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- United States Supreme Court (14)
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- Civil rights (5)
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- Equal Protection Clause (2)
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- Indian law (2)
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- Ricci v. DeStefano (2)
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Articles 1 - 30 of 30
Full-Text Articles in Supreme Court of the United States
Abortion Rights In The Supreme Court: A Tale Of Three Wedges, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Abortion Rights In The Supreme Court: A Tale Of Three Wedges, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Publications
No abstract provided.
Equal Protection Under The Carceral State, Aya Gruber
Equal Protection Under The Carceral State, Aya Gruber
Publications
McCleskey v. Kemp, the case that upheld the death penalty despite undeniable evidence of its racially disparate impact, is indelibly marked by Justice William Brennan’s phrase, “a fear of too much justice.” The popular interpretation of this phrase is that the Supreme Court harbored what I call a “disparity-claim fear,” dreading a future docket of racial discrimination claims and erecting an impossibly high bar for proving an equal protection violation. A related interpretation is that the majority had a “color-consciousness fear” of remedying discrimination through race-remedial policies. In contrast to these conventional views, I argue that the primary anxiety …
Recovering Forgotten Struggles Over The Constitutional Meaning Of Equality, Helen Norton
Recovering Forgotten Struggles Over The Constitutional Meaning Of Equality, Helen Norton
Publications
No abstract provided.
From Access To Success: Affirmative Action Outcomes In A Class-Based System, Matthew N. Gaertner, Melissa Hart
From Access To Success: Affirmative Action Outcomes In A Class-Based System, Matthew N. Gaertner, Melissa Hart
Publications
Scholarly discussion about affirmative action policy has been dominated in the past ten years by debates over "mismatch theory'"--the claim that race-conscious affirmative action harms those it is intended to help by placing students who receive preferences among academically superior peers in environments where they will be overmatched and unable to compete. Despite serious empirical and theoretical challenges to this claim in academic circles, mismatch has become widely accepted outside those circles, so much so that the theory played prominently in Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas. This Article explores whether mismatch occurs in …
Administering Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer
Administering Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act After Shelby County, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer
Publications
Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an effective, low-cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumbersome, and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take effect. This Article argues that the courts, in partnership with the Department of Justice, could reform section 2 so that it fills much of the gap left by the Supreme Court's evisceration of section …
The Geography Of Racial Stereotyping: Evidence And Implications For Vra ‘Preclearance’ After Shelby County, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer
The Geography Of Racial Stereotyping: Evidence And Implications For Vra ‘Preclearance’ After Shelby County, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer
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The Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) effectively enjoined the preclearance regime of the Voting Rights Act. The Court deemed the coverage formula, which determines the jurisdictions subject to preclearance, insufficiently grounded in current conditions. This Article proposes a new, legally defensible approach to coverage based on between-state differences in the proportion of voting age citizens who subscribe to negative stereotypes about racial minorities and who vote accordingly. The new coverage formula could also account for racially polarized voting and minority population size, but, for constitutional reasons, subjective discrimination by voters is the essential criterion. We demonstrate that …
Considering Class: College Access And Diversity, Matthew N. Gaertner, Melissa Hart
Considering Class: College Access And Diversity, Matthew N. Gaertner, Melissa Hart
Publications
Each time that the continued legality of race-conscious affirmative action is threatened, colleges and universities must confront the possibility of dramatically changing their admissions policies. Fisher v. University of Texas, which the Supreme Court will hear this year, presents just such a moment. In previous years when affirmative action has been outlawed by ballot initiative in specific states or when the Court has seemed poised to reject it entirely, there have been calls for replacing race-conscious admissions with class-based affirmative action. Supporters of race-conscious affirmative action have typically criticized the class-based alternative as ineffective at maintaining racial diversity. This …
From Space-Off To Represented Space, Lolita Buckner Inniss
From Space-Off To Represented Space, Lolita Buckner Inniss
Publications
In Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home, author Anita Hill explores some of the literal and figurative meanings of "home," focusing specifically on African-American women in their quest for home. Hill layers discussions of law, literature, and culture with stories of individual women, both historic and contemporary. In Reimagining Equality, Hill takes on a topic clearly distinct from the Clarence Thomas Senate confirmation hearings, the episode for which she is best known. Her work here is, nonetheless, evocative of her struggle in those hearings, because the book addresses the interrelation between gender, race, place, space, …
Bridging The Great Divide--A Response To Linda Greenhouse And Reva B. Siegel's Before (And After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions About Backlash, Lolita Buckner Inniss
Bridging The Great Divide--A Response To Linda Greenhouse And Reva B. Siegel's Before (And After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions About Backlash, Lolita Buckner Inniss
Publications
This essay discusses the history of Roe v. Wade as recently addressed by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel. Going beyond their assertions, I suggest that an additional, more encompassing inquiry focuses on what factors are implicated in the politics of abortion and how these factors relate to larger social, political, and cultural conflicts both before and after Roe. By naming party politics and the Catholic Church, Greenhouse and Siegel posit two crucial elements that shaped the abortion debate. I assert, however, that what is not discussed in their Article is the way numerous other factors have figured into …
From Wards Cove To Ricci: Struggling Against The Built-In Headwinds Of A Skeptical Court, Melissa Hart
From Wards Cove To Ricci: Struggling Against The Built-In Headwinds Of A Skeptical Court, Melissa Hart
Publications
When the Supreme Court in 1971 first recognized disparate impact as a legal theory under Title VII, the Court explained that the "absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as ‘built-in headwinds’ for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability." Forty years later, it is the built-in headwinds of a Supreme Court skeptical of - perhaps even hostile to - the goals of disparate impact theory that pose the greatest challenge to continued movement toward workplace equality. The essay examines the troubled trajectory that disparate impact law has taken in the …
Clearing Civil Procedure Hurdles In The Quest For Justice, Suzette M. Malveaux
Clearing Civil Procedure Hurdles In The Quest For Justice, Suzette M. Malveaux
Publications
No abstract provided.
The Supreme Court's Post-Racial Turn Towards A Zero-Sum Understanding Of Equality, Helen Norton
The Supreme Court's Post-Racial Turn Towards A Zero-Sum Understanding Of Equality, Helen Norton
Publications
The Supreme Court--along with the rest of the country--has long divided over the question whether the United States has yet achieved a 'post-racial" society in which race no longer matters in significant ways. How, if at all, this debate is resolved carries enormous implications for constitutional and statutory antidiscrimination law. Indeed, a post-racial discomfort with noticing and acting upon race supports a zero-sum approach to equality: if race no longer matters to the distribution of life opportunities, a decision maker's concern for the disparities experienced by members of one racial group may be seen as inextricable from its intent to …
Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Publications
The Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1 has been extensively analyzed as the latest step in the Court's long struggle with the desegregation of public schools. This Article examines the decision's implications for the full range of equal protection doctrine dealing with benign or remedial race and sex classifications. Parents Involved revealed a sharp division on the Court over whether government may consciously try to promote substantive equality. In the past, such efforts have been subject to an equal protection analysis that allows race-conscious or sex-conscious state action, contingent on existing, de …
Procedural Extremism: The Supreme Court's 2008-2009 Labor And Employment Cases, Melissa Hart
Procedural Extremism: The Supreme Court's 2008-2009 Labor And Employment Cases, Melissa Hart
Publications
It has become nearly a commonplace to say that the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts is a court of “incrementalism.” The 2008 Term, however, featured several opinions that showcase the procedural extremism of the current conservative majority. In a series of sharply divided decisions, the Court re-shaped the law that governs the workplace - or more specifically the law that governs whether and how employees will be permitted access to the courts to litigate workplace disputes. At least as important as the Court’s changes to the substantive legal standards are the procedural hurdles the five …
Keynote Address: Indigenous Peoples And Their Mark On The International Legal System, S. James Anaya
Keynote Address: Indigenous Peoples And Their Mark On The International Legal System, S. James Anaya
Publications
No abstract provided.
Raising The Red Flag: The Continued Relevance Of The Japanese Internment In The Post-Hamdi World, Aya Gruber
Raising The Red Flag: The Continued Relevance Of The Japanese Internment In The Post-Hamdi World, Aya Gruber
Publications
In the years since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the Japanese interment has re-emerged as a topic of serious discourse among legal scholars, politicians, civil libertarians, and society in general. Current national security policies have created concerns that the government has stepped dangerously close to the line crossed by the Roosevelt administration during World War II. Civil libertarians invoke the internment to caution policy-makers against two of the most serious dangers of repressive national security policies: racial decision-making and incarceration without process. Bush defenders advance several arguments in response to internment comparisons. The most conservative is an ardent defense …
Stepping Through Grutter's Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen Norton
Publications
In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling - specifically, a public law school's interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well.
The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court's narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning …
Recovering Homelands, Governance, And Lifeways: A Book Review Of Blood Struggle: The Rise Of Modern Indian Nations, Kristen A. Carpenter
Recovering Homelands, Governance, And Lifeways: A Book Review Of Blood Struggle: The Rise Of Modern Indian Nations, Kristen A. Carpenter
Publications
No abstract provided.
Diversity And The Practice Of Interest Assessment, Robert F. Nagel
Diversity And The Practice Of Interest Assessment, Robert F. Nagel
Publications
No abstract provided.
Two Wrongs Make A Right: Hybrid Claims Of Discrimination, Ming Hsu Chen
Two Wrongs Make A Right: Hybrid Claims Of Discrimination, Ming Hsu Chen
Publications
This Note reinterprets and recontextualizes the pronouncement in Employment Division v. Smith (Smith II) that exemptions from generally applicable laws will not be granted unless claims of free exercise are accompanied by the assertion of another constitutional right. It argues that when Arab American Muslims, and others who are of minority race and religion, bring claims for exemption from generally applicable laws on the basis of free exercise and equal protection principles, they ought to be able to invoke Smith II's hybridity exception, thus meriting heightened judicial scrutiny and increased solicitude from courts.
Beyond Indian Law: The Rehnquist Court’S Pursuit Of States’ Rights, Color-Blind Justice And Mainstream Values, David H. Getches
Beyond Indian Law: The Rehnquist Court’S Pursuit Of States’ Rights, Color-Blind Justice And Mainstream Values, David H. Getches
Publications
No abstract provided.
Indirect Constitutional Discourse: A Comment On Meese, Robert F. Nagel
Indirect Constitutional Discourse: A Comment On Meese, Robert F. Nagel
Publications
No abstract provided.
Brief Of Lone Wolf, Principal Chief Of The Kiowas, To The Supreme Court Of The American Indian Nations, S. James Anaya
Brief Of Lone Wolf, Principal Chief Of The Kiowas, To The Supreme Court Of The American Indian Nations, S. James Anaya
Publications
No abstract provided.
Affirmative Action As A Women's Issue, Helen Norton
Affirmative Action As A Women's Issue, Helen Norton
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No abstract provided.
Peremptory Challenges: Free Strikes No More, H. Patrick Furman
Peremptory Challenges: Free Strikes No More, H. Patrick Furman
Publications
No abstract provided.
A Tribute To Thurgood Marshall, Peter N. Simon
Shaw V. Reno: On The Borderline, Emily Calhoun
Batson V. Kentucky: Curing The Disease But Killing The Patient, William T. Pizzi
Batson V. Kentucky: Curing The Disease But Killing The Patient, William T. Pizzi
Publications
No abstract provided.
The Thirteenth And Fourteenth Amendments: Constitutional Authority For Federal Legislation Against Private Sex Discrimination, Emily Calhoun
The Thirteenth And Fourteenth Amendments: Constitutional Authority For Federal Legislation Against Private Sex Discrimination, Emily Calhoun
Publications
No abstract provided.
Federal Removal And Injunction To Protect Political Expression And Racial Equality: A Proposed Change, Christopher B. Mueller
Federal Removal And Injunction To Protect Political Expression And Racial Equality: A Proposed Change, Christopher B. Mueller
Publications
No abstract provided.