Law Commons^™

Reconsidering Reparations, Alfred L. Brophy

Indiana Law Journal

Eric Posner's and Adrian Vermeule's essay, Reparations for Slavery and Other Historic Injustices, seeks a framework for defining reparations and evaluating reparations claims. It explores a limited set of past reparations, as well as the connections between those asked to pay reparations and past wrongdoers, and the connections between those receiving reparations and those injured in the past. Posner and Vermeule use that framework to evaluate the morality of reparations and the legal problems that arise in implementing reparations proposals.

This Essay takes up the Posner-Vermeule analysis at several points. It challenges their limited definition of reparations and their limited …

Reading, Writing, And Reparations: Systematic Reform Of Public Schools As A Matter Of Justice, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article examines reparations as a means of supporting systemic reform of public education, focusing on a recent enactment of the Virginia General Assembly, the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Program and Fund (Brown Fund Act). This provision seeks to remedy the state's refusal to integrate schools after the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education by providing scholarships to persons denied an education between 1954 and 1964, a period known as massive resistance. Under this regime, the state's executive and legislative branches colluded to develop laws that defied Brown's mandate, including authorizing the governor to close …

Reading, Writing, And Reparations: Systemic Reform Of Public Schools As A Matter Of Justice, Verna L. Williams

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article analyzes Virginia's effort to remedy massive resistance and posits that, under reparations theory, a broader remedy is necessary to redress the scope of the state's wrongdoing. To do this, Part I briefly examines reparations theory, which provides the tools to identify the proper scope of the injury to be addressed, and, in turn, informs the proper choice of remedy. With this background, Part II discusses the Brown Fund Act and the massive resistance it seeks to remedy. In this connection, the Article demonstrates that the school shutdowns were part of a statewide decision to defy Brown and maintain …