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Full-Text Articles in Law

Some Natural Confusions About Natural Law, Philip Soper Aug 1992

Some Natural Confusions About Natural Law, Philip Soper

Michigan Law Review

To describe this renewed interest in natural law as a resurgence does imply, no doubt, that the ideas associated with the concept are too vital to be put permanently to rest; but resurgence also implies that natural law, for whatever reason, has been assigned the role of challenger to the reigning orthodoxy, rather than that of defending champ. By and large, this inference about the role assigned to natural law by the general public is, I think, correct. Natural law seems to evoke a degree of skepticism in our society that forces any theory that goes by the name to …


Courts And Cultural Distinctiveness, Marie R. Deveney Jun 1992

Courts And Cultural Distinctiveness, Marie R. Deveney

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The claim that minority ethnic and religious groups are culturally distinct from the dominant society is often, either implicitly or explicitly, a key element of demands these groups make to courts and legislatures for accommodation of their needs. In such cases, the decision maker's understanding of what constitutes "cultural distinctiveness" is crucial, for it can strongly influence the outcome of the accommodation question. In this brief Essay related to Peter Welsh's and Joseph Carens's papers and Dean Suagee's remarks delivered at the Preservation of Minority Cultures Symposium, I contrast these panelists' subtle and sophisticated understandings of cultural distinctiveness with the …


Community, Constitution, And Culture: The Case Of The Jewish Kehilah, Nomi Maya Stolzenberg, David N. Myers Jun 1992

Community, Constitution, And Culture: The Case Of The Jewish Kehilah, Nomi Maya Stolzenberg, David N. Myers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I describes the historical development of the Jewish kehilah, its subsequent evolution, and eventual dissolution. Part II surveys recent trends in legal scholarship which reflect a growing consciousness of the tension between the demands of self-conscious cultural groups and liberal legal principles.


Minority Cultures And The Cosmopolitan Alternative, Jeremy Waldron Jun 1992

Minority Cultures And The Cosmopolitan Alternative, Jeremy Waldron

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

I have chosen not to talk in this Article about the warning that Rushdie is sounding in his essay In Good Faith, but to discuss more affirmatively the image of the modern self that he conveys. Still, I hope that we do not lose sight of the warning. The communitarianism that can sound cozy and attractive in a book by Robert Bellah or Michael Sandel can be blinding, dangerous, and disruptive in the real world, where communities do not come ready-packaged and where communal allegiances are as much ancient hatreds of one's neighbors as immemorial traditions of culture.


Emblems Of Federalism, Carol Weisbrod Jun 1992

Emblems Of Federalism, Carol Weisbrod

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article reviews non-state federalism-more accurately "not only state federalism"- sometimes called pluralism or essential federalism, and contrasts it with conventional political federalism referred to here as "monumental federalism" and presented through a description of a painting by Erastus Field.


Balancing Cultural Integrity Against Individual Liberty: Civil Court Review Of Ecclesiastical Judgments, Michael G. Weisberg Jun 1992

Balancing Cultural Integrity Against Individual Liberty: Civil Court Review Of Ecclesiastical Judgments, Michael G. Weisberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note considers the standard of deference that civil courts should apply in cases where a religious judicatory already has decided an issue which subsequently is submitted for civil court resolution. It proposes a framework designed to protect the rights of religious groups to preserve their cultural integrity while also protecting individuals' personal liberty and the interests of the secular state. The analysis is necessarily framed by the opposing demands of the First Amendment's religion clauses. The Free Exercise Clause prohibits civil courts from intruding into religious societies' internal affairs, and the Establishment Clause limits religious authority over secular issues. …


Religion And Child Custody, Carl E. Schneider Jun 1992

Religion And Child Custody, Carl E. Schneider

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this Essay, I want to reflect on some problems at the intersection of religion, law, and the family. Specifically, I will explore the ways courts may consider a parent's religiously motivated behavior in making decisions about the custody of children. More precisely still, I will ask two questions. First, may a court refuse to award custody because of a parent's religiously motivated behavior in a dispute between a natural mother and a natural father? Second, when should a court agree to resolve a dispute between divorced parents over the religious upbringing of their children? These are topics of quiet …


Talking About Rights, Carl E. Schneider May 1992

Talking About Rights, Carl E. Schneider

Reviews

In recent years, a growing recognition of the power of rights talk in American law and life has surfaced in the writing of legal academics, along with a gnawing doubt about that power. In Rights Talk The lmpaverishrnent of Political Discaurse, Mary Ann Glendon, a professor of law at Harvard University, gives those doubts systematic, thoughtful, and lucid expression. Glendon has long been one of our most penetrating students of family law and one of our most enlightening students of comparative law. In this book (as in its predecessor and forebear, Abartion and Divorce in We5tem Law), she brings this …


Do Courts Matter?, Stephen L. Carter May 1992

Do Courts Matter?, Stephen L. Carter

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Hollow Hope: Ca Courts Bring About Social Change? by Gerald N. Rosenberg


Rhetorical Slavery, Rhetorical Citizenship, Gerald L. Neuman May 1992

Rhetorical Slavery, Rhetorical Citizenship, Gerald L. Neuman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of American Citizenship: The Quest for Inclusion by Judith N. Shklar


Divorce Reform And The Legacy Of Gender, Milton C. Regan Jr. May 1992

Divorce Reform And The Legacy Of Gender, Milton C. Regan Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Illusion of Equality: The Rhetoric and Reality of Divorce Reform by Martha Albertson Fineman


The Realm Of Rights, Richard J. Mooney May 1992

The Realm Of Rights, Richard J. Mooney

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Realm of Rights by Judith Jarvis Thomson


Murdering The Spirit: Racism, Rights, And Commerce, Robin West May 1992

Murdering The Spirit: Racism, Rights, And Commerce, Robin West

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Alchemy of Race and Rights: The Diary of a Law Professor by Patricia L. Williams


Speaking Differences: The Rules And Relationships Of Litigants' Discourses, Naomi R. Cahn May 1992

Speaking Differences: The Rules And Relationships Of Litigants' Discourses, Naomi R. Cahn

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Rules Versus Relationships: The Ethnography of Legal Discourse by John M. Conley and William M. O'Barr


Chutzpah, David A. Nacht May 1992

Chutzpah, David A. Nacht

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Chutzpah by Alan M. Dershowitz


The Channelling Function In Family Law, Carl E. Schneider Apr 1992

The Channelling Function In Family Law, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

On an occasion such as this, we are called to step back from our daily work to seek what Justice Holmes called a "liberal view" of our subject. Today, I propose to do so by exploring a function of family law that I believe is basic, that underlies much of family law, that resonates with the deepest purposes of culture but that is rarely addressed expressly-namely, what I call the "channelling function." As I will soon explain at length, in the channelling function the law recruits, builds, shapes, sustains; and promotes social institutions. My exploration of this topic will have …


I Hear A Rhapsody: A Reading Of The Republic Of Choice, Donald J. Herzog Jan 1992

I Hear A Rhapsody: A Reading Of The Republic Of Choice, Donald J. Herzog

Reviews

Readers coming to another volume by Lawrence Friedman might well expect a tightly crafted legal history. But this book is quite different. It offers a sweeping account of the transformation of modern law, a synoptic overview of what is finally distinctive about our legal culture, even a broadbrushed portrait of Western individualism. It does so breathlessly, in prose style and velocity. It's sometimes an engaging read, sometimes a distressing one, but-and here's what really matters-never a persuasive one. Or, worse yet, when it is persuasive it's because of its poetic and ideological features, not any kind of rigorous analysis.


Tales Of Two Cities: Aids And The Legal Recognition Of Domestic Partnerships In San Francisco And New York, David L. Chambers Jan 1992

Tales Of Two Cities: Aids And The Legal Recognition Of Domestic Partnerships In San Francisco And New York, David L. Chambers

Articles

Here are two stories. They are of the quite different ways that domestic partnerships of lesbian and gay couples have come to be recognized, for some purposes, in San Francisco and New York City. I tell the stories for their own sake, but with a particular focus on the role that AIDS played in the political process in each city.


Translation As A Mode Of Thought, James Boyd White Jan 1992

Translation As A Mode Of Thought, James Boyd White

Articles

I think that Clark Cunningham's article, The Lawyer as Translator, is a wonderful piece of work, full of life and interest and originality. I especially admire: his ability to make vivid to the reader the ways in which languages do truly differ, and differ beyond our efforts to bridge them-as he shows when he imagines an attempt to translate our most common professional terms into Chinese; his recoguition of the kind of force that our languages have over our minds, both as we see the world and as we tell stories about it; his sense that what we think of …


The Burdens Of Educational Loans: The Impacts Of Debt On Job Choice And Standards Of Living For Students At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers Jan 1992

The Burdens Of Educational Loans: The Impacts Of Debt On Job Choice And Standards Of Living For Students At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers

Articles

American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $40,000 from college and law school have become the norm, and debts of $50,000, $60,000, and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a considerably faster pace than the starting salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the starting salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …