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Full-Text Articles in Law

Federalism As A Way Station: Windsor As Exemplar Of Doctrine In Motion, Neil S. Siegel Jan 2014

Federalism As A Way Station: Windsor As Exemplar Of Doctrine In Motion, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

This Article asks what the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Windsor stands for. It first shows that the opinion leans in the direction of marriage equality but ultimately resists any dispositive “equality” or “federalism” interpretation. The Article next examines why the opinion seems intended to preserve for itself a Delphic obscurity. The Article reads Windsor as an exemplar of what judicial opinions may look like in transition periods, when a Bickelian Court seeks to invite, not end, a national conversation, and to nudge it in a certain direction. In such times, federalism rhetoric—like manipulating the tiers of scrutiny …


United States V. Windsor And The Role Of State Law In Defining Rights Claims, Ernest A. Young Jan 2013

United States V. Windsor And The Role Of State Law In Defining Rights Claims, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor is best understood from a Legal Process perspective. Windsor struck down Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), which defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman for purposes of federal law. Much early commentary, including Professor Neomi Rao’s essay in these pages, has found Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court to be “muddled” and unclear as to its actual rationale. But the trouble with Windsor is not that the opinion is muddled or vague; the rationale is actually quite evident on the face of …


Slavery In The United States: Persons Or Property?, Paul Finkelman Jan 2012

Slavery In The United States: Persons Or Property?, Paul Finkelman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


White Cartels, The Civil Rights Act Of 1866, And The History Of Jones V. Alfred H. Mayer Co., Darrell A. H. Miller Jan 2008

White Cartels, The Civil Rights Act Of 1866, And The History Of Jones V. Alfred H. Mayer Co., Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

In 2008, Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. turned forty. In Jones, the U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that Congress can use its enforcement power under the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, to prohibit private racial discrimination in the sale of property. Jones temporarily awoke the Thirteenth Amendment and its enforcement legislation--the Civil Rights Act of 1866--from a century-long slumber. Moreover, it recognized an economic reality: racial discrimination by private actors can be as debilitating as racial discrimination by public actors. In doing so, Jones veered away from three decades of civil rights doctrine--a doctrine that had …


Preclearance, Discrimination, And The Department Of Justice: The Case Of South Carolina, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer Jan 2006

Preclearance, Discrimination, And The Department Of Justice: The Case Of South Carolina, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.