Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law and Race Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 19 of 19

Full-Text Articles in Law and Race

Fee Simple Failures: Rural Landscapes And Race, Jessica A. Shoemaker Jun 2021

Fee Simple Failures: Rural Landscapes And Race, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

Property law’s roots are rural. America pursued an early agrarian vision that understood real property rights as instrumental to achieving a country of free, engaged citizens who cared for their communities and stewarded their physical place in it. But we have drifted far from this ideal. Today, American agriculture is industrialized, and rural communities are in decline. The fee simple ownership form has failed every agrarian objective but one: the maintenance of white landownership. For it was also embedded in the original American experiment that land ownership would be racialized for the benefit of its white citizens, through acts of …


Looking Toward Restorative Justice For Redlined Communities Displaced By Eco-Gentrification, Helen H. Kang Jan 2021

Looking Toward Restorative Justice For Redlined Communities Displaced By Eco-Gentrification, Helen H. Kang

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

MJEAL chose to publish Helen Kang’s piece, Looking Toward Restorative Justice for Redlined Communities Displaced by Eco-Gentrification, because it offers a unique analytic approach for analyzing the roots of environmental racism and the appropriate tools to help rectify it. She offers an argument for why restorative justice needs to be the framework and explains how we can accomplish this in the context of a whole government solution. MJEAL is excited to offer what will be an influential approach for environmental restorative justice to the broader activist and academic community.


On Black South Africans, Black Americans, And Black West Indians: Some Thoughts On We Want What’S Ours, Eleanor Marie Lawrence Brown Apr 2016

On Black South Africans, Black Americans, And Black West Indians: Some Thoughts On We Want What’S Ours, Eleanor Marie Lawrence Brown

Michigan Law Review

Most modern constitutions have eminent domain provisions that mandate just compensation for forced deprivations of land and require such deprivations to be for a public use or public purpose. The Takings Clause is a classic example of such a provision. The takings literature is essentially focused on outlining the outer boundaries within which the state can take property from an owner. But there are other takings that have been deemed “extraordinary”; in such circumstances, the state takes away property without just compensation and simultaneously makes a point about a person or a group’s standing in the community of citizens.


The Fair Housing Act And Disparate Impact In Homeowners Insurance, Dana L. Kaersvang Aug 2006

The Fair Housing Act And Disparate Impact In Homeowners Insurance, Dana L. Kaersvang

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that because homeowners insurance is central to homeownership, the FHA applies to insurance underwriting policies, such as those mentioned above, that have a disparate impact on minority potential homeowners. Part I considers whether the FHA applies to homeowners insurance and concludes that homeowners insurance is covered by the Act. Part II goes on to argue that the FHA applies to homeowners insurance even where the discrimination results from disparate impact, rather than from disparate treatment. Finally, Part III analyzes the above-mentioned policies of the insurance industry under the FHA disparate impact standard.


Caught In The Trap: Pricing Racial Housing Preferences, A. Mechele Dickerson May 2005

Caught In The Trap: Pricing Racial Housing Preferences, A. Mechele Dickerson

Michigan Law Review

In The Two-Income Trap, Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren and business consultant Amelia Warren Tyagi reach a startling conclusion: a two-income middle-class family faces greater financial risks today than a one-income family faced three decades ago. Middle-class families are caught in an "income trap" because they budget based on two incomes and face financial ruin if they lose an income or incur unexpected expenses. The authors suggest that most middle-class families cannot quickly adjust their budgets because their largest monthly expense is the fixed mortgage payment. The parents maintained that they had to allocate a significant portion of …


Accumulation, Anthony Paul Farley Jan 2005

Accumulation, Anthony Paul Farley

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Anthony Farley brings a focus on class back to Critical Race Theory by exploring the intersection of race and class as a singular concept that finds its creation in the marking of difference through the primal scene of accumulation. Professor Farley's Essay contends that the rule of law is the endless unfolding of that primal scene of accumulation. By choosing to pray for legal relief rather than dismantling the system, the slave chooses enslavement over freedom. Professor Farley discusses the concept of ownership as violence and explains that property rights are the means of protecting the master class until everything …


Land And Liberation: Lessons For The Creation Of Effective Land Reform Policy In South Africa, Hasani Claxton Jan 2003

Land And Liberation: Lessons For The Creation Of Effective Land Reform Policy In South Africa, Hasani Claxton

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Based upon the premise that land reform is essential to creating socio-economic equality, easing racial tensions and stemming the tide of violence in South Africa, this note will provide suggestions for effective land reform policy. To accomplish this, this Note will examine the paths taken by several other transitional African governments in land reform policy. It will attempt to extract practical lessons from their experiences and apply them towards the development of effective land redistribution policy in South Africa. Part I of this note will provide a historical overview of colonialism and land law in Africa. Part II will examine …


Property In Writing, Property On The Ground: Pigs, Horses, Land, And Citizenship In The Aftermath Of Slavery, Cuba, 1880-1909, Rebecca J. Scott, Michael Zeuske Jan 2002

Property In Writing, Property On The Ground: Pigs, Horses, Land, And Citizenship In The Aftermath Of Slavery, Cuba, 1880-1909, Rebecca J. Scott, Michael Zeuske

Articles

In the most literal sense, the abolition of slavery marks the moment when one human being cannot be held as property by another human being, for it ends the juridical conceit of a "person with a price." At the same time, the aftermath of emancipation forcibly reminds us that property as a concept rests on relations among human beings, not just between people and things. The end of slavery finds former masters losing possession of persons, and former slaves acquiring it. But it also finds other resources being claimed and contested, including land, tools, and animals-resources that have shaped former …


Chicana/Chicano Land Tenure In The Agrarian Domain: On The Edge Of A "Naked Knife", Guadalupe T. Lunda Jan 1998

Chicana/Chicano Land Tenure In The Agrarian Domain: On The Edge Of A "Naked Knife", Guadalupe T. Lunda

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Neither sovereignty nor property rights could forestall American geopolitical expansion in the first half of the nineteenth century. The conflicts that resulted from this clash of doctrine with desire are perhaps most evident in the history of the Chicanas/Chicanos of Texas, California, and the Southwest, who sought to maintain their land and property, as guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in the aftermath of the U.S.- Mexico War. Integrating an exploration of case law with political and social histories of the period, the Author explores the sociolegal significance of Chicana/Chicano land dispossession; exposes the racial, economic, and political motivations …


Constitutional Law-Equal Protection-Alien Land Law Violates Fourteenth Amendment, Sherman A. Itlaner S.Ed. Mar 1953

Constitutional Law-Equal Protection-Alien Land Law Violates Fourteenth Amendment, Sherman A. Itlaner S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, an alien Japanese, appealed from a judgment declaring an escheat of land purchased by him to the state pursuant to the California Alien Land Law prohibiting aliens ineligible for citizenship from holding land. On appeal, held, reversed. The Alien Land Law is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an "instrument for effecting racial discrimination . . . [ with] no circumstances justifying classification on that basis." Sei Fujii v. State, 38 Cal. (2d) 718, 242 P. (2d) 617 (1952).


Constitutional Law -Equal Protection - California Alien Land Law, J. R. Mackenzie Apr 1948

Constitutional Law -Equal Protection - California Alien Land Law, J. R. Mackenzie

Michigan Law Review

A Japanese alien paid for some agricultural land in California which was conveyed to his seven-year-old citizen son. All records indicated that the son owned the land, although the father, his guardian, managed it. The California Alien Land Law prohibits ownership of any interest in agricultural land by aliens ineligible for citizenship. Property acquired in violation of the statute escheats as of the date of acquisition as does land transferred "with intent to prevent, evade, or avoid escheat." This intent is presumed prima facie whenever an ineligible alien pays the consideration for a transfer of land to one who may …


Real Property-Unenforceability Of Restrictive Covenants-Methods Of Protecting Plan, Charles B. Blackmar S.Ed. Mar 1948

Real Property-Unenforceability Of Restrictive Covenants-Methods Of Protecting Plan, Charles B. Blackmar S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The restrictive covenant is a device by which property owners can gain some degree of assurance that neighboring property will not be used in an objectionable way. The restrictions are usually reciprocal and negative, common examples being building restrictions, regulations as to use for business, and prohibitions against occupancy by certain races. By private agreement much greater protection can be had than is afforded by zoning ordinances and nuisance doctrines.


Constitutional Law-State Court Enforcement Of Race Restrictive Covenants As State Action Within Scope Of Fourteenth Amendment, John A. Huston S.Ed. Apr 1947

Constitutional Law-State Court Enforcement Of Race Restrictive Covenants As State Action Within Scope Of Fourteenth Amendment, John A. Huston S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The current housing shortage with the overcrowded living conditions and substandard accommodations which it imposes on the most numerous classes of society has made particularly significant in the competition for housing areas the discriminations generally enforced against negroes and other racial minority groups. Both normal population growth and the suspension of new construction during the great depression and the late war have contributed to an emergency in which the circumstances of our negro population are materially worse than those of any other group. Aggravating this result has been the shift in negro population occasioned by the wartime demand for industrial …


Covenants-Restrictions Upon The Use Of Land-Negroes Apr 1944

Covenants-Restrictions Upon The Use Of Land-Negroes

Michigan Law Review

Many years ago a subdivision in Detroit was platted, with recorded building restrictions. When ready for the sale of lots, the intended high character of the subdivision and its desirability for expensive residences was much advertised. An association, an informal organization of some of the owners of houses in the subdivision, assumed the right to pass upon the desirability of prospective lot purchasers, and there was some indication that the person who advertised and marketed most of the lots verbally agreed to submit to the association the names of prospective purchasers and assured some intending purchasers that colored persons would …


Parties - Representative Suits As Res Judicata- Rejection Of Doctrine Of Class Suits In Successive Actions To Enforce Mutual Covenants In Land, Gerald M. Lively Mar 1941

Parties - Representative Suits As Res Judicata- Rejection Of Doctrine Of Class Suits In Successive Actions To Enforce Mutual Covenants In Land, Gerald M. Lively

Michigan Law Review

Some 500 frontage owners in a certain described residential district entered into mutual covenants which stipulated against the sale to, or occupation of, such land by negroes. In an action to enjoin a breach of one of these covenants the defense was asserted that a condition precedent requiring ninety-five per cent of the frontage owners to sign the agreement had not been performed. On a trial of the merits it was found that only about fifty-four per cent of the frontage owners had actually signed. However, in a prior action, an owner, on behalf of herself and other like property …


Constitutional Law - Race Segregation Ordinance - Effect Of Military Order Of Governor Issued For Same Purpose Nov 1936

Constitutional Law - Race Segregation Ordinance - Effect Of Military Order Of Governor Issued For Same Purpose

Michigan Law Review

A "segregation ordinance" of Oklahoma City, prospective in nature, made it unlawful for any negro to occupy as a residence any house or building located in a block wherein a majority of the buildings used were occupied by white persons. The initial step in the segregation of races in the city occurred when the Governor issued a military order for the separation of the races, because it appeared that riot and bloodshed were imminent; such order to remain in effect until an ordinance was passed in lieu of the order. Held, the ordinance was an invalid exercise of the …


Note And Comment, Albert V. Baumann Jr, Stannley E. Gifford, Donald F. Melhorn, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1914

Note And Comment, Albert V. Baumann Jr, Stannley E. Gifford, Donald F. Melhorn, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

Interstate Commerce and State Control Over Foreign Corporations - Since Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet. 519, there seems to have been no real occasion to doubt the power of a state totally to exclude foreign corporations seeking to engage in intrastate business only. The power to exclude being absolute, there has been no question as to the right of the state to allow the entrance of the foreign corporation for such business upon terms, and the terms may be of any sort, reasonable or unreasonable, except that the corporation seeking to enter cannot as a condition precedent to …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Jan 1911

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Adverse Possession--Paper Title--Constructive Possession--Occupancy; Bankruptcy--Property Vesting in Trustee--Insurance Policies with Cash Surrender Value Absorbed by a Lien; Bankruptcy--Provable Debts--Contingent Claims--Landlord and Tenant; Bills and Notes--Incomplete and Undelivered Check, completed and Negotiated by Thief--Delivery Not Presumed; Bills and Notes--Note Distinguished from Testamentary Disposition; Contracts--Consideration--Forbearance to Sue; Contracts--Illegal Contract--Agent's Liability for Proceeds; Corporations--corporate Stock--Priority of Rights Between Unrecorded Transferee and Attachment Creditor; Criminal Procedure--Sealed Verdict--Separation of Jury; Eminent Domain--Streets--Power to Condemn Land Required for Railroad Purposes; Evidence--Presumptions and Burden of Proof in Case of Corporation Charged with Crime; Garnishments--On What Actions Available--Liquidated Claims; Insurance--change of Rates in Mutual Benefit Association; Judgments--Foreign Judgment--Merger--Bar; …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Jan 1909

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Adjoining Landowners--Excavations--"Contiguous" Structures; Aliens--Naturalization--Persons of Japanese Race--"White Persons"; Bankruptcy--Suit by Trustee--Recovery of Property Transferred by Bankrupt; Carriers--Duty to Person Riding on Engine; Carriers--Through Contract--Liability of Connecting Carriers; Color of Title as Extending Possession of Adverse Claimant--Deed to Claimant's Vendor; Constitutional Law--Due Process of Law--White and Negro Pupils; Constitutional Law--Interstate Commerce--Power of Congress to Regulate; Constitutional Law--Secret Societies--Unauthorized Wearing of Badges; Conversion--Time of Conversion--Pledges--Assertion of Title; Corporations--Stockholder's Liability--Enforcement in Other States; Damages--For Interference with Employment--Mental Suffering an Element; Dedication--Acceptance--Ordinance Fixing Grade; Deed--Acknowledgement Taken by Officer and Stockholder of Corporation Grantor; Deeds--Building Restriction--"Front Property Line" of Corner Lot; Deeds--Restrictive Covenant--Electric Light Station …