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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race

Criminal Justice And The Mattering Of Lives, Deborah Tuerkheimer Apr 2018

Criminal Justice And The Mattering Of Lives, Deborah Tuerkheimer

Michigan Law Review

A review of James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.


Slaves As Plaintiffs, Alfred L. Brophy Apr 2017

Slaves As Plaintiffs, Alfred L. Brophy

Michigan Law Review

Review of Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom Before Dred Scott by Lea VanderVelde.


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.


Flourishing Rights, Wendy A. Bach Apr 2015

Flourishing Rights, Wendy A. Bach

Michigan Law Review

There is something audacious at the heart of Clare Huntington’s Failure to Flourish. She insists that the state exists to ensure that families flourish. Not just that they survive, or not starve, or be able, somehow, to make ends meet—but that they flourish. She demands this not just for some families but, importantly, for all families. This simple, bold, and profoundly countercultural demand allows Huntington to make a tremendously convincing case that the state can begin to do precisely that. Failure to Flourish is a brave, rigorously produced, carefully researched, and politically astute book. Huntington seeks to persuade a wide …


Black Marriage, White People, Red Herrings, Melissa Murray Apr 2013

Black Marriage, White People, Red Herrings, Melissa Murray

Michigan Law Review

Ralph Richard Banks's Is Marriage for White People? is worlds away from Agatha Christie's novels. Decidedly a work of nonfiction, Banks's book considers the plight of middle-class African Americans who, according to statistics, are the least likely of any demographic group to get and stay married. Despite these obvious differences, Is Marriage for White People? shares some important commonalities with Agatha Christie's mysteries. Banks seeks to solve a mystery, but red herrings draw attention away from the true issue that should be the subject of Banks's concern. The mystery, of course, is the black marriage decline. In 1950, 78 percent …


Race And Constitutional Law Casebooks: Recognizing The Proslavery Constitution, Juan F. Perea Apr 2012

Race And Constitutional Law Casebooks: Recognizing The Proslavery Constitution, Juan F. Perea

Michigan Law Review

Federalist No. 54 shows that part of Madison's public defense of the Constitution included the defense of some of its proslavery provisions. Madison and his reading public were well aware that aspects of the Constitution protected slavery. These aspects of the Constitution were publicly debated in the press and in state ratification conventions. Just as the Constitution's protections for slavery were debated at the time of its framing and ratification, the relationship between slavery and the Constitution remains a subject of debate. Historians continue to debate the centrality of slavery to the Constitution. The majority position among historians today appears …


Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz Jan 2010

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 …


Law Enforcement In Subordinated Communities: Innovation And Response, Richard Delgado Apr 2008

Law Enforcement In Subordinated Communities: Innovation And Response, Richard Delgado

Michigan Law Review

Policing styles and policy reform today exhibit a ferment that we have not seen since the turbulent sixties. The reasons propelling reform include some of the same forces that propelled it then - minority communities agitating for a greater voice, demands for law and order - but also some that are new, such as the greater premium that society places on security in a post-9/11 world. Three recent books discuss this new emphasis on styles of policing. Each centers on policing in minority communities. Steve Herbert's Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community examines the innovation known as …


Private Ordering And Intimate Spaces: Why The Ability To Negotiate Is Non-Negotiable, Michele Goodwin Jan 2007

Private Ordering And Intimate Spaces: Why The Ability To Negotiate Is Non-Negotiable, Michele Goodwin

Michigan Law Review

This review moves beyond a critique of Cherry's study to incorporate a radical new way of thinking about organ commodification as a social justice issue. Part I provides a brief empirical overview of organ demand in the United States, offering an alternative perspective and introducing data illexamined in commodification debates. Part II challenges the notion that private ordering abandons liberal and egalitarian values in favor of individualism over communitarianism. It also acknowledges the limitations of private ordering and addresses how its more problematic features, including the abuse of power, might be avoided. Part III argues for a hybrid system that …


The Current Landscape Of Race: Old Targets, New Opportunities, Richard Delgado May 2006

The Current Landscape Of Race: Old Targets, New Opportunities, Richard Delgado

Michigan Law Review

It is difficult enough identifying areas within a current field of scholarship that are underdeveloped and in need of further attention. In science, one thinks of missing elements in the periodic table or planets in a solar system that our calculations tell us must be there but that our telescopes have not yet spotted. In civil-rights law, one thinks of such areas as women's sports or the problems of intersectional groups, such as women of color or gay black men. One also thinks of issues that current events are constantly thrusting forward, such as discrimination against Arabs or execution of …


American Racial Jusice On Trial - Again: African American Reparations, Human Rights, And The War On Terror, Eric K. Yamamoto, Susan K. Serrano, Michelle Natividad Rodriguez Mar 2003

American Racial Jusice On Trial - Again: African American Reparations, Human Rights, And The War On Terror, Eric K. Yamamoto, Susan K. Serrano, Michelle Natividad Rodriguez

Michigan Law Review

Much has been written recently on African American reparations and reparations movements worldwide, both in the popular press and scholarly publications. Indeed, the expanding volume of writing underscores the impact on the public psyche of movements for reparations for historic injustice. Some of that writing has highlighted the legal obstacles faced by proponents of reparations lawsuits, particularly a judicial system that focuses on individual (and not group-based) claims and tends to squeeze even major social controversies into the narrow litigative paradigm of a two-person auto collision (requiring proof of standing, duty, breach, causation, and direct injury). Other writings detail the …


The Color Line Of Punishment, Jerome H. Skolnick May 1998

The Color Line Of Punishment, Jerome H. Skolnick

Michigan Law Review

If "the color line," (in W.E.B. Du Bois's 1903 phrase and prophecy) was to be the twentieth century's greatest challenge for the domestic life and public policy of the United States, the law has had much to do with drawing its shape. No surprise, this. By now, legal theorists accept that law does not advance in preordained fashion, immune from the sway of political interest, belief systems and social structure. Still, it is hard to exaggerate how powerfully the law has shaped the life chances of Americans of African heritage, for good or ill, and in ways that we scarcely …


Benign Neglect* Of Racism In The Criminal Justice System, Angela J. Davis May 1996

Benign Neglect* Of Racism In The Criminal Justice System, Angela J. Davis

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Michael Tonry, Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America


Dream Makers: Black Judges On Justice, Julian Abele Cook Jr. May 1996

Dream Makers: Black Judges On Justice, Julian Abele Cook Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Linn Washington, Black Judges on Justice


The Rooster's Egg: On The Persistence Of Prejudice, Elise M. Bruhl May 1996

The Rooster's Egg: On The Persistence Of Prejudice, Elise M. Bruhl

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Patricia J. Williams, The Roosters' Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice


True Lies: The Role Of Pretext Evidence Under Batson V. Kentucky In The Wake Of St. Mary's Honor Center V. Hicks, David A. Sutphen Nov 1995

True Lies: The Role Of Pretext Evidence Under Batson V. Kentucky In The Wake Of St. Mary's Honor Center V. Hicks, David A. Sutphen

Michigan Law Review

In the process of determining whether a peremptory strike is valid, lower courts rely on the TI.tie VII burden-shifting framework originally laid out by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green As a result, the order and presentation of proof in Batson cases deliberately parallels the order and presentation of proof in TI.tie VII intentional discrimination suits. In light of this similarity, the Supreme Court's recent TI.tie VII ruling in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks - that proof of pretext under the McDonnell Douglas framework is not the legal equivalent to proof of intentional discrimination - raises …


History's Stories, Stephan Landsman May 1995

History's Stories, Stephan Landsman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Stories of Scottsboro by James Goodman


Democracy And Dis-Appointment, Lani Guinier May 1995

Democracy And Dis-Appointment, Lani Guinier

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy


Black Identity And Child Placement: The Best Interests Of Black And Biracial Children, Kim Forde-Mazrui Feb 1994

Black Identity And Child Placement: The Best Interests Of Black And Biracial Children, Kim Forde-Mazrui

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this Note is to question whether racial matching by courts and child-placement agencies serves the best interests of Black children. The principle that guides this Note's analysis is that racial matching is justified only if such a policy better serves the interests of Black children than a policy in which race is not a factor in a child-placement determination. This Note also questions whether racial matching serves the interests of biracial children and those of Black people as a cultural group.


If The Eye Offend Thee, Turn Off The Color, John Harrison May 1993

If The Eye Offend Thee, Turn Off The Color, John Harrison

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Color-Blind Constitution by Andrew Kull


Guess Who's Not Coming To Dinner!!, Stephen Reinhardt May 1993

Guess Who's Not Coming To Dinner!!, Stephen Reinhardt

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism by Derrick Bell and Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal by Andrew Hacker


The Triumph Of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act And The Theory Of Black Electoral Success, Lani Guinier Mar 1991

The Triumph Of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act And The Theory Of Black Electoral Success, Lani Guinier

Michigan Law Review

In this article, my goal is to organize the divergent themes of black electoral success strategy within one conceptual framework in order to give the themes more cogency and attention. Having exposed the existence of a coherent theory, I then argue that the theory posits many of the correct goals but fails to provide a realistic mechanism for achieving them. The article proceeds in three Parts. In Part I, I develop the ideological and statutory roots of black electoral success theory. In Part II, I analyze the inadequacies of current voting rights litigation and its failure to realize the statute's …


Voting Rights Act Section 2: Racially Polarized Voting And The Minority Community's Representative Of Choice, Evelyn Elayne Shockley Feb 1991

Voting Rights Act Section 2: Racially Polarized Voting And The Minority Community's Representative Of Choice, Evelyn Elayne Shockley

Michigan Law Review

A much needed congressional effort to give substance to African-American suffrage resulted in the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the Act). Although the fifteenth amendment gave African-American men the right to vote in 1870, almost a hundred years later they were still largely unable to exercise the right. This condition did not result from apathy on the part of African-American voters, but rather from their inability to overcome barriers set up by white racists. Practices whites instituted, such as "[l]iteracy and 'understanding' tests, poll taxes, the white primary, intimidation, [and] violence," prevented African-Americans from realizing their constitutional …


The Final Report: Harvard's Affirmative Action Allegory, Derrick Bell Aug 1989

The Final Report: Harvard's Affirmative Action Allegory, Derrick Bell

Michigan Law Review

Harvard's affirmative action allegory written for this symposium.


The Politics Of Victimization Makes Strange Bedfellows, Jennifer L. Hochschild May 1989

The Politics Of Victimization Makes Strange Bedfellows, Jennifer L. Hochschild

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Civil Rights Society: The Social Construction of Victims by Kristin Bumiller, and Plural But Equal: Blacks and Minorities in America's Plural Society by Harold Cruse


Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Lynn Johnson Jan 1985

Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Michigan Law Review

Racial prejudice has come under increasingly close scrutiny during the past thirty years, yet its influence on the decisionmaking of criminal juries remains largely hidden from judicial and critical examination. In this Article, Professor Johnson takes a close look at this neglected area. She first sets forth a large body of social science research that reveals a widespread tendency among whites to convict black defendants in instances in which white defendants would be acquitted. Next, she argues that none of the existing techniques for eliminating the influence of racial bias on criminal trials adequately protects minority-race defendants. She contends that …


To Set The Law In Motion: The Freedmen's Bureau And The Legal Rights Of Blacks, 1865-1868, Michigan Law Review Mar 1981

To Set The Law In Motion: The Freedmen's Bureau And The Legal Rights Of Blacks, 1865-1868, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of To Set the Law in Motion: The Freedmen's Bureau and the Legal Rights of Blacks, 1865-1868 by Donald G. Nieman


Black English And Equal Educational Opportunity, Michigan Law Review Dec 1980

Black English And Equal Educational Opportunity, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

There is a danger that the King case will be misunderstood. The press has sometimes portrayed it as a vindication of the right to use black English in the classroom rather than of the educational opportunities of the children who speak it, and the King opinion itself is at times confusing. This Note clarifies the meaning of King and section 1703(f) by examining four critical steps in Judge Joiner's reasoning. Section I examines the court's holding that "language barriers" under section l 703(f) include impediments to equal educational opportunity arising from dialect differences, and concludes that although the court's argument …


From Brown To Bakke: The Supreme Court And School Integration: 1954-1978, Michigan Law Review Mar 1980

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


A New Role For The Black Law Graduate--A Reality Or An Illusion, Harry T. Edwards Aug 1971

A New Role For The Black Law Graduate--A Reality Or An Illusion, Harry T. Edwards

Michigan Law Review

It is not really surprising that so much attention has recently been given to the gross disparity in White v. Black participation in the legal profession. Indeed, the question of quality participation by Black lawyers is an irrelevant consideration until there is a real commitment to give Blacks equal access to the formerly all-white legal educational institutions. In examining the nature of this heretofore obvious (but only recently acknowledged) problem of Black underrepresentation within our society? (3) What must be done by the legal profession not only to alleviate the negative impact of such a shortage, but also to enhance …