cases in the Commonwealth. This Note examines, from a feminist perspective, the failures of the Alimony Reform Act to fully consider and compensate women for unpaid contributions provided during the course of a marriage. It chronicles alimony’s long standing history in Massachusetts and details the changes the new statutes made, paying particular attention to the newly codified addition of rehabilitative alimony, which provides short term alimony to dependent spouses …