Law and Race Commons^™

Awaiting The Rebirth Of An Icon: Brown V. Board Of Education, R. Lawrence Purdy

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

For What It's Worth: The Role Of Race- And Gender-Based Data In Civil Damages Awards, Loren D. Goodman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Following months of behavioral problems, hyperactivity, and intermittent complaints of headache and nausea, five-year-old Kelsey Craig's mother finally takes her to the pediatrician to determine the root of the problem. After multiple consultations, a blood test shows a surprising culprit: there is a dangerously high amount of lead present in Kelsey's blood, suggesting prolonged exposure to the irreversibly toxic substance. Upon returning to their older, prewar apartment building, Kelsey's mother passes a neighboring family in the hallway and woefully relays the tale of her diagnosis. The neighbors' eyes grow wide as they realize their own five-year-old son has been experiencing …

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.

Mismatch And Science Desistance: Failed Arguments Against Affirmative Action, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

When I attended Michigan Law School in 1966, as a 2L Harvard transfer, there was only one, or perhaps two, African Americans in a student body of about 1100 students, and if there were any students of Latino heritage their presence went unnoticed. When I began teaching at Michigan in the fall of 1968, the situation had begun to change. There were eight or nine African American students in the first year class, the first cohort to be admitted under a newly approved racially sensitive affirmative action program. Since then, Michigan has graduated more than 1500 minority students, most of …

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Why Fisher V. University Of Texas At Austin Will Not Fundamentally Alter The Affirmative Action Landscape, Adam Lamparello

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Diversity Is Dead. Long Live Diversity: The Racial Isolation Prong Of Kennedy’S Pics Concurrence In Fisher And Beyond., Francisco M. Negrón Jr.

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

More Than Just The Numbers: Fisher V. Texas And The Practical Impact Of Texas’S Top Ten Percent Law, Shakira D. Pleasant

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Getting Real About Race And Class: An Evaluation Of The Constitutionality Of Class-Based, Socioeconomic Affirmative Action Without Grutter, Junis L. Baldon

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

It’S Not About Race: The True Purpose Of The University Of Texas’ Holistic Admissions System Is To Give Preferences To Well-Connected White Applicants, Not To Disadvantaged Minorities, Jonathan R. Zell

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fisher V. University Of Texas At Austin: The Incoherence And Unseemliness Of State Racial Classification, Jay Alan Sekulow, Walter M. Weber

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justice Kennedy And The Fisher Revisit: Will The Irrelevant Prove Decisive?, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

Most Court watchers expect Justice Kennedy to cast the deciding vote when the Supreme Court hands down its decision in this term’s installment of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin or, as it is colloquially titled, Fisher II. What divides observers is not whose vote will be crucial, but the law that vote will make. At one extreme, Justice Kennedy could vote to uphold the Fifth Circuit’s reaffirmation of its earlier decision. When the case was heard, this would almost certainly have meant affirming the circuit court’s decision by an equally divided Court. (Justice Kagan, an almost certain supporter …

Race, Restructurings, And Equal Protection Doctrine Through The Lens Of Schuette V. Bamn, Steve Sanders

Brooklyn Law Review

In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that Michigan voters had violated principles of the fair lawmaking process when they amended their state constitution to prohibit race-conscious affirmative action in public university admissions, reasoning that the amendment, known as “Proposal 2,” constituted a political restructuring that had violated the Equal Protection Clause by disadvantaging African Americans from being able to equally access political change. However, the Sixth Circuit was careful to avoid saying that Proposal 2 created a racial classification or was motivated by a purpose of discriminating on the basis of race. Instead, consistent …

Use Of Economic-Based Affirmative Action In College Admissions, Torrino Travell Travis

Florida A & M University Law Review

Preferential treatment based on race is currently on life support and will soon die as a part of the college admissions process. However, banning racial preference in college admissions does not mean the end of minorities receiving preferential treatment in college admissions. Recently, federal courts have begun to hold that colleges may give preferential treatment and use various criteria in compiling its student body; however, these criteria must be race neutral. Part I of this note discusses Grutter v. Bollinger. Part II argues that admissions committees will still be able to give deserving minorities special consideration under a race neutral …

Further Thoughts On Race, American Law, And The State Of Nature: Advancing The Multiracial Paradigm Shift And Seeking Patterns In The Area Of Race And Law, George A. Martinez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In his article, the author seeks to use philosophical theory - state of nature theory - as a way to understand American law and issues of race. This project, consistent with a recent trend in legal scholarship, seeks to uncover hidden meanings in law through historical analysis, cultural critique, or philosophical contemplation.

The author argues that there is a tendency for the dominant group to relate to racial minorities as if they were in the state of nature - i.e., a tendency to act as if they were in a situation without legal or moral constraints. The article examines this …

Beyond Reparation: Affirmative Action As A Solution For Disparate Representation, Suny Cardenas-Gomez

Student Research

This essay provides support for Affirmative Action policy from the perspective that both supporters and opponents want merit-based evaluations. Disparate representation and prejudice-driven discrimination, however, make this impossible. Affirmative Action gives minorities the opportunity to change their representation in certain fields, therefore changing the way they are perceived, and eventually dissipating existing race-based discrimination in the evaluation process.

Class-Based Affirmative Action, Or The Lies That We Tell About The Insignificance Of Race, Khiara Bridges

Faculty Scholarship

This Article conducts a critique of class-based affirmative action, identifying and problematizing the narrative that it tells about racial progress. The Article argues that class-based affirmative action denies that race is a significant feature of American life. It denies that individuals - and groups - continue to be advantaged and disadvantaged on account of race. It denies that there is such a thing called race privilege that materially impacts people’s worlds. Moreover, this Article suggests that at least part of the reason why class-based affirmative action has been embraced by those who oppose race-based affirmative action is precisely because it …

Economic Inequality And College Admissions Policies, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

As economic inequality in the United States has reached unprecedented heights, reformers have focused considerable attention on changes in the law that would provide for greater equality in wealth among Americans. No doubt, much benefit would result from more equitable tax policies, fairer workplace regulation, and more generous spending policies.

But there may be even more to gain by revising college admissions policies. Admissions policies at the Ivy League and other elite American colleges do much to exacerbate the problem of economic inequality. Accordingly, reforming those policies may represent the most effective strategy for restoring a reasonable degree of economic …

The Fight For Equal Protection: Reconstruction-Redemption Redux, Kermit Roosevelt Iii, Patricia Stottlemyer

All Faculty Scholarship

With Justice Scalia gone, and Justices Ginsburg and Kennedy in their late seventies, there is the possibility of significant movement on the Supreme Court in the next several years. A two-justice shift could upend almost any area of constitutional law, but the possible movement in race-based equal protection jurisprudence provides a particularly revealing window into the larger trends at work. In the battle over equal protection, two strongly opposed visions of the Constitution contend against each other, and a change in the Court’s composition may determine the outcome of that struggle. In this essay, we set out the current state …

What Once Was Lost Must Now Be Found: Rediscovering An Affirmative Action Jurisprudence Informed By The Reality Of Race In America, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

This academic year has seen college and university students across America calling on their institutions to do more to create campus cultures supportive of African American students and other underrepresented minorities. There have been demands to increase faculty and student diversity, change curricular requirements, and adopt mandatory cultural sensitivity trainings. There have been efforts to rename buildings, remove images, and abandon symbols associating schools with major historic figures who were also proponents of slavery, segregation, or other forms of racism. As in all tumultuous periods for higher education, these events have provoked useful discussions about fundamental principles and brought to …

Affirmative Action: Alive And Well After Stotts, Ralph J. Conrad

Akron Law Review

This comment examines the current state of affirmative action in light of the special protection that the Supreme Court grants seniority systems. This comment also discusses the future of affirmative action and how the changes in affirmative action will affect collective bargaining agreements and consent decrees.

White Privilege And Affirmative Action, Sylvia A. Law

Akron Law Review

Since 1996, many authoritative voices challenge the legitimacy of affirmative efforts to achieve racial integration. The Supreme Court has struck down many affirmative action programs. The Court has not upheld any affirmative action program since 1989, when, by a 5-4 decision, it approved a narrowly targeted Congressional program to encourage minority ownership of broadcast licences. In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, broadly prohibiting any form of affirmative action on the basis of race or gender. In the same year, in the Hopwood decision, the Fifth Circuit held that the University of Texas could not give any consideration to race …

Affirmative Action For The Master Class: The Creation Of The Proslavery Constitution, Paul Finkelman

Akron Law Review

The Constitution of 1787 was a proslavery document, designed to prevent any national assault on slavery, while at the same time structured to protect the interests of slaveowners at the expense of African Americans and their antislavery white allies. To understand this earliest form of affirmative action, I begin with a view of the Constitution first articulated by the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and then turn to an examination of the Convention that wrote the Constitution and the document that convention produced.

Private Problem, Public Solution: Affirmative Action In The 21st Century, Darlene C. Goring

Akron Law Review

This Article will explore the origins of the Court’s color-blind interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the role that this interpretation plays in the development of new barriers against challenges to race-based affirmative action programs. Part II of this Article traces the development and application of the strict scrutiny test to evaluate the constitutionality of both invidious and benign racial classifications. Part III examines Justice Powell’s position that racial classifications used as remedial measures may overcome the presumption of constitutional invalidity associated with the use of race-based classifications. In this context, the Court recognizes that the continued impact of past …

Grutter V. Bollinger/Gratz V. Bollinger: View From A Limestone Ledge, Gerald Torres

Gerald Torres

No abstract provided.

Grutter V. Bollinger/Gratz V. Bollinger: View From A Limestone Ledge, Gerald Torres

Gerald Torres

No abstract provided.

Fisher V. Texas: The Limits Of Exhaustion And The Future Of Race-Conscious University Admissions, John Powell, Stephen Menendian

john a. powell

This Article investigates the potential ramifications of Fisher v. Texas and the future of race-conscious university admissions. Although one cannot predict the ultimate significance of the Fisher decision, its brief and pregnant statements of law portends an increasingly perilous course for traditional affirmative action programs. Part I explores the opinions filed in Fisher, with a particular emphasis on Justice Kennedy’s opinion on behalf of the Court. We focus on the ways in which the Fisher decision departs from precedent, proscribes new limits on the use of race in university admissions, and tightens requirements for narrow tailoring. Part II investigates the …

Revisiting Law School Mismatch: A Comment On Barnes (2007, 2011), Doug Williams, Richard Sander, Marc Luppino, Roger Bolus

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Affirmative Action Responsible For The Achievement Gap Between Black And White Law Students? A Correction, A Lesson, And An Update, Katherine Y. Barnes

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Something Wicked This Way Comes”: Political Correctness And The Reincarnation Of Chairman Mao, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

Mao’s Red Guards and the “Wicked Wisdom” of Lesley Gore There could not possibly be any parallel between the actions of Mao Tse Tung’s young Red Guard zealots and the intensifying demands of identity groups that all people must conform to their version of approved linguistic expression or in effect be condemned as “reactionaries” and “counter-revolutionaries” who are clearly “on the wrong side of history”. Nor, in demanding that they be allowed to effectively take over the university and its curriculum while staffing faculty and administrative positions with people who think like them while others are subjected to “re-education” sessions …

From Access To Success: Affirmative Action Outcomes In A Class-Based System, Matthew N. Gaertner, Melissa Hart

Publications

Scholarly discussion about affirmative action policy has been dominated in the past ten years by debates over "mismatch theory'"--the claim that race-conscious affirmative action harms those it is intended to help by placing students who receive preferences among academically superior peers in environments where they will be overmatched and unable to compete. Despite serious empirical and theoretical challenges to this claim in academic circles, mismatch has become widely accepted outside those circles, so much so that the theory played prominently in Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas. This Article explores whether mismatch occurs in …