Law Commons^™

Cognitive Dissonance In A Recession: Minnesota Gop Attacks Marriage Equality In Land Of "Gayest City In America", Aaron J. Shuler

Aaron J Shuler

Despite a tradition of progressive thinking on civil rights and recent specific gains for gays in Minnesota, the State's Republican party is trying to place an anti-marriage equality amendment on the 2012 ballot.

Less Than Meets The Eye: Anti-Discrimination And The Development Of Section 5 Enforcement And Eleventh Amendment Abrogation Law Since City Of Boerne V. Flores, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment since City of Boerne has raised the bar for Congress to pass anti discrimination legislation and made it far more difficult for plaintiffs to sue the states and state agencies. I show, by close analysis of the Court's case law on state sovereign immunity and Congress' Section 5 power to abrogate that immunity, that this is a misreading.

As the jurisprudence developed from Boerne, Kimel (age discrimination) and Garrett (disability discrimination in employment) to Hibbs (sex discrimination) and Lane (disability discrimination in public accommodations), the Court has …

Children's Oppression, Rights And Liberation, Samantha Godwin

Samantha Godwin

This paper advances a radical and controversial analysis of the legal status of children. I argue that the denial of equal rights and equal protection to children under the law is inconsistent with liberal and progressive beliefs about social justice and fairness. In order to do this I first situate children’s legal and social status in its historical context, examining popular assumptions about children and their rights, and expose the false necessity of children’s current legal status. I then offer a philosophical analysis for why children’s present subordination is unjust, and an explanation of how society could be sensibly and …