Law Commons^™

The Kerr Principle, State Action, And Legal Rights, Donald J. Herzog

Articles

A Baltimore library refused to admit Louise Kerr to a training program because she was black. Not that it had anything against blacks, but its patrons did. When Kerr launched a civil suit against the library alleging a violation of equal protection of the laws, the courts credited the library's claim that it had no racist purpose, but Kerr still prevailed-even though the case occurred before Title VII and Brown v. Board of Education. Here a neutral and generally applicable rule ("serve the patrons"), when coupled with particular facts about private parties (the white patrons dislike blacks), yielded an …

The Court's Purpose: Secular Or Anti-Strife?, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Equal Protection Of Free Exercise: Two Approaches And Their History, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Contrary to critics of the Supreme Court's current equal protection approach to religious liberty, this Article contends that, from the very first federal free exercise cases, the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses have been mutually intertwined. The seeds of an equal protection analysis of free exercise were, indeed, planted even before the Fourteenth Amendment within the constitutional jurisprudence of the several states. Furthermore, this Article argues, equal protection approaches should not be uniformly disparaged. Rather, the drawbacks that commentators have observed result largely from the Supreme Court's application of an inadequate version of equal protection. By ignoring the lessons …

The Cabining Of Rosenberger: Locke V. Davey And The Broad Nondiscrimination Principle That Never Was, Alan M. Trammell

Scholarly Articles

In Rosenberger (1995), the Supreme Court decided that the University of Virginia could not exclude religious organizations from an activities fund that subsidized student organizations. Nine years later, the Court in Locke v. Davey held that Washington could exclude students of devotional theology from a generally available scholarship program; there was, in the Court’s words, “play in the joints” between what the Establishment Clause forbids and what the Free Exercise Clause requires. The cases seemed to contradict one another.

This Note explores whether Rosenberger announced a broad principle of nondiscrimination with respect to religion and whether Davey reneged on that …

Splitting Hairs: Why Courts Uphold Prison Grooming Policies And Why They Should Not, Mara R. Schneider

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Note describes the substance of prison grooming policies and provides a sampling of cases that have challenged these policies under the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses. Part II explores three theories of discrimination that describe certain types of discriminatory conduct that could be prohibited by the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses. These theories inform the definition of "equal protection of the laws" and impact the analysis of equal protection challenges to prison grooming policies. Part III explores the "religious exemptions" doctrine and explains how courts have interpreted the protections offered to religious groups by …

Two Wrongs Make A Right: Hybrid Claims Of Discrimination, Ming Hsu Chen

Publications

This Note reinterprets and recontextualizes the pronouncement in Employment Division v. Smith (Smith II) that exemptions from generally applicable laws will not be granted unless claims of free exercise are accompanied by the assertion of another constitutional right. It argues that when Arab American Muslims, and others who are of minority race and religion, bring claims for exemption from generally applicable laws on the basis of free exercise and equal protection principles, they ought to be able to invoke Smith II's hybridity exception, thus meriting heightened judicial scrutiny and increased solicitude from courts.

Revisiting Gay Rights Coalition Of Georgetown Law Center V. Georgetown University A Decade Later: Free Exercise Challenges And The Nondiscrimination Laws Protecting Homosexuals, Matthew J. Parlow

Matthew Parlow

Que, Ya No Hablan Ingles En Este Pais?: A Look At The Constitutionality Of English Only Provisions Under The Free Speech Clause Of The First Amendment, John J. Louizos

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Religion-Based Peremptory Challenges After Batson V. Kentucky And J.E.B. V. Alabama: An Equal Protection And First Amendment Analysis, Benjamin Hoorn Barton

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that under Batson, J.E.B., the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause, religion-based peremptory challenges are unconstitutional. This Note asserts that the analysis of governmental religious discrimination, such as a peremptory challenge, is the same under either the First Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause because both apply strict scrutiny to purposeful government discrimination.

Part I examines Batson and J.E.B. in greater detail and states a model for analyzing discriminatory peremptory challenges in which such challenges are treated as intentional governmental discrimination subject to heightened scrutiny. Part II argues that under the First Amendment, intentional governmental …

Double Jeopardy

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federalism, The Commerce Clause, And Equal Protection, Leon Friedman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Affirmative Action In The Marketplace Of Ideas, Rodney A. Smolla

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Forgetting The Constitution, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment And Distributional Voting Rights Controversies, Emily M. Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.

Tension Between The First And Twenty-First Amendments In State Regulation Of Alcohol Advertising, Brian S. Steffey

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development examines the tension between the first and twenty-first amendments when a state uses its twenty-first amendment power to regulate advertisements of alcoholic beverages that qualify for first amendment protection. Part II of this Recent Development explores the Court's standard of review in cases in which the twenty-first amendment impinges upon a fourteenth amendment right. Part II also reviews the scope of constitutional protection that the first amendment accords commercial speech. Part III examines three recent cases in which states have regulated alcohol advertising. Part IV criticizes these decisions for misapplying the appropriate standard and for relying extensively …

The Supreme Court And The Constitutional Rights Of Prisoners: A Reappraisal, Emily Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Problems Of Population Control, Bettye S. Elkins

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

An analysis of the urgency and magnitude of the population problem would show that both national and human survival depend on limiting man's incredible ability to procreate. The world's resources are finite; man's consumption of them must be made so, too, or Malthus' four horsemen will balance the supply and demand for us. If we are not to starve our grandchildren, to leave them with no immunity to the pestilence of overcrowding and hopelessness, to kill them with pollution, or to force war upon them as the only way to secure enough territory to feed a voracious population, we must …

Constitutional Law -- 1961 Tennessee Survey (Ii), James C. Kirby, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Only three cases are assigned to this field for the abbreviated survey period and in one of these, the court avoided the constitutional question. In the other two cases the constitutional issues were not difficult and the results reached should cause neither surprise nor controversy among survey readers.

Equal Protection -- Racial Discrimination Home Rule--Self Executing Constitutional Provisions Miscellanous