Law and Race Commons^™

The Return Of The Ring: Welfare Reform’S Marriage Cure As The Revival Of Post-Bellum Control, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

In 1996, the United States Congress began its imposition of a marital solution to poverty when it enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ("PRWORA"). Nearly ten years later, Congress has strengthened its commitment to marriage as a cure for welfare dependency with proposals such as the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2005. If passed, this bill would provide 1.5 billion dollars for pro-marriage programs and require each state to explain how its welfare program will encourage marriage for single mothers who receive public aid. With these proposals, Congress has continued to construct poverty as …

Documenting Discrimination In Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act Since 1982, Ellen D. Katz, Margaret Aisenbrey, Anna Baldwin, Emma Cheuse, Anna Weisbrodt

Other Publications

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the most remarkable and consequential pieces of congressional legislation ever enacted. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ("the VRA") targeted massive disfranchisement of African-American citizens in numerous Southern states. It imposed measures drastic in scope and extraordinary in effect. The VRA eliminated the use of literacy tests and other "devices" that Southern jurisdictions had long employed to prevent black residents from registering and voting. The VRA imposed on these jurisdictions onerous obligations to prove to federal officials that proposed changes to their electoral system would not discriminate against minority voters. Resistance …

Federal Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences: Weapon In The War On Drugs Or War On Blacks, Crystal S. Byrd

McCabe Thesis Collection

This study will attempt to determine the direct and indirect consequences of Federal mandatory minimum drug sentences and drug policy to African Americans. It will examine statistics on drug use, arrest, convictions, and incarceration of African Americans. These statistics will be gathered from several government agencies and will be used to determine if American drug policy discriminates against African Americans. The purpose of this study is to inform and educate African Americans about Federal mandatory minimum drug sentences and the impact they are having on Black communities and to provide links to resources that can be used to promote drug …

Applying 42 U.S.C. § 1981 To Claims Of Consumer Discrimination, Abby Morrow Richardson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores several interesting legal questions regarding the proper interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which prohibits racial discrimination in contracting, when discrimination arises in the context of a consumer retail contract. The Note further explores how the Fifth Circuit's and other federal courts' narrow interpretation of § 1981's application in a retail setting (which allows plaintiffs to invoke the statute only when they have been prevented from completing their purchases) is contrary to the statute's express language, congressional intent, and to evolving concepts of contract theory, all of which reflect a commitment to the strict enforcement of civil …

Stepping Through Grutter'S Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen L. Norton

Faculty Scholarship

In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling -- specifically, a public law school’s interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well. The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court’s narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning whether …

Not Enough Of A Minority?: Arab Americans And The Language Assistance Provisions (Section 203) Of The Voting Rights Act, Brenda Fathy Abdelall

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

With the Voting Rights Act set to expire in 2007, debate has ensued regarding the protections it provides for minority groups. Section 203 of the Act protects language minorities, but under these protections, only four minority groups are afforded bilingual access to voting materials. This Note argues that the Act is imperative to the protection of minority voters, especially those belonging to a language minority group. This Note further argues that not only should the Voting Rights Act be renewed, but § 203 should be revised to include Arab Americans. The Note focuses on the Arab American community because it …

Fair Representation On Juries In The Eastern District Of Michigan: Analyzing Past Efforts And Recommending Future Action, Andrew J. Lievense

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note builds on past recommendations to reform jury selection systems to make juries more representative of the community. Juries representing a fair cross section of the community are both a statutory and constitutional requirement, as well as a policy goal. How a judicial district designs and implements its jury selection system is important to meeting this requirement.

Part I of this Note analyzes the history and development of the representativeness interest on juries, explains how the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan attempted to meet this interest in the 1980s and 1990s, and reports and …

It's All Right To Be Wrong, Sometimes, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Racist comments made by some youths have spawned many reactions from Singaporeans. This presents another interesting issue: Do these reactions themselves evince the kind of intolerance of a diversity of opinions which they are attacking? When and how can we differ without being intolerant and disrespectful?

Reforming U.S. Immigration Policy In An Era Of Latin American Immigration: The Logic Inherent In Accommodating The Inevitable, Ryan D. Frei

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

It's All Right To Be Wrong, Sometimes, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Racist comments made by some youths have spawned many reactions from Singaporeans. This presents another interesting issue: Do these reactions themselves evince the kind of intolerance of a diversity of opinions which they are attacking? When and how can we differ without being intolerant and disrespectful?

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 …

National Identity In A Multicultural Nation: The Challenge Of Immigration Law And Immigrants, Kevin R. Johnson, Bill Ong Hing

Michigan Law Review

Samuel Huntington's provocative new book Who Are We?: The Challenges to National Identity is rich with insights about the negative impacts of globalization and the burgeoning estrangement of people and businesses in the United States from a truly American identity. The daunting question posed by the title of the book is well worth asking. After commencing the new millennium with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. military torture of Iraqi prisoners, indefinite detentions of U.S. citizens declared by the President to be "enemy combatants," and a massive domestic "war on terror" that has punished and frightened Arab, Muslim, and other …

For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This review essay analyzes Derrick Bell's provocative new book, Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (2004). In Silent Covenants, Professor Bell reviews Brown v. Board of Education, and inquires "whether another approach than the one embraced by the Brown decision might have been more effective and less disruptive in the always-contentious racial arena." Specifically, Professor Bell joins black conservatives in critiquing what he describes as a misguided focus on achieving racial balance in schools and argues that the quality of education for minority children, in particular Blacks, would have been better today …

Destabilizing The Normalization Of Rural Black Land Loss: A Critical Role For Legal Empiricism, Thomas W. Mitchell

Faculty Scholarship

Mitchell's study exemplifies the New Legal Realist goal of combining qualitative and quantitative empirical research to shed light on important legal and policy issues. He also demonstrates the utility of a ground-level contextual analysis that examines legal problems from the bottom up. The study tracks processes by which black rural landowners have gradually been dispossessed of more than 90% of the land held by their predecessors in 1910. Mitchell points out that despite the continuing practices that contribute to this problem, there has been very little research on the issue, and what little attention legal scholars have paid to it …

Race, Trust, Altruism, And Reciprocity, George W. Dent Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Just Another Brother On The Sct?: What Justice Clarence Thomas Teaches Us About The Influence Of Racial Identity, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Clarence Thomas has generated the attention that most Justices receive only after they have retired. He has been boycotted by the National Bar Association, caricatured as a lawn jockey in Emerge Magazine, and protested by professors at an elite law school. As a general matter, Justice Thomas is viewed as a "non-race" man, a Justice with a jurisprudence that mirrors the Court's most conservative white member, Justice Antonin Scalia­, in other words, Justice Scalia in "blackface." This Article argues that, although Justice Thomas's ideology differs from the liberalism that is more widely held by Blacks in the United States, …

Oral History: Rodney Hurst. Interviewed By The University Of Florida, Kristin Dodek, Rodney Lawrence Hurst

Textual material from the Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Papers

An Oral history about Jacksonville's Civil Rights on 2/18/2005. Box 1, Folder 4.

Certificate: Appreciation To Rodney Hurst For 2nd Annual Black History Leader Luncheon

Textual material from the Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Papers

A certificate of appreciation from Stanton College Preparatory school on the 2nd annual Black History Leader Luncheon, February 15, 2005

Engendering Legal History, Felice J. Batlan

Felice J Batlan

No abstract provided.

The Rule Of Law And The Achievement Of Unanimity In Brown, Stephen J. Ellmann

Articles & Chapters

How did Justice Stanley Reed come to join the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Brown v. Board ofEducation? It is clear from the historical record that Reed's first inclination was to uphold the constitutionality of racially segregated education, and clear as well that in the end he put this inclination aside and joined, without any public qualification, in the Court's decision banning segregation. Perhaps Reed changed his mind about the meaning of the constitution; perhaps he changed his mind about the legitimacy of judges' making social policy in the name of the constitution; perhaps he decided to uphold the Supreme …

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 …

From Race To Class Struggle: Re-Problematizing Critical Race Theory, E San Juan Jr.

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The misconstrual of "class" as a theoretical and analytic concept for defining group or individual identity has led, especially during the Cold War period, to its confusion with status, life-style, and other ideological contingencies. This has vitiated the innovative attempt of CRT to link racism and class oppression. We need to reinstate the Marxist category of class derived from the social division of labor that generates antagonistic class relations. Class conflict becomes the key to grasping the totality of social relations of production, as well as the metabolic process of social reproduction in which racism finds its effectivity. This will …

Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Note outlines the limitations on congressional power under Section V and their implications for justifying the constitutionality of the disparate impact standard. Part II explores the prohibition of intentional discrimination as a justification for the disparate impact standard and argues that justifying the disparate impact standard through this theory, as some courts currently do, may eventually narrow disparate impact doctrine and thus constrain the possibilities for substantive equality in employment. This Part also analogizes the limits of using an intentional discrimination rationale to justify the disparate impact standard to the limits of using the diversity rationale …

Bridging The Federalism Gap: Procedural Due Process And Race Discrimination In A Devolved Welfare System, Risa E. Kaufman

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

As recent Supreme Court decisions limit the power of the federal government to legislate and the federal courts to provide redress in areas such as civil rights, Congress is devolving significant power to states and localities to create and implement poverty-related programs. The discretion and authority that is further devolved to local caseworkers and administrators can be tainted with racial bias, raising the risk of and resulting in a disparate impact on people of color. Individuals may thus face a greater risk of race discrimination within the welfare system with fewer statutory protections available to challenge such discrimination. This article …

Human Rights And Liberties: 50 Years After Brown V. Board Of Education - Keynote Speakers, Mark Rosenbaum, Erwin Chemerinsky

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Advocates Should Use Applicable International Standards To Address Violations Of Undocumented Migrant Workers' Rights In The United States, Connie De La Vega, Conchita Lozano-Batista

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

As the economic gap between rich and poor countries continues to grow, those living in poor countries migrate to richer countries to survive. Migrants who succeed in completing the journey to receiving countries are often subjected to human rights violations in the workplace. More particularly, the human rights violations encompass violations of the right to organize in order to be free from exploitative conditions, the right to equality before the law, and the right to legal recourse. This article will provide migrant rights advocates in the U.S. with international legal standards that can be used to address domestic human rights …

Inadequate And Inappropriate Mental Health Treatment And Minority Overrepresentation In The Juvenile Justice System, Kasey Corbit

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Not only are minority youth at greater risk for mental illness, they are more likely to be funneled into the juvenile justice system because of untreated symptoms of mental illness. This is because minority youth are less likely to be insured at the same rates as their white peers and more likely to be perceived as aggressive or dangerous when exhibiting symptoms of a mental health problem. California voters may have created a possible solution to this situation by approving Proposition 63, now known as the "Mental Health Services Act," which requires California counties to create innovative solutions to addressing …

Medical Code Blue Or Clue Light Special: Where Is The Market For Indigent Care, Peter J. Hammer

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

National Identity And Liberalism In International Law: Three Models, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

No abstract provided.

How The Border Crossed Us: Filling The Gap Between Plume V. Seward And The Dispossession Of Mexican Landowners In California After 1848, 52 Clev. St. L. Rev. 297 (2005), Kim D. Chanbonpin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.