Law and Race Commons^™

Resisting In Process: Human Beings Ensnared In The Fugitive Slave Law Of 1850 (A Working Collection), Daniel Farbman

Dan Farbman

No abstract provided.

What Can Brown Do For You?: Addressing Mccleskey V. Kemp As A Flawed Standard For Measuring The Constitutionally Significant Risk Of Race Bias

Erwin Chemerinsky

This Essay asserts that in McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court created a problematic standard for the evidence of race bias necessary to uphold an equal protection claim under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. First, the Court’s opinion reinforced the cramped understanding that constitutional claims require evidence of not only disparate impact but also discriminatory purpose, producing significant negative consequences for the operation of the U.S. criminal justice system. Second, the Court rejected the Baldus study’s findings of statistically significant correlations between the races of the perpetrators and victims and the imposition of the death …

Embracing Race-Conscious College Admissions Programs: How Fisher V. University Of Texas At Austin Redefines "Affirmative Action" As A Holistic Approach To Admissions That Ensures Equal, Not Preferential, Treatment, Nancy L. Zisk

Nancy L. Zisk

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the United States Supreme Court affirmed well-established Supreme Court doctrine that race may be considered when a college or university decides whom to admit and whom to reject, as long as the consideration of race is part of a narrowly tailored holistic consideration of an applicant's many distinguishing features. The Court's latest decision heralds a new way of thinking about holistic race-conscious admissions programs. Rather than considering them as "affirmative action" plans that prefer any one applicant to the disadvantage of another, they should be viewed as the Court has described …

Racial Indirection, Yuvraj Joshi

Yuvraj Joshi

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 …

Colonialism And Constitutional Memory, Aziz Rana

Aziz Rana

The United States shares a number of basic traits with various British settler societies in the nonwhite world. These include longstanding histories in which colonists and their descendants divided legal, political, and economic rights between insiders and subordinated outsiders, be they expropriated indigenous groups or racial minorities. But Americans rarely think of themselves as part of an imperial family of settler polities and instead generally conceive of the country as quintessentially anti-imperial and inclusive. What explains this fact and what are its political consequences? This Article offers an initial response, arguing that a significant reason is the symbolic power of …

How Much Diversity Can The Us Constitution Stand?, Tanya Washington

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

No Right To Respect: Dred Scott And The Southern Honor Culture, 42 New Eng. L. Rev. 79 (2007), Cecil J. Hunt Ii

Cecil J. Hunt II

This Article reflects on the infamous decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of slavery. This Article considers this infamous case and the distance the nation has come since it was decided as well as its continuing legacy on the contemporary American struggle for racial equality. In Dred Scott the Court held that slavery was constitutional because it was consistent with the intent of the Framers and because black people were "a subordinate and inferior class of beings who... whether emancipated or not.., …

The Blinding Color Of Race: Elections And Democracy In The Post-Shelby County Era, Sahar F. Aziz

Sahar F. Aziz

No abstract provided.

From Slavery To Obama: The Affirmative Action Revolution, Tanya Washington

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

Jurisprudential Ties That Blind: The Means To Ending Affirmative Action, Tanya M. Washington

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Guilt And Shame And The Future Of Affirmative Action, 3 Ariz. St. L.J. Soc. Just. 211 (2013), Donald Beschle

Donald L. Beschle

No abstract provided.

Restricting Hate Speech Against Private Figures: Lessons In Power-Based Censorship From Defamation Law, Victor C. Romero

Victor C. Romero

This article examines the debate between those who favor greater protection for minorities vulnerable to hate speech and First Amendment absolutists who are skeptical of any burdens on pure speech. The author also provides another perspective on the debate by highlighting the "public/private figure" distinction as an area within First Amendment law that acknowledges differences in power, a construct anti-hate speech advocates should use to further their cause. Specifically, the author places the "public/private figure" division in a theoretical and historical context and then provides empirical support for the thesis that whites enjoy a more prominent societal role and greater …

Changing The Wind: Notes Toward A Demosprudence Of Law And Social Movements, Lani Guinier, Gerald Torres

Gerald Torres

This essay was influenced by a class on Law and Social Movements that Professors Guinier and Torres taught at the Yale Law School in 2011. This essay was also informed by numerous conversations with Bruce Ackerman regarding his book that is under review in this Symposium. While we are in fundamental agreement with Professor Ackerman’s project, as well as the claims he makes as to the new constitutional canon, we supplement his analysis with the overlooked impact of the lawmaking potential of social movements. In particular, we focus on those social movements that were critical to the legal changes that …

Loving Grutter: Recognizing Race In Transracial Adoptions, Tanya Washington

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

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

Cedric M. Powell

The Scope Of Section 1985(3) In Light Of Great American Federal Savings And Loan Association V. Novotny: Too Little Too Late?, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

No abstract provided.

The Crime Drop And Racial Profiling: Toward An Empirical Jurisprudence Of Search And Seizure, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

No abstract provided.

The Crime Drop And Racial Profiling: Toward An Empirical Jurisprudence Of Search And Seizure, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

No abstract provided.