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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Failure Of The Fourth Amendment & Equal Protection's Promise: How The Equal Protection Clause Can Change Discriminatory Stop And Frisk Policies, Brando Simeo Starkey
A Failure Of The Fourth Amendment & Equal Protection's Promise: How The Equal Protection Clause Can Change Discriminatory Stop And Frisk Policies, Brando Simeo Starkey
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Terry v. Ohio changed everything. Before Terry, Fourth Amendment law was settled. The Fourth Amendment had long required that police officers have probable cause in order to conduct Fourth Amendment invasions; to administer a "reasonable" search and seizure, the state needed probable cause. But in 1968, the Warren Court, despite its liberal reputation, lowered the standard police officers had to meet to conduct a certain type of search: the so-called "'stop' and 'frisk.'" A "stop and frisk" occurs when a police officer, believing a suspect is armed and crime is afoot, stops the suspect, conducts an interrogation, and pats him …
Separate And Unequal: Federal Tough-On-Guns Program Targets Minority Communities For Selective Enforcement, Bonita R. Gardner
Separate And Unequal: Federal Tough-On-Guns Program Targets Minority Communities For Selective Enforcement, Bonita R. Gardner
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article examines the Project Safe Neighborhoods program and considers whether its disproportionate application in urban, majority- African American cities (large and small) violates the guarantee of equal protection under the law. This Article will start with a description of the program and how it operates-the limited application to street-level criminal activity in predominately African American communities. Based on preliminary data showing that Project Safe Neighborhoods disproportionately impacts African Americans, the Article turns to an analysis of the applicable law. Most courts have analyzed Project Safe Neighborhoods' race-based challenges under selective prosecution case law, which requires a showing by the …
What The Mcri Can Teach White Litigants About White Dominance, Adam Gitlin
What The Mcri Can Teach White Litigants About White Dominance, Adam Gitlin
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The ballots have barely been counted, but litigation to enjoin implementation of the now-codified Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (“MCRI”) or at least limit its effect on admissions practices in Michigan’s universities is already underway. One of the primary arguments against the MCRI—and the basis upon which some plaintiff professors assert standing—is that students will suffer an impaired education if current admissions practices are discarded. Assuming that the MCRI survives these legal challenges, educators should be consoled somewhat to know the MCRI may still offer some pedagogy as compensation: litigation will likely be brought to enforce its provisions, and that litigation …
Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner
Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Part I of this Note outlines the limitations on congressional power under Section V and their implications for justifying the constitutionality of the disparate impact standard. Part II explores the prohibition of intentional discrimination as a justification for the disparate impact standard and argues that justifying the disparate impact standard through this theory, as some courts currently do, may eventually narrow disparate impact doctrine and thus constrain the possibilities for substantive equality in employment. This Part also analogizes the limits of using an intentional discrimination rationale to justify the disparate impact standard to the limits of using the diversity rationale …
First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji
First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji
Michigan Law Review
The tension between equality and discretion lies at the heart of some of the most vexing questions of constitutional law. The considerable discretion that many official decisionmakers wield raises the spectre that violations of equality norms will sometimes escape detection. This is true in a variety of settings, whether discretion lies over speakers' access to public fora, implementation of the death penalty, or the recounting of votes. Is the First Amendment violated, for example, when a city ordinance gives local officials broad discretion to determine the conditions under which political demonstrations may take place? Is equal protection denied where the …
Locked In Inequality: The Persistence Of Discrimination, Daria Roithmayr
Locked In Inequality: The Persistence Of Discrimination, Daria Roithmayr
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
In this Article, the author argues that the practice of charging school fees to attend public school is an example of locked-in discrimination that persists over time, even in the absence of intentional discrimination. Exploring the lock-in model of discrimination in the unique context of South Africa, Roithmayr makes two central points. First, discriminatory practices often become locked into institutional structures because high switching costs-the costs of moving from a discriminatory practice to an inclusive one—make it too difficult for an institution to discontinue discriminating. Even when institutional actors are fully committed to eradicating racial disparity, they may be constrained …
"The Implicit Association Test": A Measure Of Unconscious Racism In Legislative Decision-Making, Reshma M. Saujani
"The Implicit Association Test": A Measure Of Unconscious Racism In Legislative Decision-Making, Reshma M. Saujani
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article argues that the Court will not fulfill the promise of the Equal Protection Clause unless the Court adapts its vision of antidiscrimination to account for the complex nature of discrimination. Imagine that we could measure unconscious discrimination. If so, then we could broaden the concept of purposeful discrimination to include the measurement of a legislator's reliance on unconscious racial stereotypes. Such a measuring device may already exist: The Implicit Association Test (IAT), a computer-based test developed by Yale and University of Washington psychologists. Researchers do not yet know how well the IAT can uncover racial stereotypes; however, if …
Direct Measures: An Alternative Form Of Affirmative Action, Daria Roithmayr
Direct Measures: An Alternative Form Of Affirmative Action, Daria Roithmayr
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Part I of this essay sets out in detail the direct measures affirmative action program. This section also compares the program to other alternative affirmative action program experiments undertaken by various educational institutions. Parts II and III discuss the constitutionality of a direct measures program.
Race And The Right To Vote After Rice V. Cayetano, Ellen D. Katz
Race And The Right To Vote After Rice V. Cayetano, Ellen D. Katz
Articles
Last Term, the Supreme Court relied on Gomillion [v. Lightfoot] to hold that Hawaii, like Alabama before it, had segregated voters by race in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. The state law at issue in Rice v. Cayetano provided that only "Hawaiians" could vote for the trustees of the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs ("OHA"), a public agency that oversees programs designed to benefit the State's native people. Rice holds that restricting the OHA electorate to descendants of the 1778 inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands embodied a racial classification that effectively "fenc[ed] out whole classes of ...ci tizens from decisionmaking …
Racial Vote Dilution In Multimember Districts: The Constitutional Standard After Washington V. Davis, Michigan Law Review
Racial Vote Dilution In Multimember Districts: The Constitutional Standard After Washington V. Davis, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that the effect-oriented standard for multimember-district vote-dilution claims is unaffected by the Washington intent requirement. Part I outlines the manner in which multimember districts can dilute minority voting strength. After summarizing Washington's intent requirement, Part II surveys the post-Washington vote dilution cases and demonstrates that the applicability of the intent standard to vote dilution claims is uncertain. Part III first suggests two ways in which White and Washington may be reconciled. That section then argues that White is unaffected by the intent requirement because the standard for vote dilution fits within a fundamental interest analysis …