Law and Race Commons^™

Liberation Chronicles: Reformulating Black Liberation In The Face Of Persistent Oppression, Nia P. Gadson

Honors College Theses

Liberation movements for Black people have been prominent throughout American history. Chattel slavery and Jim Crow laws caused centuries of anti-black oppression. They continuously evolved into other anti-black structures – mass incarceration, predatory loan companies, and healthcare inequalities, to name a few – that require us to address these issues still today. The most recent Black liberation movement, Black Lives Matter, experienced a brief uptick in support after George Floyd’s murder but, overall, failed to address these issues. This thesis outlines three approaches to Black liberation in the U.S. to determine the most effective. First, drawing on Frederick Douglass’ autobiographies, …

Defiance, Lackland H. Bloom Jr

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Of Race, Racism And Racially Motivated Offences: A Review Of The Hate Crime And Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, Olufemi O. Ilesanmi, Danielle Mckandie

Class, Race and Corporate Power

A relationship of social and legal significance seems to exist between the prohibition of expressions or manifestations of racism and the society’s preservation of racial diversity. To discourage racial prejudice and thereby protect each race, the state must manage its diversity well by legislating against racist hate offences. In Scotland, for example, the government boldly accepted that hate crimes, including racially motivated offences, are a serious problem requiring closer attention. Through its Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, the state resolves to tackle related criminality.

Focusing on the Act, this review examines whether or how race within the …

Racial Targets, Atinuke O. Adediran

Northwestern University Law Review

It is common scholarly and popular wisdom that racial quotas are illegal. However, the reality is that since 2020’s racial reckoning, many of the largest companies have been touting specific, albeit voluntary, goals to hire or promote people of color, which this Article refers to as “racial targets.” The Article addresses this phenomenon and shows that companies can defend racial targets as distinct from racial quotas, which involve a rigid number or proportion of opportunities reserved exclusively for minority groups. The political implications of the legal defensibility of racial targets are significant in this moment in American history, where race …

Mass Incarceration, Violent Crimes, And Lengthy Sentences: Using The Race-Class Narrative As A Messaging Framework For Shortening Prison Sentences, Eric Petterson

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Alan Dershowitz: The War Against The Jews In Israel And In The Diaspora, Cardozo Federalist Society

Flyers 2023-2024

No abstract provided.

What The Trust? Overcoming Barriers To Renewable Energy Development In Indian Country, Malcolm M. Gilbert, Aspen B. Ward

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corner Crossing: Unlocking Public Lands Or Invading The Airspace Of Landowners?, Kevin Frazier

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Editors And Staff Members

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Amdip Annual Meeting Of Law School Diversity Professionals: Hosted By Roger Williams University School Of Law: April 23-25, 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Misguided Use Of The Harvard/Unc Ruling To Thwart Law Firm And Other Private Employer Dei Efforts, Ronald A. Norwood

SLU Law Journal Online

This article explores the Harvard/UNC ruling and what, in the author’s view, is the misguided efforts by certain political and well-financed private actors to use that ruling to justify the eradication of private employers and law firm DEI efforts. It is the author’s firm belief that because the Supreme Court’s holding is limited to an analysis of the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause (limited to state actors) and Title VI (covering private actions receiving federal funding), that ruling should not be used by courts to quash DEI programs designed to level the employment playing field for minorities, women and other protected …

Abolition Economics, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, René Reyes

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Over the past several decades, Law & Economics has established itself as one of the most well-known branches of interdisciplinary legal scholarship. The tools of L&E have been applied to a wide range of legal issues and have even been brought to bear on Critical Race Theory in an attempt to address some of CRT’s perceived shortcomings. This Article seeks to reverse this dynamic of influence by applying CRT and related critical perspectives to the field of economics. We call our approach Abolition Economics. By embracing the abolitionist ethos of “dismantle, change, and build,” we seek to break strict …

The Right To Violence, Sean Hill

Utah Law Review

Scholars have long contended that the state has a monopoly on the use of violence. This monopoly is considered essential for the state to assure the safety and security of its citizens. Whereas public officers have the broadest authority to deploy violence, in order to make arrests or to inflict punishment, private citizens allegedly have severe restrictions on their use of force. Specifically, the state is said to only authorize private violence when civilians face an imminent threat of unlawful force or when civilians are attempting to prevent a crime.

Yet the state explicitly authorized private violence against enslaved people …

The Work-Rule Doctrine Doesn't Work After Reeves V. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Grafton Bragg

Mississippi College Law Review

This Note is about an existing plague on employment-law jurisprudence in the Fifth Circuit. Small and big companies alike can terminate an employee for no discriminatory reason but then be tagged with a lawsuit that has a fair chance of success, just because the disgruntled former employee is willing to lie or the parties disagree over the facts. This is true even though no evidence of actual discrimination exists. The work-rule doctrine changes at-will employment to good-will employment under the guise of federal employment discrimination statutes. Whatever your position is on the longstanding at-will employment regimes, there can be no …

Rwu Law Alumni Newsletter April 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

The "Free White Person" Clause Of The Naturalization Act Of 1790 As Super-Statute, Gabriel J. Chin, Paul Finkelman

William & Mary Law Review

A body of legal scholarship persuasively contends that some judicial decisions are so important that they should be considered part of the canon of constitutional law including, unquestionably, Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. Board of Education. Some decisions, while blunders, were nevertheless profoundly influential in undermining justice and the public good. Scholars call cases such as Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson the anticanon. Recognizing the contemporary centrality of statutes, Professors William Eskridge and John Ferejohn propose that certain federal laws should be recognized as part of legal canon because of their extraordinary influence and duration. These …

Creating A Racialized Liminal Status: The 1790 Act And Interstitial Citizenship, Rose Cuison-Villazor

William & Mary Law Review

This Comment began with De La Ysla’s case to highlight the political status that Filipinos held when the Philippines was a U.S. territory. This Comment argues that this status, which a court would later describe as a “hybrid status ... the so-called ‘non-citizen national,’” was a racialized liminal political status with roots in the 1790 Naturalization Act (1790 Act). Professors Jack Chin and Paul Finkelman claim that the 1790 Act played a critical role in shaping “the very composition of the people of the United States” by including the “free white person” clause in the country’s first naturalization law. One …

Afterward: A Reply To Commentators, Gabriel J. Chin, Paul Finkelman

William & Mary Law Review

Authors Gabriel J. Chin and Paul Finkelman respond to the comments on their article, The "Free White Person" Clause of the Naturalization Act of 1790 as Super-Statute.

Separate, Sovereign, And Subjugated: Native Citizenship And The 1790 Trade And Intercourse Act, Bethany Berger

William & Mary Law Review

In 1790, the same year Congress limited naturalization to “free white persons,” it also enacted the first Indian Trade and Intercourse Act. The Trade and Intercourse Act may have even stronger claims to “super statute” status than the Naturalization Act. Key provisions of the Trade and Intercourse Act remain in effect today, and the Act enshrined a tribal, federal, and state relationship that profoundly shapes modern law. Unlike the Naturalization Act, the Trade and Intercourse Act reflected the input of people of color: it responded to the demands of tribal nations and—to a degree—reflected tribal sovereignty. While Indigenous people could …

The Road Not Taken: A Critical Juncture In Racial Preferences For Naturalized Citizenship, Ming Hsu Chen

William & Mary Law Review

In The “Free White Person” Clause of the Naturalization Act of 1790 as Super-Statute, Gabriel Jack Chin and Paul Finkelman argue that racist results in naturalization have arisen despite, or maybe because of, the race neutral interpretation. This happened in a manner that could have been predicted by the federal government’s attitudes toward non-White persons in the Naturalization Act of 1790 and the nearly unbroken chain of legal developments. This leads them to think of the law as a “super-statute.” While I agree that this is the path actually taken in history, I view the mid-1960s civil rights era …

Paradoxical Citizenship, Amanda Frost

William & Mary Law Review

In their article, The “Free White Person” Clause of the Naturalization Act of 1790 as Super-Statute, Gabriel J. Chin and Paul Finkelman make a powerful case that the Naturalization Act of 1790 is a “super-statute” that has shaped not only U.S. immigration law and policy, but also America’s conception of itself as a “White nation.”

[...]

This Comment explores the conflict between the Naturalization Act’s racial restrictions on citizenship (and its proponents’ vision of the United States as a White nation) and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause (and its proponents’ vision of the United States as a multiracial …

Critical Race Theory & The Need To Have A Race Perspective In Public Service Law, Cardozo Public Service Scholars Program

Flyers 2023-2024

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Rwu School Of Law Launches Institute For Race And The Law And Celebrates Champions For Justice 3-22-2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Champions For Justice 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Free Exercise, The Respect For Marriage Act, And Some Potential Surprises, Mark Strasser

Cleveland State Law Review

Congress recently passed the Respect for Marriage Act to assure that certain marriages would remain valid even if the Supreme Court were to overrule past precedent and hold that the Constitution does not protect the right to marry a partner of the same sex or of a different race. However, the Act, as written, may not offer protection for certain same-sex or interracial marriages and may open the door to the federal protection of plural marriages, congressional intent notwithstanding, because of the Court’s increasingly robust free exercise jurisprudence.

A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley

Brooklyn Law Review

American law and American life are asymmetrical. Law divides neatly in two: public and private. But life is lived in three distinct spaces: pure public, pure private, and hybrid middle spaces that are neither state nor home. Which body of law governs the shops, gyms, and workplaces that are formally accessible to all, but functionally hostile to Black, female, poor, and other marginalized Americans? From the liberal midcentury onward, social justice advocates have treated these spaces as fundamentally public and fully remediable via public law equity commands. This article takes a broader view. It urges a tort law revival in …

Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour

Fordham Law Review

This colloquium asks us to consider how social change is influencing the legal profession and the legal profession’s response. This Essay applies these questions to organizing around criminal injustice and the response from public defenders. This Essay surfaces the work of four innovative indigent defense organizations that are engaged with and duty-bound to the communities they represent. I call this “community responsive public defense,” which is a distinct model of indigent defense whereby public defenders look to their clients and their clients’ communities to help shape advocacy, strategy, and representation.

Methodologically, this Essay relies primarily on qualitative interviews with leaders …

(How) Can Litigation Advance Multiracial Democracy?, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Fordham Law Review

Can rights litigation meaningfully advance social change in this moment? Many progressive or social justice legal scholars, lawyers, and advocates would argue “no.” Constitutional decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court thwart the aims of progressive social movements. Further, contemporary social movements often decenter courts as a primary domain of social change. In addition, a new wave of legal commentary urges progressives to de-emphasize courts and constitutionalism, not simply tactically but as a matter of democratic survival.

This Essay considers the continuing role of rights litigation, using the litigation over race-conscious affirmative action as an illustration. Courts are a key …

Rereading Pico And The Equal Protection Clause, Johany G. Dubon

Fordham Law Review

More than forty years ago, in Board of Education v. Pico, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a school board’s decision to remove books from its libraries. However, the Court’s response was heavily fractured, garnering seven separate opinions. In the plurality opinion, three justices stated that the implicit corollary to a student’s First Amendment right to free speech is the right to receive information. Thus, the plurality announced that the relevant inquiry for reviewing a school’s library book removal actions is whether the school officials intended to deny students access to ideas with which the officials disagreed. …

A Critical Race Theory Analysis Of Critical Race Theory Bans, Caroline M. Corbin

UC Irvine Law Review

A majority of state legislatures have introduced bills prohibiting public schools from teaching certain “divisive concepts” attributed to critical race theory (CRT), with at least fifteen states successfully enacting them. This Article applies a critical race theory analysis to these critical race theory bans, finding that the bans embody white privilege and especially its companion, white fragility.

After providing a primer on critical race theory, Part I explains how the state bans profoundly misunderstand critical race theory, which focuses on how systems and institutions reproduce racial inequality. These bans, however, assume that racism is individual, intentional, and rare, and that …