Law Commons^™

Camera-Enforced Streets: Creating An Anti-Racist System Of Traffic Enforcement, Katie O'Brien

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

On July 10, 2015, Sandra Bland was pulled over while driving in Prairie View, Texas, for failure to signal a lane change after moving to allow a trooper’s vehicle to pass her car. As the stop progressed, the trooper ordered Bland to get out of her car. When she refused, the trooper threatened to “yank [Bland] out” of her car and “light [her] up” with his taser. After Bland left her vehicle, Trooper Encinia handcuffed her, wrestled her to the ground, and kneeled on her. He later falsely claimed that Bland assaulted him. Three days later, police found Bland …

Impacted Communities Leading Authentic Legal Mobilization: A Refugee-Led Access-To-Justice Story, Douglas Smith

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

I have a modest proposal to begin addressing the civil access-to-justice problem in the United States: eliminate the barriers for refugees to provide legal representation. In discussions of access to civil justice, immigration and immigrant rights compel our attention—images of children as young as three facing deportation without representation and non-citizens detained because of civil immigration infractions come to mind. But we hear less about the access-to-justice challenges of immigrants fighting for their rights to safe housing, public benefits, education for their children, or often-contingent or under-the-table jobs. The cries of immigrant communities about informal and formal threats from …

A Better Way: Uncoupling The Right To Counsel With The Threat Of Deportation For Unaccompanied Immigrant Children And Beyond, Laura Barrera

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

The stakes could not be higher in immigration court—families are separated; people are banished from their communities with little hope of ever legally returning; judges relegate individuals to seemingly arbitrary and indefinite detention in remote locations. Each of these hardships—and more—flow from the threat of deportation. As the Supreme Court noted in 1922, deportation “may result . . . in . . . all that makes life worth living.”

As has been the unfortunate norm in civil proceedings, many individuals face these trials without an attorney by their side because while the law states that respondents in immigration court …

Expanding The Right To Counsel In Eviction Cases: Arguments For And Limitations Of "Civil Gideon" Laws In A Post-Covid 19 World, Jennifer S. Prusak

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

With the cost of housing rising nationwide and incomes largely failing to keep pace with this increase, the United States is in the midst of interrelated affordable housing and eviction crises. The housing affordability metric that has long been the bedrock of American housing policy is that households should spend no more than thirty percent of their income on housing. This is no longer an attainable goal for many Americans. By 2017, forty-eight percent of renter households were “rent burdened”—they paid more than thirty percent of their income in rent. Over a quarter of American renters, or 11 million …

Patching The Patchwork: Moving The Civil Right To Counsel Forward With Key Data, Maria Roumiantseva

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

While the pandemic has exposed many long-standing realities about the United States, the destructive everyday crisis of eviction is top of mind as moratoria have now expired and rental assistance funds dissipate with no anticipated replenishment. Therefore, though this piece addresses legal representation in civil legal proceedings more broadly, we will start with an eviction story.

It can be taken as fact that not too far from where you are reading this piece, a tenant is facing an eviction unrepresented. She cannot afford a private attorney. She is income eligible for legal aid, but the office near her home …

Technology's War On Terror: The Need For Platform Accountability In The Wake Of A National Security Crisis, Meagan Schantz

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

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January 6, 2021. A day that “will live forever in infamy.” That day marked the first breach of the United States Capitol Building since 1814—and the second breach ever in American history (the first was during the War of 1812). Five people lost their lives that day and many more were injured in an unprecedented attack on American democracy. Yet, social media records show that “there were no surprises” as to what insurrectionists did on that infamous day.

The plan to “storm the Capitol” began on less-trafficked social media sites, the “darker or more-obscure corners of the internet,” including …

The Right To Bear 3d-Printed Firearms: Problems Created By Modern Gunsmithing, Chelsea Karen

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Picture a typical Friday evening at London’s St. Pancras train station with travelers trying to get away for the weekend. You board a train leaving for Paris after going through a vigorous safety check, which includes walking through a metal detector and having your bag scanned. You finally take a seat in a crowded train car when you notice a man standing at the front of the car holding what appears to be a child’s toy gun. It’s clunky, plastic, and crude-looking in that it seems it would fall apart if the man attempted to pull the trigger. In …

Small Business Relief In The Time Of Covid-19: Deservingness Judgments Lead The Ppp To Failure, Blair Hendricks

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In 2020, going to the grocery store or getting a bite to eat looked a little different than usual: normal outings in 2020 required masks and temperature checks, among other safety precautions. As if patronizing businesses was not difficult enough, operating a business in 2020 could have been downright tragic. In December 2020, Steven Klein, the owner of Vision Lanes Bowling Alley, posted a tribute on his Facebook page to his beloved business. The following is an excerpt from that post:

This is NOT a political post. My sources are telling me an extension is going to be announced. …

Comments On ‘Whiteness As Contract’, Marissa Jackson Sow

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Thank you so much, Jay, and thank you everyone for being here this morning. It’s an honor to be able to join you [now] even before I join you formally and it’s an equal honor to share this morning with professors Huq and Whitlow. I have looked up to and been in conversation with professor Huq specifically; to find out that we are co-panelists and also will be teaching contracts together is very inspiring indeed.

So, what I will try to do in the brief time that we have is talk a little bit about Whiteness as Contract, …

The Real Estate State And Group-Differentiated Vulnerability To Premature Death: Exploring The Political-Economic Roots Of Covid-19’S Racially Disparate Deadliness In New York City In The Spring Of 2020, John Whitlow

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In May 2020, after several bleak months in which Covid-19 took the lives of thousands of New York City’s most vulnerable residents, a vigil was held in Corona Plaza, Queens, to honor the sixty-seven members of Make the Road New York whose time was cut short by the virus. At the event, State Senator Jessica Ramos spoke of the disproportionate toll Covid-19 has taken on working class, immigrant New Yorkers: “[t]hese communities are on the frontlines without adequate protections and have been left to grapple with extreme food insecurity, . . . evictions, and unemployment . . . .” …

Integrating A Racial Capitalism Framework Into First-Year Contracts: A Pathway To Anti-Capitalist Lawyering, Chaumtoli Huq

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Nationwide protests against police brutality in the summer of 2020, coupled with the high rates of COVID-19 deaths among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), has brought to the foreground the role of the legal system in upholding structural racism and economic inequality. This renewed focus spotlighted our legal education: what are law schools doing as the institutions that educate future lawyers to be anti-racist, so they can, in turn, create a legal profession that is anti-racist? Being anti-racist is making conscious choices to fight racism in all its forms: individual, interpersonal, institutional, and structural. Being anti-racist also …

Foreword: Racial Capitalism As Legal Analysis, Jay Hedges

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In 2010, the Journal of Legal Commentary was renamed the Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development (JCRED) to reflect its status as the official journal of the Ron Brown Center for Civil Rights here at St. John’s University School of Law. From then on, the Journal has been dedicated to exploring issues of social, racial, and economic justice in the law. Thus, JCRED is situated to be a publication that breaches the divide that has held so much power over legal scholarship through the years. That divide is the segregation of issues of Public Law and Private Law, …

Children Behind Bars: A Path To Reducing Pre-Adjudicative Detention In The Juvenile Justice System, Rebecca Stark

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In 2019, nearly 16,000 young people referred to the juvenile justice system were detained in juvenile facilities. Nearly 10,000 of them had not yet been found to have committed a crime. When it comes to youthful offenders, one might assume that courts would be inclined to exhibit leniency and favor pretrial release. In reality, judges detain youth pretrial in over a quarter of delinquency cases.

Pretrial detention does not affect all youth at an equal rate: juvenile court judges consistently detain older youths more often than younger youths, more boys than girls, and far more children of color. In …

New York State And New York City Must Take Drastic Measures To Increase All New Yorkers’ Access To Quality Greenspaces, Ben Handy

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Consistently, elected and appointed city government officials around the United States, despite recognizing how important parks are to cities, have expressed that they would cut park funding before other essential services when a city’s budget is limited. For example, New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation (“Parks Department” or “Department”) has seen extreme budget limits. The Parks Department’s limited budget means that most communities do not receive the financial support needed to maintain their local parks. Historically, this has impacted lower-income areas more severely because these areas generally receive less public and private funding for parks, leading to …

The Empty Promises Of Diversity Mou's: How The Fcc Can Strengthen Commitments To Racial Equity, Jeleesa Omala

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

African Americans have been systematically disenfranchised from nearly all sectors of American society since the country’s founding. As such, African Americans do not just perceive the problem of racial discrimination as a matter of personal prejudice but also a matter of survival. Without access to fundamental resources like higher education, healthcare, and economic opportunity, the quality of Black life decreases astronomically. The nation begins to equate being Black with being “less than,” and continues to disinvest in Black populations, which signals to Black people that their lives do not matter.

Nevertheless, determined Black entrepreneurs continue to fight to expand …

Solving Crimes With 23andme: Dna Databases And The Future Of Law Enforcement, Meghan Mcloughlin

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

“It could never happen to me though, right?”

Sitting on our comfortable couches in our secure homes and watching news stories about people who have lost loved ones to the most terrible, violent crimes, we think to ourselves: “That’s awful for them, but it won’t happen to me.” But what if it did?

Becoming a victim of a violent crime or loving someone who becomes a victim of a crime in the United States is not uncommon. In 2016, 2.9 million people in the United States were victims of at least one “violent crime”—crimes defined by their inherent violence, …

Locked Out: Sora, Sara And The Need For Defense Counsel Advisals And Judicial Plea Colloquies On Sex Offense-Related Housing Consequences, Matthew Cleaver

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

On May 20, 2014, Miguel Gonzalez became eligible for conditional release from prison, having served over two years of his two-and-a-half-year sentence for statutory rape. Instead of releasing Gonzalez, the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) confined Gonzalez for an additional seven and a half months after his initial release date and over four months after his maximum sentence. On February 4, 2015, DOCCS finally released Gonzalez from New York’s Woodbourne Correctional Facility. The sole reason for Gonzalez’s additional confinement was his failure to secure housing that complied with the residency restrictions placed on individuals convicted …

Why Don't We All Just Wear Robes?, Ruthann Robson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Lawyers and law professors select our professional outfits each day, often experiencing a mix of consternation and gratification. The dread springs from our failures: to know what constitutes the “right look;” to be able to achieve that “right look;” to anticipate what the day will bring; to have prepared by doing the laundry or other tasks. The joy resides in self-expression; we fashion ourselves as works of art, even within the constraints of professional attire.

It could have been different. We could have sacrificed the satisfaction of self-expression for the complacency of conformity; we could wear robes. Judges—at least …

How To Look Like A Lawyer, Ann Juliano

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Law schools often claim that they are teaching students “how to think like a lawyer.” What is less touted, however, is that students are learning how to look like a lawyer. They receive this message from multiple sources (faculty, alumni, peers, the career office) concerning a variety of situations: class, interviews, moot court, trial team, symposia and conferences. For law students who are first generation, these sources may be the only avenue (apart from the entertainment industry) of determining how to look like a lawyer. For law students who are transgender or gender non-binary, dress code advice dispensed along …

Model Dress Code: Promoting Genderless Attire Rules To Foster An Inclusive Legal Profession, Rebekah Hanley, Malcolm Macwilliamson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

I knew that my likelihood of being able to wear a dress to court was pretty slim. I wasn’t that naïve. At the same time, I resented the notion that at no time in my future legal career would I be able to acknowledge, honor, or share the full complexity of my identity—that, by choosing law, I was relinquishing the right to ever be fully myself in my professional career.

I came out as transgender at age eighteen. Shortly thereafter, I began to transition socially and medically. I quickly realized how much of my “self” I had been unable …

When Your Identity Is Inherently "Unprofessional": Navigating Rules Of Professional Appearance Rooted In Cisheteronormative Whiteness As Black Women And Gender Non-Conforming Professionals, Shannon Cumberbatch

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Several years ago, I attended my first large-scale career fair as a recruiter where I screened a mass of aspiring lawyers for staff attorney positions at my legal organization. During our brief break from marathon interviewing, my white colleagues shut down their tables to enjoy their downtime and as I prepared to do the same, I looked up to find a critical mass of Black women excitedly converging upon my interview station. Forming a half circle around my table, they began exclaiming how enamored they were by my appearance and how it countered much of the counseling they had …

Is There A “Mulatto Escape Hatch” Out Of Racism?: A Reflection On Multiracial Exceptionalsim During A Time Of #Blacklivesmatter, Tanya Katerí Hernández

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

To have a symposium organized to review the ideas in my book, Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination, is an honor, and the JCRED editors, along with their dynamic Faculty Advisors Elaine Chiu and Rosa Castello, have my gratitude for pulling it all together. Having each symposium contributor take the time to deeply engage the ideas in the book is an incredible gift, and exactly what every author dreams of—being read and provoking reflection. Without readers, ideas do not have an opportunity to matter. Thank you Taunya Lovell Banks, Nancy Chi Cantalupo, and Jasmine Mitchell, for …

“I Think You Didn't Get It Because They Misidentified You As Latina”: A Commentary On Multiracials And Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories Of Discrimination, Nancy Chi Cantalupo

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Liz was interviewing for a tenure-track, entry-level law faculty position at Law School X, “ranked” (in that year) around 100. She had heard a rumor that the law school was determined to hire a person who would add to the diversity of the faculty, which was both White- and male-dominated.

Liz’s “job talk,” a presentation on a current article that she was writing, used Liz’s own multiracial identification to illustrate a point relevant to her research, which utilized both critical race theory and feminist legal theory. In the course of explaining her illustration, Liz mentioned that she was often …

Personal Identity Equality And Racial Misrecognition: Review Essay Of Multiracials And Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories Of Discrimination, Taunya Lovell Banks

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

There is a growing body of social science literature documenting multiracials as an “emergent minority group. . . who . . . have not always been recognized as either a separate racial group or as legitimate members of racial groups.” Tanya Hernández has been writing about aspects of American multiracialism for twenty years. Her 1998 article in the MARYLAND LAW JOURNAL focused on the multiracial discourse about racial categories on the 2000 U.S. census. In that article, she analyzes the multiracial identity movement’s effort to get a multiracial category on the U.S. census. Although that movement failed, the 2000 …

Commentary And Book Review: Multiracials And Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories Of Discrimination, Jasmine Mitchell

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Can a drop of whiteness or “looking white” save someone from anti-Blackness? Are mixed-race peoples special, and should they be a protected class under the law? Did Loving v. Virginia’s legalization of interracial marriage lead to race becoming insignificant? Tanya Hernández’s Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination debunks persistent myths that racial mixture will eradicate racism and heal the racial wounds of the United States. Using cases and other legal sources, Hernández persuasively argues that multiracials are not exempt from racial discrimination. Multiracials and Civil Rights crystalizes the pervasiveness of white supremacy while offering a sociopolitical lens …

Strengthening Section 14141: Using Pattern Or Practice Investigations To End Violence Between Police And Communities, Sigourney Norman

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Imagine you are on your way home from work and driving your usual route. You hear police sirens getting louder and louder. You realize you are the subject of their chase, but you cannot imagine why. You slow down and pull over, not wanting to cause confrontation. The officer beats on your car door. You roll down your window and ask why you have been pulled over. The officer informs you that your tail light is broken. Next, the officer orders you out of the car. Your heart races as the officer pats you down. You wonder if the …

Sexual Misconduct By Law Enforcement: A New Meaning To Stop And Frisk?, Anastasia Cassisi

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Turn on the television at any time during the day and you are likely to find at least one channel playing an episode of Law and Order, Special Victims Unit (S.V.U.). If you catch the opening sequence, after a few moments of catchy music, an ominous narrator recites the above words. The fictional show is about a group of New York City detectives who investigate sex crimes and the attorneys who prosecute the offenders. The show portrays sex crimes as egregious offenses committed by heinous criminals. However, what the show fails to depict is what happens when these dedicated …

Navigating Surrogacy Law In The Non-United States: Why All States Should Adopt A Uniform Surrogacy Statute, Stephanie Canner

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

“My water broke; the baby is coming! Come now!” Normally, a woman in labor makes this frantic phone call to her partner, who would immediately drop whatever they were doing to be by her side at the local hospital and be present to welcome their child into the world. However, this scenario is not the reality for many couples across the United States. For example, there is a New York couple who have a different story to tell their daughter about her birth. Brad Hoylman and David Sigal received a phone call a month before their baby’s due date …

Reframing The Monuments: How To Address Confederate Statues In The United States, Jillian Fitzpatrick

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

This Note was written between September 2018 and March 2019 as part of St. John’s University School of Law’s two-semester Perspectives on Justice class. At the time that this Note was written, there was a growing urgency to address the Confederate monuments around the United States, but little had been done by states or the federal government. At the time, many states, including Virginia, had in place Heritage Protection Acts which made the removal or relocation of such monuments punishable under criminal law, thus tying the hands of the localities where the monuments were located. However, in just two …

The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House: Kavanaugh's Confirmation Hearing And The Perils Of Progressive Punitivism, Hadar Aviram

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

This essay proceeds in four parts. In Part I, I problematize the idea of the accused’s demeanor as evidence of guilt, remorse, or entitlement, arguing that we tend to overestimate our ability to deduce internal states of mind from people’s behavior and expressions. Part II assesses the potential (or lack thereof) of public performances of reckoning to produce a valuable expression of remorse, discussing the value of contingent apologies. Part III expands the framework to examine the way our politically fractured field responds to partisan efforts to excoriate culprits, arguing that “starting a national conversation” on the basis of …