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Michigan Law Review

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Articles 31 - 60 of 289

Full-Text Articles in Law and Race

Affirmative Inaction: A Quantitative Analysis Of Progress Toward “Critical Mass” In U.S. Legal Education, Loren M. Lee Mar 2021

Affirmative Inaction: A Quantitative Analysis Of Progress Toward “Critical Mass” In U.S. Legal Education, Loren M. Lee

Michigan Law Review

Since 1978, the Supreme Court has recognized diversity as a compelling government interest to uphold the use of affirmative action in higher education. Yet the constitutionality of the practice has been challenged many times. In Grutter v. Bollinger, for example, the Court denied its use in perpetuity and suggested a twenty-five-year time limit for its application in law school admissions. Almost two decades have passed, so where do we stand? This Note’s quantitative analysis of the matriculation of and degrees awarded to Black and Latinx students at twenty-nine accredited law schools across the United States illuminates a stark lack of …


Equal Protection Under Algorithms: A New Statistical And Legal Framework, Crystal S. Yang, Will Dobbie Nov 2020

Equal Protection Under Algorithms: A New Statistical And Legal Framework, Crystal S. Yang, Will Dobbie

Michigan Law Review

In this Article, we provide a new statistical and legal framework to understand the legality and fairness of predictive algorithms under the Equal Protection Clause. We begin by reviewing the main legal concerns regarding the use of protected characteristics such as race and the correlates of protected characteristics such as criminal history. The use of race and nonrace correlates in predictive algorithms generates direct and proxy effects of race, respectively, that can lead to racial disparities that many view as unwarranted and discriminatory. These effects have led to the mainstream legal consensus that the use of race and nonrace correlates …


For Cause: Rethinking Racial Exclusion And The American Jury, Thomas Ward Frampton Apr 2020

For Cause: Rethinking Racial Exclusion And The American Jury, Thomas Ward Frampton

Michigan Law Review

Peremptory strikes, and criticism of the permissive constitutional framework regulating them, have dominated the scholarship on race and the jury for the past several decades. But we have overlooked another important way in which the American jury reflects and reproduces racial hierarchies: massive racial disparities also pervade the use of challenges for cause. This Article examines challenges for cause and race in nearly 400 trials and, based on original archival research, presents a revisionist account of the Supreme Court’s three most recent Batson cases. It establishes that challenges for cause, no less than peremptory strikes, are an important—and unrecognized—vehicle of …


Racial Purges, Robert L. Tsai Jan 2020

Racial Purges, Robert L. Tsai

Michigan Law Review

Review of Beth Lew-Williams' The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America.


Separate And Unequal: The Law Of "Domestic" And "International" Terrorism, Shirin Sinnar Jan 2019

Separate And Unequal: The Law Of "Domestic" And "International" Terrorism, Shirin Sinnar

Michigan Law Review

U.S. law differentiates between two categories of terrorism. “International terrorism” covers threats with a putative international nexus, even when they stem from U.S. citizens or residents acting only within the United States. “Domestic terrorism” applies to political violence thought to be purely domestic in its origin and intended impact. The law permits broader surveillance, wider criminal charges, and more punitive treatment for crimes labeled international terrorism. Law enforcement agencies frequently consider U.S. Muslims “international” threats even when they have scant foreign ties. As a result, they police and punish them more intensely than white nationalists and other “domestic” threats. This …


Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher Jan 2019

Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Michigan Law Review

Review of David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.


The Outcome Of Influence: Hitler’S American Model And Transnational Legal History, Mary L. Dudziak Jan 2019

The Outcome Of Influence: Hitler’S American Model And Transnational Legal History, Mary L. Dudziak

Michigan Law Review

Review of James Q. Whitman's Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law.


The New Housing Segregation: The Jim Crow Effects Of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances, Deborah N. Archer Jan 2019

The New Housing Segregation: The Jim Crow Effects Of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances, Deborah N. Archer

Michigan Law Review

America is profoundly segregated along racial lines. We attend separate schools, live in separate neighborhoods, attend different churches, and shop at different stores. This rigid racial segregation results in social, economic, and resource inequality, with White communities of opportunity on the one hand and many communities of color without access to quality schools, jobs, transportation, or health care on the other. Many people view this as an unfortunate fact of life, or as a relic of legal systems long since overturned and beyond the reach of current legal process. But this is not true. On the contrary, the law continues …


The New Impartial Jury Mandate, Richard Lorren Jolly Jan 2019

The New Impartial Jury Mandate, Richard Lorren Jolly

Michigan Law Review

Impartiality is the cornerstone of the Constitution’s jury trial protections. Courts have historically treated impartiality as procedural in nature, meaning that the Constitution requires certain prophylactic procedures that secure a jury that is more likely to reach verdicts impartially. But in Peña- Rodriguez v. Colorado, 137 S. Ct. 855 (2017), the Supreme Court recognized for the first time an enforceable, substantive component to the mandate. There, the Court held that criminal litigants have a Sixth Amendment right to jury decisions made without reliance on extreme bias, specifically on the basis of race or national origin. The Court did not …


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.


The Racist Algorithm?, Anupam Chander Apr 2017

The Racist Algorithm?, Anupam Chander

Michigan Law Review

Review of The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information by Frank Pasquale.


Bail Nullification, Jocelyn Simonson Mar 2017

Bail Nullification, Jocelyn Simonson

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores the possibility of community nullification beyond the jury by analyzing the growing and unstudied phenomenon of community bail funds, which post bail for strangers based on broader beliefs regarding the overuse of pretrial detention. When a community bail fund posts bail, it can serve the function of nullifying a judge’s determination that a certain amount of the defendant’s personal or family money was necessary to ensure public safety and prevent flight. This growing practice—what this Article calls “bail nullification”—is powerful because it exposes publicly what many within the system already know to be true: that although bail …


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 …


Racial Templates, Richard Delgado, Juan F. Perea Apr 2014

Racial Templates, Richard Delgado, Juan F. Perea

Michigan Law Review

This riveting tale of greed, international skullduggery, and behind-the-scenes heroism recounts the events that led up to America’s “wicked war” with Mexico. It depicts how expansionist ambitions in high circles fueled jingoistic propaganda (pp. 25, 34–35, 58), fed a public eager for national muscle flexing (pp. 57, 103, 108), and set the stage for a military skirmish in a disputed region between two rivers (pp. 75–77, 95, 100, 138) that provided the pretext for a savage and short-lived military campaign against the weak new nation of Mexico in which the U.S. Army, under General Scott, marched all the way to …


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 …


Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger Jun 2011

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 …


Can Criminal Law Be Controlled?, Darryl K. Brown Apr 2010

Can Criminal Law Be Controlled?, Darryl K. Brown

Michigan Law Review

It is a bizarre state of affairs that criminal law has no coherent description or explanation. We have standard tropes to define criminal law, but they obscure as much as they clarify and are honored in the breach as much as the rule. Crimes, for instance, are defined by wrongdoing and culpability; to be guilty, one must do a wrongful act in a blameworthy manner, that is, as a responsible agent without excuse or justification. And crimes define public wrongs, which are distinct from private wrongs. Further, we criminalize only harmful conduct, or risk-creating conduct, or immoral conduct, or conduct …


Preserving A Racial Hierarchy: A Legal Analysis Of The Disparate Racial Impact Of Legacy Preferences In University Admissions, Kathryn Ladewski Feb 2010

Preserving A Racial Hierarchy: A Legal Analysis Of The Disparate Racial Impact Of Legacy Preferences In University Admissions, Kathryn Ladewski

Michigan Law Review

Many public and private universities around the country employ legacy admissions preferences in order to give children of alumni special consideration in the admissions process. Such preferences disproportionately benefit white applicants at the cost of their nonwhite counterparts, because past generations of college students were less diverse than today's applicant pool. However, universities argue that their legacy preferences are justified because they assist in alumni fundraising efforts. This Note presents a statistical analysis to argue that legacy preferences are prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they have a discriminatory effect on minority college applicants and have not …


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 …


Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges, John P. Bringewatt Dec 2009

Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges, John P. Bringewatt

Michigan Law Review

In March 2008, the Supreme Court decided Snyder v. Louisiana, the latest in the line of progeny of Batson v. Kentucky. This Note demonstrates that Snyder is part of a historical pattern of Supreme Court decisions concerning the use of peremptory challenges in which the Court has moved away from permitting the unfettered use of the peremptory challenge in favor of stronger Equal Protection considerations. Snyder alters the requirements for trial judges in deciding Batson challenges by requiring them to provide some explanation of their reasons for accepting a prosecutor's justification of a peremptory challenge. Snyder is the …


Causation Or Correlation? The Impact Of Lulac V. Clements On Section 2 Lawsuits In The Fifth Circuit, Elizabeth M. Ryan Feb 2009

Causation Or Correlation? The Impact Of Lulac V. Clements On Section 2 Lawsuits In The Fifth Circuit, Elizabeth M. Ryan

Michigan Law Review

Under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, illegal vote dilution exists when an electoral standard, practice, or procedure results in a denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race or color Plaintiffs demonstrate vote dilution by introducing evidence regarding a variety of objective factors, including whether voting in the jurisdiction in question is polarized along racial lines. In 1993, the Fifth Circuit adopted a new standard for section 2 plaintiffs trying to prove racially polarized voting. The Fifth Circuit held that demonstrating a mere correlation between race and vote was insufficient to establish racially polarized …


An "Unintended Consequence": Dred Scott Reinterpreted, Sam Erman Apr 2008

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 …


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 Fair Housing Act And Disparate Impact In Homeowners Insurance, Dana L. Kaersvang Aug 2006

The Fair Housing Act And Disparate Impact In Homeowners Insurance, Dana L. Kaersvang

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that because homeowners insurance is central to homeownership, the FHA applies to insurance underwriting policies, such as those mentioned above, that have a disparate impact on minority potential homeowners. Part I considers whether the FHA applies to homeowners insurance and concludes that homeowners insurance is covered by the Act. Part II goes on to argue that the FHA applies to homeowners insurance even where the discrimination results from disparate impact, rather than from disparate treatment. Finally, Part III analyzes the above-mentioned policies of the insurance industry under the FHA disparate impact standard.


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 …


Race Nuisance: The Politics Of Law In The Jim Crow Era, Rachel D. Godsil Jan 2006

Race Nuisance: The Politics Of Law In The Jim Crow Era, Rachel D. Godsil

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores a startling and previously unnoticed line of cases in which state courts in the Jim Crow era ruled against white plaintiffs trying to use common law nuisance doctrine to achieve residential segregation. These "race-nuisance" cases complicate the view of most legal scholarship that state courts during the Jim Crow era openly eschewed the rule of law in service of white supremacy. Instead, the cases provide rich social historical detail showing southern judges wrestling with their competing allegiances to both precedent and the pursuit of racial exclusivity. Surprisingly, the allegiance to precedent generally prevailed. The cases confound prevailing …