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Full-Text Articles in Law
Bruen's Enforcement Puzzle: Unearthing And Adjudicating The Historical Enforcement Record In Second Amendment Cases, Andrew Willinger
Bruen's Enforcement Puzzle: Unearthing And Adjudicating The Historical Enforcement Record In Second Amendment Cases, Andrew Willinger
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen brings historical complexity to the fore by instituting a history-focused test for the Second Amendment that demands analogues from the Founding or Reconstruction eras to support modern gun regulations. The majority opinion in Bruen considers, in multiple places, how certain historical gun regulations may have been enforced. In each instance, the Court suggests that evidence of racially disparate enforcement of a historical law is relevant to whether that law is part of the American historical tradition and an appropriate analogue. Historical enforcement data appear to …
Allen V. Milligan: Anticlassification And The Voting Rights Act, Graham Stinnett
Allen V. Milligan: Anticlassification And The Voting Rights Act, Graham Stinnett
Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar
The "crown jewel" of the Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been called "one of the most effective statutes ever enacted." However, in 2013 the Supreme Court famously gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. Nearly a decade later, in Allen v. Milligan, the Court is now signaling that Section 2, the last remaining core provision of the Voting Rights Act, could be on the chopping block. With Milligan, the Court may be preparing to inject race-neutrality into Section 2, which could destroy the vestiges of the onetime "super-statute."
This …
Contracting Free From Racial Animus: Comcast Corporation V. National Association Of African American-Owned Media And Entertainment Studios, Catherine Tarantino
Contracting Free From Racial Animus: Comcast Corporation V. National Association Of African American-Owned Media And Entertainment Studios, Catherine Tarantino
Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar
The United States has come a long way in promoting racial equality since the 1866 and 1964 Civil Rights Acts, but racial animus still plays an impermissible role in many contracting and employment decisions. Comcast Corporation v. National Association of African American-Owned Media and Entertainment Studios offers the Supreme Court the opportunity to decide which causal standard applies to claims alleging racial bias in contracting under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Specifically, the Court will decide whether § 1981 requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that racial animus was the but-for cause or simply a motivating-factor in the defendant’s refusal to contract. …
Questioning The Definition Of "Sex" In Title Vii: Bostock V. Clayton County, Ga., Katherine Carter
Questioning The Definition Of "Sex" In Title Vii: Bostock V. Clayton County, Ga., Katherine Carter
Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar
In October of 2019, the Supreme Court heard the arguments of two cases presenting the same inquiry: whether Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination encompasses discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Currently, twenty-one states as well as the District of Columbia expressly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation by statute or regulation. Other states offer protection in the form of agency interpretation or court ruling. However, for the remaining states with no established protections, Title VII stands as the only potential safeguard against sexual orientation discrimination.
The following Commentary considers the case of Gerald Bostock, a gay man from …
The New Textualism, Progressive Constitutionalism, And Abortion Rights: A Reply To Jeffrey Rosen, Neil S. Siegel
The New Textualism, Progressive Constitutionalism, And Abortion Rights: A Reply To Jeffrey Rosen, Neil S. Siegel
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Mapping A Post-Shelby County Contingency Strategy, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
Mapping A Post-Shelby County Contingency Strategy, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay was written for the Yale Law Journal Online Symposium on the future of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act after Shelby County v. Holder. Professors Guy-Uriel E. Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer argue that voting rights activists ought to be prepared for a future in which section 5 is not part of the landscape. If the Court strikes down section 5, an emerging ecosystem of private entities and organized interest groups of various stripes—what they call institutional intermediaries—may be willing and able to mimic the elements that made section 5 an effective regulatory device. As voting rights …
Racial Cartels And The Thirteenth Amendment Enforcement Power, Darrell A. H. Miller
Racial Cartels And The Thirteenth Amendment Enforcement Power, Darrell A. H. Miller
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Unsettling ‘Well-Settled’ Law Of Freedom Of Association, John D. Inazu
The Unsettling ‘Well-Settled’ Law Of Freedom Of Association, John D. Inazu
Faculty Scholarship
This article brings historical, theoretical, and doctrinal critiques to bear upon the current framework for the constitutional right of association. It argues that the Supreme Court’s categories of expressive and intimate association first announced in the 1984 decision, Roberts v. United States Jaycees, are neither well-settled nor defensible. Intimate association and expressive association are indefensible categories, but they matter deeply. They matter to the Jaycees. They matter to the Chi Iota Colony of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, a now defunct Jewish social group at the College of Staten Island that had sought to limit its membership to men. They …
State Domas, Neutral Principles, And The Möbius Of State Action, Darrell A. H. Miller
State Domas, Neutral Principles, And The Möbius Of State Action, Darrell A. H. Miller
Faculty Scholarship
This essay uses the Mobius strip as a mathematical metaphor for how state "defense of marriage amendments" (DOMAs) can twist the Shelley v. Kraemer contribution to state action doctrine. It argues that Shelley's core insight -- that judicial enforcement of private agreements can constitute state action and must meet federal Fourteenth Amendment commands -- can be used by state judiciaries to hold that state judicial enforcement of private agreements between same sex-couples is a species of state action forbidden by state DOMA. As explored in this essay, the potential doctrinal contortion of Shelley by state DOMAs is at once a …
In Defense Of Deference, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
In Defense Of Deference, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
A Constitution For Every Man, William W. Van Alstyne
A Constitution For Every Man, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The O’Meara Case And Constitutional Requirements Of State Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws, William W. Van Alstyne
The O’Meara Case And Constitutional Requirements Of State Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
Against the backdrop of the highly criticized O’Meara case, this comment explores the possible rational bases a state could use to support a differentiation between publicly-assisted and unassisted home owners. This comment also addresses the question of how substantial that rational bases must be in order to survive the requirements of equal protection.
Comment: Sit-Ins And State Action- Mr. Justice Douglas, Concurring, Kenneth L. Karst, William W. Van Alstyne
Comment: Sit-Ins And State Action- Mr. Justice Douglas, Concurring, Kenneth L. Karst, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.