Law Commons^™

Academic Freedom And The University Title Vii Suit After University Of Pennsylvania V. Eeoc And Brown V. Trustees Of Boston University, Clisby L.H. Barrow

Vanderbilt Law Review

Tenure' is the crowning laurel of academia. The process of reviewing a candidate for tenure at the university level generally begins with an evaluation and recommendation by a group of the candidate's peers. Candidates who are denied tenure may seek judicial review of the decision and discovery of peer review materials. Not surprisingly, universities encourage courts to defer to tenure decisions and to deny plaintiffs access to confidential peer review documents.Traditionally, in fact, courts have given great deference to university tenure decisions. Judicial deference has pervaded every phase of review from discovery to trial and remedy. As deference to university …

Rico Threatens Civil Liberties, Antonio J. Califa

Vanderbilt Law Review

The history of conspiracy, according to Justice Robert Jackson, exemplifies the "'tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.' "" This same phenomenon is present today in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO). RICO has moved beyond logic and intent into areas far removed from racketeering. Originally intended to combat organized crime, RICO is used increasingly in ideological disputes. For example, it has been used against abortion clinic protesters and anti-pornography groups.

This Article argues that using RICO in ideological disputes is inappropriate and harmful because it results in the chilling …

The Ripple Effects Of Slaughter-House: A Critique Of A Negative Rights View Of The Constitution, Michael J. Gerhardt

Vanderbilt Law Review

Upon seeing Niagara Falls for the first time, Oscar Wilde reportedly remarked that it "would be more impressive if it flowed the other way." I have a similar reaction to a series of narrow Supreme Court interpretations of the fourteenth amendment, beginning with the Slaughter-House Cases, decided in 1872, and extending to the 1989 decisions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services. In Slaughter-House the Court interpreted the privileges or immunities clause of the fourteenth amendment as merely protecting interests other federal laws already protected, while recently the Court interpreted the due …

Innocence And Affirmative Action, Thomas Ross

Vanderbilt Law Review

When we create arguments, when we act as rhetoricians, we reveal ourselves by the words and ideas we choose to employ. Verbal structures that are used widely and persistently are especially worth examination. Arguments made with repeated, almost formulaic, sets of words suggest a second argument flowing beneath the apparent argument. Beneath the apparently abstract language and the syllogistic form of these arguments, we may discover the deeper currents that explain, at least in part, why we seem so attached to these verbal structures.

Argument about affirmative action in the context of racial discrimination is particularly wrenching and divisive, especially …