Law and Race Commons^™

Ochoa, Big Ten Law Deans Pledge Support For Diversity Ahead Of Scotus Affirmative Action Ruling, The Indiana Lawyer

Christiana Ochoa (7/22-10/22 Acting; 11/2022-)

s the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hand down a decision that could fundamentally alter affirmative action, a group of law school deans — including Dean Christiana Ochoa of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law — has issued a statement affirming the deans’ commitment to diversity.

The group of 15 deans represent Big Ten law schools, including IU Maurer. In their statement — which IU Maurer posted to its official Facebook page — the deans say they are “joining together to affirm our commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion through legally permissible means, regardless of the outcome of …

Shelby County V. Holder: A Critical Analysis Of The Post-Racial Movement’S Relationship To Bystander Denial And Its Effect On Perceptions Of Ongoing Discrimination In Voting, Abra S. Mason

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

A Nation Of Widening Opportunities: The Civil Rights Act At 50, Ellen D. Katz, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Books

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an extraordinary achievement of law, politics, and human rights. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Act's passage, it is appropriate to reflect on the successes and failures of the civil rights project reflected in the statute, as well as on its future directions. This volume represents an attempt to assess the Civil Rights Act's legacy.

On October 11, 2013, a diverse group of civil rights scholars met at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor to assess the interpretation, development, and administration of civil rights law in the five decades since …

Equality And The European Union, Elizabeth F. Defeis

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The "Nixon Sabotage": The Political Origins Of The Equal Protection Challenge To The Voting Rights Act, Danieli Evans

Articles

Critics of the Voting Rights Act argue that the anti-discrimination law requires states to engage in unconstitutional discrimination, as state decisionmakers must be conscious of race in order to ensure that voting policies do not weaken minority representation. This argument relies on the idea that subjective racial motivation is the essence of unconstitutional discrimination (even if benevolent, or to promote racial inclusion). The conventional understanding among constitutional scholars is that this “search for the bigoted decisionmaker” developed in employment and housing discrimination decisions between 1976 and 1979. Previous accounts have not recognized the role that the 1971 school desegregation decision …

Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article uses the term contingent equal protection to describe the constitutional analysis that applies to a range of governmental efforts to ameliorate race and sex hierarchies. "Contingent" refers to the fact that the equal protection analysis is contingent upon the existence of structural, de facto inequality. Contingent equal protection cases include those that involve explicit race and sex classifications, facially neutral efforts to reduce inequality, and accommodation of sex differences to promote equality. Uniting all three kinds of cases under a single conceptual umbrella reveals the implications that developments in one area can have for the other two.

The Missing Minority Judges, Pat K. Chew, Luke T. Kelley-Chew

Articles

This essay documents the lack of Asian-American judges and considers the consequences.

Freezing Voter Qualifications To Aid Negro Registration, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The literacy test, used by many states in determining the qualifications of voters, has proved to be a major obstacle to the elimination of voter discrimination based on racial characteristics. Under recently enacted statutory provisions, citizens who attempt to register to vote in certain states are faced with test questions of such difficulty that it is virtually impossible to answer them satisfactorily. Where there is permanent voter registration, the effect is to secure a position of political dominance for those registered prior to the institution of the tests. In those states in which individuals had been denied registration by prior …

The Fourteenth Amendment Reconsidered, The Segregation Question, Alfred H. Kelly

Michigan Law Review

Some sixty years ago in Plessy v. Ferguson the Supreme Court of the United States adopted the now celebrated "separate but equal" doctrine as a constitutional guidepost for state segregation statutes. Justice Brown's opinion declared that state statutes imposing racial segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, provided only that the statute in question guaranteed equal facilities for the two races. Brown's argument rested on a historical theory of the intent, although he offered no evidence to support it. "The object of the amendment," he said, "was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, …

Constitutional Law - Civil Rights - Right Of Negro To Vote In State Primary Elections, John C. Hall S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The Jaybird Democratic Association was formed in Fort Bend County, Texas, in 1889. Membership was open to all white voters in the county. The association was not governed by the state statute regulating political parties. Candidates nominated by the Jaybird Party entered the Democratic county primary as individuals, not as Jaybird candidates, but those candidates won both the Democratic primary and the general election with only one exception in the entire history of the Jaybird Party. Terry, a Negro, sought a declaratory judgment and injunction permitting Negroes to vote in the Jaybird primary. The federal district court ruled that the …