Courts Commons^™

Federalism, Marriage, And Heather Gerken's Mad Genius, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

In her characteristically astute and engaging essay, Professor Heather Gerken offers a sensitive and sympathetic reading of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in United States v. Windsor.¹ Her core claim is that Windsor—and the transformation of political and legal support for same-sex marriage in the United States—demonstrate how “federalism and rights work together to promote change” and, in particular, how federalism furthers the equality and liberty values of the Fourteenth Amendment.² This is a natural line of argument for Gerken to develop with respect to Windsor, as she has produced an incredible body of scholarship dedicated to what …

Brief Amici Curiae Of Iowa Professors Of Law And History, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This case calls upon the State of Iowa to reaffirm its historic commitment to protecting the equality and individual liberties of all of its citizens, including its lesbian and gay male citizens. It requires this Court to interpret Iowa’s unique constitution with due respect for both text and tradition. The case must be analyzed against the backdrop of Iowa’s leadership and courage in the areas of civil rights and family law, and the willingness of its judiciary to uphold constitutional mandates in the face of efforts to legislate prejudice and discrimination.

Plaintiff-Appellees seek nothing more than to share in the …

The Unhappy History Of Civil Rights Legislation, Fifty Years Later, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

Seldom, if ever, have the power and the purposes of legislation been rendered so impotent.... All that is left today are afew scattered remnants of a once grandiose scheme to nationalize the fundamental rights of the individual.

These words were written fifty years ago by Eugene Gressman, now William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina School of Law, as a description of what the courts, primarily the Supreme Court of the United States, had done with the civil rights legislation passed by Congress in the wake of the Civil War. Professor Gressman's article, The Unhappy History of …

Collateral Challenges To Criminal Convictions, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

The Kansas Defender Project is a clinical program sponsored by the University of Kansas School of Law. The Project provides student legal services to indigent prison inmates at the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth and the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing, Kansas. Launched in 1965 through the efforts of Paul E. Wilson, Kane Professor of Law, the Project has since been a model for similar clinical undertakings at law schools across the country.