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Duke Law Journal

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Equality before the law

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A Quest For Fair And Balanced: The Supreme Court, State Courts, And The Future Of Same-Sex Marriage Review After Perry, Chase D. Anderson Mar 2011

A Quest For Fair And Balanced: The Supreme Court, State Courts, And The Future Of Same-Sex Marriage Review After Perry, Chase D. Anderson

Duke Law Journal

Gay rights advocates and social conservatives alike have criticized the Supreme Court for its recent decisions concerning sexual orientation. An examination of those decisions reveals that, taken together, they represent a surprisingly careful balance. The result is a principle of neutrality in which the Court has effectively demanded that states refrain from taking either side in the culture war surrounding sexual orientation. The true test of that neutrality principle will arise when the Court considers the constitutionality of a same-sex marriage ban. Thus far, challenges have taken place in state courts under state constitutions; those judges appear to have been …


The Rights Of Others: Legal Claims And Immigration Outside The Law, Hiroshi Motomura May 2010

The Rights Of Others: Legal Claims And Immigration Outside The Law, Hiroshi Motomura

Duke Law Journal

This Article analyzes the rights of unauthorized migrants and elucidates how these noncitizens are incompletely but importantly integrated into the U.S. legal system. I examine four topics: (1) state and local laws targeting unauthorized migrants, (2) workplace rights and remedies, (3) suppression of evidence from an unlawful search or seizure, and (4) the right to effective counsel in immigration court. These four inquiries show how unauthorized migrants though unable to assert individual rights as directly as U.S. citizens in the same circumstances can nevertheless assert rights indirectly and obliquely by making transsubstantive arguments that fall into five general patterns. The …


Struck By Stereotype: Ruth Bader Ginsburg On Pregnancy Discrimination As Sex Discrimination, Neil S. Siegel, Reva B. Siegel Jan 2010

Struck By Stereotype: Ruth Bader Ginsburg On Pregnancy Discrimination As Sex Discrimination, Neil S. Siegel, Reva B. Siegel

Duke Law Journal

It was always recognition that one thing that conspicuously distinguishes women from men is that only women become pregnant; and if you subject a woman to disadvantageous treatment on the basis of her pregnant status, which was what was happening to Captain Struck, you would be denying her equal treatment under the law.(1)


A Postscript To Struck By Stereotype, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Jan 2010

A Postscript To Struck By Stereotype, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


The Limits Of Advocacy, Amanda Frost Dec 2009

The Limits Of Advocacy, Amanda Frost

Duke Law Journal

Party control over case presentation is regularly cited as a defining characteristic of the American adversarial system. Accordingly, American judges are strongly discouraged from engaging in so-called "issue creation"-that is, raising legal claims and arguments that the parties have overlooked or ignored-on the ground that doing so is antithetical to an adversarial legal culture that values litigant autonomy and prohibits agenda setting by judges. And yet, despite the rhetoric, federal judges regularly inject new legal issues into ongoing cases. Landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and Mapp v. Ohio were decided on grounds never raised …


Restoring Rluipas Equal Terms Provision, Sarah Keeton Campbell Mar 2009

Restoring Rluipas Equal Terms Provision, Sarah Keeton Campbell

Duke Law Journal

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act's (RLUIPA) equal terms provision prohibits government from implementing a land-use regulation in a manner that treats religious assemblies and institutions less favorably than secular assemblies and institutions. Lower courts have only begun to interpret and apply RLUIPA's equal terms provision, but already they have significantly weakened its protections of religious liberty by giving the provision unnecessarily restrictive interpretations. Not surprisingly, in light of the Supreme Court's invalidation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), the lower courts' restrictive readings seen? driven by concerns that a broader interpretation would exceed Congress's …


What Can Brown Do For You?: Neutral Principles And The Struggle Over The Equal Protection Clause, Pamela S. Karlan Mar 2009

What Can Brown Do For You?: Neutral Principles And The Struggle Over The Equal Protection Clause, Pamela S. Karlan

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Hindsight Is 20/20: Revisiting The Reapportionment Cases To Gain Perspective On Partisan Gerrymanders, Douglass Calidas Mar 2008

Hindsight Is 20/20: Revisiting The Reapportionment Cases To Gain Perspective On Partisan Gerrymanders, Douglass Calidas

Duke Law Journal

In the first decade of the twentieth century, political party operatives have manipulated the boundaries of congressional districting maps to an unprecedented extent in the interest of gaining partisan advantage. The judiciary, led by a fractured Supreme Court, has refused to intervene, holding claims of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering nonjusticiable for want of a workable judicial standard. The epidemic of partisan gerrymandering has harmed the electoral process in ways that mirror the harm caused by legislative malapportionment prior to the 1960s. In that decade, the Court assertively invoked the Equal Protection Clause to effect reapportionment and bring congressional districting maps in …


Rendering Turner Toothless: The Supreme Court’S Decision In Beard V. Banks, Jennifer N. Wimsatt Feb 2008

Rendering Turner Toothless: The Supreme Court’S Decision In Beard V. Banks, Jennifer N. Wimsatt

Duke Law Journal

The Supreme Court has long recognized that prisoners' constitutional rights must be balanced against the need for deference to the decisions of prison administrators when prisoners' rights are restricted incident to their incarceration. The Court, however, has never explicitly recognized a theory of proper incarceration, yet it has implicitly adopted such a theory through its decisions regarding the constitutionally permitted level of restriction on particular prisoners' rights. This Note argues that the Court's prisoners' rights jurisprudence evinces a particular definition of proper incarceration and then reads the multiple opinions in Beard v. Banks consistently with that theory.


The Costs Of A “Free” Education: The Impact Of Schaffer V. Weast And Arlington V. Murphy On Litigation Under The Idea, Kelly D. Thomason Nov 2007

The Costs Of A “Free” Education: The Impact Of Schaffer V. Weast And Arlington V. Murphy On Litigation Under The Idea, Kelly D. Thomason

Duke Law Journal

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guarantees to children with disabilities the right to receive a "free appropriate public education." This Note argues that the Supreme Court decisions Schaffer v. Weast and Arlington v. Murphy, cases dealing with procedural aspects of the Act, undermine a prior trend in IDEA litigation-a trend that had increased the substantive and procedural rights of children with disabilities. Considered together, the Schaffer and Arlington decisions ignore the realities of the litigation process and impose significant burdens on parents attempting to ensure that their children receive the free appropriate education to which they are entitled.


Forgotten Racial Equality: Implicit Bias, Decisionmaking, And Misremembering, Justin D. Levinson Nov 2007

Forgotten Racial Equality: Implicit Bias, Decisionmaking, And Misremembering, Justin D. Levinson

Duke Law Journal

In this Article, I claim that judges and jurors unknowingly misremember case facts in racially biased ways. Drawing upon studies from implicit social cognition, human memory research, and legal decisionmaking, I argue that implicit racial biases affect the way judges and jurors encode, store, and recall relevant case facts. I then explain how this phenomenon perpetuates racial bias in case outcomes. To test the hypothesis that judges and jurors misremember case facts in racially biased ways, I conducted an empirical study in which participants were asked to recall facts of stories they had read only minutes earlier. Results of the …


Race-Conscious Student Assignment Plans: Balkanization, Integration, And Individualized Consideration, Neil S. Siegel Dec 2006

Race-Conscious Student Assignment Plans: Balkanization, Integration, And Individualized Consideration, Neil S. Siegel

Duke Law Journal

In deciding Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, the Supreme Court of the United States will likely confront a critical issue to emerge from the lower court opinions on voluntary integration plans: whether school districts that use race as a factor in student assignment must comply with a legal requirement of individualized consideration. The Court has imposed such a requirement in other contexts, but it has not clearly explained what the concept of individualized consideration means and why particular forms of it matter.


An Empirical Examination Of The Equal Protection Challenge To Contingency Fee Restrictions In Medical Malpractice Reform Statutes, Casey L. Dwyer Nov 2006

An Empirical Examination Of The Equal Protection Challenge To Contingency Fee Restrictions In Medical Malpractice Reform Statutes, Casey L. Dwyer

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Johnson V. California: A Grayer Shade Of Brown, Brandon N. Robinson Oct 2006

Johnson V. California: A Grayer Shade Of Brown, Brandon N. Robinson

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Title Vii Disparate Impact Suits Against State Governments After Hibbs And Lane, Claude Platton Dec 2005

Title Vii Disparate Impact Suits Against State Governments After Hibbs And Lane, Claude Platton

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Proportionality As A Principle Of Limited Government, Alice Ristroph Nov 2005

Proportionality As A Principle Of Limited Government, Alice Ristroph

Duke Law Journal

This Article examines proportionality as a constitutional limitation on the power to punish. In the criminal context, proportionality is often mischaracterized as a specifically penological theory-an ideal linked to specific accounts of the purpose of punishment. In fact, a constitutional proportionality requirement is better understood as an external limitation on the state's penal power that is independent of the goals of punishment. Proportionality limitations on the penal power arise not from the purposes of punishment, but from the fact that punishing is not the only purpose that the state must pursue. Other considerations, especially the protection of individual interests in …


What Happens To A Dream Deferred?: Cleansing The Taint Of San Antonio Independent School District V. Rodriguez, Ian Millhiser Nov 2005

What Happens To A Dream Deferred?: Cleansing The Taint Of San Antonio Independent School District V. Rodriguez, Ian Millhiser

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Equal Citizenship At Ground Level: The Consequences Of Nonstate Action, Kenneth L. Karst Apr 2005

Equal Citizenship At Ground Level: The Consequences Of Nonstate Action, Kenneth L. Karst

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


The Political Question Doctrine: Suggested Criteria, Jesse H. Choper Apr 2005

The Political Question Doctrine: Suggested Criteria, Jesse H. Choper

Duke Law Journal

Whether there should be a political question doctrine and, if so, how it should be implemented continue to be contentious and controversial issues, both within and outside the Court. This Article urges that the Justices should reformulate the detailed definition that they have utilized (at least formally) since 1962, and adopt four criteria to be applied in future cases. The least disputed-textual commitment-is the initial factor listed in Baker v. Carr. The other three are based on functional considerations rather than constitutional language or original understanding. The first of these-structural issues: federalism and separation of powers-has been advanced and developed …


Polygamy As A Red Herring In The Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Ruth K. Khalsa Apr 2005

Polygamy As A Red Herring In The Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Ruth K. Khalsa

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


The Cherokee Removal And The Fourteenth Amendment, Gerard N. Magliocca Dec 2003

The Cherokee Removal And The Fourteenth Amendment, Gerard N. Magliocca

Duke Law Journal

This Article recasts the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment by showing how its drafters were influenced by the events that culminated in The Trail of Tears. A fresh review of the primary sources reveals that the removal of the Cherokee Tribe by President Andrew Jackson was a seminal moment that sparked the growth of the abolitionist movement and then shaped its thought for the next three decades on issues ranging from religious freedom to the antidiscrimination principle. When these same leaders wrote the Fourteenth Amendment, they expressly invoked the Cherokee Removal and the Supreme Court's opinion in Worcester v. …


Following The Law, Not The Crowd: The Constitutionality Of Nontraditional High School Athletic Seasons, Courtney E. Schafer Oct 2003

Following The Law, Not The Crowd: The Constitutionality Of Nontraditional High School Athletic Seasons, Courtney E. Schafer

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Toward A Pragmatic Understanding Of Status-Consciousness: The Case Of Deregulated Education, Tomiko Brown-Nagin Dec 2000

Toward A Pragmatic Understanding Of Status-Consciousness: The Case Of Deregulated Education, Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Duke Law Journal

This Article discusses the relationship between federal equal protection doctrine and the states' experiment with deregulated education-in particular, charter schools whose student bodies are identifiable on the basis of status. I argue that the states' experiment with deregulated education and the Supreme Court's understanding of the limitations imposed by the federal Equal Protection Clause on status-conscious state action are substantially in conflict, though not inevitably so. Reconciling state policy and federal constitutional law requires, first, that state legislatures draft laws that are consistent with the Court's skepticism of explicitly status-conscious state action, and its ambivalence toward state action that addresses …


Shades Of Brown: The Law Of Skin Color, Trina Jones Apr 2000

Shades Of Brown: The Law Of Skin Color, Trina Jones

Duke Law Journal

Because antidiscrimination efforts have focused primarily on race, courts have largely ignored discrimination within racial classifications on the basis of skin color. In this Article, Professor Jones brings light to this area by examining the historical and contemporary significance of skin color in the United States. She argues that discrimination based on skin color, or colorism, is a present reality and predicts that this form of discrimination will assume increasing significance in the future as current understandings of race and racial classifications disintegrate. She maintains that the legal system must develop a firm understanding of colorism in order for the …


Proposition 209, Girardeau A. Spann Nov 1997

Proposition 209, Girardeau A. Spann

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Race-Based Equal Protection Claims After Shaw V. Reno, Robert A. Curtis Nov 1994

Race-Based Equal Protection Claims After Shaw V. Reno, Robert A. Curtis

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Title Vi Of The 1964 Civil Rights Act And The Closing Of A Public Hospital, Mitchell A. Horwich Dec 1981

Title Vi Of The 1964 Civil Rights Act And The Closing Of A Public Hospital, Mitchell A. Horwich

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.