Law Commons^™

And What Of The Meek?: Devising A Constitutionally Recognized Duty To Protect The Disabled At State Residential Schools, Yama Shansab

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Section 1983 provides a statutory right to a remedy for Fourteenth Amendment due process violations. The Supreme Court has suggested that the state only has a duty to protect when an individual is incarcerated, involuntarily institutionalized, or has other similar restraints of his or her personal liberty. Based on this, courts generally have found that schools have no constitutional duty to protect their students against injury from other students or staff members. Lower courts have struggled with what constitutes other similar restraints, but have generally been unwilling to find that a state has a constitutional duty in all but the …

Justice John Marshall Harlan As Prophet: The Plessy Dissenter's Color-Blind Constitution, Molly Townes O'Brien

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The concept of color-blindness has long elicited much debate over its precise meaning and the role it should play in jurisprudence. Such debate was catalyzed by Justice John Marshall Harlan's well-known Plessy dissent. In the wake of the efforts of both civil rights activists and conservatives to use color-blindness to further their respective goals, Professor O'Brien seeks to clarify Harlan's vision of color-blind jurisprudence and examines the ways in which recent Supreme Court decisions echo Harlan's concepts regarding a color-blind constitution.

Professor O'Brien first provides a brief introduction to the concept of color-blindness. O'Brien then examines Harlan's experiences in politics …