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Protecting Intangible Cultural Resources: Alternatives To Intellectual Property Law, Gerald Carr Apr 2013

Protecting Intangible Cultural Resources: Alternatives To Intellectual Property Law, Gerald Carr

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Cultural resources can be defined as "the tangible and intangible effects of an individual or group of people that define their existence, and place them temporally and geographically in relation to their belief systems and their familial and political groups, providing meaning to their lives." The field of cultural resources includes tangible items, such as land, sacred sites, and religious and finerary objects. The field also includes intangible knowledge and customs, such as tribal names, symbols, stories, and ecological, ethnopharmacological, religious, or other traditional knowledge. The tangible cultural resources of tribes can fall under the protection of statutes such as …


Yick Wo At 125: Four Simple Lessons For The Contemporary Supreme Court, Marie A. Failinger Apr 2012

Yick Wo At 125: Four Simple Lessons For The Contemporary Supreme Court, Marie A. Failinger

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The 125th anniversary of Yick Wo v. Hopkins is an important opportunity to recognize the pervasive role of law in oppressive treatment of Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is also a good opportunity for the Supreme Court to reflect on four important lessons gleaned from Yick Wo. First, the Court should never lend justification to the evil of class discrimination, even if it has to decline to rule in a case. Second, where there is persistent discrimination against a minority group, the Court must be similarly persistent in fighting it. Third, the Court needs to take …


"The Prejudice Of Caste": The Misreading Of Justice Harlan And The Ascendency Of Anticlassificaiton, Scott Grinsell Jan 2010

"The Prejudice Of Caste": The Misreading Of Justice Harlan And The Ascendency Of Anticlassificaiton, Scott Grinsell

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article reconsiders the familiar reading of Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson as standing for the principle of constitutional colorblindness by examining the significance of Harlan's use of the metaphor "caste" in the opinion. By overlooking Harlan's invocation of "caste," it argues that conservative proponents of anticlassification have reclaimed the opinion for "colorblindness," and buried a powerful statement of the antisubordination principle that is at the heart of our equality law. The Article begins by examining the emergence of a reading of the opinion as articulating a view of equality law based in anticlassification. The Article then returns …


Determining The (In)Determinable: Race In Brazil And The United States, D. Wendy Greene Jan 2009

Determining The (In)Determinable: Race In Brazil And The United States, D. Wendy Greene

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In recent years, the Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, So Paulo, and Mato Grasso du Sol have implemented race-conscious affirmative action programs in higher education. These states established admissions quotas in public universities for Afro-Brazilians or afrodescendentes. As a result, determining who is "Black'' has become a complex yet important undertaking in Brazil. Scholars and the general public alike have claimed that the determination of Blackness in Brazil is different than in the United States; determining Blackness in the United States is allegedly a simpler task than in Brazil. In Brazil it is widely acknowledged that most Brazilians are …


Engaging The Spirit Of Racial Healing Within Critical Race Theory: An Exercise In Transformativethought, Rebecca Tsosie Jan 2005

Engaging The Spirit Of Racial Healing Within Critical Race Theory: An Exercise In Transformativethought, Rebecca Tsosie

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This essay posits that Critical Race Theory (CRT) must operate at both the "idealist" and "materialist" levels. Although the emphasis may be in one direction or another at particular times, both domains are continually engaged. This essay links the debate between the "materialist" and "idealist" views to another central theme within CRT, which is the need for "justice" and how the law relates to justice. This essay focuses on the contemporary debate surrounding the status of Native Hawaiians to show how "race" is being used to construct the civil and political rights of Native Hawaiian people. CRT is a jurisprudence …


The Promise Of A Post-Genocide Constitution: Healing Rwandan Spirit Injuries, Adrien Katherine Wing, Mark Richard Johnson Jan 2002

The Promise Of A Post-Genocide Constitution: Healing Rwandan Spirit Injuries, Adrien Katherine Wing, Mark Richard Johnson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article hopes to extend Critical Race Theory's social construction of race theory by emphasizing ethnicity as well as race. The Rwandans are undoubtedly within the so-called "Black race." Historically, they have also been socially constructed as consisting of different races and ethnicities, even though many scholars and Rwandans do not see ethnic, much less racial, distinctions. Some of these Rwandans who did see such differences participated in the genocide.


The Alienation Of Fathers, Linda Kelly Jan 2000

The Alienation Of Fathers, Linda Kelly

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

By evaluating immigration and custody law from a father's perspective and thereby uncovering and addressing the biases held against men, both fathers and mothers will achieve greater recognition. Beyond revealing gender discrimination, such a study also demonstrates the disparate views still harbored toward unmarried parents. Examining custody and immigration law with an emphasis on these issues will hopefully foster a dialogue that brings the law in line with the reality of today's families and promotes each family member's individual potential.


Puerto Rico: Cultural Nation, American Colony, Pedro A. Malavet Jan 2000

Puerto Rico: Cultural Nation, American Colony, Pedro A. Malavet

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article articulates a theory of Puerto Rican cultural nationhood that is largely based on ethnicity. In linking ethnicity and citizenship, it is imperative, however, to avoid the evils of ethnic strife and balkanization, while celebrating rather than imposing difference; community consciousness cannot degenerate into fascism.


To Yick Wo, Thanks For Nothing!: Citizenship For Filipino Veterans, Kevin Pimentel Jan 1999

To Yick Wo, Thanks For Nothing!: Citizenship For Filipino Veterans, Kevin Pimentel

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In this Note, the Author uses science fiction novelist Robert Heinlein's model of citizenship as an analytical framework for examining the historical treatment of Filipino veterans of World War II. The Author Heinlein's conception of citizenship in Starship Troopers was one in which a person can acquire citizenship only through a term of service in the state's armed forces. Similarly, the United States provided immediate eligibility for citizenship to World War II era foreign veterans, but it effectively excluded Filipino veterans from this benefit. The Author examines how the plenary power doctrine in immigration law, has quashed legal challenges by …


Facing History, Facing Ourselves: Eric Yamamoto And The Quest For Justice, Robert S. Change Jan 1999

Facing History, Facing Ourselves: Eric Yamamoto And The Quest For Justice, Robert S. Change

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Review of Interracial Justice: Conflict and Reconciliation in Post-Civil Rights America by Eric Yamamoto


Affirmative Action: Where Is It Coming From And Where Is It Going?, Denise Page Hood Jan 1998

Affirmative Action: Where Is It Coming From And Where Is It Going?, Denise Page Hood

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

A review of We Wont Go Back: Making the Case for Affirmative Action by Charles R. Lawrence III & Mari J. Matsuda


In Sisterhood, Lisa C. Ikemoto Jan 1997

In Sisterhood, Lisa C. Ikemoto

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

A review of Where Is Your Body? by Mari Matsuda


The Dangers Of Misappropriation: Misusing Martin Luther King, Jr.'S Legacy To Prove The Colorblind Thesis, Ronald Turner Jan 1996

The Dangers Of Misappropriation: Misusing Martin Luther King, Jr.'S Legacy To Prove The Colorblind Thesis, Ronald Turner

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article focuses on one particular aspect of the colorblind thesis: the misuse of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s image and legacy by liberals, neoliberals, conservatives, and neoconservatives "who cheaply invoke Dr. King's words even as they kill the substance and spirit of his radical message." The campaign supporting the adoption of Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative ("CCRI"), directly illustrates the misappropriation of King's legacy. Supporters of this anti-affirmative action proposal which calls for racial neutrality and a colorblind America, regularly invoked King's name, suggesting that he would have embraced such a measure. The California Republican Party prepared a …


The Color Of Truth: Race And The Assessment Of Credibility, Sheri Lynn Johnson Jan 1996

The Color Of Truth: Race And The Assessment Of Credibility, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article will address specifically the relationship between race and credibility in legal cases, while acknowledging that broader bias issues are often, though sometimes imperceptibly, intertwined in racially biased credibility determinations. Part I will survey race and credibility issues that have arisen in courts, with particular focus on two modern habeas corpus cases. Part II will summarize the legal rules that presently regulate racially influenced assessments of credibility; it may surprise some readers to realize that there is no established mechanism for challenging racially biased credibility determinations. Part I will propose some standards for determining when race is permissibly used …