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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Supreme Court of the United States
Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss
Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss
Michigan Law Review
Not all Supreme Court cases have a midlife crisis. But it is fair to say that Griggs v. Duke Power Co., which recently turned forty, has some serious symptoms. Griggs established a foundational proposition of employment discrimination law known as disparate impact liability: policies that significantly disadvantage racial minority or female employees can violate federal employment discrimination law, even if there is no evidence that the employer “intended” to discriminate. Griggs is frequently described as one of the most important decisions of the civil rights era, compared to Brown v. Board of Education for its “momentous social consequences.” In 1989, …
Tyrone Garner's Lawrence V. Texas, Marc Spindelman
Tyrone Garner's Lawrence V. Texas, Marc Spindelman
Michigan Law Review
Dale Carpenter's Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas has been roundly greeted with well-earned praise. After exploring the book's understanding of Lawrence v. Texas as a great civil rights victory for lesbian and gay rights, this Review offers an alternative perspective on the case. Built from facts about the background of the case that the book supplies, and organized in particular around the story that the book tells about Tyrone Garner and his life, this alternative perspective on Lawrence explores and assesses some of what the decision may mean not only for sexual orientation equality but also for …
Whither The Disability Rights Movement?, Robert W. Pratt
Whither The Disability Rights Movement?, Robert W. Pratt
Michigan Law Review
While reading this book in 2010, almost twenty years to the date after President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disability Act ("ADA"), one realizes how much the world of politics has changed. It is difficult to remember a time when such major legislation passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 91 to 6 and the House of Representatives by 377 to 28. Even more surprising, as we look back to 1990, is the fact that the executive branch was controlled by a different political party than the legislative branch. Contrast this legislative record with the milieu surrounding …
Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz
Engineering The Endgame, Ellen D. Katz
Michigan Law Review
This Article explores what happens to longstanding remedies for past racial discrimination as conditions change. It shows that Congress and the Supreme Court have responded quite differently to changed conditions when they evaluate such remedies. Congress has generally opted to stay the course, while the Court has been more inclined to view change as cause to terminate a remedy. The Article argues that these very different responses share a defining flaw, namely, they treat existing remedies as fixed until they are terminated. As a result, remedies are either scrapped prematurely or left stagnant despite dramatically changed conditions. The Article seeks …
Sexual Orientation And The Paradox Of Heightened Scrutiny, Nan D. Hunter
Sexual Orientation And The Paradox Of Heightened Scrutiny, Nan D. Hunter
Michigan Law Review
In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court performed a double move, creating a dramatic discursive moment: it both decriminalized consensual homosexual relations between adults, and, simultaneously, authorized a new regime of heightened regulation of homosexuality. How that happened and what we can expect next are the subjects of this essay. The obvious point of departure for an analysis of Lawrence is its decriminalization of much sexual conduct. Justice Scalia began this project with his dire warning that "[s]tate laws against bigamy, samesex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are . . . sustainable only in …
Foreword: Loving Lawrence, Pamela S. Karlan
Foreword: Loving Lawrence, Pamela S. Karlan
Michigan Law Review
Two interracial couples. Two cases. Two clauses. In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court struck down a Virginia statute outlawing interracial marriage. In Lawrence v. Texas, the Court struck down a Texas statute outlawing sexual activity between same-sex individuals. Each case raised challenges under both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
White Interests And Civil Rights Realism: Rodrigo's Bittersweet Epiphany, Richard Delgado
White Interests And Civil Rights Realism: Rodrigo's Bittersweet Epiphany, Richard Delgado
Michigan Law Review
I had just settled down, taken off my tie, and was about to go over the two-page handout entitled "Information for Wedding Parties " that the minister of the small church had handed me minutes earlier, when I heard a knock and familiar voice from the other side of the anteroom door.
Cleansing Moments And Retrospective Justice, Margaret M. Russell
Cleansing Moments And Retrospective Justice, Margaret M. Russell
Michigan Law Review
We live in an era of questioning and requestioning long-held assumptions about the role of race in law, both in criminal prosecutions specifically and in the legal process generally. Certainly, the foundational framework is not new; for decades, both legal literature and jurisprudence have explored in great detail the realities of racism in the legal system. Even among those who might prefer to ignore the role of race discrimination in more than two centuries of American law, denial is no longer a viable or intellectually defensible option. Rather, debate now centers upon whether or not the extensive history of American …
The Replacement Dilemma: An Argument For Eliminating A Non-Class Replacement Requirement In The Prima Facie Stage Of Title Vii Individual Disparate Treatment Discrimination Claims, Marla Swartz
Michigan Law Review
Although manifestations of discrimination in the workplace have changed greatly over time, employment discrimination continues to be a tremendous problem in society. By enacting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), Congress shielded employees from arbitrary adverse employment actions arising from discrimination related to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Three years later, Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), guaranteeing the same protections against discrimination based on age.4 Finally, the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), passed in 1990, prohibited discrimination based on personal disability. Ten years after Congress enacted the Civil Rights …
Rights Against Rules: The Moral Structure Of American Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Adler
Rights Against Rules: The Moral Structure Of American Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Adler
Michigan Law Review
The Bill of Rights, by means of open-ended terms such as "freedom of speech," "equal protection," or "due process," refers to moral criteria, which take on constitutional status by virtue of being thus referenced. We can disagree about whether the proper methodology for judicial application of these criteria is originalist or nonoriginalist. The originalist looks, not to the true content of the moral criteria named by the Constitution, but to the framers' beliefs about that content; the nonoriginalist tries to determine what the criteria truly require, and ignores or gives less weight to the framers' views. Bracketing this disagreement, however, …
Equal Protection, Class Legislation, And Colorblindness, Melissa L. Saunders
Equal Protection, Class Legislation, And Colorblindness, Melissa L. Saunders
Michigan Law Review
Scholars and judges have long assumed that the Equal Protection Clause is concerned only with state action that has the effect of singling out certain persons or groups of persons for special benefits or burdens. Under the traditional doctrinal framework, state action that has this purpose and effect bears a certain burden of justification under the clause, a burden whose stringency varies, depending on the criteria used to define the class being singled out for special treatment and the importance of the interest affected. But state action that lacks such a "discriminatory effect" is not, on the traditional understanding, subject …
The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz
The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz
Michigan Law Review
For the moment, the affirmative action wars are over. In a ten-year set of decisions, culminating in five during the last two terms, the Court has now legitimated almost all types of race and gender preferences, even if they benefit nonvictims, including voluntarily adopted preferences in hiring, promotion, university admissions, and government contracting; hiring and promotion preferences in consent decrees; and court-ordered hiring and promotions. It has approved preferences by both public and private bodies, and for both racial-ethnic minorities and women. It has barred only layoffs of white (and presumably male) employees who have more seniority than employees hired …
The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler
The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler
Michigan Law Review
This Note focuses on Scott's impact on attempts to determine what groups fall within the statute. Part I examines the various class-based animus formulas generated by the circuits since Griffin and the potential impact of Scott on these formulas. Part II argues that the key to understanding the scope of the class-based animus requirement lies in traditional fourteenth amendment equal protection analysis.
Legislative Apportionment And Representative Government: The Meaning Of Baker V. Carr, Jo Desha Lucas
Legislative Apportionment And Representative Government: The Meaning Of Baker V. Carr, Jo Desha Lucas
Michigan Law Review
In three recent cases the Supreme Court has reopened the question of the extent to which federal courts will review the general fairness of state schemes of legislative apportionment. It is a question on which the Court has had nothing to say for over a decade, leaving the bar to patch together the current state of the law from the outcome of cases disposed of without opinion considered against a backdrop of language used in earlier decisions.
Residency Requirements For Voting And The Tensions Of A Mobile Society, John R. Schmidhauser
Residency Requirements For Voting And The Tensions Of A Mobile Society, John R. Schmidhauser
Michigan Law Review
It is the purpose of this article to determine the extent to which persons otherwise qualified to vote are disenfranchised by the complex of state residency requirements and to assess the practical and constitutional aspects of any statutory prospects for change.
Political Thickets And Crazy Quilts: Reapportionment And Equal Protection, Robert B. Mckay
Political Thickets And Crazy Quilts: Reapportionment And Equal Protection, Robert B. Mckay
Michigan Law Review
If asked to identify the two most important cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in the twentieth century, informed observers would be likely to name, in whichever order, Brown v. Board of Education and Baker v. Carr.
Federal Courts-Criminal Procedure-Effect Of Excusing Procedure On Composition Of Jury Panel, Robert P. Griffin
Federal Courts-Criminal Procedure-Effect Of Excusing Procedure On Composition Of Jury Panel, Robert P. Griffin
Michigan Law Review
Petitioner was found guilty of violating the Harrison Narcotics Act in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia by a jury composed wholly of federal employees. During the course of voir dire examination, petitioner moved to strike the entire panel, asserting that it did not represent a proper cross-section of the community. This motion was denied. Petitioner exhausted his ten peremptory challenges, and, upon finding that only government employees remained on the jury, then challenged the jury as impaneled for cause. The challenge was overruled. Conviction was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals. On certiorari to the …