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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

We Need Inquire Further: Normative Sterotypes, Hasidic Jews, And The Civil Rights Act Of 1866, William Kaplowitz Jan 2007

We Need Inquire Further: Normative Sterotypes, Hasidic Jews, And The Civil Rights Act Of 1866, William Kaplowitz

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

According to modern Supreme Court opinions, The Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibits only "discrimination [against members of protected groups] solely because of their ancestry or ethnic characteristics." The Court refers to this type of discrimination as 'racial animus.' In the 1987 case Shaare Tefila Congregation v. CobbJews were recognized as a protected ethnic group under these statutes, but the Supreme Court also reaffirmed that The Civil Rights Act only prohibits 'ethnic' or 'ancestral' discrimination. The Act does not encompass religious discrimination. Yet, despite the Supreme Court's rulings, the district courts held that both Rabbi LeBlanc-Sternberg's and Mr. Singers' allegations …


The Second Amendment: Structure, History, And Constitutional Change, David Yassky Dec 2000

The Second Amendment: Structure, History, And Constitutional Change, David Yassky

Michigan Law Review

A fierce debate about the Second Amendment has been percolating in academia for two decades, and has now bubbled through to the courts. The question at the heart of this debate is whether the Amendment restricts the government's ability to regulate the private possession of firearms. Since at least 1939 - when the Supreme Court decided United States v. Miller, its only decision squarely addressing the scope of the right to "keep and bear Arms" - the answer to that question has been an unqualified "no." Courts have brushed aside Second Amendment challenges to gun control legislation, reading the Amendment …


Caste, Class, And Equal Citizenship, William E. Forbath Jan 1999

Caste, Class, And Equal Citizenship, William E. Forbath

Michigan Law Review

There is a familiar egalitarian constitutional tradition and another we have largely forgotten. The familiar one springs from Brown v. Board of Education; its roots lie in the Reconstruction era. Court-centered and countermajoritarian, it takes aim at caste and racial subordination. The forgotten one also originated with Reconstruction, but it was a majoritarian tradition, addressing its arguments to lawmakers and citizens, not to courts. Aimed against harsh class inequalities, it centered on decent work and livelihoods, social provision, and a measure of economic independence and democracy. Borrowing a phrase from its Progressive Era proponents, I will call it the social …