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Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons™
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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Civil Rights and Discrimination
Firearms Policy And The Black Community: An Assessment Of The Modern Orthodoxy, Nicholas J. Johnson
Firearms Policy And The Black Community: An Assessment Of The Modern Orthodoxy, Nicholas J. Johnson
Faculty Scholarship
The heroes of the modern civil rights movement were more than just stoic victims of racist violence. Their history was one of defiance and fighting long before news cameras showed them attacked by dogs and fire hoses. When Fannie Lou Hamer revealed she kept a shotgun in every corner of her bedroom, she was channeling a century old practice. And when delta share cropper Hartman Turnbow, after a shootout with the Klan, said “I don’t figure I was being non-nonviolent, (yes non-nonviolent) I was just protecting my family”, he was invoking an evolved tradition that embraced self-defense and disdained political …
Tangled Up In Law: The Jurisprudence Of Bob Dylan, Michael L. Perlin
Tangled Up In Law: The Jurisprudence Of Bob Dylan, Michael L. Perlin
Fordham Urban Law Journal
In this Article, I will try to create a topography of Bob-as-jurisprudential scholar by looking at selected Dylan songs in these discrete areas of law (and law-and-society): civil rights; inequality of the criminal justice system; institutions; governmental/judicial corruption; equality and emancipation (political and economic); poverty, the environment, and inequality of the civil justice system; and the role of lawyers and the legal process.
Localities As Equality Innovators, Robin A. Lenhardt
Localities As Equality Innovators, Robin A. Lenhardt
Faculty Scholarship
This Article thus argues that instead of regarding cities and localities that, like Seattle and Louisville, try to develop serious solutions to existing racial disparities as "bad cities" no different from those whose notorious policies spurred the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, we should be regarding them as potential "equality innovators.” Their on-the-ground experience with the realities of race and its operation in the twenty-first century arguably places them in a better position than courts to develop innovative approaches to the structural racial inequities with which so many municipalities must grapple. Existing doctrine limits dramatically the ability …
Race Audits, Robin A. Lenhardt
Race Audits, Robin A. Lenhardt
Faculty Scholarship
The U.S. Supreme Court’s race jurisprudence suffers from a stunning lack of imagination where possibilities for meaningful local government involvement in combating structural racial inequality are concerned. Cases such as Parents. and Ricci limit dramatically the freedom that localities have to address racial inequity within their borders. Instead of constraints on local efforts in the race context, Professor Lenhardt argues that what we need, if persistent racial inequalities are ever to be eliminated, is greater innovation and experimentation. In this article, Professor Lenhardt thus introduces an extra-judicial tool called the race audit, which would permit individual cities or a regional …
Dissident Citizen, The Symposium: Sexuality & Gender Law: Assessing The Field, Envisioning The Future, Sonia K. Katyal
Dissident Citizen, The Symposium: Sexuality & Gender Law: Assessing The Field, Envisioning The Future, Sonia K. Katyal
Faculty Scholarship
We have arrived at a crossroads in terms of the intersection between law, sexuality, and globalization. Historically, and even today, the majority of accounts of GLBT migration tend to remain focused on “a narrative of movement from repression to freedom, or a heroic journey undertaken in search of liberation.” Within this narrative, the United States is usually cast as a land of opportunity and liberation, a place that represents freedom from discrimination and economic opportunity. But this narrative also elides the complexity that erupts from grappling with the reality that many other jurisdictions outside of the United States can be …
Beyond Analogy: Perez V. Sharp, Antimiscegenation Law, And The Fight For Same-Sex Marriage, Robin A. Lenhardt
Beyond Analogy: Perez V. Sharp, Antimiscegenation Law, And The Fight For Same-Sex Marriage, Robin A. Lenhardt
Faculty Scholarship
Conversations about the constitutionality of prohibitions on marriage for same-sex couples invariably reduce to the question of whether a meaningful analogy can be drawn between restrictions on same-sex marriage and antimiscegenation laws. In an effort to refocus this debate, this article considers the California Supreme Court's 1948 decision in Perez v. Sharp and its use by advocates in recent litigation to secure marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Opponents of marriage rights for members of the LGBT *840 community frequently assert that dispatching Perez in these cases distorts the meaning of that decision and other similar precedents by drawing …
Understanding The Mark: Race, Stigma, And Equality In Context, Robin A. Lenhardt
Understanding The Mark: Race, Stigma, And Equality In Context, Robin A. Lenhardt
Faculty Scholarship
In its Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, the Supreme Court regards intentional discrimination as the principal source of racial injury in the United States. In this Article, R.A. Lenhardt argues that racial stigma, not intentional discrimination, constitutes the main source of racial harm and that courts must take the social science insight that most racialized conduct or thought is unconscious, rather than intentional, into account in their constitutional analyses of acts or policies challenged on the grounds of race. Drawing on the social science work of Erving Goffman and the ground-breaking work of Charles H. Lawrence, Professor Lenhardt argues that courts should …
Civil Rights Law In Transition: The Forty-Fifth Anniversary Of The New York City Commission On Human Rights
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Symposium co-sponsored by the New York City Commission on Human Rights and the Fordham Urban Law Journal includes transcripts of panel discussions on topics at the intersection of law and policy. These topics include mediation, domestic violence, disability law, hate crimes legislation, sexual harassment, and sexual orientation law.
The Price Of Landlord's "Free" Exercise Of Religion: Tenant's Rights To Discrimination-Free Housing And Privacy, Maureen E. Markey
The Price Of Landlord's "Free" Exercise Of Religion: Tenant's Rights To Discrimination-Free Housing And Privacy, Maureen E. Markey
Fordham Urban Law Journal
No precedent from the United States Supreme Court or other jurisprudence supports an individual, court-ordered free exerciseexemption for a landlord who violates the antidiscrimination laws while engaged in the business of rental housing. The fair housing laws are designed specifically to protect tenants from discrimination based on a landlord's personal biases. Although neither courts nor legislatures can dictate the morals of the marketplace, neither should they condone discriminatory acts that are clothed in the respectable shroud of the free exercise of religion. An exemption based not upon the landlord's own conduct, but on the landlord's disapproval of the presumed conduct …
Federal Enforcement Of Civil Rights During The First Reconstruction, Robert J. Kaczorowski
Federal Enforcement Of Civil Rights During The First Reconstruction, Robert J. Kaczorowski
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This essay recounts the heroic efforts of federal legal officers and judges to enforce citizens' rights during the 1870s. Part I sets forth the historical events giving rise to the enforcement effort of the Grant Administration. Part II details the problems which the federal executive branch faced when it aggressively prosecuted civil rights violations. Part III details the problems which the federal judiciary faced in administering the civil rights prosecutions brought by the executive branch. Part IV details the national political problems that eventually ended effective enforcement of federal civil rights laws. This Essay concludes that, notwithstanding the problems faced …
The Question Of Family: Lesbians And Gay Men Reflecting A Redefined Society, Libby Post
The Question Of Family: Lesbians And Gay Men Reflecting A Redefined Society, Libby Post
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The cutting edge issue in the gay community is now the fight for domestic partnership rights. The absence of domestic partnership rights have resulted in the unequal treatment of an entire class of citizens, with gays and lesbians routinely denied jobs, housing, economic benefits such as health care, insurance, public accommodations, and may even result in these individuals being fired or facing eviction solely because of their sexual orientation. The author argues that to rectify these injustices, we must redefine the definition of family to be more in line with that used in New York's Braschi v. Stahl Assocs. Co., …
Bringing A Title Vii Action: Which Test Regarding Standing To Sue Is The Most Applicable?, Valerie L. Jacobson
Bringing A Title Vii Action: Which Test Regarding Standing To Sue Is The Most Applicable?, Valerie L. Jacobson
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Note examines who is a proper plaintiff under Title VII and explains the need for a clearer definition of "employee" and "employed." Part II presents a historical development of the standards used to define employment relationships in Title VII. Part III discusses the general requirements for standing and sets forth the tests currently used to determine standing for a Title VII action. Part IV analyzes how the tests can produce different outcomes and why some tests more adequately serve the Act's goals. The Note concludes that Congress should amend the definition of "employee" or at least define what constitutes …
Nonsolicitation And Cease And Desist Orders Against Real Estate Brokers In New York, Aba Heiman
Nonsolicitation And Cease And Desist Orders Against Real Estate Brokers In New York, Aba Heiman
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Article will trace the origin, growth and enforcement of nonsolicitation and cease and desist orders. Part II outlines the federal framework for dealing with discriminatory practices by real estate brokers. Section A focuses on "steering" the target of cease and desist orders-and illustrates the dilemma of both the victims and the brokers. Section B details blockbusting-the target of nonsolicitation orders. In discussing its genesis, financial operation, and sociological implications, this section also considers whether solicitation by brokers constitutes "commercial speech" protected by the first amendment. Section C briefly explores the effectiveness of section 1982 of the Civil Rights Act …
Civil Rights - Right To Treatment - Neither Due Process Nor Equal Protection Clause Of The Fourteenth Amendment Guarantees The "Right To Treatment" For Mentally Retarded Children Confined In A State Institution Through Noncriminal Procedures
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Civil rights action was brought on behalf of residents at Willowbrook State Hospital by their parents and guardians attacking the conditions and treatment offered violated due process and equal protection. The court refused to extend a right to treatment to patients civilly committed to state hospitals - forestalling an extension of such rights to the retarded. Plaintiffs sought to classify the vast majority of commitments as involuntary despite original admission data mandating due process protection. The court determined that a hearing with procedural safeguards would suffice and in certain situations the court may find the appointment of a guardian at …