Other Law Commons^™

Introduction: The Power Of Stories: Gloucester Tales, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

For a second year, scholars made a pilgrimage to Gloucester for a three-day academic conference sponsored by Texas Wesleyan Law School, the University of Gloucestershire, and the Central Gloucester Initiative. This year's conference theme, "The Power of Stories: Intersections of Law, Culture and Literature," was inspired by the medieval folktale about Dick Whittington and his cat. While the City of Gloucester planned various events to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the folktale, such as a re-enactment of Dick Whittington's pilgrimage from Gloucester to London, conference organizers in both the United States and England planned a thought-provoking conference.

They did not …

Is Hindsight 20-20? Reconsidering The Importance Of Pre-Constitutional Documents, Kirsten Matoy Carlson

Law Faculty Research Publications

Many constitutional orders, including the United States, have yet to determine the legal and political status of pre-constitutional documents written prior to the enactment of a final constitution. This article argues that pre constitutional documents should be critically analyzed by their respective constitutional communities. It maintains that pre-constitutional documents play a key role in constitutional orders by identifying conflicts that remain over time and contends that critical analysis of these documents facilitates deeper understandings of constitutional politics. It demonstrates how pre constitutional documents can be used as diagnostic tools for identifying and better understanding persistent constitutional tensions through a case …

Making Work Pay: Promoting Employment And Better Child Support Outcomes For Low-Income And Incarcerated Parents, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice prepared this report in response to concerns about child support debt—in particular as it creates a barrier to employment for low-income parents and works at cross-purposes with the goals of the child support program. Drawing on examples from other states, this report identifies a range of policies that inform child support practice in New Jersey and offers administrative, legislative, and programmatic solutions to address child support arrears owed by low-income and incarcerated parents.

Race And The California Recall Election: A Top Ten List Of Ironies, Sylvia R. Lazos, Keith Aoki, Steven Bender

Scholarly Works

Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California in the 2003 recall campaign is rife with cruel ironies. An immigrant himself, he beat the grandson of Mexican immigrants, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, by playing the race card, and managed to dodge allegations of his praise for Hitler as a strong leader. While the pundits say that the California recall was about angry voters lashing back at faithless, self-dealing politicians, more lurks beneath the surface. In California, racial and ethnic minorities now comprise a majority of the population, and the recall election brought barely concealed and seething schisms to the surface. Californians, …

Does A Diverse Judiciary Attain A Rule Of Law That Is Inclusive? What Grutter V. Bollinger Has To Say About Diversity On The Bench, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

Race matters, but judges and courts have failed to fashion a rule of law that is inclusive of all racial perspectives and realities in the United States. The reason for this dismal performance lies in how predominantly White judges, and therefore courts, conceptualize race. This article illustrates this proposition by analyzing the Rehnquist Court's race relations jurisprudence in three Supreme Court decisions handed down in 2003: Grutter v. Bollinger,Gratz v. Bollinger,and Georgia v. Ashcroft.Even as the United States Supreme Court entered increasingly complex areas of race relations, the Court continued to apply a simplistic concept of how race functions. The …

“Kulturkampf[S]” Or “Fit[S] Of Spite”?: Taking The Academic Culture Wars Seriously, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

Polarization and heated debate within legal academia are nothing new. Some might argue that vigorous contentiousness, even if not always civil, is essential to a healthy intellectual culture. Others would note that lawyers, legal academics especially, are a highly contentious bunch with a reputation for aggressive behavior.

Fundamentally, this Article asks whether strife and disagreement are a necessary part of academic discourse. The Article describes the academic Kulturkampfs aimed at Critical Race Theory that have taken place in the last ten years both outside of and within the Critical Race Theory (CRT) movement. The Article particularly examines what it is …

Aliens In Our Midst Post-9/11: Legislating Outsider-Ness Within The Borders, Sylvia R. Lazos, Raquel E. Aldana

Scholarly Works

Three recent books written by Professors Bill Ong Hing, Kevin R. Johnson, and Victor C. Romero provide skillfully crafted roadmaps with which to understand the key emerging issues that will shape immigration law well into the next decade: the relationship of immigration control to national security. This Review captures the insights provided by these three authors to examine the restrictive laws and policies aimed at noncitizens in the name of national security as highlighted by the current efforts to federalize driver’s licenses. As this Review explains, these three books map the current antagonistic attitudes towards noncitizens post 9/11, and serve …