Law Commons^™

Power, Economics And The 'Islamic Terrorism' Narrative, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Acting Gay, Acting Straight: Sexual Orientation Stereotyping, Luke Boso

Luke A. Boso

What does it mean to discriminate "because of sexual orientation?" This legal question will arise increasingly as many states and municipalities enact laws that prohibit discrimination because of sexual orientation. Without evidence of animus, plaintiffs will likely resort to evidence of sexual orientation stereotyping. How should courts determine whether evidence is of sexual orientation stereotyping, and therefore evidence of sexual orientation discrimination? This question is important for courts and litigants who will increasingly face the question, as well as for those invested in anti-essentialist antidiscrimination law more broadly. When the law attempts to define identity categories by offering universalizing definitions, …

U.S. Police Officers Kill Primarily Because They Are Attacked, Not To Disrupt Crime, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Fisher V. Texas: The Limits Of Exhaustion And The Future Of Race-Conscious University Admissions, John Powell, Stephen Menendian

john a. powell

This Article investigates the potential ramifications of Fisher v. Texas and the future of race-conscious university admissions. Although one cannot predict the ultimate significance of the Fisher decision, its brief and pregnant statements of law portends an increasingly perilous course for traditional affirmative action programs. Part I explores the opinions filed in Fisher, with a particular emphasis on Justice Kennedy’s opinion on behalf of the Court. We focus on the ways in which the Fisher decision departs from precedent, proscribes new limits on the use of race in university admissions, and tightens requirements for narrow tailoring. Part II investigates the …

War Against Muslims Post 9/11?, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Disqualifiying Universality Under The Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act, Michelle Travis

Michelle A. Travis

This Article reveals a new resistance strategy to disability rights in the workplace. The initial backlash against the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) targeted protected class status by characterizing the ADA's accommodation mandate as special treatment that benefitted the disabled at the expense of the nondisabled workforce. As a result, federal courts treated the ADA as a welfare statute rather than a civil rights law, which resulted in the Supreme Court dramatically narrowing the definition of disability. Congress responded with sweeping amendments in 2008 to expand the class of individuals with disabilities who are entitled to accommodations and …

Policing Masculinity In Small-Town America, Luke A. Boso

Luke A. Boso

This Article explores masculinity in rural areas, and it addresses bullying and harassment of gay, bisexual, transgender, and otherwise gender non-conforming boys and men. While all men are under constant pressure to perform masculinity correctly and act like a "real" man, rural boys and men experience unique forms and degrees of gender policing and victimization. The confluence of geographic, social, religious, and economic characteristics common in many rural areas results in few available options for exhibiting acceptable masculinity; even benign and seemingly gender neutral traits quickly become proxies for effeminacy. Moreover, the cultural salience of rurality in the construction of …

Urban Bias, Rural Sexual Minorities, And The Courts, Luke Boso

Luke A. Boso

Urban bias shapes social perceptions about sexual minorities. Predominant cultural narratives geographically situate sexual minorities in urban gay communities, dictate the contours of how to be a modern gay person, and urge sexual minorities to “come out” and assimilate into gay communities and culture. This Article contests the urban presumption commonly applied to all sexual minorities and focuses specifically on how it affects rural sexual minorities, who remain largely invisible in the public discourse about sexuality and equality.

This Article makes two important contributions. First, by exposing urban bias, it contributes to a broader discussion about how law and society …

Discrimination And Business Regulation (The Supreme Court And Local Government Law: The 1999-2000 Term), Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Partiality, Julie Nice

Julie A. Nice

This essay is the introduction for a Symposium on Class in LatCrit: Theory and Praxis in a World of Economic Inequality. Professor Nice describes the symposium papers (by Kendal Broad, Lisa Sun-Hee Park, Athena Mutua, and Laura Padilla) as applying various critical tools to examine how scholars study poverty and especially how the construct of “the feminization of poverty” isolates gender while leaving out other experiences of race, immigration status, sexual orientation, parental status, age, ability, and class. While she argues that the feminization of poverty construct itself emerged as a critique of how gender had been ignored in the …

The Emerging Third Strand In Equal Protection Jurisprudence: Recognizing The Co-Constitutive Nature Of Rights And Classes, Julie Nice

Julie A. Nice

This article posits the emergence of a third strand in Equal Protection jurisprudence, one that expands conventional two-strand Equal Protection analysis, which applies heightened scrutiny if a right is fundamental or a class is suspect by treating the interaction between rights and classes as mutually constitutive. This development Professor Nice closely examines a prominent trilogy of “outlier” Supreme Court decisions, Romer v. Evans, Plyler v. Doe, and M.L.B. v. S.L.J., and argues these decisions effectively endorsed a co-constitutive understanding to justify the invalidation of governmental discrimination. In each decision, the Court departed from its conventional focus on a fundamental right …