Law Commons^™

Gender And Intercollegiate Athletics: Data And Myths, Julia Lamber

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article explores what nondiscrimination means in the context of intercollegiate athletics. After reviewing the Department of Education's controversial Title IX Policy Interpretation, it critically examines the analytical framework used in Title IX athletic cases and concludes that commonly made analogies to litigation under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act are inapt. A major part of the Article is an empirical study, looking first at gender equity plans written by institutions of higher education for the National Collegiate Athletic Association and then at data collected from more than 325 institutions pursuant to the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act. …

The Struggle For Sex Equality In Sport And The Theory Behind Title Ix, Deborah Brake

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Title IX's three-part test for measuring discrimination in the provision of athletic opportunities to male and female students has generated heated controversy in recent years. In this Article, Professor Brake discusses the theoretical underpinnings behind the three-part test and offers a comprehensive justification of this theory as applied to the context of sport. She begins with an analysis of the test's relationship to other areas of sex discrimination law, concluding that, unlike most contexts, Title IX rejects formal equality as its guiding theory, adopting instead an approach that focuses on the institutional structures that subordinate girls and women in sport. …

The Mixed Messages Of Title Ix, Sherman J. Clark

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Introduction to a University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Symposium entitled Competing in the 21st Century: Title IX, Gender Equity, and Athletics.

Defining Recipients Of Federal Financial Assistance Under The Nondiscrimination Statutes, Heidi A. Reamer

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.: Who Will Carry The Baton?, F. Michael Higginbotham, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

It was a rainy November day during Thanksgiving weekend of 1997. The scene was the Washington, D.C., childhood home of Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.'s beloved wife. Our assignment was to assist in the removal, packing, and transport of a few prized family heirlooms that were to be taken to their home in Newton, Massachusetts.

On the early morning drive into Washington, D.C., our conversation was mostly idle chit-chat. Little did we know that the circumstances of the day would lead to an amazing set of discussions, the importance of which we could never have imagined at …

When The Classroom Speaks: A Public University's First Amendment Right To A Race-Conscious Admissions Policy, Alfred B. Gordon

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Case Against Private Disparate Impact Suits, Thom Lambert

Faculty Publications

This article argues that the Third Circuit, and the courts that have implicitly approved private disparate impact suits, have erred in construing Title VI to permit private plaintiffs to sue federally funded entities for discrimination based on disparate impact alone. From a policy standpoint, permitting private disparate impact suits is a bad idea, for the threat of such suits will lead to deterrence of actions and decisions that have incidental disparate effects but are, on the whole, good.

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

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Colorism: A Darker Shade Of Pale, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, Professor Banks argues that colorism, skin tone discrimination against dark-skinned but not light-skinned blacks, constitutes a form of race-based discrimination. Skin tone discrimination coexists with more traditional forms of race discrimination that impact all blacks without regard to skin tone and phenotype, yet courts seem unwilling to recognize this point. Professor Banks uses employment discrimination cases to illustrate some courts' willingness to acknowledge subtler forms of race-based discrimination, like skin tone discrimination, for white ethnic and Latina/o plaintiffs, but not for black plaintiffs. The inability of courts to fashion coherent approaches to colorism claims involving black claimants …

Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court’S 1998 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism And The Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation, Keith E. Sealing

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article first examines the miscegenation paradigm in terms of a seven-point conceptual framework that not merely allowed but practically demanded anti-miscegenation laws, then looks at the legal arguments state courts used to justify the constitutionality of such laws through 1967. Next, it analyzes the Biblical argument, which in its own right justified miscegenation, but also had a major influence on the development of the three major strands of scientific racism: monogenism, polygenism and Darwinian theory. It then probes the concept upon which the entire edifice is constructed-race--and discusses the continuing vitality of this construct. Next, this article turns to …

Racial Profiling: "Driving While Mexican" And Affirmative Action, Victor C. Romero

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Essay will focus on "racial profiling" not just in the way many people think about the term-that is, with respect to stopping motorists for traffic violations based solely on their race, so-called "Driving While Mexican" or "Driving While Black"-but also in the context of "affirmative action"-namely, using race as a factor in employment and educational decisions. More broadly, then, the author wants us to think of "racial profiling" as simply "the use of race to develop an understanding of an individual," which moves us slightly away from more pejorative notions of the phrase that have seeped into the national …

The Ninth Circuit's "Hybrid Rights" Error: Three Losers Do Not Make A Winner In Thomas V. Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, Eric J. Neal

Seattle University Law Review

Because the Ninth Circuit, in reaching its Thomas decision, relied on Smith's hybrid rights language, this Note will focus on the court's analysis of that subject. By applying the hybrid rights' dicta instead of following the actual holding in Smith, the Ninth Circuit reached a conclusion that is illogical and does not comport with current Supreme Court free exercise jurisprudence. This Note will discuss the Thomas court's analysis and will propose a logical interpretation of Smith that more closely reflects the Supreme Court's actual position regarding the Free Exercise Clause.

Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court’S 1998 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

In the Supreme Court's 1997 Term, the Supreme Court had decided a record number of statutory discrimination cases. However, that record was exceeded in the Supreme Court's 1998 Term with the Court addressing issues arising under Title VII, which covers discrimination in employment; Title IX, which covers discrimination in schools; and most significantly, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. Overall, the term scored significant victories for employers who were given considerable latitude to set their own physical characteristic standards and who were, to a large extent, immunized from liability for punitive damages. There was an …

The Bill Of Rights And The Constitution: Facing The Challenge Of The Future, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Discrimination After Death, Mark E. Wojcik

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Becoming Visible: The Ada's Impact On Healthcare For Persons With Disabilities, Mary Crossley

Articles

This Article will adopt the perspective of individuals with disabilities in their encounters with the health care finance and delivery system in the United States, and will pose the question of what the past decade has shown the ADA to mean (or not mean) for those individuals' ability to seek, receive, and pay for effective health care services. To that end, this Article will provide an overview of three broad areas on which the ADA has had varying degrees of impact.

Part II of the Article will examine how the ADA has affected the rights of an individual with a …

History Unbecoming, Becoming History, Toni M. Massaro

Michigan Law Review

The last few decades have seen a torrent of legal commentary supporting gay equality and attacking the punishment, failure to protect, and refusal to affirm gay conduct and identity. William Eskridge, a prominent voice in this fin-de-siecle literature, now draws together and expands on his previous work in Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet. Though far more successful in shaping the uses of the past than in showing the way to the future, the book instructs even where it fails. It augurs a century that could well witness the end of official discrimination against gay individuals, and the relegation …

Comparing Race And Sex Discrimination In Custody Cases, Katharine T. Bartlett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Recognizing Opportunistic Bias Crimes, Lu-In Wang

Articles

The federal approach to punishing bias-motivated crimes is more limited than the state approach. Though the federal and state methods overlap in some respects, two features of the federal approach restrict its range of application. First, federal law prohibits a narrower range of conduct than do most state bias crimes laws. In order to be punishable under federal law, bias-motivated conduct must either constitute a federal crime or interfere with a federally protected right or activity-requirements that exclude racially motivated assault, property damage and many other common violent or destructive bias offenses. In most states, however, hate crimes encompass a …

Agency, Equality, And Antidiscrimination Law, Tracy E. Higgins, Laura A. Rosenbury

UF Law Faculty Publications

Some commentators, perhaps a minority, have argued that the Equal Protection Clause should be read to require the use of race-conscious policies when necessary to eradicate or remedy the most serious consequences of racial inequality. Others have argued that such policies, though not required, should be permitted when duly adopted by the majority of the populace to promote the interests of an historically oppressed minority. Still others, including now a majority of the Supreme Court, take the view that the Constitution forbids virtually all explicit uses of race by the state.

In this Essay, we do not enter this debate …

Lowering The Preclearance Hurdle Reno V. Bossier Parish School Board, 120 S. Ct. 866 (2000), Alaina C. Beverly

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Case Note examines a recent Supreme Court decision that collapses the purpose and effect prongs of Section 5, effectively lowering the barrier to preclearance for covered jurisdictions. In Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board II the Court determined that Section 5 disallows only voting plans that are enacted with a retrogressive purpose (i.e., with the purpose to "worsen" the position of minority voters). The Court held that Section 5 does not prohibit preclearance of a plan enacted with a discriminatory purpose but without a retrogressive effect. Evidence of a Section 2 violation alone will not be enough to prove …

Risk Reduction In Office Workplace Encounters Between Newly-Disabled Employees And Management Of New York City Companies, Marta B. Varela

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article describes potential pitfalls for employers arising from the ADA protections afforded to employees with no prior record of disability returning to work after medical certification of a disability requiring accommodation. The Article describes Federal laws protecting disabled employees from unnecessary intrusion in their private lives (such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993, and the Occupation Health and Safety Act of 1970) and sets out the requirements imposed on employers. The Article also describes New York City disability laws enforced by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Finally, …

Protection Of Domestic Violence Victims Under The New York City Human Rights Law's Provisions Prohibiting Discrimination On The Basis Of Disability, Marta B. Varela

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article analyzes the need to create a new protected class of domestic violence victims to shield them from discrimination in employment. The Article examines arguments for and against proposed legislation to revise the human rights law governing disability, section 8-107 of the New York City Administration Code. The Article concludes that this legislation is unnecessary because the law already provides sufficient protection to domestic violence victims without requiring that victims disclose their domestic violence status to their employers.