Human Rights Law Commons^™

The Sffa V. Harvard Trojan Horse Admissions Lawsuit, Kimberly West-Faulcon

Seattle University Law Review

Affirmative-action-hostile admissions lawsuits are modern Trojan horses. The SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case—Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., decided jointly—is the most effective Trojan horse admissions lawsuit to date. Constructed to have the distractingly appealing exterior façade of a lawsuit seeking greater fairness in college admissions, the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case is best understood as a deception-driven battle tactic used by forces waging a multi-decade war against the major legislative victories of America’s Civil Rights Movement, specifically Title VI and Title VII …

Sffa V. Harvard College: Closing The Doors Of Equality In Education, Ediberto Roman

Seattle University Law Review

The United States Supreme Court’s recent combined decision ending affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina was hailed in conservative circles as the beginning of “the long road” towards racial equality. Others declared that “the opinion may begin the restoration of our nation’s constitutional colorblind legal covenant.” Another writer pronounced, “Affirmative action perpetuated racial discrimination. Its end is a huge step forward.” A Washington-based opinion page even declared: “[T]he demise of race-based affirmative action should inspire renewed commitment to the ideal of equal opportunity in America.” Despite …

Where The Rainbow Ends: The Hidden Humanitarian Crisis For Members Of The Lgbtqia+ Community In International Business, John R. Krendel

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Before pursuing an international career, members of the LGBTQIA+ community must be aware of the hardship that may be exacerbated by living and working abroad. This study addresses the trends in laws, including employment and anti-discrimination laws, that provide and restrict certain rights of members of the LGBTQIA+ community in eight countries. These nations, both progressive and discriminatory, include the United States, England, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan, China, the Philippines and Kazakhstan. Eight LGBTQIA+ business professionals spoke on their experiences living and working in each of these countries and provided advice to members of the community wishing to pursue an international …

Importing Indian Intolerance: How Title Vii Can Prevent Caste Discrimination In The American Workplace, Brett Whitley

Arkansas Law Review

"If Hindus migrate to other regions on [E]arth, [Indian] Caste would become a world problem." - Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1916) Imagine it is the year 2020. You are one of the more than 160 million people across India that are labeled as Dalits, formerly known as the “Untouchables." Most Hindus view Dalits as belonging to the lowest rung in the ancient system of social stratification that impacts individuals across the globe called the caste system. Your people have endured human rights abuses for centuries, but luckily, neither you nor a loved one have ever been the victim of one of …

Reparations And The International Law Origin Story, John Linarelli

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy In An Era Of Drones And Deepfakes: Expanding The Supreme Court Of Canada’S Decision In R V Jarvis, Suzie Dunn, Kristen Mj Thomasen

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Perpetrators of Technology-Facilitated gender-based violence are taking advantage of increasingly automated and sophisticated privacy-invasive tools to carry out their abuse. Whether this be monitoring movements through stalker-ware, using drones to non-consensually film or harass, or manipulating and distributing intimate images online such as deep-fakes and creepshots, invasions of privacy have become a significant form of gender-based violence. Accordingly, our normative and legal concepts of privacy must evolve to counter the harms arising from this misuse of new technology. Canada’s Supreme Court recently addressed Technology-Facilitated violations of privacy in the context of voyeurism in R v Jarvis (2019). The discussion of …

Public Law, Precarity, And Access To Justice, Amnon Lev

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In the first part, I examine Thomas Hobbes' theory of commonwealth to see how it situates subjects in relation to justice. Hobbes famously founds his commonwealth on the equal subjection of all to the Leviathan, which is the equal subjection of all to law. We need to understand why he nevertheless needs to accommodate the diversity of society-the basic fact that some are weak while others are not-into the operation of the public law machine. As we shall see, the accommodation of social diversity is tied to a proto-liberal distinction between social spheres that relegates much of human life to …

Racial Indirection, Yuvraj Joshi

Yuvraj Joshi

2nd Annual Stonewall Lecture 04-16-2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Gender Injustice Of Abortion Laws, Joanna Erdman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This commentary is a response to Katarzyna Sękowska-Kozłowska’s article on the treatment of criminal abortion laws as a form of sex discrimination under international human rights law through a study of the communications, Mellet v. Ireland and Whelan v. Ireland. The commentary offers a reading of these communications, and specifically the sex discrimination analysis premised on inequalities of treatment among women, as an engagement with the structural discrimination that characterises abortion laws, and asa radical vision for gender justice under international human rights law.

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Gonzalez's Post: Why I Marched... 1-25-2017, Deborah Gonzalez

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Law As An Ally Or Enemy In The War On Cyberbullying: Exploring The Contested Terrain Of Privacy And Other Legal Concepts In The Age Of Technology And Social Media, A. Wayne Mackay

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article focuses on the role and limits of law as a response to cyberbullying. The problem of cyberbullying engages many of our most fundamental legal concepts and provides an interesting case study. Even when there is general agreement that the problem merits a legal response, there are significant debates about what that response should be. Which level and what branch of government can and should best respond? What is the most appropriate legal process for pursuing cyberbullies—traditional legal avenues or more creative restorative approaches? How should the rights and responsibilities of perpetrators, victims and even bystanders be balanced? Among …

Marriage Equailty: Why Laws Restricting Same-Sex Couples' Rights Should Be Subject To Heightened Scrutiny Under Equal Protection Challenges., Cory A. Delellis

Cory A DeLellis

This thesis discusses why laws that restrict marital rights and recognition, on the basis of the couple’s sexual orientation, should be subject to a heightened or intermediate level of judicial scrutiny under Equal Protection challenges. This thesis addresses, analyzes, and suggests why sexual orientation – within the context of same-sex couples – should be considered a quasi-suspect class, rather than a non-suspect class, so that laws negatively impacting couples based on their sexual orientation are subjected to a fairer and more reasonable level of judicial scrutiny.

Liberty, Equality, Diversity: States, Cultures And International Law, Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak

This chapter explores how culture is addressed by contemporary international law, with particular reference to human rights law norms. The first part covering freedom focuses on the rise of the modern state and its conscious reimagining of ties with its citizens through the promotion of tolerance and a secular, national identity. The shift is explored through the prisms of the freedom of religion, the right to participate in (national) cultural life, and the limitations on freedom of expression including prohibition of hate speech and domestic blasphemy laws. The second part on equality centres on the relationship between the state, the …

A Noble Cause: A Case Study Of Discrimination, Symbols, And Reciprocity, In: Diversity And European Human Rights, Yofi Tirosh

Yofi Tirosh

This chapter is part of a volume dedicated to rewriting human rights cases issued by the European Court of Human Rights. It uses the case of De La Cierva Osorio De Moscoso v. Spain (1999) as a platform to discuss the inherent tension typifying signs such as nobility titles – as merely symbolic or as carrying substantive content. The problem of one’s ownership of signs is especially acute in the case of women. I will argue that the distinction between form and substance collapses in this case, as in many other cases that involve allocation of allegedly merely symbolic signifiers …

Created Equal: How The Declaration Of Independence Recognizes And Guarantees The Right To Life For The Unborn, Mark Trapp

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substance And Method In The Year 2000, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exchange As A Cornerstone Of Families, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

This essay up-ends critical theorist Ivan Illich’s critique of economic thinking as replacing households defined by vernacular gender with married pairs in “inhumane” sex-neutral economic partnerships. It challenges Illich’s view of exchange as a destroyer that has meddled in families for only a few hundred years, citing sociobiological literature to counter his case against exchange with one valorizing two exchanges that I call “primal deals” that played crucial roles in the evolution of humans, families, and day-to-day life. These primal deals—especially the primal pair-bonding deal between men and women—continue to play a central role in families and family law today. …

On Equality: The Anti-Interference Principle, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Essay introduces the “Anti-Interference Principle” – a new term on the meaning of equality, or at least one not yet so-named in the equality lexicon – as a necessary foundation for achieving the goal of true equality. Equality has a long-standing place in the discussion of politics and jurisprudence and remains a struggle of definition today. Rather than rehash the mass of scholarship, this Essay seeks to summarize the general equality concept, and propose that the legal discourse on equality center on a requirement that governmental power must protect and respect equal treatment and opportunity, unconstrained, not equal outcomes. …

Climate Justice: The Next Movement [Outline], Richard J. Lazarus

The Climate of Environmental Justice: Taking Stock (March 16-17)

Presenter: Richard J. Lazarus, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

2 pages.

Agenda: The Climate Of Environmental Justice: Taking Stock, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law

The Climate of Environmental Justice: Taking Stock (March 16-17)

On March 16-17, The Climate of Environmental Justice: Taking Stock conference gathered 125 academics and practitioners from around the country to consider the pressing issues facing low-income and/or communities of color that continue to be subjected to a disproportionate share of environmental maladies.

"Some people are more equal than others when it comes to bracing ourselves for the impacts of climate change," said conference organizer Professor Maxine Burkett. "Whether it's because poor folks lived in the lowest areas of New Orleans when Katrina floodwaters rushed in, or are less able to afford the cooling bill during increasingly frequent heat waves, …

Never Get Out'a The Boat: Stenberg V. Carhart And The Future Of American Law, Michael Scaperlanda, John Breen

ExpressO

In this essay, the haunting scenes from the film Apocalypse Now serve as the backdrop for an examination of Stenberg v. Carhart and the meaning that this case holds for the future of American law and culture.

The movie tells the story of Captain Benjamin Willard, a special forces officer in Vietnam who travels up-river on a patrol boat in search of a renegade American colonel whom Willard has been ordered to “terminate.” The major thematic concerns of the film are morality, violence, candor, and the tenuous nature of civilization. Indeed, life on board the boat, such as it is, …

Roger Williams On Liberty Of Conscience, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Symposium: Religious Liberty In America And Beyond: Celebrating The Legacy Of Roger Williams On The 400th Anniversary Of His Birth: Introduction, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Paradoxes Of Health And Equality: When A Boy Becomes A Girl, Noa Ben-Asher

ExpressO

This paper is about an unusual child custody dispute between the parents of a six-year-old child and the child welfare services of Franklin County, Ohio. The conflict emerged when the child’s parents complied with their male child’s professed desire to be treated as a girl by attempting to enroll the child in the first grade as a girl. The paper treats this case as an exemplary test-case of contemporary co-dependence between scientific-medical discourse and liberal-rights discourse. The paper analyzes the positions of the two sides of the custody dispute according to the classic modern distinction between mind and body. On …

The Elwood Case: Vindicating The Educational Rights Of The Disabled, A. Wayne Mackay

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The guarantees of the Charter of Rights affect the definition of education for the disabled. The case of Elwood v. Halifax County - Bedford District School Board, a landmark case in educational rights of disabled children in Canada, has major implications for educational practice.

One of the earliest and most controversial Charter of Rights challenges to the existing educational structure has come from parents of disabled children. Disabled children and their parents are blazing a trail to define educational rights in Canada, and the process is giving some shape to the the elusive concept of equality enshrined in the …