Law and Race Commons^™

Liberating Legal Aid: Reducing Covid-19'S Justice Gap And Promoting Health By Removing The Legal Services Corporation's Class Action And Advocacy Restrictions, Molly C. Schmidt

Cleveland State Law Review

The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is the single-largest funder of civil legal services, or legal aid, in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored a longstanding and growing problem faced by ow-income Americans served by LSC-funded legal aid organizations: the growing "justice gap." The justice gap represents the unmet civil legal needs of low-income Americans. The justice gap perpetuates poverty, conceals health-harming legal problems, and furthers racial disparities. Despite the LSC’s essential role in reducing the justice gap and promoting “equal access to justice,” Congress consistently underfunded the LSC before and during COVID-19. Congress has also prohibited the LSC-funded legal …

Panel 1 - Towards Effective Governmental Intervention: Ending Discrimination In The Workplace, Rebecca Salawdeh, Patrick Patterson, Victoria Lipnic, Carol Miaskoff, Hnin Khaing

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

FACILITATOR: Good morning, everyone and welcome to the “Enhancing Antidiscrimination Laws in Education and Employment Symposium”, hosted by the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law, the American, and the National Institute for Workers’ Rights (“Institute”). And without further ado, let me pass it off to the Institute’s board president, Rebecca Salawdeh

Surveillance Normalization, Christian Sundquist

Articles

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has expanded public surveillance measures in an attempt to combat the spread of the virus. As the pandemic wears on, racialized communities and other marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by this increased level of surveillance. This article argues that increases in public surveillance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic give rise to the normalization of surveillance in day-to-day life, with serious consequences for racialized communities and other marginalized groups. This article explores the legal and regulatory effects of surveillance normalization, as well as how to protect civil rights and liberties …

Birthing Alone, Elizabeth Kukura

Washington and Lee Law Review

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals implemented restrictive visitor policies that have prevented many pregnant people from giving birth with their chosen support people. For some, this meant foregoing labor and delivery support by a birth doula, someone who serves in a nonclinical role and provides emotional, physical, and informational support to birthing people. Given that continuous labor support such as the care provided by doulas is associated with fewer cesareans and other interventions, less need for pain medication, and shorter labors, the promotion of doula care is a promising strategy to ease the maternal health crisis and, in particular, shrink …

Contract Law & Racial Inequality: A Primer, Danielle Kie Hart

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

America was founded on institutionally recognized and supported oppression, namely, slavery and conquest. So, the fact that the inequality spawned by this oppression continues to exist today should surprise absolutely no one. That said, the extent of the racialized social and economic inequality that pervades American society today is being exposed in horrifying and glaring detail, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

African Americans, the Latinx community, indigenous communities, and immigrants are at much greater risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19 because of now widely-acknowledged systemic health and social inequality and inequity. More specifically, in July …

Protecting A Woman’S Right To Abortion During A Public Health Crisis, San Juanita Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

As COVID-19 infected our nation, states were quick to issue executive orders restricting various aspects of daily life under the pretense of public safety. It was clear at the outset that certain civil liberties were going to be tested. Among them, the constitutional right to an abortion.

This comment explores Texas’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the limitations it imposed on abortion access. It will attempt to address the legitimacy of the “public health concerns” listed in executive orders issued throughout numerous states and will discuss the pertinent legal framework and judicial scrutiny to apply.

According to the Fifth …

Insuring Contraceptive Equity, Jennifer Hickey

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The United States is in the midst of a family planning crisis. Approximately half of all pregnancies nationwide are unintended. In recognition of the social importance of family planning, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes a “contraceptive mandate” that requires insurers to cover contraception at no cost. Yet, a decade after its enactment, the ACA’s promise of universal contraceptive access for insured women remains unfulfilled, with as many as one-third of U.S. women unable to access their preferred contraceptive without cost.

While much attention has been focused on religious exemptions granted to employers, the primary barrier to no-cost contraception is …

The Emergency Next Time, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

This Article offers a new conceptual framework to understand the connection between law and violence in emergencies. It is by now well-established that governments often commit state violence in times of national security crisis by implementing excessive emergency measures. The Article calls this type of legal violence “Emergency-Affirming Violence.” But Emergency Violence can also be committed through governmental non-action. This type of violence, which this Article calls, “Emergency-Denying Violence,” has manifested in the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Article offers a taxonomy to better understand the phenomenon of Emergency Violence. Using 9/11 and COVID-19 as examples, the Article proposes …

Anti-Asian American Racism, Covid-19, Racism Contested, Humor, And Empathy, Peter H. Huang

FIU Law Review

This Article analyzes the history of anti-Asian American racism. This Article considers how anger, fear, and hatred over COVID-19 fueled the increase of anti-Asian American racism. This Article introduces the phrase, racism contested, to describe an incident where some people view racism as clearly involved, while some people do not. This Article critiques respectability politics for being an ineffective response to racism. This Article proposes how to utilize humor to engage non-violent racism. This Article studies how to achieve DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) by Empathy Through Personal Perspective Pivoting (ETPPP).

Maternity Rights: A Comparative View Of Mexico And The United States, Roberto Rosas

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Women play a large role in the workplace and require additional protection during pregnancy, childbirth, and while raising children. This article compares how Mexico and the United States have approached the issue of maternity rights and benefits. First, Mexico provides eighty-four days of paid leave to mothers, while the United States provides unpaid leave for up to twelve weeks. Second, Mexico allows two thirty-minute breaks a day for breastfeeding, while the United States allows a reasonable amount of time per day to breastfeed. Third, Mexico provides childcare to most federal employees, while the United States provides daycares to a small …

Social Distancing As A Privilege: Assessing The Impact Of Structural Disparities On The Covid-19 Crisis In The Black Community, Olympia Duhart

Georgia State University Law Review

There is a harsh reality for people living with the COVID-19 restrictions in the same city. Though the virus has been called an equal opportunity threat, the truth is that it has had a deadly, disproportionate impact on Black and Brown people. The COVID-19 pandemic has crushed communities of color. Among Black Americans, who make up around 13% of the U.S. population, the COVID-19 infection and death rate are disproportionally high.

To curb the spread of this infectious disease, the CDC has advanced simple advice: apply social distancing guidelines. Social distancing (physical distancing) requires people to keep at least six …

Border Solutions From The Inside, Raquel E. Aldana

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 And The Caregiving Crisis: The Rights Of Our Nation’S Social Safety Net And A Doorway To Reform, Leanne Fuith, Susan Trombley

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

On March 2020, the United States declared a pandemic due to the global Covid-19 virus. Across the nation and within a matter of days, workplaces, schools, childcare, and eldercare facilities shuttered. People retreated to their homes to shelter-in-place and slow the spread of the virus for what would become a much longer time than most initially anticipated. Now, more than a year into the pandemic, many professional and personal lives have been upended and become inextricably intertwined. Work is now home, and home is now work. Work is completed at all times of day and well into the night. Children …

Bivens In The End Zone: The Court Punts To Congress To Make The Right (Of Action) Play, Gilbert Paul Carrasco

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Covid-19, Lying, Mask-Less Exposures And Disability During A Pandemic, Madeleine M. Plasencia

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

This article focuses on disability law in the context of COVID-19. In dealing with this pandemic, businesses, schools and other covered entities have to navigate and manage (at least) three different categories of people congregating. First are those who act as if there were no pandemic at all; they simply do not care if they are contagious and insist upon not complying with safety precautions, such as mask-wearing and social distancing; second are people who have medical conditions that make them especially vulnerable and at high-risk for severe symptoms associated with the infection; third are people who have already contracted …

Profiting From Our Pain: Privileged Access To Social Impact Investing, Cary Martin Shelby

Scholarly Articles

Social impacting investing has become the latest trend to permeate the financial markets. With massive anticipated funding gaps for sustainable development goals, and a millennial-driven thirst for doing good while doing well, this trend is likely to continue in the coming decades. This burgeoning industry is poised to experience yet an additional boost, since it provides an alternative mechanism for private actors to “profit from our pain,” particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

As to be expected, the law has not sufficiently adapted to this new wave of innovation. Scholars have thus …

Testing Privilege: Coaching Bar Takers Towards "Minimum Competency" During The 2020 Pandemic, Afton Cavanaugh

Faculty Articles

The year 2020 was challenging for the bar exam. The longstanding argument that the bar exam is not a fair measure of the minimum competence of someone to practice law was cast into harsh relief and the truth-that the bar exam tests the privilege of its examinees-became startlingly apparent. Not only did 2020 kick off with a devastating global pandemic, but we also saw the rage against systemic racial injustice reach a boiling point just as we were charged with staying in our homes to avoid contracting COVID-19. With a pandemic raging, overt White supremacy on the rise, and racial …

When We Breathe: Re-Envisioning Safety And Justice In A Post-Floyd Era, Aya Gruber

Publications

10th Annual David H. Bodiker Lecture on Criminal Justice delivered on Wed., Oct. 21, 2020 at Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

Prisons, Nursing Homes, And Medicaid: A Covid-19 Case Study In Health Injustice, Mary Crossley

Articles

The unevenly distributed pain and suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic present a remarkable case study. Considering why the coronavirus has devastated some groups more than others offers a concrete example of abstract concepts like “structural discrimination” and “institutional racism,” an example measured in lives lost, families shattered, and unremitting anxiety. This essay highlights the experiences of Black people and disabled people, and how societal choices have caused them to experience the brunt of the pandemic. It focuses on prisons and nursing homes—institutions that emerged as COVID-19 hotspots –and on the Medicaid program.

Black and disabled people are disproportionately represented in …

Law School News: Bright Anniversaries In Uncertain Times 10/06/2020, Nicole Dyszlewski, Louisa Fredey

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Eight Months Later, Ellen D. Katz

Reviews

Rick Hasen’s Election Meltdown provides a concise and scathing analysis of what ails the American electoral process. Rick identifies four “principal dangers”—namely, voter suppression, “pockets of incompetence” in election administration, “dirty tricks,” and “incendiary rhetoric” about stolen or rigged elections. He argues that these dangers have contributed to past dysfunctional elections and are sure to infect future ones. Election Meltdown closes with some proposals to temper the identified dangers so as to make voting less difficult and restore confidence in the electoral process.

Damn It! A Conversation On Being Black, Female, And Marginalized During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Is The World Listening? A Conversation Between Black Female Law Professors, Patricia A. Broussard

Journal Publications

We are African American women with a combined forty-four years in academia. We are professors of law and have seen firsthand how COVID-19 has ravaged African Americans across this country. As we conversed with one another in the Spring of 2020 about what we were witnessing, we began to look through the spectrum of the law and discrimination, and how this novel Coronavirus is laying bare the inequities and inequalities that have been evident for hundreds of years in the Black community. We felt compelled to put pen to paper and document our conversations in an attempt to give a …