Law and Race Commons^™

Denial Of Tax Exempt Status For Racially Discriminatory Schools, Bob Jones University V. U.S., Margaret K. Cassidy

Akron Law Review

The extent to which the government may deny tax-exempt status in order to further its goal of eliminating racial discrimination is a question of paramount importance. The United States Supreme Court recently addressed this question in the case of Bob Jones University v. U.S., a consolidated action which involved a conflict between two established public policies: racial equality and religious freedom. The Court held that this nation's policy of racial equality overrides any interest that an educational and religious institution may have in promoting racial discrimination.

Affirmative Action: Alive And Well After Stotts, Ralph J. Conrad

Akron Law Review

This comment examines the current state of affirmative action in light of the special protection that the Supreme Court grants seniority systems. This comment also discusses the future of affirmative action and how the changes in affirmative action will affect collective bargaining agreements and consent decrees.

Edmonson V. Leesville Concrete Co.: State Action Or Inaction - Does It Matter?, Chad Murdock

Akron Law Review

This note first reviews the facts of Edmonson. Second, this note examines the history of judicial inquiry into the use of peremptory challenges. Third, this note reviews the application of Batson to civil cases. Finally, this note analyzes the extension of the state action doctrine in Edmonson and discusses an alternative to the Edmonson approach to state action

Civil Rights In The 1990'S: Non-Discrimination Or Quotas?, Donald B. Ayer

Akron Law Review

I would like today to offer some thoughts on the way that we as a country have handled the issue of reverse discrimination as a means of pursuing equal opportunity.

My first observation is that there is an undeniable tension between competing approaches to racial and gender justice that have been advanced and pursued in recent years. I take as my starting point the fundamental principle embodied in the Equal Protection Clause (as well as the Declaration of Independence), that, as the elder Justice Harlan said in dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson,' the Constitution is colorblind, and does not allow …

The Supreme Court's Impact On Litigation, Stephen L. Wasby

Akron Law Review

The focus of this article is on that segment of the litigation cycle in which lawyers' attention to the Court's rulings affects the cases they bring and how they bring them. To indicate the Court's importance for litigating organizations' existence and functioning, we first explore a set of cases involving the NAACP. These cases, involving the organization's survival, show how the need for organizational maintenance affects an organization's ability to litigate as it would like to do. Drawing on the law of procedure, we next examine cases affecting organizations' ability to bring cases. Then we turn to see how Supreme …

The Second Rodney King Trial: Justice In Jeopardy?, Robert C. Gorman

Akron Law Review

This Comment will trace the roots of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and provide a detailed look at the development of the dual sovereignty doctrine. After this overview, it will analyze the historical, legal and policy arguments advanced by supporters and opponents of the doctrine. It will examine proposals for altering or abolishing the doctrine. Finally, in light of the underlying analysis, it will revisit the Rodney King case and examine whether the defendants' second trial - or any successive prosecution - is justified.

The First Justice Harlan By The Numbers: Just How Great Was "The Great Dissenter?", Gabriel J. Chin

Akron Law Review

Considering these kinds of evidence together may offer an informed picture of a judge’s disposition. By these measures, Harlan cannot be regarded as a defender of Asian civil rights. Based on his voting record, he was the most ardent defender of African American civil rights. By contrast, his record in Asian cases was one of the worst. His votes in favor of African American civil rights were in critical cases. In most of the critical cases with respect to Asian litigants, he voted against them.

White Privilege And Affirmative Action, Sylvia A. Law

Akron Law Review

Since 1996, many authoritative voices challenge the legitimacy of affirmative efforts to achieve racial integration. The Supreme Court has struck down many affirmative action programs. The Court has not upheld any affirmative action program since 1989, when, by a 5-4 decision, it approved a narrowly targeted Congressional program to encourage minority ownership of broadcast licences. In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, broadly prohibiting any form of affirmative action on the basis of race or gender. In the same year, in the Hopwood decision, the Fifth Circuit held that the University of Texas could not give any consideration to race …

Law And The Boundaries Of Place And Race In Interracial Marriage: Interstate Comity, Racial Identity, And Miscegenation Laws In North Carolina, South Carolina, And Virginia, 1860s-1960s, Peter Wallenstein

Akron Law Review

This essay draws from case materials in three states to explore two of the main problems in enforcing—or escaping conviction under—laws in the United States against interracial marriage during the hundred years after the Civil War. Questions of interstate comity and racial identity, though not both involved in every miscegenation case, would remain issues in many such cases as long as laws against interracial marriage remained in effect. Only in 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia and declared such laws unconstitutional, would the boundaries of race and place no longer have any bearing on the law …

Jack Johnson: Reluctant Hero Of The Black Community, Denise C. Morgan

Akron Law Review

The difficulties which both White and Black Americans had with Jack Johnson, the first Black man to win the world heavyweight boxing championship, resulted from his status as a reluctant hero. Johnson was hated by White Americans for exhibiting a strong sense of individuality, for excelling in a sport that had previously been closed to men of his race, and for asserting his right to love the three White women whom he married. And although Black Americans admired his courage and felt vindicated by his success in the ring, they were troubled by the ways that Johnson’s uncompromising individuality distanced …

From Rights To Resources: The Southern Federal District Courts And The Transformation Of Civil Rights In Education, 1968-1974, Charles L. Zelden

Akron Law Review

This situation would change. Seemingly out of nowhere, and in a very short period of time, the federal courts transformed the concept of civil rights, taking it in a new and expansive direction almost impossible to predict a mere decade before. Reinterpreting a mix of government laws, regulations and past judicial orders, the courts, along with other branches of the federal government, began to reallocate social and economic resources such as access to education, jobs, political power and housing away from the majority toward the social margins. By 1974, a system of governmnt-ordered, race and gender-based, redistributive remedies to the …

Affirmative Action For The Master Class: The Creation Of The Proslavery Constitution, Paul Finkelman

Akron Law Review

The Constitution of 1787 was a proslavery document, designed to prevent any national assault on slavery, while at the same time structured to protect the interests of slaveowners at the expense of African Americans and their antislavery white allies. To understand this earliest form of affirmative action, I begin with a view of the Constitution first articulated by the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and then turn to an examination of the Convention that wrote the Constitution and the document that convention produced.

Teaching Slavery In American Constitutional Law, Paul Finkelman

Akron Law Review

From 1787 until the Civil War, slavery was probably the single most important economic institution in the United States. On the eve of the Civil War, slave property was worth at least two billion dollars. In the aggregate, the value of all the slaves in the United States exceeded the total value of all the nations railroads or all its factories. Slavery led to two major political compromises of the antebellum period, as well as to the most politically divisive Supreme Court decision in our history. Vast amounts of political and legal energy went into dealing with the institution. It …

Hate Crimes And The Need For Stronger Federal Legislation, Troy A. Scotting

Akron Law Review

This Comment focuses on the HCPA, concluding that such legislation is necessary to help combat the onslaught of hate crimes in America. Part II focuses on the problem of hate crimes, including the incidence of hate crimes, the characteristics of hate crimes, and the effects of hate crimes on the individual and the community. Part III examines state legislation concerning hate crimes, including the rise of hate crimes legislation, and treatment by the Supreme Court. In Parts IV and V, this Comment examines current federal legislation and the recently proposed HCPA. Part VI looks at the proposed extension of federal …