Law and Race Commons^™

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

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

Placing "Rights And Liberties In Pawn Until The Defeat Of Hitlerism”: Canadian Intelligence Gathering In The Second World War, Austin M H Williams

The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History

Abstract:

A monograph regarding the history of Canada’s intelligence gathering apparatus has not been published, leaving a gap in modern historiography. In an attempt to partially fill this academic void, this essay examines RCMP intelligence Bulletins drafted during World War Two that have been declassified under the Access to Information Act. Analysis of the Bulletins clearly indicates the Canadian intelligence gathering apparatus underwent a massive expansion of scope during the war. The RCMP began investigating people and organizations based upon their race, religion, political affiliation or nationalist beliefs. Disregard of human rights and privacy during the period was so …

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.

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.

Holland V. Illinois: Sixth Amendment Fair Cross-Section Requirement Does Not Preclude Racially-Based Peremptory Challenges, Debra L. Dippel

Akron Law Review

This note recaps the Supreme Court's previous decisions regarding defendant's objections to jury composition, including both equal protection and fair cross-section requirement analyses. It also discusses Holland, examines the various opinions in the case, and reviews the arguments for and against abolishing peremptory challenges. Finally, the note proposes a solution for the questions which Holland leaves unanswered.

Bias Crime Legislation: A Constitutional Rebuttal To Sticks And Stones . . ., Diana M. Torres

Akron Law Review

In a recent article, Susan Gellman of the Ohio bar provides perhaps the clearest and most persuasive arguments against these statutes both on constitutional and policy grounds. 5 This paper is, in many respects, a response to her arguments. It will first briefly discuss the need for bias crime legislation. It will then address the various forms of such statutes and respond to the constitutional objections of vagueness, overbreadth and infringement on free speech as set forth in Gellman's article. The paper will analogize the statutes to civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation and the principles behind sentencing discretion. Finally, the …

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.

Private Problem, Public Solution: Affirmative Action In The 21st Century, Darlene C. Goring

Akron Law Review

This Article will explore the origins of the Court’s color-blind interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the role that this interpretation plays in the development of new barriers against challenges to race-based affirmative action programs. Part II of this Article traces the development and application of the strict scrutiny test to evaluate the constitutionality of both invidious and benign racial classifications. Part III examines Justice Powell’s position that racial classifications used as remedial measures may overcome the presumption of constitutional invalidity associated with the use of race-based classifications. In this context, the Court recognizes that the continued impact of past …

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 …

Teaching Free Speech From An Incomplete Fossil Record, Michael Kent Curtis

Akron Law Review

The second part of this symposium has been devoted to how we teach the Constitution. It has emphasized what gets left out. The reader will see a pattern. Paul Finkelman is a leading scholar on the law of slavery and the Constitution. Paul thinks – and I believe he is correct – that the immense influence of slavery on American constitutional law is too often neglected in our constitutional law courses. James Wilson has studied how political philosophers – Aristotle, Rousseau, James Harrington, and others – have understood the distribution of wealth as a central factor affecting how the constitution …

The Fourteenth Amendment: The Great Equalizer Of The American People, Abel A. Bartley

Akron Law Review

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was ratified on July 28, 1868, demonstrated the change in attitude, which hit many Americans after the chaotic Civil War. It was America’s first attempt to legally challenge White supremacist ideas by creating a truly equal multiracial society. With its emphasis on equal protection and equal justice, the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to be the great equalizer of American people, legally changing African American men into White men so that they could enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities of United States citizenship. However, determining the meaning of equality uncovered the …

Ideology Vs. Reality: The Myth Of Equal Opportunity In A Color Blind Society, Jeffrey J. Wallace

Akron Law Review

The purpose of this discussion is to emphasize that the general assumptions of integration, equal opportunity, and racial neutrality in contemporary America are false and dichotomous assumptions, which prevent us from achieving the goal of true equality. While race is a difficult and painful subject to discuss in America, it is equally clear that without dialogue, we will not achieve the democratic values and principles we hold so dear and that drive our way of life.

The topic “What Every Teacher and Judge Should Know About Reconstruction,” provides an opportunity to open dialogue and to think critically about our values, …

The 2014 Farm Bill: Farm Subsidies And Food Oppression, Andrea Freeman

Seattle University Law Review

The 2014 Farm Bill ushered in some significant and surprising changes. One of these was that it rendered the identity of all the recipients of farm subsidies secret. Representative Larry Combest, who is now a lobbyist for agribusiness, first introduced a secrecy provision into the bill in 2000. The provision, however, only applied to subsidies made in the form of crop insurance. Until 2014, the majority of subsidies were direct payments and the identity of the people who received them was public information. In fact, the Environmental Working Group’s release of the list of recipients led to a series of …

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.

Judging In A Vacuum, Or, Once More, Without Feeling: How Justice Scalia's Jurisprudential Approach Repeats Errors Made In Plessy V. Ferguson, Chris Edelson

Akron Law Review

James Fleming argues that “[Justice Clarence] Thomas’s concurrence in Adarand and dissent in Grutter reflect the Plessy worldview.” I argue in Part V of this article that Justice Antonin Scalia follows the Plessy approach in several of his dissenting opinions. One of this article’s goals is to explain these incongruencies—how can it be that each of these Justices believes he is true to the legacy of Brown, but is inadvertently adopting the reasoning used by the majority in Plessy? The key to resolving this paradox depends on identifying precisely how Plessy went wrong in its reasoning and how Brown corrected …

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.

Colonialism And Constitutional Memory, Aziz Rana

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

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 …

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 …

Transformation: Turning Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act Into Something It Is Not, J. Christian Adams

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Voter Rights And Civil Rights Era Cold Cases: Section Five And The Five Cities Project, Paula C. Johnson

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Courtroom To Classroom: Judicial Policymaking And Affirmative Action, Dylan Britton Saul

Political Science Honors Projects

The judicial branch, by exercising judicial review, can replace public policies with ones of their own creation. To test the hypothesis that judicial policymaking is desirable only when courts possess high capacity and necessity, I propose an original model incorporating six variables: generalism, bi-polarity, minimalism, legitimization, structural impediments, and public support. Applying the model to a comparative case study of court-sanctioned affirmative action policies in higher education and K-12 public schools, I find that a lack of structural impediments and bi-polarity limits the desirability of judicial race-based remedies in education. Courts must restrain themselves when engaging in such policymaking.

An “Equal Sovereignty” Principle Born In Northwest Austin, Texas, Raised In Shelby County, Alabama, David Kow

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Path Forward From Shelby County V. Holder, Janet W. Steverson

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Grandpa, Charles Walker

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Arc Of Injustice: Pre- And Post-Decision Thoughts On Shelby County V. Holder, Janai S. Nelson

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

A Fugitive From The Camp Of The Conquerors: The Revival Of Equal Sovereignty Doctrine In Shelby County V. Holder, Vik Kanwar

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

On The Repeal Of The Voting Rights Act And The Breadth Of The Long Counter Revolution, Ifetayo M. Flannery

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Backsliding: The United States Supreme Court, Shelby County V. Holder And The Dismantling Of Voting Rights Act Of 1965, Bridgette Baldwin

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.