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How The Courts, Along With Public Dissatisfaction With The Status Quo, Ironically Aided In The Creation Of New Hollywood, Which Promoted Films Of Lawlessness, Disorder And Instability, Sam A. Blaustein

Sam A Blaustein

The period known as New Hollywood in American film was brought about by several seminal American legal decisions coupled with a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo. A series of First Amendment cases, along with the 1948 Paramount decision, forced Hollywood to produce graphic and existential films that showcased in unprecedented style the issues faced by the emerging disaffected youth generation.

Modern Disparities In Legal Education: Emancipation From Racial Neutrality, David Mears

David Mears

Wealth, leadership and political power within any democratic society requires the highest caliber of a quality legal education. The Black experience is not necessarily a unique one within legal education but rather an excellent example of either poor to substandard quality disseminated unequally among racial and socioeconomic stereotypes based upon expected outcomes of probable success or failure. It is often said, “Speak and so it will happen” – many within the halls of academia work hard to openly predict failure yet seemingly do very little to foster success internally within the academic procedures and processes based on the customer service …

The Bush Theory Of The War Power: Authoritarianism, Torture And The So-Called “War On Terror”- A Critique, Christopher L. Blakesley, Judy Meyerson

Christopher L. Blakesley

The Bush Theory of the War Power:

Authoritarianism, Torture and the

So-Called “War on Terror”- A Critique

Christopher L. Blakesley & Thomas B. McAffee

Abstract

Our article addresses the Bush administration’s arrogation of power to the President and its manifestation in the disappearance, imprisonment, and torture of detainees in prisons, including Guantánamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and so-called “black sites,” or prisons in countries that engage in torture. These shameful practices were authorized in the infamous September 25, 2001 Torture Memo and other controversial legal memoranda by John Yoo and other Bush administration attorneys. The memos, which claimed authoritarian executive power …

Race In The War On Drugs: The Social Consequences Of Presidential Rhetoric, Jeff L. Yates, Andrew Whitford

Jeff L Yates

One of the president’s main leadership tools for influencing the direction of American legal policy is public rhetoric. Numerous studies have examined the president’s use of the “bully pulpit” to lead policy by influencing Congress or public opinion, or by changing the behavior of public agencies. We argue that the president can use rhetoric to change the behavior of public agencies and that this can have important social consequences. We focus on the disproportionate impact of presidential rhetoric on different “target populations” in the context of the War on Drugs. Specifically, we observe that presidential rhetoric had a greater impact …

The New Laches: Creating Title Where None Existed, Kathryn E. Fort

Kathryn Fort

Tribal land claims are facing a new challenge from an old area of law. Courts have been paying special attention to the law of equity and how it can defeat tribal land claims. Specifically, the equitable defenses of laches, acquiescence, and impossibility were used by the Supreme Court to hand defeat to the Oneida Indian Nation on a tax issue. Since then, lower courts in the Second Circuit have used this precedent to deny Indian land claims. But are these three defenses based on precedent themselves? Rarely. Instead, they have been combined to create a new defense, what I will …