Law Commons^™

Substantive Due Process As A Source Of Constitutional Protection For Nonpolitical Speech, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

We live in a time when our right to speak out against our government faces threats unimagined since the Vietnam era. As the present war in Iraq and the campaign against international terrorism have dragged on, the federal and state governments as well as nongovernmental institutions have grown increasingly bold in their efforts to suppress political dissent. Law enforcement officers infiltrate and bully peaceful dissident groups; police crack down brutally on mass demonstrations; cities confine protesters at major political events to ironically designated “free speech zones.” These events buttress a contention, familiar from the work of several prominent First Amendment …

The Political Delinquent: Crime, Deviance, And Resistance In Black America, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article is largely an argument that the pervasive sense of cultural resistance in the African American community must be considered by criminal theorists as, at least, a partial explanation of “criminality” within the African American community. Woven into the fabric of African American culture is a vital oppositional element. This element, spoken of in many circles as “oppositional culture” constitutes a bold and calculated rejection of destructive mainstream values that have perpetuated social inequalities and power imbalances. African American resistance culture is captured by novelist John Edgar Wideman in his account of his brother ’s criminal lifestyle and the …

The First Amendment, The Public-Private Distinction, And Nongovernmental Suppression Of Wartime Political Debate, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

This article proposes a major expansion in the scope of First Amendment law and offers a fresh way of understanding the public-private distinction. It contends that the Supreme Court should invoke the First Amendment to enjoin nongovernmental behavior that substantially impedes public political debate during times of war and national emergency. As the article explains, the present campaign against international terrorism has seen employers, property owners, and media corporations restrict political discussion more frequently and aggressively than the government has. If political debate is the most important object of First Amendment protection - which the article contends it is - …

On Proof Of Preferential Effect, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article presents a comprehensive analysis of the manner in which the trustee of a debtor's estate may satisfy his burden of proof to demonstrate the preferential effect of a prebankruptcy transfer from a debtor to a creditor. The proposed framework, if adhered to by courts, will create a uniformity that gives preference law its proper reach and thereby reinforces its primary goal: equal treatment of similarly situated creditors (the equality principle). After examining the historical developments that have made a trustee's evidentiary burden administratively less complex, the Article discusses the Ninth Circuit's decision in Batlan v. TransAmerica Commercial Finance …

Slavery And The Roots Of Sexual Harassment, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

In recent years, feminist scholars and activists have demonstrated the ways that U.S. slavery functioned as a system of gender supremacy. It entailed the dominance of men over women as well as whites over blacks. Adding the gender lens has shed immense light on the ways that sex, law, and power operated in the racially supremacist enslaving South. In recent years, this literature has emphasized the ways that slavery's sexual and racial subordination converged around the bodies of enslaved black women. One project within this literature characterizes slavery as a "sexual political economy" to make explicit the connections between its …

Gender Contests, Susan Frelich Appleton

Scholarship@WashULaw

This contribution for the “Law, Ethics, and Gender in Medicine” column in the Journal of Gender Specific Medicine interrogates the understanding of gender itself, at a time when transgender and intersex issues were just beginning to “come out” in both popular culture and case law. Against this background, the column explores the roles that physicians have played in such gender contests and considers how evolving medical attitudes can help achieve reform.

Symposium Introduction: Napster: Innocent Innovation Or Egregious Infringement, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

Napster is gone for now, but the fissures it opened in our understanding of intellectual property will challenge lawyers for a long time. The basic idea behind Napster was a simple outgrowth of the Internet's premise of linking computers to facilitate the wide-spread exchange of information. The Napster Web site, with its peer-to-peer file sharing technology, created a sort of "clearing house" for information, specifically the sound files known as MP3s. Thousands upon thousands of users could sign on to the Napster site at any given time, offer MP3 files for downloading, and in turn download any files that any …

Regulating Political Parties Under A Public Rights First Amendment, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

The recently-enacted McCain-Feingold campaign finance law pushes to the fore the questions of whether and to what extent the First Amendment allows government to regulate the electoral activities of political parties. One of the new law's primary components is its attempt to eliminate so-called "soft money"- unlimited donations to national political parties that the Democrats and Republicans have used to circumvent legal limits on campaign contributions? One congressional opponent of the new law called it "the death knell" for political parties' role in elections." Not surprisingly, both major parties have attacked McCain-Feingold. Most Republicans in Congress opposed the legislation, and …

Fool Us Once Shame On You—Fool Us Twice Shame On Us: What We Can Learn From The Privatizations Of The Internet Backbone Network And The Domain Name System, Jay P. Kesan, Rajiv C. Shah

Washington University Law Review

One goal of this Article is to describe and document the privatization processes for the backbone network and the DNS. We initially assumed the privatization of the Internet consisted of a simple shift from a subsidized network to a competitive market for backbone services. However, we found the privatization process to be quite complex and problematic. Unfortunately, many of these same problems are reoccurring in the current privatization of the DNS. Our study found three categories of problems that occurred during the privatizations of the Internet’s backbone network and the DNS: procedural problems, problems with the management of competition, and …

Lemma Barkeloo And Phoebe Couzins: Among The Nation's First Women Lawyers And Law School Graduates, Karen Tokarz

Washington University Journal of Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Toward Political Safeguards Of Self-Determination, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

The theorists of the political safeguards of federalism (primarily Herbert Wechsler, Jesse Choper, and Larry Kramer) contend that various features of the American political system are sufficient to protect the values of federalism, obviating the need for federalist judicial review. These theorists have identified constitutional features of the system (i.e., equal representation in the Senate) and extolled subconstitutional features (notably the strength of the major political parties) as guarantors of state prerogatives against the federal government. They have not, however, developed a substantial account of the reasons why state prerogatives need or deserve protection and how those reasons bear on …

Bankruptcy Court Jurisdiction And Agency Action: Resolving The Nextwave Of Conflict, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Comment criticizes a pair of decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, FCC v. NextWave Personal Communications, Inc. (In re NextWave Personal Communications, Inc.) and In re FCC, which held that a bankruptcy court lacks jurisdiction to determine whether the Federal Communications Commission is stayed from revoking a debtor's licenses. The Comment argues that the Second Circuit interpreted the bankruptcy court's jurisdiction too narrowly because it failed to distinguish properly between an agency's action as a creditor and as a regulator. It concludes that bankruptcy courts and courts of appeals have concurrent jurisdiction to …

Patent Litigation In Europe—A Glimmer Of Hope? Present Status And Future Perspectives, Joseph Straus

Washington University Journal of Law & Policy

Little imagination is needed to realize the magnitude of the potential for European patents’ validity and infringement litigation in the fifteen Member States of the European Union.

Strategic Disclosure In The Patent System, Douglas Lichtman, Scott Baker, Kate Kraus

Scholarship@WashULaw

Patent applications are evaluated in light of the prior art. What this means is that patent examiners evaluate a claimed invention by comparing it with what in a rough sense corresponds to the set of ideas and inventions already known to the public. This is done for three reasons. First, the comparison helps to ensure that patents issue only in cases where an inventor has made a non-trivial contribution to the public's store of knowledge. Second, it protects a possible reliance interest on the part of the public since, once an invention is widely known, members of the public might …

The Case For United States Reparations To African Americans, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

The political and juridical viability of reparations for descendants of enslaved black people is emerging as a highly contested concept in U.S. debates about justice and law. For decades, reparations have been an essential part of the international discourses of war and human rights.

Panel Two: Who's Minding The Baby?, Adrienne D. Davis, Catherine J. Ross, Marion Crain, Bonnie Thornton Dill

Scholarship@WashULaw

This publication is a transcript of remarks made by multiple law professors discussing the relationship between race, gender, and class and focusing on feminism and the challenges faced by working mothers.

Foreword-Symposium: Gender, Work & Family Project Inaugural Feminist Legal Theorylecture, Adrienne D. Davis, Joan C. Williams

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Symposium inaugurates the Annual Feminist Legal Theory Lecture Series of the Washington College of Law's Gender, Work & Family Project. Martha Fineman, in honor of her two towering achievements in feminist jurisprudence, is the first lecturer. The first achievement is her ground-breaking work on dependency, about which we will say more later. The second is her equally influential Feminist Theory Workshop, which she began at the University of Wisconsin, and has since moved to Columbia University and now to Cornell. The annual Workshop has provided the opportunity for scores of scholars to present papers related to feminist jurisprudence, helping …

Foreword-Symposium: Straightening It Out: Joan William On Unbending Gender, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

As most men and women acknowledge, gender is a battleground. Most of us are fairly clear on biological sex: who bears children, who ejaculates sperm, even whose (big) hands might open a stuck jar and whose (smaller ones) could pull that cufflink out of the garbage disposal. What remains less clear is how social gender roles flow from this: Does lactation result in eighteen years of primary caregiving? Should the chemical realities of testosterone shape the law governing sexual assault? 3 Should the dynamics of heterosexual relationships mirror the physics of heterosexual intercourse (penetration equals power)? Does the reality of …

How To Apply The Religious Freedom Restoration Act To Federal Law Without Violating The Constitution, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

Learned commentators have called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 ("RFRA" or "the Act") "perhaps the most unconstitutional statute in the history of the nation" and "the most egregious violation of the separation of powers doctrine in American constitutional history." In the 1997 case of City of Boerne v. Flores, the Supreme Court struck down the Act in its applications to state and local governments, declaring that "RFRA contradicts vital principles necessary to maintain separation of powers and the federal balance." The Act's applications to federal law, however, survived Boerne, which means that plaintiffs with religious freedom claims against …

Beyond The Limits Of Equity Jurisprudence: No-Fault Equitable Subordination, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

In two 1996 decisions involving equitable subordination of claims in bankruptcy cases, United States v. Noland and United States v. Reorganized CF&I Fabricators of Utah, Inc., the Supreme Court did not answer the question of whether a bankruptcy court must find creditor misconduct before it equitably subordinates a creditor's claim. This Note argues that the Court should have established a bright-line rule that requires such a finding, using prepetition, nonpecuniary loss tax penalty claims of the IRS as a model. After showing that, as codified in the Bankruptcy Code, the doctrine of equitable subordination requires a finding of creditor misconduct, …

The Private Law Of Race And Sex: An Antebellum Perspective, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

In this article, Professor Adrienne D. Davis traces the interaction of race, sex, and estate law in the antebellum and postbellum South. Through a close analysis of intestate succession and testamentary transfers involving the formerly enslaved, she unearths the role of private law in reconciling and preserving both property rights and racial hierarchy. The article centers on a series of historical case studies involving the rights of formerly enslaved women and their children to postmortem transfers of wealth. While the law of private property generally served to reinforce racial hierarchy, these cases involved the use of property rights -- specifically, …

Identity Notes Part Ii: Redeeming The Body Politic, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

These remarks were given in April 1996 at the First Annual LatCrit Conference, co-sponsored by California Western Law School and the Harvard Latino Law Review. While the body of Christ has not been used explicitly to order secular American law and political theory, a multi-dimensional analysis of his body in Western political theory would have to include its use at a critical historic moment as an organizing metaphor for the racial order of the United States and the consolidation of the national identity as white. Reclamation of the national identity as historically always diverse, documentation of the denial of citizenship …

Identity Notes Part One: Playing In The Light, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Essay had its origins in a panel held during the Washington College of Law at American University's conference on Race, Law and Justice: The Rehnquist Court and the American Dilemma on September 21, 1995. The title of my panel, "Beyond Black and White: Race Conscious Policies and the 'Other Minorities,'" crafted by the conference organizers accomplishes subtly several things that I hope to continue in more explicit fashion in this Essay. The title challenges false binary racial logic from the position of groups who are neither Black nor white. It also foregrounds the history behind the development of this …

Language And Silence: Making Systems Of Privilege Visible, Adrienne D. Davis, Stephanie M. Wildman

Scholarship@WashULaw

A colleague of mine once had a dream in which I appeared. My colleague, who is African-American, was struggling in this dream to be himself in the presence of a monolithic white maleness that wanted to oppress my friend and deny his intellect, his humanity, and his belonging in our community. In his dream, I, a white woman, attempted to speak on his behalf, but the white man and I spoke as if my friend were not there.

This portrayal disturbed me because I know my friend can speak for himself. Recognizing this fact, he described my discomfort at participating …

Fighting Exclusion From Televised Presidential Debates: Minor-Party Candidates' Standing To Challenge Sponsoring Organizations' Tax-Exempt Status Note, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Note argues that courts should recognize minor-party presidential candidates' standing to challenge the section 50l(c)(3) tax-exempt status of organizations sponsoring televised debates that exclude minor-party candidates. Part I situates the issue within the context of the Supreme Court's standing jurisprudence and concludes that the validity of a third-party tax-status challenge by an aggrieved minor-party presidential candidate remains an open question. Part II analyzes the Second and District of Columbia Circuits' decisions and concludes that the Second Circuit's approach properly interprets the Supreme Court's standing doctrine and correctly resolves the particular arguments which both courts consider. Part III first demonstrates …

Book Reviews & Notices: Mark A. Graber, Transforming Free Speech, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

Gregory P. Magarian, Book Reviews & Notices: Mark A. Graber, Transforming Free Speech, 90 Mich. L. Rev. 1425 (1992)

Of Love And Liberation: A Book Review Of Breaking Bread, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

The label "Black intellectual" may be either oxymoronic or redundant, depending on the content one ascribes to the term and the historic context in which it is situated.