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The Color(Blind) Conundrum In Colorado Property Law, Tom I. Romero Ii

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

“If There Are Men Who Are Afraid To Die, There Are Women Who Are Not”: African American Women's Civil Rights Leadership In Boston, 1920-1975., Julie De Chantal

Doctoral Dissertations

Since the 1980s, narratives surrounding the Boston Busing Crisis focus on South Boston white working-class’s reaction to Judge Arthur W. Garrity's forced desegregation order of 1974. Yet, by analyzing the crises from such narrow perspective, the narratives leave out half of the story. This dissertation challenges these narratives by situating the busing crisis as the culmination of more than half a century of grassroots activism led by Black working-class mothers. By taking action at the neighborhood and the city levels, these mothers succeeded where the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People and the Urban League had failed. …

Arnold Michael Shankman Papers - Accession 259, Arnold Michael Shankman

Manuscript Collection

The Arnold Shankman Papers are a treasure trove of historical research in a variety of areas. Within the American Civil War era, Shankman had extensively researched the “copperhead” movement of northern opposition to the war and was an expert on one of its leading members, Clement Vallandigham. Pursuing his interest in ethnic history, Dr. Shankman was a pioneer in the study of how ethnic and immigrant groups viewed each other. For example, he was one of the first to use early African-American newspapers to determine the views of blacks toward Italian immigrants and other groups. Shankman also was singularly instrumental …

The "Unfinished Work:" The Civil War Centennial And The Civil Rights Movement, Megan A. Sutter

Student Publications

The Civil War Centennial celebrations fell short of a great opportunity in which Americans could reflect on the legacy of the Civil War through the racial crisis erupting in their nation. Different groups exploited the Centennial for their own purposes, but only the African Americans and civil rights activists tried to emphasize the importance of emancipation and slavery to the memory of the war. Southerners asserted states’ rights in resistance to what they saw as a black rebellion in their area. Northerners reflected back on the theme of reconciliation, prevalent in the seventy-fifth anniversary of the war. Unfortunately, those who …

Smith, Candace, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Candace Smith was born and raised in the Bronx. From what she recalls her family lived on the top story of a two family home in the Tremont neighborhood until moving to the Patterson Houses in 1957 when she was around age 8. The home in Tremont was in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and she does not recall there being any other black families in the neighborhood. On the other hand, when they moved to the Patterson Houses, she does not recall any white families in the neighborhood there. Both of her parents had also grown up in the Bronx, …

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 …

"An Island Of Peace In A Sea Of Racial Strife:" The Civil Rights Movement In Knoxville, Tennesse, Michael Blum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the civil rights movement in Knoxville, Tennessee. It argues that the city's history of race relations, economy, and regional circumstances led to a different type of civil rights movement. It was conducted by a variety of groups: student activists, established activists, local businessmen, and elected officals. They had a complicated relationship, which changed frequently as groups responded to the actions of others. This dynamic led to a relatively peaceful movement, which created a degree of racial progress, but failed to remedy the structural problems that pleagued Knoxville's Black community, such as poverty and unemployment.In early 1960, student …

"Nigger": A Critical Race Realist Analysis Of The N-Word Within Hate Crimes Law, Shayne E. Jones, Gregory S. Parks

Criminology Faculty Publications

On a 2005 summer morning, Nicholas “Fat Nick” Minucci (White) beat Glenn Moore (Black) with a baseball bat and robbed him. During the assault, Minucci repeatedly screamed the N-word. At trial, Minucci’s attorney argued that he had not committed a hate crime. The essence of the defense’s argument was that Minucci’s use of the N-word while assaulting and robbing Moore was not indicative of any bias or prejudice. The defense went on to indicate that Minucci had Black friends, was immersed in Black culture, and employed the N-word as part of his everyday vocabulary. Two Black men—Gary Jenkins (hip hop …

"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.

Ricci V. Destefano: Diluting Disparate Impact And Redefining Disparate Treatment, Ann C. Mcginley

Nevada Law Journal

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 …

On The Road To Recognition: Irish Travellers’ Quest For Ethnic Identity, Kamaria A. Kruckenberg

Kamaria A Kruckenberg

This paper explores and defends Irish Travellers’ efforts to push the Republic of Ireland to recognize them as an ethnic minority group under law. Irish Travellers are a small indigenous minority group who have lived primarily in Ireland for centuries. They rank at the bottom of Irish society in rates of poverty, unemployment, life expectancy, infant mortality, health, education levels, political representation and access, and living conditions. Much like the Roma, with whom they share a nomadic tradition, Irish Travellers are in the midst a movement to improve living conditions, fight widespread discrimination, and gain recognition as an ethnic minority …

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, …

Speech Torts, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks

Deana A Pollard

Tort liability for speech raises important concerns about federalism, self-government, and autonomy. The Supreme Court has resolved the free speech-tort law conflict in a number of cases by balancing the nature of the speech subject to tort liability against the nature of the state’s interest in imposing tort liability, then “constitutionalizing” the tort to meet First Amendment demands by raising the burden of proof to establish a prima facie case. The Supreme Court has repeatedly denied review of tort liability for speech based on a theory of negligence, and most lower courts have adopted a categorical approach to immunize violent …

Freedom In A Slave Country: A True Story Of Race, Law, Sex, And Politics, Jason A. Gillmer

Jason A Gillmer

This Article unpacks the rich and textured story of the Ashworths, an obscure yet prosperous free family of color in the antebellum South who owned land, raised cattle, and bought and sold slaves. It is undoubtedly an unusual story; indeed in the history of the times there are surely more prominent names and more famous events. Yet their story reveals a tantalizing world in which—despite legal rules and conventional thinking—life was not so black and white. Drawing on local records rather than canonical cases, and listening to the voices from the community rather than the legislatures, this Article emphasizes the …

Shades Of Gray: The Life And Times Of An Antebellum Free Family Of Color, Jason A. Gillmer

Jason A Gillmer

The history of race and slavery is often told from the perspective of either the oppressors or the oppressed. This Article takes a different tact, unpacking the rich and textured story of the Ashworths, an obscure yet prosperous free family of color who moved from Louisiana to Texas in the early 1830s, where they owned land, raised cattle, and bought and sold slaves. It is undoubtedly an unusual story; indeed in the history of the time there are surely more prominent names and more famous events. Yet their story reveals a tantalizing world in which—despite legal rules and conventional thinking—life …

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

Brown, Roscoe, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Mark Naison

INTERVIEWEE: Roscoe Brown

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Roscoe Brown is the head of a Center for Urban Education at CUNY. He grew up in Washington, DC during the Great Depression. Educated at Dunbar high school in DC and Springfield College in Massachusetts, Brown joined the Tuskegee Airmen in 1943. At Springfield, Brown was one of only 15 black students. He studied Pre-Med and played football, basketball and lacrosse—in fact, he was one of the first black lacrosse players in America.

Brown flew 68 missions with the airmen, and participated in the longest mission of all time: a …

(How) Does Unconscious Bias Matter?: Law, Politics, And Racial Inequality, Richard Banks, Richard Thompson Ford

R. Banks

During the past several years, psychological research on unconscious racial bias has grabbed headlines, as well as the attention of legal scholars. The most well-known test of unconscious bias is the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a sophisticated and methodologically rigorous computer-administered measure that has been taken by millions of people, and featured in major print and broadcast media. Its proponents contend that the IAT reveals widespread unconscious bias against African-Americans, even among individuals who believe themselves to be free of racial bias.

In fact, however, the findings of the IAT are ambiguous. The test could just as plausibly be thought …

"Nigger": A Critical Race Realist Analysis Of The N-Word Within Hate Crimes Law, Shayne E. Jones, Gregory S. Parks

Shayne E Jones

On a 2005 summer morning, Nicholas “Fat Nick” Minucci (White) beat Glenn Moore (Black) with a baseball bat and robbed him. During the assault, Minucci repeatedly screamed the N-word. At trial, Minucci’s attorney argued that he had not committed a hate crime. The essence of the defense’s argument was that Minucci’s use of the N-word while assaulting and robbing Moore was not indicative of any bias or prejudice. The defense went on to indicate that Minucci had Black friends, was immersed in Black culture, and employed the N-word as part of his everyday vocabulary. Two Black men—Gary Jenkins (hip hop …

Human Rights And Gun Confiscation, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This Article addresses a human rights problem which has been generally ignored by the advocates of firearms confiscation: the human rights abuses stemming from the enforcement of coercive disarmament laws.

Part I conducts a case study of the U.N.-supported gun confiscation program in Uganda, a program which has directly caused massive, and fatal, violations of human rights. Among the rights violated have been those enumerated in Article 3 (“the right to life, liberty and security of person” ) and Article 5 (“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”) of the Universal …

The Peculiar Story Of United States V. Miller

Brian L. Frye

This article provides a comprehensive history and interpretation of United States v. Miller, the only Supreme Court case construing the Second Amendment. It presents evidence Miller was a test case designed by the government to test the constitutionality of federal gun control. It shows the holding in Miller is narrower than generally assumed. It argues Miller adopts neither the individual nor the collective right theory of the Second Amendment. It suggests the Supreme Court’s pragmatic, deferential approach in Miller remains appropriate.

When Obscenity Discriminates, Elizabeth M. Glazer

Elizabeth M Glazer

When public indecency statutes outlaw gender nonconformity, obscenity discriminates; when movie ratings censor representations of sexual minorities, obscenity discriminates, and discriminates on the basis of their status as sexual minorities. This Article addresses obscenity doctrine’s infliction of first generation, or status discrimination against sexual minorities by conflating “sex” – and the prurient representation of sex that constitutes obscenity – and “sexual orientation.” Civil rights lawyers and scholars have turned their attentions away from “first generation” discrimination,” where groups experience discrimination on the basis of their status, and toward “second generation” discrimination, where groups experience discrimination for failing to downplay or …

When Obscenity Discriminates, Elizabeth M. Glazer

Elizabeth M Glazer

When public indecency statutes outlaw gender nonconformity, obscenity discriminates; when movie ratings censor representations of sexual minorities, obscenity discriminates, and discriminates on the basis of their status as sexual minorities. This Article addresses obscenity doctrine’s infliction of first generation, or status discrimination against sexual minorities by conflating “sex” – and the prurient representation of sex that constitutes obscenity – and “sexual orientation.” Civil rights lawyers and scholars have turned their attentions away from “first generation” discrimination,” where groups experience discrimination on the basis of their status, and toward “second generation” discrimination, where groups experience discrimination for failing to downplay or …

Unintended Consequences: How Antidiscrimination Litigation Increases Group Bias In Employer-Defendants, Jessica Fink

Jessica Fink

In recent years, employees have turned with increasing frequency to the courts to redress alleged violations of their civil rights in the workplace, often bringing suits under laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Indeed, employment discrimination claims consistently consume a substantial (and rising) portion of the federal court docket. In the four-plus decades since the passage of Title VII, however, the nature of workplace bias itself has changed, becoming more difficult to detect in many cases. Some employers, often with the help of counsel, have learned to finesse their workplace actions to avoid the …