Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Democracy And Renewed Distrust: Equal Protection And The Evolving Judicial Conception Of Politics, Bertrall L. Ross

Bertrall L Ross

Judicial interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause have undergone a major transformation over the last fifty years. A Supreme Court once suspicious of the democratic losses of discrete and insular minorities, now closely scrutinizes their democratic victories. A Court once active in structuring the democratic process to be inclusive of racial and other minorities, now views minority representation in the political process as essentially irrelevant. A Court once deferential to exercises of congressional power that enhanced the equal protection rights of minorities, now gives Congress much less leeway.

What explains these shifts? An easy explanation is that the Supreme Court …

Unfinished Business: Protecting Voting Rights In The Twenty-First Century, Gilda R. Daniels

All Faculty Scholarship

While minorities have experienced great progress because of the Voting Rights Act, particularly section 5 of the Act, the work to achieve an electoral process free of discrimination remains unfinished. In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down section 4 of the Act, which provided the coverage formula through which section 5 was implemented. Without section 4, there is no section 5. The historical and contemporaneous discrimination that minorities in states formerly covered under section 5 continue to face is substantial and outpaces that in noncovered states. Scholars cannot divorce the debate surrounding section 5’s constitutionality, which continues …

Does The Right To Counsel On Appeal End As You Exit The Court Of Appeals?, Nancy P. Collins

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Undersigned Attorney Hereby Certifies -- The Washington Supreme Court Rule On Standards And Its Implications, Justice Sheryl Gordon Mccloud, Justice Susan Owens, Marc Boman, Joanne Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

G Forces: Gideon V. Wainwright And Matthew Adler's Move Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis, Janet Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Improving Access To Justice: Plain Language Family Law Court Forms In Washington State, Charles R. Dyer, Joan E. Fairbanks, M. Lynn Greiner, Kirsten Barron, Janet L. Skreen, Josefina Cerrillo-Ramirez, Andrew Lee, Bill Hinsee

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Dark Medicine: How The National Research Act Has Failed To Address Racist Practices In Biomedical Experiments Targeting The African-American Community, Anietie Maureen-Ann Akpan

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Driving While License Suspended - Third Degree, A Framework For Requesting Alternative Sentences, Sahar Fathi

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Securing Food Justice, Sovereignty & Sustainability In The Face Of The Food Safety Modernization Act (Fsma), Eve Kerber

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

About The Authors

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Jacqueline Mcmurtrie

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Gideon At Fifty -- Golden Anniversary Or Mid Life Crisis, Kim Taylor-Thompson

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Fifty Years After Gideon: It Is Long Past Time To Provide Lawyers For Misdemeanor Defendants Who Cannot Afford To Hire Their Own, Robert C. Boruchowitz

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Legal Financial Obligations: Fulfilling The Promise Of Gideon By Reducing The Burden, Travis Stearns

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Congress' Encroachment On The President's Power In Indian Law And Its Effect On Executive-Order Reservations, Mark R. Carter Jd, Phd

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Do We Have It Right This Time? An Analysis Of The Accomplishments And Shortcomings Of Washington's Indian Child Welfare Act, Karen Gray Young

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Gideon: Looking Backward, Looking Forward, Looking In The Mirror, Steven Zeidman

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Does Political Islam Conflict With Secular Democracy? Philosophical Reflections On Religion And Politics, David Ingram

David Ingram

Abstract: This paper rebuts the thesis that political Islam conflicts with secular democracy. More precisely, it examines three sorts of claims that ostensibly support this thesis: (a) The Muslim religion is incompatible with secular democracy; (b) No Muslim country has instituted secular democracy; and (c) No movement seeking to advance its agenda as aggressively as political Islam does can do so with the degree of moderation required of a political party that is committed to secular democracy. Theologians, philosophers, and political scientists have debated (a) through (c) within the jurisdiction of their respective fields. I propose to combine these debates …

A Fatal Loss Of Balance: Dred Scott Revisited , Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

This essay focuses on three aspects of the Dred Scott opinion: its effort to ensure that blacks could never be citizens, let alone equal ones; its deployment of a "limited government" argument for a narrow interpretation of Congress's enumerated power over the territories; and its path-breaking defense of property rights against government regulation. These constitutional tropes of racism, narrowing of federal power, and protection of property were to remain dominant for another seventy-five years. Apart from the failings of the opinion itself, Dred Scott also represents an extraordinary case of presidential tampering with the judicial process and a breakdown in …

No Prisoner Left Behind? Enhancing Public Transparency Of Penal Institutions, Andrea Armstrong

Andrea Armstrong

Prisoners suffer life-long debilitating effects of their incarceration, making them a subordinated class of people for life. This article examines how prison conditions facilitate subordination and concludes that enhancing transparency is the first step towards equality. Anti-subordination efforts led to enhanced transparency in schools, a similar but not identical institution. This article argues that federal school transparency measures provide a rudimentary and balanced framework for enhancing prison transparency.

Overcoming Obstacles To Religious Exercise In K-12 Education, Lewis M. Wasserman

Lewis M. Wasserman

Overcoming Obstacles to Religious Exercise in K-12 Education LEWIS M. WASSERMAN Abstract Judicial decisions rendered during the last half-century have overwhelmingly favored educational agencies over claims by parents for religious accommodations to public education requirements, no matter what constitutional or statutory rights were pressed at the tribunal, or when the conflict arose. These claim failures are especially striking in the wake of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (“RFRAs”) passed by Congress in 1993 and, to date, by eighteen state legislatures thereafter, since the RFRAs were intended to (1) insulate religious adherents from injuries inflicted by the United States Supreme Court’s …

Is Brown Holding Us Back? Moving Forward, Sixty Years Later, Palma Joy Strand

palma joy strand

Brown v. Board of Education brought the democratic value of equality to U.S. democracy, which had previously centered primarily on popular control. Brown has not, however, resulted in actual educational equality—or universal educational quality. Developments since Brown have changed the educational landscape. While the social salience of race has evolved, economic inequality has risen dramatically. Legislative and other developments have institutionalized distrust of those who do the day-to-day work of education: public schools and the teachers within them. Demographic and economic shifts have made comprehensive preschool through post-secondary education a 21st-century imperative, while Common Core Standards represent a significant step …

An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen

Derek R VerHagen

It is well-documented that the United States remains the only western democracy to retain the death penalty and finds itself ranked among the world's leading human rights violators in executions per year. However, prior to the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976, ending America's first and only moratorium on capital punishment, the U.S. was well in line with the rest of the civilized world in its approach to the death penalty. This Note argues that America's return to the death penalty is based primarily on the differences between classic parliamentary approaches to regulation and that of the American presidential system. …

Snubbed Landmark: How United States V Cruikshank Shaped Constitutional Law And Racialized Class Politics In America, James G. Pope

James G. Pope

No abstract provided.

Daddy Warriors: The Battle To Equalize Paternity Leave In The United States By Breaking Gender Stereotypes; A Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Analysis, Abraham Z. Melamed

Abraham Z Melamed

No abstract provided.

U.S. Institutionalized Torture With Impunity: Examining Rape And Sexual Abuse In Custody Through The Icty Jurisprudence, Allison Rogne

Allison Rogne

It is a well-established principle, both domestically and internationally, that rape is torture when suffered as part of confinement. It is also well documented, both domestically and internationally, that rape is rampant in U.S. prisons. And it is well established, both domestically and internationally, that those who torture should not do so with impunity, that that impunity is an affront to civilization and the human rights principles to which we all strive. And yet, in U.S. prisons, shocking numbers of women are systematically raped and sexually abused by those that would rehabilitate them. Female prisoners are victims of vaginal and …

The Issue Is Being Intersex: The Current Standard Of Care Is A Result Of Ignorance, And It Is Amazing What A Little Analysis Can Conclude., Marla J. Ferguson

marla j ferguson

The Constitution was written to protect and empower all citizens of the United States, including those who are born with Disorders of Sex Development. The medical community, as a whole, is not equipped with the knowledge required to adequately diagnose or treat intersex babies. Intersex simply means that the baby is born with both male and female genitalia. The current method that doctors follow is to choose a sex to assign the baby, and preform irreversible surgery on them without informed consent. Ultimately the intersex babies are mutilated and robbed of many of their fundamental rights; most notably, the right …

The Forgotten Father: What Happened To Equal Rights?, Gabriel Neff

Gabriel Neff

Footnote 67 written in 1971 of Roe. v Wade states: “the provisions of the father's rights in the constitutionality of the paternal rights in an abortion need not be decided” the time has come in 2013, in which the constitutionality of a father’s rights in an abortion must be considered. My article will advocate for fathers to have a voice in the abortion decision. Today, a married woman can have an abortion without letting her husband know she is doing so. In examining the issues of important court cases regarding abortion, and providing counter arguments to their findings, I will …

Is The Antidiscrimination Project Being Ended?, Michael J. Zimmer

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.