Legal History Commons^™

The War On Drugs And Its Legal Effects On Black Americans, Alexia L. Howard-Mullins

2022 Symposium

The differences in treatment between Black and white Americans in the past fifty years has been a topic of thought in the minds of political and sociological scholars since the inception of the War on Drugs in 1971. These differences in treatment may lead to discrimination legally, resulting in longer prison sentences and a higher proportion of Black Americans in prison. This study analyzes the results of the War on Drugs that led to disproportionate imprisonment of Black Americans, including mandatory sentencing laws, drug classifications, and discrimination within law enforcement and the legal system. This study will use primary sources …

2nd Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture: A Fireside Chat With Debra Katz, Esq. 03-03-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Second Founding And The First Amendment, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

Constitutional doctrine generally proceeds from the premise that the original intent and public understanding of pre-Civil War constitutional provisions carries forward unchanged from the colonial Founding era. This premise is flawed because it ignores the Nation’s Second Founding: i.e., the constitutional moment culminating in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and the civil rights statutes enacted pursuant thereto. The Second Founding, in addition to providing specific new individual rights and federal powers, also represented a fundamental shift in our constitutional order. The Second Founding’s constitutional regime provided that the underlying systemic rules and norms of the First Founding’s Constitution …

Law School News: Bright Anniversaries In Uncertain Times 10/06/2020, Nicole Dyszlewski, Louisa Fredey

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Library Blog (February 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Color Of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, And The Making Of Americans (Introduction), Anjali Vats

Book Chapters

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, the body of legal doctrine and practice that governs the ownership of information, is animated by a dichotomy of creatorship and infringement. In the most often repeated narratives of creatorship/infringement in the United States, the former produces a social and economic good while the latter works against the production of that social and economic good. Creators, those individuals whose work is deemed protectable under copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and unfair competition law, create valuable products that contribute to economic growth and public knowledge. Infringers, those individuals who use the work of creators without their permission, steal …

Dorothy R. Crockett Classroom Dedication September 10, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Lorraine Lalli, Bre'anna Metts-Nixon, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Rwu Law Will Dedicate Classroom To Ri's First African-American Woman Lawyer 9-4-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu Law News: The E-Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (June 2019), Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Amazing Dorothy Crockett: How An African-American Woman From Providence Became, In 1932, The 7th Woman Ever Admitted To The Rhode Island Bar 05-14-2019, Michael M. Bowden

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Celebrating The First Women Lawyers In Rhode Island April 12, 2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

After Suffrage: The Unfinished Business Of Feminist Legal Advocacy, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay considers post-suffrage women’s citizenship through the eyes of Pauli Murray, a key figure at the intersection of the twentieth-century movements for racial justice and feminism. Murray drew critical lessons from the woman suffrage movement and the Reconstruction-era disintegration of an abolitionist-feminist alliance to craft legal and constitutional strategies that continue to shape equality law and advocacy today. Murray placed African American women at the center of a vision of universal human rights that relied upon interracial and intergenerational alliances and anticipated what scholars later named intersectionality. As Murray foresaw, women of color formed a feminist vanguard in the …

The Loving Story: Using A Documentary To Reconsider The Status Of An Iconic Interracial Married Couple, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

The Loving Story (Augusta Films 2011), directed by Nancy Buirski, tells the backstory of the groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, that overturned state laws barring interracial marriage. The article looks to the documentary to explain why the Lovings should be considered icons of racial and ethnic civil rights, however much they might be associated with marriage equality today. The film shows the Lovings to be ordinary people who took their nearly decade long struggle against white supremacy to the nation’s highest court out of a genuine commitment to each other and a determination to live in …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Judge Netti Vogel's Post: Women, The Legal Profession, And How Far We've Come 7-19-16, Netti Vogel

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Ironies Of Affirmative Action, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s most recent confrontation with race-based affirmative action, Fisher v. University of Texas, did not live up to people’s expectations—or their fears. The Court did not explicitly change the current approach in any substantial way. It did, however, signal that it wants race-based affirmative action to be subject to real strict scrutiny, not the watered-down version featured in Grutter v. Bollinger. That is a significant signal, because under real strict scrutiny, almost all race-based affirmative action programs are likely unconstitutional. This is especially true given the conceptual framework the Court has created for such programs—the way …

The Promises Of Freedom: The Contemporary Relevance Of The Thirteenth Amendment, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

This article, an expanded version of the author's remarks at the 2013 Honorable Clifford Scott Green Lecture at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, illuminates the history and the context of the Thirteenth Amendment. This article contends that the full scope of the Thirteenth Amendment has yet to be realized and offers reflections on why it remains an underenforced constitutional norm. Finally, this article demonstrates the relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment to addressing contemporary forms of racial inequality and subordination.

The Thirteenth Amendment And Pro-Equality Speech, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment’s Framers envisioned the Amendment as providing federal authority to eliminate the “badges and incidents of slavery.” The freemen and their descendants are the most likely to be burdened with the effects of stigma, stereotypes, and structural discrimination arising from the slave system. Because African Americans are therefore the most obvious beneficiaries of the Amendment’s promise to eliminate the legacy of slavery, it is often mistakenly assumed that federal power to eradicate the badges and incidents of slavery only permits remedies aimed at redressing the subordination of African Americans. While African Americans were the primary victims of slavery …

Race, Rights, And The Thirteenth Amendment: Defining The Badges And Incidents Of Slavery, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Supreme Court has held that the Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude and also empowers Congress to end any lingering "badges and incidents of slavery." The Court, however, has failed to provide any guidance as to defining the badges and incidents of slavery when Congress has failed to identify a condition or form of discrimination as such. This has led the lower courts to conclude that the judiciary's role under the Thirteenth Amendment is limited to enforcing only the Amendment's prohibition of literal enslavement.

This article has two primary objectives. First, it offers an interpretive framework for defining …