Law and Race Commons^™

White Picket Fences & Suburban Gatekeeping: How Long Island’S Land Use Laws Cement Its Status As One Of The Most Segregated Places In America, Jessica Mingrino

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The average wealth of Black families is one-seventh that of white families in the United States today. Homeownership—the primary avenue through which Americans accumulate personal and generational wealth—is the leading driver of the wealth disparity between white and Black American families, known as the “racial wealth gap.” The systematic and intentional exclusion of Black people from developing communities during the twentieth century largely excluded people of color from the housing boom and denied them the opportunity afforded to white people to multiply their assets. Contrary to widespread belief, however, legislation-backed oppression of Black Americans did not end in the …

Gang Databases: Race And The Constitutional Failures Of Contemporary Gang Policing In New York City, Jasmine Johnson

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Similar to many jurisdictions throughout the United States, the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) has a gang database—a criminal intelligence system utilized by the NYPD to keep track of alleged “gang members” in New York City. And similar to many jurisdictions throughout the United States, the NYPD’s gang database has been severely criticized. Opponents of the gang database accuse the NYPD of using it as a tool for racial profiling, mass incarceration, and mass criminalization of Black and Brown young men in New York City. Opponents of the database also take issue with the NYPD’s lack of transparency …

Coming To Terms: Using Contract Theory To Understand The Detroit Water Shutoffs, Marissa Jackson Sow

Faculty Publications

After the City of Detroit underwent financial takeover and filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history in 2013, the city’s emergency manager encouraged mass water shutoffs as a way of making the city’s water utility a more attractive asset for sale— and for privatization—by ridding the water department of its association with bad debt. The sale never took place, but the water shutoff, too, became the largest ever in American history, with over 141,000 homes subjected to water disconnections over a period of over six years. The governor of the State of Michigan ordered that the shutoffs be temporarily …