Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Civil Rights and Discrimination

University of the District of Columbia School of Law

Discrimination

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Law

Veiling And Inverted Masking, Saleema Saleema Snow Jan 2021

Veiling And Inverted Masking, Saleema Saleema Snow

Journal Articles

“Good morning, Your Honor, AA, here on behalf of the United States government.”1 AA recounted her proudest moment: appearing in federal district court as an attorney for the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a religious accommodation case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.2 There she stood, an Ivy League graduate and the granddaughter of sharecroppers. She appeared before the court as an African-American Muslim woman in hijab representing the government to uphold the constitutional rights of another Muslim woman.3 The complainant, Safoorah Khan, was employed as a teacher in a small Illinois school district and had …


Disability Rights Past, Present And Future: A Roadmap For Disability Rights, Marcy Karin, Lara Bollinger Mar 2020

Disability Rights Past, Present And Future: A Roadmap For Disability Rights, Marcy Karin, Lara Bollinger

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”)2 “was and is all about civil rights.”3 Enacted in 1990, its goal was to prohibit discrimination based on disability across society, from employment to places of public accommodation and government services. As the byproduct of bipartisan support and significant advocacy and leadership by members and allies of the disability community, there were high hopes that the ADA would live up to its goal. Unfortunately, that reality never came to pass for many individuals with disabilities. Instead, a line of Supreme Court decisions in 1999 and 2002 imposed increasingly narrow interpretations of the law’s core …


Restoring The Ada And Beyond: Disability In The 21st Century, Robert L. Burgdorf Jan 2008

Restoring The Ada And Beyond: Disability In The 21st Century, Robert L. Burgdorf

Journal Articles

Perhaps it was imprudent for me to agree, in response to the request of the symposium organizers, to address the future of disability law. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Neils Bohr supposedly once said that "[p]rediction is very difficult, especially about the future."' Columnist and author Jim Bishop wrote, "The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face." 2 Prognosticating is a very tricky and uncertain undertaking. I cannot pretend to have any particular gift for crystal ball gazing in disability matters. When I joined the …


The Role Of Discrimination And Drug Policy In Excessive Incarceration In The United States, Steven J. Boretos Sep 2001

The Role Of Discrimination And Drug Policy In Excessive Incarceration In The United States, Steven J. Boretos

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Newly Disenfranchised: A Constitutional Right Withheld, Herman R. Brown Jr. Mar 1992

The Newly Disenfranchised: A Constitutional Right Withheld, Herman R. Brown Jr.

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Traditionally, Blacks and women have been denied their constitutional rights based strictly on race and sex. This brand of disenfranchisement has in many instances made these groups feel like "second class" citizens. Although recently, these groups have been able to share in some rights previously withheld, the "playing field of equality of rights" is still not level. For example, women still earn less pay for comparable work performed by their male counterparts. Blacks continue to be shut out of the system based strictly on race. Just as women and Blacks have been denied their rights, other groups have suffered similar …


Beyond The New Property: The Right To Become And Remain Productive, Edgar S. Cahn Mar 1992

Beyond The New Property: The Right To Become And Remain Productive, Edgar S. Cahn

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

The sixties and seventies saw the creation of new rights and the expansion of old ones in response to discrimination, disenfranchisement, and poverty. The new rights were both participatory rights' and substantive rights.2 They effected a redistribution of wealth and power. Essentially, they were rights to consume and rights to share. We called these rights "The New Property."3 As we moved from an era of sustained growth and surplus to budget deficits and trade deficits, we have been less willing to address social problems by expansion of those rights. Political and judicial receptivity to further redistribution diminished sharply.' Litigation seeking …


The Americans With Disabilities Act: Analysis And Implications Of A Second-Generation Civil Rights Statute, Robert L. Burgdorf Jr. Jan 1991

The Americans With Disabilities Act: Analysis And Implications Of A Second-Generation Civil Rights Statute, Robert L. Burgdorf Jr.

Journal Articles

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that our nation's civil rights laws were a "sparse and insufficient collection of statutes ... barely a naked framework."' On their faces, many federal civil rights statutes constitute little more than broad directives that "Thou shalt not discriminate." Broadly worded statements outlawing discrimination were the optimal approach to statutory draftsmanship in light of the controversial nature of the civil rights laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s. The drafters of these statutes needed to craft language that would be palatable to a majority of the members of Congress while still having a meaningful impact …