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Full-Text Articles in Law
Applying Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act To Single-Member Offices, Edward J. Sebold
Applying Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act To Single-Member Offices, Edward J. Sebold
Michigan Law Review
This Note questions whether an exemption for single-member offices is justified. Part I provides a brief overview of the Voting Rights Act and the types of discrimination in the political process to which it applies., Part I then reviews the decisions on single-member offices, including the courts' attempts to define single-member offices. This Part concludes neither Congress nor the Supreme Court dictates an exemption for single-member offices. Instead, single-member offices should be open to challenge if they hamper the achievement of section 2's goals. Part II identifies the goals of section 2 by developing a number of theories to give …
Decoding Richmond: Affirmative Action And The Elusive Meaning Of Constitutional Equality, Michel Rosenfeld
Decoding Richmond: Affirmative Action And The Elusive Meaning Of Constitutional Equality, Michel Rosenfeld
Michigan Law Review
This Article first briefly considers the conceptual and constitutional framework out of which the controversy in Croson emerges. Next, the Article turns to Croson itself, and focuses on the Court's adoption of the strict scrutiny test, on the disagreement among the Justices concerning the test's meaning and implications, and on the Court's use of decontextualization to manipulate the key conceptual and factual issues at stake. Finally, drawing upon the principle of equality of opportunity, the Article endeavors to demonstrate how the adoption of particular principles of substantive equality can lead to a comprehensive and coherent constitutional resolution of the affirmative …
Finding A "Manifest Imbalance": The Case For A Unified Statistical Test For Voluntary Affirmative Action Under Title Vii, David D. Meyer
Finding A "Manifest Imbalance": The Case For A Unified Statistical Test For Voluntary Affirmative Action Under Title Vii, David D. Meyer
Michigan Law Review
This Note analyzes the "manifest imbalance" standard developed in Weber and Johnson and the various approaches the lower courts have taken in trying to apply the test. Part I examines the Weber and Johnson opinions in some detail, and argues that the Court intended to permit affirmative action aimed at remedying the evident effects of past discrimination, regardless of whether the employer or society at large is to blame. Section I.A describes the diverging constitutional and statutory standards for evaluating voluntary affirmative action programs, and the policies behind the divergence. Sections I.B and I.C take a closer look at the …
The Politics Of Victimization Makes Strange Bedfellows, Jennifer L. Hochschild
The Politics Of Victimization Makes Strange Bedfellows, Jennifer L. Hochschild
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Civil Rights Society: The Social Construction of Victims by Kristin Bumiller, and Plural But Equal: Blacks and Minorities in America's Plural Society by Harold Cruse
Legislative Inaction And The Patterson Case, Earl M. Maltz
Legislative Inaction And The Patterson Case, Earl M. Maltz
Michigan Law Review
In its October 1988 issue,1 the Michigan Law Review published a symposium on Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, a case in which the Supreme Court has requested reargument on the question of whether Runyon v. McCrary should be overruled or modified. Each of the three distinguished contributors to the symposium concludes that the Court should not overrule Runyon. In reaching this conclusion, Professor William N. Eskridge and Professor Daniel A. Farber rely heavily on the view that because Congress has recognized the existence of the Runyon doctrine and has refused to overrule the decision, the doctrine of stare decisis …
Statutory Interpretation, Legislative Inaction, And Civil Rights, Daniel A. Farber
Statutory Interpretation, Legislative Inaction, And Civil Rights, Daniel A. Farber
Michigan Law Review
This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. Professor Farber identifies three issues which lie at the heart of Patterson: Must statutes be construed to conform to the intent of the drafters? Does legislative inaction provide reliable guidance to interpreters of statutes? And should the nature of the claim at issue - here a claim of civil rights - influence the interpreters? On this last point, Professor Farber argues that public values must be relevant to statutory interpretation and that judges …
Updating Statutory Interpretation, T. Alexander Aleinikoff
Updating Statutory Interpretation, T. Alexander Aleinikoff
Michigan Law Review
This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. Professor Aleinikoff examines in depth the first issue raised by Professor Farber. Using metaphors of the archeological and the nautical Professor Aleinikoff describes theories of originalism and their application to statutory interpretation. Concluding that there are nonoriginalist (or nonarcheological) elements implicit in these theories, he proceeds to consider how an explicitly nonoriginalist (or nautical) theory of interpretation might work He concludes by commenting on the application of such a theory to Patterson.
Interpreting Legislative Inaction, William N. Eskridge Jr.
Interpreting Legislative Inaction, William N. Eskridge Jr.
Michigan Law Review
This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. In this article, Professor Eskridge addresses the issue of how legislative inaction should affect statutory interpretation. He begins by constructing a detailed analysis of the Court's legislative inaction cases, arguing that the case law is much more coherent than previous analysts have suggested. Professor Eskridge then considers Justice Scalia's critique of that case law and provides support for Justice Scalia's views by distinguishing actual and presumed legislative intent, arguing that, based on a conception …
Discrimination, Jobs, And Politics: The Struggle For Equal Employment Opportunity In The United States Since The New Deal, James L. Thompson
Discrimination, Jobs, And Politics: The Struggle For Equal Employment Opportunity In The United States Since The New Deal, James L. Thompson
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Discrimination, Jobs, and Politics: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity in the United States since the New Deal by Paul Burstein
Attacking The Judicial Protection Of Minority Rights: The History Ploy, John E. Nowak
Attacking The Judicial Protection Of Minority Rights: The History Ploy, John E. Nowak
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Disabling America: The "Rights Industry" in Our Time by Richard E. Morgan
Of Cultural Determinism And The Limits Of Law, Paul R. Dimond, Gene Sperling
Of Cultural Determinism And The Limits Of Law, Paul R. Dimond, Gene Sperling
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? by Thomas Sowell
Britain, Blacks, And Busing, Derrick Bell
Britain, Blacks, And Busing, Derrick Bell
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Doing Good By Doing Little: Race and Schooling in Britain by David L. Kirp
Racial Vote Dilution In Multimember Districts: The Constitutional Standard After Washington V. Davis, Michigan Law Review
Racial Vote Dilution In Multimember Districts: The Constitutional Standard After Washington V. Davis, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that the effect-oriented standard for multimember-district vote-dilution claims is unaffected by the Washington intent requirement. Part I outlines the manner in which multimember districts can dilute minority voting strength. After summarizing Washington's intent requirement, Part II surveys the post-Washington vote dilution cases and demonstrates that the applicability of the intent standard to vote dilution claims is uncertain. Part III first suggests two ways in which White and Washington may be reconciled. That section then argues that White is unaffected by the intent requirement because the standard for vote dilution fits within a fundamental interest analysis …
Proportional Representation By Race: The Constitutionality Of Benign Racial Redistricting, Michigan Law Review
Proportional Representation By Race: The Constitutionality Of Benign Racial Redistricting, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Wilson raises two questions that are basic to the use of "benign" racial classifications in drawing legislative districts. First, is there a constitutional right to proportional representation and, second, if there is no such right, are there circumstances under which a scheme devised to provide proportional representation is constitutionally permissible. This Note will demonstrate that, while the Supreme Court recognizes the constitutional right of each individual to participate on an equal basis in the community's political process and to enjoy an undiluted vote, it denies any constitutional right of groups to proportional political representation. It will then show that the …
Effective Representation And Multimember Districts, Michigan Law Review
Effective Representation And Multimember Districts, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
The Supreme Court has not decided a case involving an assertion of the claim that a multimember district denies the right of effective representation since Fortson and Burns. However, there have been several subsequent challenges in lower courts to the validity of such districts, and these challenges have generally failed because the factual evidence did not demonstrate conclusively that the voting strength of a legally cognizable racial or political element had been minimized or cancelled. In Chavis v. Whitcomb, however, a three-judge federal district court in Indiana found that the plaintiff had presented sufficient factual evidence to sustain …
Does The Constitution Protect Free Speech, Herbert F. Goodrich
Does The Constitution Protect Free Speech, Herbert F. Goodrich
Michigan Law Review
Many thoughtful men and women, witnessing the suppression of speech, by means both judicial and extra-judicial, in the period through which we have just passed, have reluctantly concluded that our hard won ight of freedom of speech has been lost, swept away in the flood tide of war enthusiasm. They point to the example of the recent candidate for the presidency, Eugene Debs, who is still confined in a federal prison for words he uttered during the war. They call attention to the fact that the fate of Mr. Debs is no worse than that of scores of other persons, …