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Constitutional Law

Selected Works

Cedric M. Powell

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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race

The Rhetorical Allure Of Post-Racial Process Discourse And The Democratic Myth, Cedric Merlin Powell Feb 2019

The Rhetorical Allure Of Post-Racial Process Discourse And The Democratic Myth, Cedric Merlin Powell

Cedric M. Powell

We are witnessing the power of distorted and neutral rhetoric that rings with deceptive clarity. This post-racial process discourse is advanced on many levels: in political discourse, by a distrustful citizenry energized by hateful rhetoric that appeals to their concerns of being “left behind” on the basis of “preferences” for minorities that diminish America’s “greatness,” and a Court that seeks to constitutionalize a mythic democracy that promises participation while implicitly endorsing structural exclusion.

Voter initiatives should not determine the substantive core of the Fourteenth Amendment. While democratic participation is essential to our Republic, decisions like Schuette perpetuate a democratic myth …

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Harvesting New Conceptions Of Equality: Opportunity, Results, And Neutrality, Cedric M. Powell Oct 2011

Harvesting New Conceptions Of Equality: Opportunity, Results, And Neutrality, Cedric M. Powell

Cedric M. Powell

This is a critical period in the Court’s history; there is a doctrinal shift from the Rehnquist Court’s colorblind constitutionalism to the Roberts Court’s post-racial universalism. The Fourteenth Amendment and Title VII have been inverted: under the Fourteenth Amendment, whites are the new discrete and insular minority to be protected from a result-oriented “racial” process; and, under Title VII, disparate impact is irrelevant in the absence of a “strong basis in evidence” to believe that there will be liability. In a very direct way, the Court’s race jurisprudence privileges reverse discrimination suits. To advance the critique of the Court’s doctrinal …

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