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Articles 1 - 25 of 25
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Wolf We Feed: Democracy, Caste, And Legitimacy, Benjamin Justice, Tracey L. Meares
The Wolf We Feed: Democracy, Caste, And Legitimacy, Benjamin Justice, Tracey L. Meares
Michigan Law Review Online
Procedure is central to American public legal discourse. From the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the American legal tradition rests on the principle that law must be both derived and applied according to fair process. Consider that in the 2020 election the Trump Administration resorted to fervent and false allegations of widespread voter fraud—that the election process was fundamentally unfair—in order to weaponize Republican voters’ ostensible commitments to fairness against what was, objectively, one of the least procedurally unfair elections in history. Yet the four-year period of the Trump …
Lawyers Democratic Dysfunction, Leah Litman
Lawyers Democratic Dysfunction, Leah Litman
Articles
As part of the symposium on Jack Balkin and Sandy Levinson’s Democracy and Dysfunction, this Article documents another source of the dysfunction that the authors observe—elite lawyers’ unwillingness to break ranks with other elite lawyers who participate in the destruction of various norms that are integral to a well-functioning democracy. These network effects eliminate the possibility of “soft” sanctions on norm violators such as withholding future professional advancement. Thus, rather than enforcing norms and deterring norm violations, the networks serve to insulate norm violators from any meaningful accountability.
Making And Unmaking Citizens: Law And The Shaping Of Civic Capacity, Tabatha Abu El-Haj
Making And Unmaking Citizens: Law And The Shaping Of Civic Capacity, Tabatha Abu El-Haj
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
American democracy is more fragile today than in recent memory. As evidence of stubborn imbalances in political influence grow, so too does public skepticism concerning the relative benefits of our democratic institutions. Scholars have taken note, and two dominant camps have emerged to offer proposals for restoring democratic accountability and responsiveness. The first, like the public, identifies the flood of money into electoral politics as the primary source of our troubles, whereas the second points to political parties as the root of the crisis. More recently, however, a nascent third approach has emerged. Looking beyond the usual suspects—money in politics …
Why Markets? Welfare, Autonomy, And The Just Society, Hanoch Dagan
Why Markets? Welfare, Autonomy, And The Just Society, Hanoch Dagan
Michigan Law Review
Review of Eric A. Posner's Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society.
Batson For Judges, Police Officers & Teachers: Lessons In Democracy From The Jury Box, Stacy L. Hawkins
Batson For Judges, Police Officers & Teachers: Lessons In Democracy From The Jury Box, Stacy L. Hawkins
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
In our representative democracy we guarantee equal participation for all, but we fall short of this promise in so many domains of our civic life. From the schoolhouse, to the jailhouse, to the courthouse, racial minorities are underrepresented among key public decision-makers, such as judges, police officers, and teachers. This gap between our aspirations for representative democracy and the reality that our judges, police officers, and teachers are often woefully under-representative of the racially diverse communities they serve leaves many citizens of color wanting for the democratic guarantee of equal participation. This critical failure of our democracy threatens to undermine …
Facts, Values, Justification, Democracy, Don Herzog
Facts, Values, Justification, Democracy, Don Herzog
Reviews
Equality, you might think, is the more or less universally shared value of the modern world, or the West, or anyway these United States. “We strive to ensure that the values upon which our country was built, including our belief that all people are created equal, are reflected in everything our nation does.” That’s from the 2016 Democratic Party platform. And look! “We continue to encourage equality for all citizens and access to the American Dream.” That’s from the 2016 GOP Platform. Of course, the parties disagree deeply on the demands of equality. If they share an abstract concept, as …
Civil Marriage: Threat To Democracy, Jessica Knouse
Civil Marriage: Threat To Democracy, Jessica Knouse
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article argues that civil marriage and democracy are inherently incompatible, whether assessed from a transcultural perspective that reduces them to their most universal aspects or a culturally situated perspective that accounts for their uniquely American elaborations. Across virtually all cultures, civil marriage privileges sexual partners by offering them exclusive access to highly desirable government benefits, while democracy presupposes liberty and equality. When governments privilege sexual partners, they effectively deprive their citizens of liberty by encouraging them to enter sexual partnerships rather than selfdetermining based on their own preferences; they effectively deprive their citizens of equality by establishing insidious status …
Profiting From Not For Profit: Toward Adequate Humanities Instruction In American K-12 Schools, Eli Savit
Profiting From Not For Profit: Toward Adequate Humanities Instruction In American K-12 Schools, Eli Savit
Michigan Law Review
Martha Nussbaum' describes Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities-her paean to a humanities-rich education-as a "manifesto, not an empirical study" (p. 121). Drawing on contemporary psychological research and classic pedagogical theories, Nussbaum convincingly argues that scholastic instruction in the humanities is a critical tool in shaping democratic citizens. Nussbaum shows how the study of subjects like literature, history, philosophy, and art helps students build essential democratic capacities like empathy and critical thought. Through myriad examples and anecdotes, Not For Profit sketches an appealing vision of what an ideal education should be in a democracy.
Police And Democracy, David Alan Sklansky
Police And Democracy, David Alan Sklansky
Michigan Law Review
Part I of the Article describes the emergence in postwar America of a particular understanding of a democracy, an understanding generally referred to as "democratic pluralism," "analytic pluralism," "pluralist theory," or simply "pluralism." We will spend a fair bit of time unpacking pluralism, because its fine points will prove important when we turn to the task of tracing its reflections in criminal procedure. That task is taken up in Part II, which examines the ways in which the central tenets of democratic pluralism found echoes in criminal procedure - construed broadly to include not only jurisprudence and legal scholarship but …
"Dragonslaying." Review Of Democracy Defended, By G. Mackie, Donald J. Herzog
"Dragonslaying." Review Of Democracy Defended, By G. Mackie, Donald J. Herzog
Reviews
Early in the Iliad, the Achaians convene an assembly. There are a lot of them and they're unruly, too. "[Tihe place of their assembly was shaken, and the earth groaned / as the people took their positions and there was tumult. Nine heralds / shouting set about putting them in order, to make them cease their / clamour and listen to the kings beloved of Zeus."' Clutching the scepter that has come to him ultimately from Zeus, the very symbol of his right to speak and be heard, Agamemnon bitterly proposes that the Achaians give up. Nine years of struggle …
Does A Diverse Judiciary Attain A Rule Of Law That Is Inclusive?: What Grutter V. Bollinger Has To Say About Diversity On The Bench, Sylvia R. Lazos Vargas
Does A Diverse Judiciary Attain A Rule Of Law That Is Inclusive?: What Grutter V. Bollinger Has To Say About Diversity On The Bench, Sylvia R. Lazos Vargas
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article concludes that political dialogue engendered by controversial minority judicial nominations, like those of Miguel Estrada and Janice Rogers Brown, could be an avenue to educating the polity as to why it is important to achieve greater minority representation on the bench. The pluralistic process-based model of judging advocates that a critical mass of diverse judges be achieved, not that the minority judges be liberal rather than conservative, communitarian rather than individualist, or Democrat rather than Republican. The goal is that there be a critical mass of minority judges on benches that make decisions as a group, like circuit …
Disease And Cure?, L. A. Powe Jr.
Disease And Cure?, L. A. Powe Jr.
Michigan Law Review
Sunstein uses Franklin's remark to make two related points. First, citizens bear the burden of maintaining the American republic as a healthy, vibrant place; being a citizen is decidedly different from being a consumer. The former has duties, the latter wants (pp. 113-23). Second, and this is the gist of the slender book, the republic is jeopardized by the possibilities of the Internet. Sunstein assumes the correctness of MIT technology specialist Nicholas Negroponte's conclusion that in the not-too-distant future we will be able to create a "Daily Me" on the Internet that will provide the personalized information (including news) that …
Up From Individualism (The Brennan Center Symposium On Constitutional Law)." , Donald J. Herzog
Up From Individualism (The Brennan Center Symposium On Constitutional Law)." , Donald J. Herzog
Articles
I was sitting, ruefully contemplating the dilemmas of being a commentator, wondering whether I had the effrontery to rise and offer a dreadful confession: the first time I encountered the countermajoritarian difficulty, I didn't bite. I didn't say, "Wow, that's a giant problem." I didn't immediately start casting about for ingenious ways to solve or dissolve it. I just shrugged. Now I don't think that's because my commitments to either democracy or constitutionalism are somehow faulty or suspect. Nor do I think it's that they obviously cohere. It's rather that the framing, "look, these nine unelected characters can strike down …
The Bar In America: The Role Of Elitism In A Liberal Democracy, Philip S. Stamatakos
The Bar In America: The Role Of Elitism In A Liberal Democracy, Philip S. Stamatakos
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Part I of this Note argues that liberal democracy, the free market, and science have contributed to the increasing atomization of American society. When each person and her views are glorified, universal standards of good become undermined, values become relative, and a sense of community becomes evanescent. Part II argues that individualism is incapable of accounting for the commonweal and therefore is inherently amoral because morality is concerned largely with determining when an individual's will should be subservient to the will of others. Part III considers the nature of elitism and equality and attributes the demise of elitist institutions in …
The Meaning Of Dissent, Lee C. Bollinger
The Meaning Of Dissent, Lee C. Bollinger
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The First Amendment, Democracy, and Romance by Steven H. Shiffrin
Rummaging Through The Emperor's Wardrobe, Don Herzog
Rummaging Through The Emperor's Wardrobe, Don Herzog
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Politics: A Work in Constructive Social Theory. 3 Volumes by Roberto Mangabeira Unger
The Closing Of The American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy And Impoverished The Souls Of Today's Students, Maureen P. Taylor
The Closing Of The American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy And Impoverished The Souls Of Today's Students, Maureen P. Taylor
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students/em by Allan Bloom
Democratic Education, Jonathan Marks
Democratic Education, Jonathan Marks
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Democratic Education by Amy Gutmann
Kitsch And Community, Kathryn Abrams
Kitsch And Community, Kathryn Abrams
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, Richard Madsden, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven Tipton, and Strong Democracy by Benjamin Barber, Exodus and Revolution by Michael Walzer
Education For Self-Government: Reassessing The Role Of The Public School In A Democracy, Charles R. Lawrence Iii
Education For Self-Government: Reassessing The Role Of The Public School In A Democracy, Charles R. Lawrence Iii
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Compelling Belief: The Culture of American Schooling by Stephen Arons
Only Judgment: The Limits Of Litigation In Social Change, Michigan Law Review
Only Judgment: The Limits Of Litigation In Social Change, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Only Judgment: The Limits of Litigation in Social Change by Aryeh Neier
So Reason Can Rule, Michigan Law Review
So Reason Can Rule, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of So Reason Can Rule by Scott Buchanan
Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow
Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow
Articles
In United States v. Carolene Products Co., Justice Stone suggested by indirection that there "may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality" when courts are called upon to determine the validity "of statutes directed at particular religious . . . or national . . . or racial minorities."' In such cases, he explained, "prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry."' Forty years later, …
Public Opinion And Foreign Policy, Michigan Law Review
Public Opinion And Foreign Policy, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of PUBLIC OPINION AND FOREIGN POLICY Edited by Lester Markel.
Theory Of Popular Sovereignty, Harold J. Laski
Theory Of Popular Sovereignty, Harold J. Laski
Michigan Law Review
Alexis de Tocqueville has wisely insisted upon the natural tendency of men to confound institutions that are necessary with institutions to which they have grown accustomed.' It is a truth more general in its application than he perhaps imagined. Certainly the student of political and legal ideas will in each age be compelled to examine theories which are called essential even when their original substance has, under pressure of new circumstance, passed into some allotropic form. Anyone, for instance, who analyses the modern theory of consideration will be convinced that, while judges do homage to an ancient content, they do …