Law and Race Commons^™

Historic Partition Law Reform: A Game Changer For Heirs’ Property Owners, Thomas W. Mitchell

Thomas W. Mitchell

Over the course of several decades, many disadvantaged families who owned property under the tenancy-in-common form of ownership—property these families often referred to as heirs’ property—have had their property forcibly sold as a result of court-ordered partition sales. For several decades, repeated efforts to reform State partition laws produced little to no reform despite clear evidence that these laws unjustly harmed many families. This paper addresses the remarkable success of a model State statute named the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), which has been enacted into law in several States since 2011, including in five southern States. The …

Politics, Identity, And Class Certification On The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

Sean Farhang

This article draws on novel data and presents the results of the first empirical analysis of how potentially salient characteristics of Court of Appeals judges influence precedential lawmaking on class certification under Rule 23. We find that the partisan composition of the panel (measured by the party of the appointing president) has a very strong association with certification outcomes, with all-Democratic panels having more than double the certification rate of all-Republican panels in precedential cases. We also find that the presence of one African American on a panel, and the presence of two females (but not one), is associated with …

Racial Indirection, Yuvraj Joshi

Yuvraj Joshi

The Legacy Of Civil Rights And The Opportunity For Transactional Law Clinics, Lynnise E. Pantin

Lynnise E. Pantin

At the end of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously paraphrased abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker stating, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” The implication of the phrase is that the social justice goals of the Civil Rights Movement would eventually be achieved. His prayer was that servants of justice would be rewarded in due time. In other words, that the goals of the Civil Rights Movement would be achievable at some point in the future. President Obama resurrected the phrase throughout …

The Accidental Crit Iii: The Unbearable Lightness Of Being ... Pedro?, Pedro A. Malavet

Pedro A. Malavet

Indefinite Detention, Colonialism, And Settler Prerogative In The United States, Natsu Taylor Saito

Natsu Taylor Saito

The primacy accorded individual civil and political rights is often touted as one of the United States' greatest achievements. However, mass incarcerations of indefinite duration have occurred consistently throughout U.S. history and have primarily targeted people of color. The dominant narrative insists that the United States is a political democracy and portrays each instance of indefinite detention in exceptionalist terms. This essay argues that the historical patterns of indefinite detention are better explained by recognizing the United States as a settler colonial state whose claimed prerogative to expand its territorial reach and contain/control populations over which it exercises jurisdiction inevitably …

The Grand Jury: A Shield Of A Different Sort, R. Michael Cassidy, Julian A. Cook Iii

R. Michael Cassidy

According to the Washington Post, 991 people were shot to death by police officers in the United States during calendar year 2015, and 957 people were fatally shot in 2016. A disproportionate percentage of the citizens killed in these police-civilian encounters were black. Events in Ferguson, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; Charlotte, North Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Staten Island, New York - to name but a few affected cities - have now exposed deep distrust between communities of color and law enforcement. Greater transparency is necessary to begin to heal this culture of distrust and to inform the debate going forward …

The Color Of Perspective: Affirmative Action And The Constitutional Rhetoric Of White Innocence, Cecil J. Hunt Ii

Cecil J. Hunt II

This Article discusses the Supreme Court's use of the rhetoric of White innocence in deciding racially-inflected claims of constitutional shelter. It argues that the Court's use of this rhetoric reveals its adoption of a distinctly White-centered perspective, representing a one-sided view of racial reality that distorts the Court's ability to accurately appreciate the true nature of racial reality in contemporary America. This Article examines the Court's habit of using a White-centered perspective in constitutional race cases. Specifically, it looks at the Court's use of the rhetoric of White innocence in the context of the Court's concern with protecting "innocent" Whites …

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Latonia Haney Keith

Civil justice issues in the United States bring with them no guarantee of legal counsel, yet the civil legal system is still designed to require an attorney in almost all situations. Given the ever-growing costs of legal representation, how then are the legal needs of the poor met? The author calls this phenomenon the “justice gap” and addresses the issue of an access to justice gap and proposes a potential solution.

This article examines the existence of the “justice gap,” wherein the poor face substantial barriers that hinder them from receiving the same legal protections as wealthier Americans. It goes …

Review Of The Fight For Fair Housing: Causes, Consequences And Future Implications Of The 1968 Federal Fair Housing Act, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

Threading The Needle Of Fair Housing Law In A Gentrifying City With A Legacy Of Discrimination, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

The Declining Significance Of Presidential Races?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Osamudia R. James

Angela Onwuachi-Willig

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections Of Race And Class For Women In Academia Symposium - The Plenary Panel, Maritza I. Reyes, Angela Mae Kupenda, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Stephanie M. Wildman, Adrien Katherine Wing

Angela Onwuachi-Willig

No abstract provided.

Professor Breaks Ground With Journal On Sexual Violence And Exploitation, Joseph Essig, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

New Uri Journal Explores Sexual Exploitation, G. Wayne Miller, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Uri Professor Launches Online Journal About Sexual Exploitation, Violence, Slavery, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Legal Attitudes Of Immigrant Detainees, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

On Normative Effects Of Immigration Law.Pdf, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

Fostering Resilience And Belonging In Marginalized Law Students, Carol Pauli

Carol Pauli

No abstract provided.

Growing Inequality And Racial Economic Gaps, Thomas W. Mitchell

Thomas W. Mitchell

Over the past several decades, economic inequality has grown dramatically in the United States while inter-generational economic mobility has declined, which has challenged the very notion of the "American Dream." In fact, the United States is more economically unequal than most other industrialized countries. Further, there are dramatic and growing racial economic gaps in this country. Despite the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and the various spinoffs it has catalyzed, there has not been any sustained, widespread social movement to address economic inequality in the United States over the course of the past several decades. Furthermore, it is unlikely that a …

Hip-Hop And Housing: Revisiting Culture, Urban Space, Power, And Law, Lisa T. Alexander

Lisa T. Alexander

U.S. housing law is finally receiving its due attention. Scholars and practitioners are focused primarily on the subprime mortgage and foreclosure crises. Yet the current recession has also resurrected the debate about the efficacy of place-based lawmaking. Place-based laws direct economic resources to low-income neighborhoods to help existing residents remain in place and to improve those areas. Law-and-economists and staunch integrationists attack place-based lawmaking on economic and social grounds. This Article examines the efficacy of place-based lawmaking through the underutilized prism of culture. Using a sociolegal approach, it develops a theory of cultural collective efficacy as a justification for place-based …

Education Rights And Wrongs: Publicly Funded Vouchers, State Consitutions, And Education Death Spirals, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

No abstract provided.

A Civil Rights Remembrance, Carol Pauli

Carol Pauli

No abstract provided.

Power, Economics And The 'Islamic Terrorism' Narrative, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

The Way Of Colorinsight: Understanding Race And Law Effectively Through Mindfulness-Based Colorinsight Practices., Rhonda Magee

Rhonda V Magee

Most of us know that, despite the counsel of the current Supreme Court, colorblindness is not, by itself, an effective remedy against racism. This is so because it does not comport with our cognitive (or social) experience of the real world. Thus, legal scholars, backed by cognitive scientists, have called for a move from colorblindness to color insight -- defined as an understanding of race and its pervasive operation in our lives and in the law. This Article is the first to explore the role of research-grounded mindfulness-based contemplative practices in enhancing what may be called ColorInsight, and to suggest …

Moral Judgments, Expressive Functions, And Bias In Immigration Law, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

In a lucid and trenchant style characteristic of Professor Hiroshi Motomura’s writing, Immigration Outside the Law offers rich descriptive and prescriptive analyses of three major themes underlying debates about unauthorized migration: the meaning of unlawful presence, state and local involvement in the regulation of unauthorized migration, and the integration of unauthorized migrants into American society. This review advances several ideas that I argue are important to understanding these key themes. In brief, I suggest that a more comprehensive understanding of public debates about unauthorized migration requires examining lay moral judgments about unlawful presence, the expressive functions of immigration law, and …

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

Tanya Monique Washington

No abstract provided.

Deadly Waiting Game: An Environmental Justice Framework For Examining Natural And Man-Made Disasters Beyond Hurricane Katrina [Abstract], Robert D. Bullard

Robert D Bullard

Presenter: Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Clark Atlanta University 1 page.

Tales Of Color And Colonialism: Racial Realism And Settler Colonial Theory, Natsu T. Saito

Natsu Taylor Saito

More than a half-century after the Civil Rights Era, people of color remain disproportionately impoverished and incarcerated, excluded and vulnerable. Legal remedies rooted in the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection remain elusive. This article argues that the “racial realism” advocated by the late Professor Derrick Bell compels us to look critically at the purposes served by racial hierarchy. By stepping outside the master narrative’s depiction of the United States as a “nation of immigrants” with opportunity for all, we can recognize it as a settler state, much like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It could not exist without the occupation …

Embodying The Population: Five Decades Of Immigrant/Integration Policy In Sweden, Leila Brännström

Leila Brännström