Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Law
State Action Problems, Christian Turner
State Action Problems, Christian Turner
Florida Law Review
The state action doctrine is a mess. Explanations for why federal courts sometimes treat the private actions of private parties as public actions subject to the Constitution, as the Supreme Court did in Shelley v. Kraemer, are either vastly over-inclusive or fail to explain our law and values. A better approach is to understand the state action doctrine in institutional terms. I introduce a two-step, institutionally focused state action theory that is a natural consequence of a broader public–private theory of legal systems. In the first step, a court identifies a “state action problem,” meaning a privately made law that …
The First Amendment, Equal Protection And Felon Disenfranchisement: A New Viewpoint, Janai S. Nelson
The First Amendment, Equal Protection And Felon Disenfranchisement: A New Viewpoint, Janai S. Nelson
Florida Law Review
This Article engages the equality principles of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause to reconsider the constitutionality of one of the last and most entrenched barriers to universal suffrage—felon disenfranchisement. A deeply racialized problem, felon disenfranchisement is additionally and independently a legislative judgment as to which citizen‘s ideas are worthy of inclusion in the electorate. Relying on a series of cases involving state interests in protecting the ballot and promoting its intelligent use, this Article demonstrates that felon disenfranchisement is open to attack under the Supreme Court‘s fundamental rights jurisprudence when it is motivated by a desire to …
Playing God: The Legality Of Plans Denying Scarce Resources To People With Disabilities In Public Health Emergencies, Wendy F. Hensel, Leslie E. Wolf
Playing God: The Legality Of Plans Denying Scarce Resources To People With Disabilities In Public Health Emergencies, Wendy F. Hensel, Leslie E. Wolf
Florida Law Review
Public health emergencies can arise in a number of different ways. They can follow a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, and the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. They may be man-made, such as the September 11 attacks and the anthrax scare. They may also be infectious. While no pandemic flu has yet reached the severity of the 1918 flu, there have been several scares, including avian flu and most recently H1N1. Few questions are more ethically or legally loaded than determining who will receive scarce medical resources in the event of a widespread public health …
Flawed But Noble: Desegregation Litigation And Its Implications For The Modern Class Action, Davis Marcys
Flawed But Noble: Desegregation Litigation And Its Implications For The Modern Class Action, Davis Marcys
Florida Law Review
From the perspective of the present day, Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure contains a difficult puzzle. After a court certifies a class pursuant to Rule 23(b)(3) in a money damages case, absent class members must receive notice and have a chance to opt out. Their counterparts in injunctive or declaratory relief suits prosecuted pursuant to Rule 23(b)(2) do not. As long understood, the class certification decision essentially equals a determination to bind all class members to the eventual judgment. Class members seeking money damages therefore have some control over their rights to sue before these rights …
The White Interest In School Integration, Robert A. Garda Jr.
The White Interest In School Integration, Robert A. Garda Jr.
Florida Law Review
Discussions concerning desegregation, affirmative action, and voluntary integration focus primarily, if not exclusively, on whether such policies harm or benefit minorities. Scant attention is paid to the benefits whites receive in multiracial schools, despite white interests underpinning more than thirty years of Supreme Court integration jurisprudence. In this Article, I explore the academic and social benefits whites receive in multiracial schools, and I do so from a white parent’s perspective. The Article begins by describing the interest-convergence theory and how white interests explain the course and content of the Supreme Court’s desegregation and affirmative action jurisprudence. Multiracial schools will not …
Civil Rights, Charter Schools, And Lessons To Be Learned, Derek W. Black
Civil Rights, Charter Schools, And Lessons To Be Learned, Derek W. Black
Florida Law Review
Two major structural shifts have occurred in education reform in the past two decades: the decline of civil rights reforms and the rise of charter schools. Courts and policy makers have relegated traditional civil rights reforms that address segregation, poverty, disability, and language barriers to near irrelevance, while charter schools and policies supporting their creation and expansion have rapidly increased and now dominate federal policy. Advocates of traditional civil rights reforms interpret the success of charter schools as a threat to their cause, and, consequently, have fought the expansion of charter schools. This Article argues that the civil rights community …