Law and Race Commons^™

Embracing Our First Responder Role As Academics - With Inspiration From Langston Hughes, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

In the midst of the post-2016 political crisis, our role as academics is that of First Responders. In physical crises, like a fire, First Responders play an important role. They intentionally put themselves in harm’s way to fulfill an overarching purpose of helping others, even at their own risk. They strategically prepare, train, and work for years to prepare for this role in the midst of crisis. As academics who care about equality, we are First Responders.

Newsroom: The Violence In Charlottesville 08-14-2017, Michael J. Yelnosky

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Racing Abnormality, Normalizing Race: The Origins Of America's Peculiar Carceral State And Its Prospects For Democratic Transformation Today, Jonathan Simon

Northwestern University Law Review

For those struggling with criminal justice reform today, the long history of failed efforts to close the gap between the promise of legal equality and the practice of our police forces and prison systems can seem mysterious and frustrating. Progress has been made in establishing stronger rights for individuals in the investigatory and sanctioning stages of the criminal process; yet, the patterns of over-incarceration and police violence, which are especially concentrated on people of color, have actually gotten worse during the same period. Seen in terms of its deeper history however, the carceral state is no longer puzzling: it has …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Gonzalez's Post: Why I Marched... 1-25-2017, Deborah Gonzalez

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Dynamic Relationship Between Freedom Of Speech And Equality, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the dynamic intersection between freedom of speech and equal protection, with a particular focus on the race and LGBT equality movements. Unlike other works on expression and/or equality, the Article emphasizes the relational and bi-directional connections between freedom of speech and equal protection. Freedom of speech has played a critical role in terms of advancing constitutional equality. However, with regard to both race and LGBT equality, free speech rights also failed in important respects to facilitate equality claims and movements. Advocacy and agitation on behalf of equality rights have also left indelible positive and negative marks on …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Johnson's Post: Now "Defamation" Matters More Than Ever 11-16-2016, Deborah Johnson

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Black Health Matters: Disparities, Community Health, And Interest Convergence, Mary Crossley

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Health disparities represent a significant strand in the fabric of racial injustice in the United States, one that has proven exceptionally durable. Many millions of dollars have been invested in addressing racial disparities over the past three decades. Researchers have identified disparities, unpacked their causes, and tracked their trajectories, with only limited progress in narrowing the health gap between whites and racial and ethnic minorities. The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the movement toward value-based payment methods for health care may supply a new avenue for addressing disparities. This Article argues that the ACA’s requirement that tax-exempt …

Newsroom: Johnson Wins 2nd Term As Mbwa President 09/28/2016, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

"Race-Conscious" School Finance Litigation: Is A Fourth Wave Emerging?, David G. Hinojosa

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Reeves Urges: 'Be Citizen Soldiers', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Judge Keynotes Mlk Week, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Australians' "Right" To Be Bigoted: Protecting Minorities' Rights From The Tyranny Of The Majority, Jillian Rudge

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) is a federal statute prohibiting behavior that offends, insults, humiliates, or intimidates people based on their race, nationality, ethnicity, or immigration status. It appropriately limits the right to freedom of expression where the exercise of that right encroaches on other, equally fundamental rights to equality and freedom from discrimination. The RDA is one of Australia’s few human rights laws focused on fighting racism. It is especially important for protecting the rights of minorities since Australia lacks a constitutional or federal bill of rights. Unfortunately, in 2014 and 2015, conservative politicians called for a repulsion of …

What's Wrong With Sentencing Equality?, Richard A. Bierschbach, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

Equality in criminal sentencing often translates into equalizing outcomes and stamping out variations, whether race-based, geographic, or random. This approach conflates the concept of equality with one contestable conception focused on outputs and numbers, not inputs and processes. Racial equality is crucial, but a concern with eliminating racism has hypertrophied well beyond race. Equalizing outcomes seems appealing as a neutral way to dodge contentious substantive policy debates about the purposes of punishment. But it actually privileges deterrence and incapacitation over rehabilitation, subjective elements of retribution, and procedural justice, and it provides little normative guidance for punishment. It also has unintended …

Racial Emotions And The Feeling Of Equality, Janine Young Kim

University of Colorado Law Review

This Article examines two distinct but related questions regarding race and emotions. The first raises the possibility that there are certain emotions that are so closely tied to racial experiences that they can be said to demonstrate and typify an emotional dimension to the construct of race. The second asks how such quintessentially racial emotions can be analyzed and evaluated, employing three theories of emotion that have developed in various disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. These theories reveal that racial emotions are not idiosyncratic and elusive, but instead relate to reason and values, to social membership and hierarchy, …

Newsroom: Johnson Heads Black Women's Bar Org, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Mainstreaming Equality In Federal Budgeting: Addressing Educational Inequities With Regard To The States, Elizabeth K. Hinson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Great Society reformers targeted poverty as the defining characteristic for a novel federal education policy in the United States in 1965. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), reincarnated within the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, distributes financial aid to disadvantaged students within public schools solely based upon students’ socioeconomic status. This Article does not dispute that financial resources improve student outcomes, but this Article argues that Title I’s funding formula is ineffective, and a new funding scheme – specifically, a mainstreaming equality funding scheme – must replace it. The implementation of this funding scheme …

The First Justice Harlan By The Numbers: Just How Great Was "The Great Dissenter?", Gabriel J. Chin

Akron Law Review

Considering these kinds of evidence together may offer an informed picture of a judge’s disposition. By these measures, Harlan cannot be regarded as a defender of Asian civil rights. Based on his voting record, he was the most ardent defender of African American civil rights. By contrast, his record in Asian cases was one of the worst. His votes in favor of African American civil rights were in critical cases. In most of the critical cases with respect to Asian litigants, he voted against them.

The Fourteenth Amendment: The Great Equalizer Of The American People, Abel A. Bartley

Akron Law Review

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was ratified on July 28, 1868, demonstrated the change in attitude, which hit many Americans after the chaotic Civil War. It was America’s first attempt to legally challenge White supremacist ideas by creating a truly equal multiracial society. With its emphasis on equal protection and equal justice, the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to be the great equalizer of American people, legally changing African American men into White men so that they could enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities of United States citizenship. However, determining the meaning of equality uncovered the …

Faculty Insights On Educational Diversity, Meera E. Deo

Fordham Law Review

Twice in the past two years, the U.S. Supreme Court has approved educational diversity as a compelling state interest that justifies the use of race in higher education admissions decisions. Nevertheless, it remains on somewhat shaky ground. Over the past decade, the Court has emphasized that its acceptance of diversity stems from the expectation that a diverse student body will enhance the classroom environment, with students drawing on their diverse backgrounds during classroom conversations that ultimately bring the law to life. Yet, the Court provides no support for its assumption that admitting and enrolling diverse students actually result in these …

Critical Race Science And Critical Race Philosophy Of Science, Paul Gowder

Fordham Law Review

Over several decades, feminist philosophy of science has revealed the ways in which much of science has proceeded from “mainstream” assumptions that privilege men and other hierarchically superordinate groups and existing socially constructed conceptions of gender. In doing so, it has produced a research program that, while rooted in the post- Kuhnian philosophy and sociology of science that has been taken up by many students of scientific method more generally, has been used to critique great swathes of modern science and to reveal both the biases of the mainstream, and the transformative potential of a science that proceeds from the …

Foreword: Diversity In The Legal Profession: A Comparative Perspective, Deborah L. Rhode

Fordham Law Review

In principle, the legal profession in the United States and United Kingdom is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion. In practice, it lags behind. This colloquium explores what stands in the way. Leading scholars from both countries look at the gap between aspirations and achievement, and suggest some concrete strategies for change.

Busy Doing Nothing: An Exploration Of The Disconnect Between Gender Equity Issues Faced By Large Law Firms In The United Kingdom And The Diversity Management Initiatives Devised To Address Them, Savita Kumra

Fordham Law Review

The Article has three parts: the first reviews the data showing women’s increased participation in the legal sector and assesses why increased participation has not led to inclusion at senior levels. The main barriers are macro and micro processes of social reproduction, poor access to mentors and influential business networks, and gender bias in society at large.

In the second part, the response by large law firms is assessed. This has largely consisted of “business case” approaches to diversity management. The key characteristics of these approaches are presented, as is an overview of key practices adopted by large law firms. …

Diversity In The Legal Profession: Perspectives From Managing Partners And General Counsel, Deborah L. Rhode, Lucy Buford Ricca

Fordham Law Review

Within the American legal profession, diversity is widely embraced in principle but seldom realized in practice. Women and minorities are grossly underrepresented at the top and overrepresented at the bottom. What accounts for this disparity and what can be done to address it are the subjects of this Article. It provides the first comprehensive portrait of the problem from the vantage of leaders of the nation’s largest legal organizations. Through their perspectives, this Article seeks to identify best practices for diversity in law firms and in-house legal departments, as well as the obstacles standing in the way.

Part I begins …

Biglaw Identity Capital: Pink And Blue, Black And White, Eli Wald

Fordham Law Review

This Article advances a new capital analysis, depicting BigLaw relationships not as basic labor-salary exchanges but rather as complex transactions in which BigLaw and its lawyers exchange labor and various forms of capital—social, cultural, and identity. Unlike the traditional Tournament Theory model, in which BigLaw and its lawyers come across as near hopeless pawns powerless to combat vicious exogenous societal forces outside of their control, the proposed capital model conceives of BigLaw and its lawyers as active players who are very much responsible for the outcomes of their exchanges. Moreover, exactly because the capital model describes the underrepresentation of diverse …

Reproduction And The Rule Of Law In Latin America, Michele Goodwin, Allison M. Whelan

Fordham Law Review

When Carmen Guadalupe Vasquez was rushed to [the] hospital after giving birth to a stillborn baby boy, the doctors first treated her life-threatening bleeding and then called the police, who handcuffed her to the bed. In El Salvador, where all abortion is illegal and emergency wards are turned into crime scenes, the confused, weak, and desperately ill 18-yearold maid was placed under investigation for terminating her pregnancy and driven away in a police van.

Difference Blindness Vs. Bias Awareness: Why Law Firms With The Best Of Intentions Have Failed To Create Diverse Partnerships, Russell G. Pearce, Eli Wald, Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen

Fordham Law Review

This Article uses the example of BigLaw firms to explore the challenges that many elite organizations face in providing equal opportunity to their workers. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, large law firms have been consistently unable to deliver diverse partnership structures—especially in more senior positions of power. Building on implicit and institutional bias scholarship and on successful approaches described in the organizational behavior literature, we argue that a significant barrier to systemic diversity at the law firm partnership level has been, paradoxically, the insistence on difference blindness standards that seek to evaluate each person on their …

Shaping Diversity And Inclusion Policy With Research, Julie Ashdown

Fordham Law Review

The legal profession in England and Wales is perceived as pale, male, and stale (that is, white, male, and older), but is that actually the case? And, if it is, what could or should a representative body like the Law Society do about it? This Article considers the situation from the perspective of solicitors. It reviews the research that the Law Society has commissioned over the last twenty years and how the findings have impacted policymaking. This Article looks at the main initiatives resulting from the research and considers whether they have made a difference and what the continuing challenges …

Going Public: Diversity Disclosures By Large U.K. Law Firms, Steven Vaughan

Fordham Law Review

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has been the parent regulator of legal services in England and Wales since 2009. Born of the wide-ranging reforms introduced by the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA), the LSB is tasked with promoting the regulatory objectives contained within the LSA, including “encouraging an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession.” In July 2011, the LSB introduced a rule requiring the collection of data on workforce diversity and the publication of that data by the legal profession. This was the first—and indeed, is the only—direct regulatory intervention taken with regard to diversity in the legal profession. …

Legal Professional De(Re)Regulation, Equality, And Inclusion, And The Contested Space Of Professionalism Within The Legal Market In England And Wales, Lisa Webley

Fordham Law Review

This Article aims to examine equality and inclusion in legal services from the perspectives of would-be lawyers and would-be clients. It begins by examining the state and solicitors’ changing relationship regarding access to justice, professional independence, and the rule of law. It then considers the changes that the LSA 2007 wrought, and whether this neoliberal turn can deliver equality and inclusion within the profession and by the profession for those seeking redress with legal help. It also explores whether de(re)regulation may be altering the legal profession(s)’s ability to act as gatekeeper to the profession(s) and whether this too may have …

Bicultural Experience In The Legal Profession: A Developmental Network Approach, Jonathan Ashong-Lamptey

Fordham Law Review

A developmental network refers to the egocentric network of individuals who take an active interest in and concerted actions toward advancing a protégé’s career. In Part I of this Article, I draw upon the literature to outline the lived experiences of black lawyers, highlighting the need for them to manage their working identity. In Part II, I further develop bicultural experience as a construct for exploring racial minority experience in a professional context with recent developments from the acculturation literature. In Part III, I introduce the developmental network as a vehicle for understanding developmental relationships. Part IV summarizes the methodology …