Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Legal History Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Overcoming Obstacles To Religious Exercise In K-12 Education, Lewis M. Wasserman Aug 2013

Overcoming Obstacles To Religious Exercise In K-12 Education, Lewis M. Wasserman

Lewis M. Wasserman

Overcoming Obstacles to Religious Exercise in K-12 Education Lewis M. Wasserman Abstract Judicial decisions rendered during the last half-century have overwhelmingly favored educational agencies over claims by parents for religious accommodations to public education requirements, no matter what constitutional or statutory rights were pressed at the tribunal, or when the conflict arose. These claim failures are especially striking in the wake of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (“RFRAs”) passed by Congress in 1993 and, to date, by eighteen state legislatures thereafter, since the RFRAs were intended to (1) insulate religious adherents from injuries inflicted by the United States Supreme Court’s …


An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen Aug 2013

An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen

Derek R VerHagen

It is well-documented that the United States remains the only western democracy to retain the death penalty and finds itself ranked among the world's leading human rights violators in executions per year. However, prior to the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976, ending America's first and only moratorium on capital punishment, the U.S. was well in line with the rest of the civilized world in its approach to the death penalty. This Note argues that America's return to the death penalty is based primarily on the differences between classic parliamentary approaches to regulation and that of the American presidential system. …


Snubbed Landmark: How United States V Cruikshank Shaped Constitutional Law And Racialized Class Politics In America, James G. Pope Aug 2013

Snubbed Landmark: How United States V Cruikshank Shaped Constitutional Law And Racialized Class Politics In America, James G. Pope

James G. Pope

No abstract provided.


The Shield Of Rights, The Sword Of Disorder: Robert H. Jackson And Civil Liberties, George B. Crawford Apr 2013

The Shield Of Rights, The Sword Of Disorder: Robert H. Jackson And Civil Liberties, George B. Crawford

George B. Crawford

No abstract provided.


Ideological Voting Applied To The School Desegregation Cases In The Federal Courts Of Appeals From The 1960’S And 70’S, Joe Custer Feb 2013

Ideological Voting Applied To The School Desegregation Cases In The Federal Courts Of Appeals From The 1960’S And 70’S, Joe Custer

Joe Custer

This paper considers a research suggestion from Cass Sunstein to analyze segregation cases from the 1960's and 1970's and whether three hypothesis he projected in the article "Ideological Voting on Federal Courts of Appeals: A Preliminary Investigation," 90 Va. L. Rev. 301 (2004), involving various models of judicial ideology, would pertain. My paper considers Sunstein’s three hypotheses in addition to other judicial ideologies to try to empirically determine what was influencing Federal Court of Appeals Judges in regard to Civil Rights issues, specifically school desegregation, in the 1960’s and 1970’s.


“Nixon’S Sabotage”: How Politics Pushed The “Discriminatory Purpose” Requirement Into Equal Protection Law, Danieli Evans Feb 2013

“Nixon’S Sabotage”: How Politics Pushed The “Discriminatory Purpose” Requirement Into Equal Protection Law, Danieli Evans

Danieli Evans

This article describes the way that politics—resistance from the elected branches coupled with President Nixon appointing Chief Justice Burger—shaped the Court’s unanimous decision in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 402 U.S. 1 (1971), a school desegregation case that played a crucial role in limiting the forms of state action considered unconstitutional discrimination. Chief Justice Burger defied longstanding Supreme Court procedure to assign himself the majority opinion even though he disagreed with the majority outcome. Justice Douglas alleged that he did this “in order to write Nixon’s view of freedom of choice into the law.” Justice Burger’s opinion laid the foundation for limiting …


E Pluribus Unum: Liberalism's March To Be The Singular Influence On Civil Rights At The Supreme Court, Aaron J. Shuler Jan 2013

E Pluribus Unum: Liberalism's March To Be The Singular Influence On Civil Rights At The Supreme Court, Aaron J. Shuler

Aaron J Shuler

Rogers Smith writes that American political culture can best be understood as a blend of liberal, republican and illiberal ascriptive ideologies. The U.S. Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence has largely reflected this thesis. While the Court moved away from permitting laws that explicitly construct hierarchies in the 20th century and made tepid references to egalitarian principles during the Warren Court, liberalism has prevailed in the majority of the Court’s decisions. Gains in civil rights through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process clauses were achieved primarily through liberal notions of de-regulation, a market economy and individual freedom. Conversely, State …