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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger
Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger
Michigan Law Review
Williams v. Lee (1959) created a bridge between century-old affirmations of the immunity of Indian territories from state jurisdiction and the tribal self-determination policy of the twentieth century. It has been called the first case in the modern era of federal Indian law. Although no one has written a history of the case, it is generally assumed to be the product of a timeless and unquestioning struggle of Indian peoples for sovereignty. This Article, based on interviews with the still-living participants in the case and on examination of the congressional records, Navajo council minutes, and Supreme Court transcripts, records, and …
Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz
Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz
Michigan Law Review
This Article explores what happens to longstanding remedies for past racial discrimination as conditions change. It shows that Congress and the Supreme Court have responded quite differently to changed conditions when they evaluate such remedies. Congress has generally opted to stay the course, while the Court has been more inclined to view change as cause to terminate a remedy. The Article argues that these very different responses share a defining flaw, namely, they treat existing remedies as fixed until they are terminated. As a result, remedies are either scrapped prematurely or left stagnant despite dramatically changed conditions. The Article seeks …
An "Unintended Consequence": Dred Scott Reinterpreted, Sam Erman
An "Unintended Consequence": Dred Scott Reinterpreted, Sam Erman
Michigan Law Review
Austin Allen's monograph marks the 150th anniversary of the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford with a revisionist interpretation of that oft-examined case. Many scholars have portrayed the case as a proslavery decision that fanned sectional fires. After all, the Court held that blacks were not U.S. citizens and that Congress was impotent to bar slavery in U.S. territories. Allen, by contrast, understands the case primarily as a judicial attempt to rationalize federal commerce and slavery jurisprudences. Part I argues that this ambitious reinterpretation enriches, but does not topple, existing Dred Scott historiography. In the case of the Court's citizenship …
Race, Rights, And Remedies In Criminal Adjudication, Pamela S. Karlan
Race, Rights, And Remedies In Criminal Adjudication, Pamela S. Karlan
Michigan Law Review
Once upon a time, back before the Warren Court, criminal procedure and racial justice were adjacent hinterlands in constitutional law's empire. In 1954, the fifth edition of Dowling's constitutional law casebook contained one chapter on "procedural due process" in which six of the eight cases were about criminal justice, and three of those - Powell v. Alabama, Moore v. Dempsey, and Bailey v. Alabama - were as much about race as they were about crime. A few pages later, two slender chapters on the "national protection of civil rights" and "equal protection of the laws" contained seven and nine decisions, …
Race Against The Court: The Supreme Court And Minorities In Contemporary America, Melissa Nicholson Starkey
Race Against The Court: The Supreme Court And Minorities In Contemporary America, Melissa Nicholson Starkey
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Race Against the Court: The Supreme Court and Minorities in Contemporary America by Girardeau A. Spann
Race And Redistricting: Drawing Constitutional Lines After Shaw V. Reno, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Samuel Isaacharoff
Race And Redistricting: Drawing Constitutional Lines After Shaw V. Reno, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Samuel Isaacharoff
Michigan Law Review
Shaw is no doubt a major opinion that attempts to define limits on the use of racial or ethnic classifications in electoral redistricting. The main thrust of this article is to assess the critical question of whether Shaw renders unconstitutional the type of race-conscious realignment of electoral configurations that have given meaning to the voting rights reforms of the past two decades. In making this assessment, we try to ascertain exactly how the Court has limited the use of race-conscious districting, and we try to determine whether there is any jurisprudential coherence to the Court's latest confrontation with the law …
Expressive Harms, "Bizarre Districts," And Voting Rights: Evaluating Election-District Appearances After Shaw V. Reno, Richard H. Pildes, Richard G. Niemi
Expressive Harms, "Bizarre Districts," And Voting Rights: Evaluating Election-District Appearances After Shaw V. Reno, Richard H. Pildes, Richard G. Niemi
Michigan Law Review
This article attempts to define the constitutional principles that characterize Shaw and to suggest how those principles might be applied in a consistent, meaningful way. Part I, in which we argue that Shaw must be understood to rest on a distinctive conception of the kinds of harms against which the Constitution protects, is the theoretical heart of the article. We call these expressive harms, as opposed to more familiar, material harms. In Part II, we briefly survey the history of previous, largely unsuccessful, efforts in other legal contexts to give principled content to these kinds of harms in redistricting. …
Ugly: An Inquiry Into The Problem Of Racial Gerrymandering Under The Voting Rights Act, Daniel D. Polsby, Robert D. Popper
Ugly: An Inquiry Into The Problem Of Racial Gerrymandering Under The Voting Rights Act, Daniel D. Polsby, Robert D. Popper
Michigan Law Review
In the discussion that follows, we focus on the case of congressional districting rather than on districting in general. Although we proceed in this manner for the sake of clarity, it is also true that no single, all-purpose normative theory of electoral mechanics will cover every case of democratic representation, from county commissions to mosquito control districts to sovereign legislatures. We do not claim that one can generalize our argument to every sort of election to which the VRA might apply. Yet we think our argument does approximate a theory of general application.
If The Eye Offend Thee, Turn Off The Color, John Harrison
If The Eye Offend Thee, Turn Off The Color, John Harrison
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Color-Blind Constitution by Andrew Kull
Capital Punishment's Future, Welsh S. White
Capital Punishment's Future, Welsh S. White
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Capital Punishment in America by Raymond Paternoster
Polarized Voting And The Political Process: The Transformation Of Voting Rights Jurisprudence, Samuel Issacharoff
Polarized Voting And The Political Process: The Transformation Of Voting Rights Jurisprudence, Samuel Issacharoff
Michigan Law Review
This article attempts to provide an analytic framework for the evolved voting rights law as it confronts the persistent effects of racial factionalism in the electoral arena. Insight into the corrosiveness of racially polarized voting and its frustration of minority electoral opportunity has organized and guided the new voting rights jurisprudence. This article will argue that the combination of process distortions from majority domination of electoral outcomes and substantive deprivation from minority exclusion defines this area of law and protects it against challenge from currently fashionable academic currents. The central insights gathered from the focus on polarized voting, I will …
An Interpretive History Of Modern Equal Protection, Michael Klarman
An Interpretive History Of Modern Equal Protection, Michael Klarman
Michigan Law Review
My enterprise here is to write a limited history of modem equal protection - one that will facilitate understanding of the important conceptual shifts that have occurred over time. By "modem" I mean the period following the switch-in-time in 1937 that signaled the demise of the Lochner era. By "limited" I mean an account that falls substantially short of a full-scale history of equal protection, which would, for example, necessarily encompass a good deal of political and social history. My aim here, rather, is to tell a story about the evolution of equal protection as a legal concept; I shall, …
Decoding Richmond: Affirmative Action And The Elusive Meaning Of Constitutional Equality, Michel Rosenfeld
Decoding Richmond: Affirmative Action And The Elusive Meaning Of Constitutional Equality, Michel Rosenfeld
Michigan Law Review
This Article first briefly considers the conceptual and constitutional framework out of which the controversy in Croson emerges. Next, the Article turns to Croson itself, and focuses on the Court's adoption of the strict scrutiny test, on the disagreement among the Justices concerning the test's meaning and implications, and on the Court's use of decontextualization to manipulate the key conceptual and factual issues at stake. Finally, drawing upon the principle of equality of opportunity, the Article endeavors to demonstrate how the adoption of particular principles of substantive equality can lead to a comprehensive and coherent constitutional resolution of the affirmative …
The Plessy Case: A Legal-Historical Interpretation, David D. Meyer
The Plessy Case: A Legal-Historical Interpretation, David D. Meyer
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Plessy Case: A Legal-Historical Interpretation by Charles A. Lofgren
Legislative Inaction And The Patterson Case, Earl M. Maltz
Legislative Inaction And The Patterson Case, Earl M. Maltz
Michigan Law Review
In its October 1988 issue,1 the Michigan Law Review published a symposium on Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, a case in which the Supreme Court has requested reargument on the question of whether Runyon v. McCrary should be overruled or modified. Each of the three distinguished contributors to the symposium concludes that the Court should not overrule Runyon. In reaching this conclusion, Professor William N. Eskridge and Professor Daniel A. Farber rely heavily on the view that because Congress has recognized the existence of the Runyon doctrine and has refused to overrule the decision, the doctrine of stare decisis …
Statutory Interpretation, Legislative Inaction, And Civil Rights, Daniel A. Farber
Statutory Interpretation, Legislative Inaction, And Civil Rights, Daniel A. Farber
Michigan Law Review
This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. Professor Farber identifies three issues which lie at the heart of Patterson: Must statutes be construed to conform to the intent of the drafters? Does legislative inaction provide reliable guidance to interpreters of statutes? And should the nature of the claim at issue - here a claim of civil rights - influence the interpreters? On this last point, Professor Farber argues that public values must be relevant to statutory interpretation and that judges …
Interpreting Legislative Inaction, William N. Eskridge Jr.
Interpreting Legislative Inaction, William N. Eskridge Jr.
Michigan Law Review
This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. In this article, Professor Eskridge addresses the issue of how legislative inaction should affect statutory interpretation. He begins by constructing a detailed analysis of the Court's legislative inaction cases, arguing that the case law is much more coherent than previous analysts have suggested. Professor Eskridge then considers Justice Scalia's critique of that case law and provides support for Justice Scalia's views by distinguishing actual and presumed legislative intent, arguing that, based on a conception …
The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz
The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz
Michigan Law Review
For the moment, the affirmative action wars are over. In a ten-year set of decisions, culminating in five during the last two terms, the Court has now legitimated almost all types of race and gender preferences, even if they benefit nonvictims, including voluntarily adopted preferences in hiring, promotion, university admissions, and government contracting; hiring and promotion preferences in consent decrees; and court-ordered hiring and promotions. It has approved preferences by both public and private bodies, and for both racial-ethnic minorities and women. It has barred only layoffs of white (and presumably male) employees who have more seniority than employees hired …
The Limits Of Litigation: Putting The Education Back Into Brown V. Board Of Education, T. Alexander Aleinikoff
The Limits Of Litigation: Putting The Education Back Into Brown V. Board Of Education, T. Alexander Aleinikoff
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Shades of Brown: New Perspectives on School Desegregation edited by Derrick Bell
The Supreme Court: A Citadel For White Supremacy, Sidney Willhelm
The Supreme Court: A Citadel For White Supremacy, Sidney Willhelm
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Race, Racism and American Law by Derrick A. Bell, Jr.
From Brown To Bakke: The Supreme Court And School Integration: 1954-1978, Michigan Law Review
From Brown To Bakke: The Supreme Court And School Integration: 1954-1978, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Book Notice about From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration: 1954-1978 by J. Harvie Wilkinson III
Strangers In Paradise: Griggs V. Duke Power Co. And The Concept Of Employment Discrimination, Alfred W. Blumrosen
Strangers In Paradise: Griggs V. Duke Power Co. And The Concept Of Employment Discrimination, Alfred W. Blumrosen
Michigan Law Review
In March 1966, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) negotiated an extensive agreement with the Newport News Shipyard to eliminate employment discrimination. The outcome of these negotiations-which were conducted by the Office of Conciliations which I then headed-was the first major achievement for the EEOC under title Vll of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following that episode, Ken Holbert, Deputy Chief of Conciliations, and I decided to try to negotiate a model conciliation agreement on the subject of discriminatory employment testing. We knew that many companies had introduced tests in the 1950's and early 1960's when they could no …
Racial Equality In Jobs And Unions, Collective Bargaining, And The Burger Court, William B. Gould
Racial Equality In Jobs And Unions, Collective Bargaining, And The Burger Court, William B. Gould
Michigan Law Review
In dealing with the problems of employment discrimination, the Burger Court will have to face several new and major issues. This Article is concerned with two of the most important of those issues. The first is whether the present requirement that workers seek redress of their grievances through the exclusive representation of the union is applicable to victims of racial discrimination; and if not, what other remedies should be available to those workers. The second is whether quotas and ratios based on race are permissible; and if so, whether it is required that they be used to integrate union leadership …
The Warren Court And Desegregation, Robert L. Carter
The Warren Court And Desegregation, Robert L. Carter
Michigan Law Review
When Chief Justice ·warren assumed his post in October 1953, the underpinnings of the "separate but equal" concept had become unmoored beyond restoration. Full-scale argument on the validity of apartheid in public education was only weeks away, and the portent of change in the constitutional doctrine governing American race relations was unmistakable. Although the groundwork had been carefully prepared for the Chief Justice's announcement in Brown v. Board of Education that fundamental principles forbade racial segregation in the nation's public schools, the decision, when it was delivered on :May 17, 1954, was more than a break with the past. In …