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Full-Text Articles in Law

Breastfeeding On A Nickel And A Dime: Why The Affordable Care Act's Nursing Mothers Amendment Won't Help Low-Wage Workers, Nancy Ehrenreich, Jamie Siebrese Oct 2014

Breastfeeding On A Nickel And A Dime: Why The Affordable Care Act's Nursing Mothers Amendment Won't Help Low-Wage Workers, Nancy Ehrenreich, Jamie Siebrese

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

As part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (also known as “Obamacare”), Congress passed a new law requiring employers to provide accommodation to working mothers who want to express breast milk while at work. This accommodation requirement is a step forward from the preceding legal regime, under which federal courts consistently found that “lactation discrimination” did not constitute sex discrimination. But this Article predicts that the new law will nevertheless fall short of guaranteeing all women the ability to work while breastfeeding. The generality of the Act’s brief provisions, along with the broad discretion it assigns …


Coercive Assimilationism: The Perils Of Muslim Women's Identity Performance In The Workplace, Sahar F. Aziz Oct 2014

Coercive Assimilationism: The Perils Of Muslim Women's Identity Performance In The Workplace, Sahar F. Aziz

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Should employees have the legal right to “be themselves” at work? Most Americans would answer in the negative because work is a privilege, not an entitlement. But what if being oneself entails behaviors, mannerisms, and values integrally linked to the employee’s gender, race, or religion? And what if the basis for the employer’s workplace rules and professionalism standards rely on negative racial, ethnic or gender stereotypes that disparately impact some employees over others? Currently, Title VII fails to take into account such forms of second-generation discrimination, thereby limiting statutory protections to phenotypical or morphological bases. Drawing on social psychology and …


The Right To Free Exercise Of Religion In Prisons: How Courts Should Determine Sincerity Of Religious Belief Under Rluipa, Noha Moustafa Oct 2014

The Right To Free Exercise Of Religion In Prisons: How Courts Should Determine Sincerity Of Religious Belief Under Rluipa, Noha Moustafa

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Religion plays a vital role in the daily lives of many prisoners. For incarcerated persons, a connection to the divine can provide comfort during periods of isolation from their family and community. From a policy perspective, spiritual development and religious practice promote rehabilitation and reduce recidivism in inmates. While prisoners forfeit many of their civil liberties, Congress has ensured that religious exercise is not among them. As Congress enhanced religious freedom protections for prisoners, prison facilities became increasingly concerned that prisoners would feign religiosity to gain certain religious accommodations. To counter this concern, prison facilities conditioned accommodations on the sincerity …


How Critical Race Theory Marginalizes The African American Christian Tradition, Brandon Paradise Oct 2014

How Critical Race Theory Marginalizes The African American Christian Tradition, Brandon Paradise

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article offers the first comprehensive account of the marginalization of the African American Christian tradition in the movement of race and law scholarship known as critical race theory. While committed to grounding itself in the perspectives of communities of color, critical race theory has virtually ignored the significance of the fact that the civil rights movement came out of the Black church and that today more than eighty percent of African Americans self-identify as Christian. In practical terms, critical race theory’s neglect of the Christian tradition has meant that arguments developed in race and law scholarship are sometimes incompatible …


States Taking Charge: Examining The Role Of Race, Party Affliation, And Preemption In The Development Of In-State Tuition Laws For Undocumented Immigrant Students , Stephen L. Nelson, Jennifer L. Robinson, Kara Hetrick Glaubitz Jan 2014

States Taking Charge: Examining The Role Of Race, Party Affliation, And Preemption In The Development Of In-State Tuition Laws For Undocumented Immigrant Students , Stephen L. Nelson, Jennifer L. Robinson, Kara Hetrick Glaubitz

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Article details both the legislative and legal history of undocumented immigrants’ access to education in the United States. Part II then describes the current U.S. state laws in effect regarding in-state tuition for undocumented immigrant students at state-funded colleges and universities. Part III further explores the development of laws and policies with a keen focus on potential correlations between (1) the racial composition of state legislatures and the passage of in-state tuition policies; (2) the race of governors and the passage of in-state tuition policies; (3) partisan composition of state legislatures and the passage of in-state …


The Danger Of Nonrandom Case Assignment: How The Southern District Of New York's "Related Cases" Rule Shaped Stop-And-Frisk Rulings, Katherine A. Macfarlane Jan 2014

The Danger Of Nonrandom Case Assignment: How The Southern District Of New York's "Related Cases" Rule Shaped Stop-And-Frisk Rulings, Katherine A. Macfarlane

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The Southern District of New York’s local rules are clear: “[A]ll active judges . . . shall be assigned substantially an equal share of the categories of cases of the court over a period of time.” Yet for the past fourteen years, Southern District Judge Shira Scheindlin has been granted near-exclusive jurisdiction over one category of case: those involving wide-sweeping constitutional challenges to the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) stop-and-frisk policies. In 1999, Judge Scheindlin was randomly assigned Daniels v. City of New York, the first in a series of high-profile and high-impact stop-and-frisk cases. Since then, she has overseen …


It's Critical: Legal Participatory Action Research, Emily M.S. Houh, Kristin Kalsen Jan 2014

It's Critical: Legal Participatory Action Research, Emily M.S. Houh, Kristin Kalsen

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article introduces a method of research that we term “legal participatory action research” or “legal PAR” as a way for legal scholars and activists to put various strands of critical legal theory into practice. Specifically, through the lens of legal PAR, this Article contributes to a rapidly developing legal literature on the “fringe economy” that comprises “alternative lending services” and products, including but not limited to pawnshops, check cashers, payday lenders, direct deposit loans, (tax) refund anticipation loans, and car title loans. As importantly, this article also contributes to the related fields of critical race theory, feminist legal theory, …


From Arbitrariness To Coherency In Sentencing: Reducing The Rate Of Imprisonment And Crime While Saving Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars, Mirko Bagaric Jan 2014

From Arbitrariness To Coherency In Sentencing: Reducing The Rate Of Imprisonment And Crime While Saving Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars, Mirko Bagaric

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Dealing with criminals and preventing crime is a paramount public policy issue. Sentencing law and practice is the means through which we ultimately deal with criminal offenders. Despite its importance and wide-ranging reforms in recent decades, sentencing remains an intellectual and normative wasteland. This has resulted in serious human rights violations of both criminals and victims, incalculable public revenue wastage, and a failure to implement effective measures to reduce crime. This Article attempts to bridge the gulf that exists between knowledge and practice in sentencing and lays the groundwork for a fair and efficient sentencing system. The Article focuses on …


Special Administrative Measures And The War On Terror: When Do Extreme Pretrial Detention Measures Offend The Constitution?, Andrew Dalack Jan 2014

Special Administrative Measures And The War On Terror: When Do Extreme Pretrial Detention Measures Offend The Constitution?, Andrew Dalack

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Our criminal justice system is founded upon a belief that one is innocent until proven guilty. This belief is what foists the burden of proving a person’s guilt upon the government and belies a statutory presumption in favor of allowing a defendant to remain free pending trial at the federal level. Though there are certainly circumstances in which a federal magistrate judge may—and sometimes must—remand a defendant to jail pending trial, it is well-settled that pretrial detention itself inherently prejudices the quality of a person’s defense. In some cases, a defendant’s pretrial conditions become so onerous that they become punitive …