Social Justice Commons^™

Interim Law Dean’S Welcome Message, Eric C. Christiansen

Golden Gate University Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice Law Journal

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Golden Gate University Race, Gender, Sexuality, & Social Justice Law Journal. There has never been a more appropriate or important time to inaugurate a journal dedicated to the law’s capacity to advance social justice than right now. And there is no better institution to inaugurate this new journal than Golden Gate University School of Law. Thank you to all our readers—now and in the years to come—who will help us move the values, principles, and ideas in this journal into communities and courtrooms in pursuit of equality and true justice.

Oral Interview: Contextualizing The Women's Rights Movement In Tunisia Through Family History, Walid Zarrad

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

In their path towards emancipation and equal rights, Tunisian women have gone through a number of phases that seem to be directly linked to legal changes and cultural factors. In fact, the Code of Personal Status (CPS) of 1956 seems to be a milestone in the women’s movement, and its following amendments continued on this path. However, it is a lot more complex than that. A piece of legislation officially passing is not a simple determinant of the state of Women’s Rights in a country.

Through Dorra Mahfoudh Draoui’s “Report on Gender and Marriage in Tunisian Society” and my interview …

Prison Theocracy, Athena Gainey

Charles Rice Post-Graduate Research Fellowship

This research hopes to understand justice by inquiring about control over definitions of justice. Further questions also include if and how justice works in America’ criminal justice system; who does it define as inclusive/exclusive to society; and how does the system and those who run it choose to protect inclusive members of society? Examples of the Prison Industrial Complex- such as mass incarceration and police brutality- exist as proof that American facilities of law & order lack justice in equity for all its citizen. Both religious and non-religious based grassroots organizations have developed instrumental changes that push to reform and …

Health Reform Reconstruction, Lindsay F. Wiley, Elizabeth Y. Mccuskey, Matthew B. Lawrence, Erin C. Fuse Brown

Faculty Articles

This Article connects the failed, inequitable U.S. coronavirus pandemic response to conceptual and structural constraints that have held back U.S health reform for decades and calls for reconstruction. For more than a half-century, a cramped “iron triangle” ethos has constrained health reform conceptually. Reforms aimed to balance individual interests in cost, quality, and access to health care, while marginalizing equity, solidarity, and public health. In the iron triangle era, reforms unquestioningly accommodated four legally and logistically entrenched fixtures — individualism, fiscal fragmentation, privatization, and federalism — that distort and diffuse any reach toward social justice. The profound racial disparities and …

From The Legal Literature: Is Progressive Prosecution Possible?, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

The Trouble With Numbers: Difficult Decision Making In Identifying Right-Wing Terrorism Cases. An Investigative Look At Open Source Social Scientific And Legal Data, Daniela Peterka-Benton, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Terrorism research has gained much traction since the 9/11 attacks, but some sub genres of terrorism, such as right-wing terrorism, have remained under-studied areas. Unsurprisingly data sources to study these phenomena are scarce and frequently face unique data collection obstacles. This paper explores five major, social-scientific terrorism databases in regards to data on right-wing terrorist events. The paper also provides an in-depth examination of the utilization of criminal legal proceedings to research right-wing terrorist acts. Lastly, legal case databases are introduced and discussed to show the lack of available court information and case proceedings in regards to right-wing terrorism.

The Racial Reckoning Of Public Interest Law, Shaun Ossei-Owusu, Atinuke Adediran

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay contends that segments of public interest law often get a pass on questions of race because it is a field of law that is genuinely concerned with marginalized communities. But the historical record, the dearth of empirical data on race, the homogeneity of the legal profession, and the recognition that no one is necessarily immune from racial biases all demand that the public interest bar reckon with its racial character. The racial oversights of public interest law can manifest themselves in hiring, staffing, organizational mission, leadership, and the actual delivery of legal services. We argue that a racial …

Transformative Silence And Protest, Deborah J. Cantrell

Publications

Social movement protests have become common place in the last several years. Images come easily to mind of protestors marching down streets holding signs and chanting. Just as easily, images come to mind of counter-protestors yelling back, and law enforcement engaging protestors, often trying to control them with notable force. This Article recognizes that protestors often engage with speech, silence and the law in very pragmatic, but important ways. How does a locality handle permitting for protests? Are there noise restrictions to know about? How likely will it be that law enforcement will be present and making arrests? If there …

Prisons, Nursing Homes, And Medicaid: A Covid-19 Case Study In Health Injustice, Mary Crossley

Articles

The unevenly distributed pain and suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic present a remarkable case study. Considering why the coronavirus has devastated some groups more than others offers a concrete example of abstract concepts like “structural discrimination” and “institutional racism,” an example measured in lives lost, families shattered, and unremitting anxiety. This essay highlights the experiences of Black people and disabled people, and how societal choices have caused them to experience the brunt of the pandemic. It focuses on prisons and nursing homes—institutions that emerged as COVID-19 hotspots –and on the Medicaid program.

Black and disabled people are disproportionately represented in …

Intellectual Property As A Determinant Of Health, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

Public health literature has long recognized the existence of determinants of health, a set of socio-economic conditions that affect health risks and health outcomes across the world. The World Health Organization defines these determinants as “forces and systems” consisting of “factors combin[ing] together to affect the health of individuals and communities.” Frameworks relying on determinants of health have been widely adopted by countries in the global South and North alike, as well as international institutional players, several of which are direct or indirect players in transnational intellectual property (IP) policymaking. Issues raised by the implementation of IP policies, however, are …