Legal History Commons^™

Due Process As Separation Of Powers, Nathan S. Chapman, Michael W. Mcconnell

Scholarly Works

From its conceptual origin in Magna Charta, due process of law has required that government can deprive persons of rights only pursuant to a coordinated effort of separate institutions that make, execute, and adjudicate claims under the law. Originalist debates about whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were understood to entail modern “substantive due process” have obscured the way that many American lawyers and courts understood due process to limit the legislature from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War. They understood due process to prohibit legislatures from directly depriving persons of rights, especially vested property rights, because it was …

Preserving The Past In The Present For The Future: Las Vegas Chapter Of The National Bar Association Archive At The Wiener-Rogers Law Library, Jeanne Price, Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

This co-authored article documents the establishment of the Las Vegas Chapter of the National Bar Association (LVNBA) Archive in 2011 at the Wiener-Rogers Law Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law, which may be the first of its kind in the nation. The LVNBA archive was established in cooperation with the LVNBA, the local affiliate of the National Bar Association, which is the nation’s oldest minority bar and largest national association of over 44,000 predominately African-American lawyers, judges, professors, and law students. Materials donated by the LVNBA and its members document the role …

Timeline Of African-American Legal History In Nevada (1861-2011), Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

For the first time in Nevada history, this timeline depicts selected events in the history of African-American lawyers, civil rights, and diversity in Nevada's bar and bench. It includes many historically significant pictures and is part of a special Black History Month issue of the Nevada Lawyer, the official publication of the State Bar of Nevada. That issue highlights the achievements and contributions of African-American lawyers in Nevada in honor of the 51st anniversary of the first African American (Charles L. Kellar) passing the Nevada state bar examination, the 48th anniversary of the first two African Americans admitted to the …

The Birthright Citizenship Controversy: A Study Of Conservative Substance And Rhetoric, 18 Tex. Hisp. J. L. & Pol'y 49 (2012), Allen R. Kamp

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This essay is a critique of the conservative rhetoric used in attack of birthright citizenship--as granted by Clause One of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” The rhetoric of that attack violates the traditional canons of conservative argumentation and interpretation, such as original intent and textualism. As such, conservatives' arguments call into question the seriousness of their allegiance to these canons.

This article will not discuss the pros and cons of what we …

Notes Toward A Critical Contemplation Of Law, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

In this tribute to Professor Derrick Bell’s legacy, Professor Katyal reflects on one of Bell’s greatest gifts: the necessary, and perhaps unfinished gift of critical contemplation of law, along with its possibilities and its concomitant limitations. In her paper, Katyal reflects on two seemingly disparate areas of civil rights that might benefit from Bell’s critical vision: the area of LGBT rights and equality, and federal Indian law. Relying on some of Bell’s most valuable insights, Katyal calls for the creation of a “critical sexuality studies” and a “critical indigenous studies” that employs some of Bell’s groundbreaking lessons in reimagining broader …

Sexing Harris: The Law And Politics Of Defunding Planned Parenthood, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

The movement to defund Planned Parenthood has opened a new front in the abortion wars. At the state and national level, anti-abortion organizations have campaigned successfully for new legal limitations on Medicaid or Title X reimbursement for Planned Parenthood. Significantly, legal restrictions reach not only abortion but also other services like contraception and cancer screenings. North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Indiana are among the states to have introduced such bans, and the U.S. House of Representatives approved one before the proposal died in the Senate in April 2011.

At first, the novelty of the movement seems to lie in its open …