Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Interpreting The Fourteenth Amendment: Two Don'ts And Three Dos, Garrett Epps

All Faculty Scholarship

A sophisticated reading of the legislative record of the framing of the Fourteenth Amendment can provide courts and scholars with some general interpretive principles to guide their application of the Amendment to current legal problems. The author argues that two common legal conceptions about the Amendment are, in fact, misconceptions. The first is that the Amendment was chiefly concerned with the immediate situation of freed slaves in the former slave states. Instead, he argues, the legislative record suggests that the framers were broadly concerned with the rights not only of freed slaves but also of foreign-born immigrants in the North …

Racial Adjudication, Andrew M. Carlon

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Princípios-Tópicos De Hermenêutica Constitucional, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Houve tempo em que a Constituição servia para poisar ou charuto ou tirar um argumento político, como ironicamente afirmaria o grande escritor oitocentista Eça de Queiroz. Hoje a Constituição é a norma das normas. Daí há consequências hermenêuticas. Ao contrário das teorias que importam interpretação tradicional e, por vezes, em grande medida ultrapassada, para o Direito Constitucional, a tendência actual é a inversa: dada a supremacia da Constituição, deve ser a metodologia constitucional a exportar hermenêutica para o todo do Direito. Para isso, começamos neste artigo com grandes princípios de hermenêutica intra-constitucional. Depois se passará à exportação.

Suspension And The Extrajudicial Constitution, Trevor W. Morrison

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

What happens when Congress suspends the writ of habeas corpus? Everyone agrees that suspending habeas makes that particular - and particularly important - judicial remedy unavailable for those detained by the government. But does suspension also affect the underlying legality of the detention? That is, in addition to making the habeas remedy unavailable, does suspension convert an otherwise unlawful detention into a lawful one? Some, including Justice Scalia in the 2004 case Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Professor David Shapiro in an important recent article, answer yes.

This Article answers no. I previously offered that same answer in a symposium essay; …

Rendition To Torture: The Case Of Maher Arar: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On Foreign Affairs,, 110th Cong., Oct. 18, 2007 (Statement Of David D. Cole, Geo. U. L. Center), David Cole

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

The Glass Half Full: Envisioning The Future Of Race Preference Policies, Leslie Yalof Garfield

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Justice Breyer's concern that the Court's June 2007 ruling in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District. No. 1 "is a decision the Court and nation will come to regret" is not well founded. Far from limiting the constitutionally permissible use of race in education from its present restriction to higher education, the case may allow governmental entities to consider race as a factor to achieve diversity in grades K-12. In Parents Involved, which the Court decided with its companion case, McFarland v. Jefferson County Public Schools four justices concluded that school boards may never consider race when …

The Story Of San Antonio Independent School Dist. V. Rodriguez: School Finance, Local Control, And Constitutional Limits, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Part of the Education Law Stories, this book chapter tells the story behind San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez. Mindful of the challenges incident to the federal courts' effort to dismantle de jure and de facto school segregation, the Rodriguez decision evidences reluctance by some of the Justices to become ensnarled in an effort to dismantle school finance systems in way that would affect an overwhelming majority of the nation's public schools. By side-stepping such a confrontation, Rodriguez implicitly reveals important aspects about the federal courts and, in particular, how the Justices view their role in our federal system …

Public School Students' Religious Speech And Viewpoint Discrimination, Kristi L. Bowman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act And Smith: Dueling Levels Of Constitutional Scrutiny, Whitney Travis

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Student Religious Speech Is Speech, John E. Taylor

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

La Cesión De Derechos En El Código Civil Peruano, Edward Ivan Cueva

Edward Ivan Cueva

La Cesión de Derechos en el Código Civil Peruano

Litigated Learning, Law's Limits, And Urban School Reform Challenges, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article assesses the likely efficacy of litigation efforts seeking to enhance equal educational opportunity by improving student academic achievement in the nation's urban public schools. Past education reform litigation efforts focusing on school desegregation and finance met with mixed success. Current litigation efforts seeking to improve student academic achievement promise to be even less successful because student academic achievement involves variables and activities located further from the reach of litigation than such variables as a school's racial composition and per pupil spending levels. Moreover, efforts to improve student achievement in the nation's urban public schools--especially high poverty schools--face additional …

Segundo Congreso Nacional De Organismos Públicos Autónomos, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Memorias del Segundo Congreso Nacional de Organismos Públicos Autónomos. "Autonomía, Profesionalización, Control y Transparencia"

Algunos Apuntes En Torno A La Prescripción Extintiva Y La Caducidad, Edward Ivan Cueva

Edward Ivan Cueva

No abstract provided.

Adding Colors To The Chameleon: Why The Supreme Court Should Adopt A New Compelling Governmental Interest Test For Race-Preference Student Assignment Plans, Leslie Yalof Garfield

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

When the Supreme Court ordered the City of Birmingham to desegregate its schools in 1954, it failed to consider the long range implications of its mandate. School districts across the country responded to the Court’s order by adopting race-preference school assignment plans, created to designate the particular public elementary or secondary school a student should attend. Now that these plans have successfully achieved their goals of desegregating classrooms, the question has become whether the continuation of the very programs that helped achieve those goals remain legal? In other words, as Justice Ginsburg recently said in arguments before the Supreme Court, …

After 150 Years, Worst Supreme Court Decision Ever Continues To Haunt, F. Michael Higginbotham

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1857, the Supreme Court rendered a decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, declaring that it had no jurisdiction to hear Dred Scott's claim to freedom because he was black and, therefore, not a citizen of the United States. This article argues that not only was the decision morally reprehensible, it was also based on an erroneous interpretation of the Constitution.

Black, White, Brown, Green, And Fordice: The Flavor Of Higher Education In Louisiana And Mississippi, Alfreda S. Diamond

ExpressO

"Black, White, Brown, Green, and Fordice: The Flavor of Higher Education in Louisiana and Mississippi" chronicles the higher education desegregation sagas in Louisiana and Mississippi. The Article specifically compares the histories of the higher education desegregation lawsuits in the two states and their subsequent experiences and progress under Settlement Agreements. The statistical populations of many universities in both states are still largely identifiable as “white” or “black,” and so the Article will pose questions not only respecting the implementation of United States v. Fordice in both states, but also respecting the value, desirability, or possibility of the “integrative ideal” converting …

Interrogation Of Detainees: Extending A Hand Or A Boot?, Amos N. Guiora

ExpressO

The so called “war on terror” provides the Bush administration with a unique opportunity to both establish clear guidelines for the interrogation of detainees and to make a forceful statement about American values. How the government chooses to act can promote either an ethical commitment to the norms of civil society, or an attitude analogous to Toby Keith’s “American Way,” where Keith sings that “you’ll be sorry that you messed with the USofA, ‘Cuz we’ll put a boot in your ass, It’s the American Way.”

No aspect of the “war on terrorism” more clearly addresses this balance than coercive interrogation. …

Love V. Virginia: The Constitutionality Of The Marshall/Newman Amendment, Pavitra Mohan Ram

ExpressO

My comment explores the constitutionality of a recent amendment in Virginia, the Marshall/Newman Amendment, which bans gay marriage and civil unions between unmarried people, and precludes Virginia from recognizing such arrangements formed in other states. The analysis is particularly timely, because even though the Democrats have regained a majority in Congress, and a traditionally Republican Virginian constituency just elected a Democratic senator, a majority of Virginians adopted this Amendment, indicating conservative values still reign.

The comment argues that the Amendment is demonstrably inconsistent with the mandates of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The first provision seeks to ban …

The American Tradition Of Racial Profiling, Jean Phan

ExpressO

The enemy has always been easily recognizable in American life: He has been the savage Native American known for scalping people; the black slave bent on ravaging white women; the Asian worker unfairly competing against the white man; the Mexican immigrant who does nothing but leech off the system; the Arab who dreams up terrorist plots, and carries them out. These enemies have always been visible in American society, and yet, they don’t exist in reality. They exist only in the minds of those too afraid to consider that these strange individuals who seem so different, could be just like …

The Solomon Amendment, Expressive Associations, And Public Employment, Paul Secunda

ExpressO

Rumsfeld v. FAIR apparently concedes that public employers, in the guise of public law school members of the FAIR association, have expressive association rights. This state of affairs could now mean that public employers could gain constitutional rights at the expense of pubic employees. Thus, to the extent that public employers are considered expressive associations, public employees may see their free speech and other constitutional rights diminished (even more so than they recently have been by the Garcetti v. Ceballos decision).

Thankfully, I cannot imagine that the Court, if faced with the question directly, would find that public employers have …

Surfing Past The Pall Of Orthodoxy: Why The First Amendment Virtually Guarantees Online Law School Graduates Will Breach The Aba Accreditation Barrier, Nicholas C. Dranias

ExpressO

The impact of the constitutional dilemma created by the ABA’s aversion to Internet schooling is widespread. Currently, 18 states and 2 U.S. territories restrict bar exam eligibility to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools. Additionally, 29 states and 1 U.S. territory restrict admission to practice on motion to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools.

Although numerous lawsuits have been filed in ultimately failed efforts to strike down bar admission rules that restrict eligibility to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools, none has challenged the ABA-accreditation requirement based on the First Amendment’s prohibition on media discrimination. This Article makes that case.

Despite accelerating technological …

Put That In Your Thurible And Smoke It: Religious Gerrymandering Of Sacramental Intoxication, Mark A. Levine

ExpressO

In February 2006, the Supreme Court ruled on the case Gonzales v. O Centro Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, granting an injunction permitting the use of ayahuasca, a plant containing the Schedule I substance Dimethyltryptamine, for sacramental intoxication purposes. The unanimous Court justified this injunction by comparing the Uniao do Vegetal's use of the illegal substance with the Native American Church's use of peyote, which contains another Schedule I substance, mescaline. This ruling is incomptabile with lower court rulings rejecting the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church use of marijuana, consistently stating that the Native American Church has rights beyond those of other …

The "How" Of Enforcing The Fourteenth Amendment: How The Rehnquist Court's Treatment Of Implementation, Not Interpretation, Is The True Post-Boerne Failing, Rebecca L. Goldberg

ExpressO

This article argues that the severe limits the Rehnquist Court imposed on Congress’ power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment did not stem primarily from the Court’s treatment of Congress’ interpretive powers in City of Boerne v. Flores, as most commentators have assumed, but rather from the Court’s treatment of Congress’ assessments regarding implementation in the cases that followed Boerne (Kimel, Garrett, Hibbs, and Lane). The article provides a new framework for assessing Congress’ power to pass a law under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment – a framework that adheres, in the main, to the Court’s 14§5 doctrine in Boerne …

Civil Rights And Related Decisions, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Civil Liberties In Uncivil Times: The Perilous Quest To Preserve American Freedoms, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

The perilous quest to preserve civil liberties in uncivil times is not an easy one, but the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin should remain a beacon: "Societies that trade liberty for security end often with neither." Part I of this article is a brief history of civil liberties in America during past conflicts. Part II describes various actions taken by the government to conduct the war on terrorism - including invasions of privacy, immigration policies, deportations, profiling, pre-trial detentions, and secret military tribunals. Part III analyzes the serious Constitutional questions raised by the government's actions in fighting terrorism. The thesis throughout …

Habeas Without Rights, Jared A. Goldstein

Law Faculty Scholarship

For almost six years, the habeas corpus petitions brought by foreign detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have stalled because the courts have struggled to answer a single question: whether the detainees possess enforceable rights. Although that question remains unresolved, the courts have uniformly concluded that the Guantanamo habeas claims, as well as the habeas claims brought by other accused enemy combatants, require a showing that the detainees possess cognizable rights violated by the detentions, most especially constitutional rights. This Article argues that the courts have been asking the wrong question and that habeas relief does …

The Foundations Of Section 1983 Jurisprudence: A Look From The Concept Of Law, Timothy I. Oppelt

Florida A & M University Law Review

This article uses the theories of H.L.A. Hart to provide an interpretive framework for a vital civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Any interpretation of Sec. 1983 requires some sense of the fundamental nature of law and the ability to identify legal rules. Specifically, this article examines the "under color of" language of Sec. 1983 and the statute's application to municipalities. It is possible that these areas remain partially in flux or undeveloped because the Court lacks an interpretation of the statute that accounts for how rules can confer power, create artificial persons, delegate the ability to act with …

Toward A Limited-Government Theory Of Extraterritorial Detention, Robert Knowles, Marc D. Falkoff

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Crime, The Case, The Killer Cocktail: Why Maryland's Capital Punishment Procedure Constitutes Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Matthew E. Feinberg

Matthew E Feinberg

Recent challenges to the death penalty argue that the anesthetic used in a majority of executions can wear off prior to death. Eye-witness accounts provide evidence that often, executions have not been completed painlessly, even when procedures are presumably completed in conformance with protocol. The lack of experience and training of Maryland's execution team produces a risk of botched executions. Finally, the drug cocktail is so powerful that it has been banned for use on animals due to the intense pain it inflicts. Each of these four concerns present a significant risk of excruciating pain for the inmate. The culmination …