Law and Race Commons^™

Ferguson To Geneva: Using The Human Rights Framework To Push Forward A Vision For Racial Justice In The United States After Ferguson, Justin Hansford, Meena Jagannath

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

As demonstrations under the banner of #BlackLivesMatter continue to erupt around the United States against state-sponsored violence, and as state, local, and federal officials continue to eschew fundamental social change, families and protesters have begun to explore alternative international forums in the search for justice. The Ferguson to Geneva delegation represents a significant event in this internationalist turn. The delegation, consisting of the parents of Mike Brown, Jr. and young Black leaders from Ferguson, chose to air their grievances before the United Nations Committee Against Torture in the fall of 2014. This article reproduces the delegation's "shadow report," which laid …

Exonerated, But Not Free: The Prolonged Struggle For A Second Chance At A Stolen Life, Newton N. Knowles

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

It is impossible to imagine being accused of a crime you did not commit. Worse, it is even harder to imagine a jury sentencing you to death or to life in prison when you know you are innocent. Since the rise of DNA evidence, the criminal justice system has been stunned by the newly exposed cases of wrongful conviction. Sadly, in most cases innocent exonerees are released with nothing more than an apology, if even that. Postexoneration compensation varies drastically among the several states and reentry resources are even more scarce or unavailable. Each compensation scheme on its own, however, …

New York Times V. Sullivan And The Rhetorics Of Race: A Look At The Briefs, Oral Arguments, And Opinions, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Carlo A. Pedrioli

Given the strife of the Civil Rights Movement that surrounded the case, this article looks back at the use of race in New York Times v. Sullivan. Specifically, the article examines how the advocates, led by Herbert Wechsler for the Times, I. H. Wachtel, William Rogers, and Samuel Pierce for the four ministers, and Roland Nachman for Sullivan, dealt with race in their rhetorics to the Court, both in their merits briefs and their oral arguments, and also how the justices used race in their opinions. Although Justice William Brennan did not explicitly focus on race in his opinion for …

A Trilogy Of Essays On Scholarship, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

At the beginning it is helpful to realize that the five versions of the scholarly ideal produce different forms of intellectual work with distinct goals and motivations. The scholar engaging in such activity can vary dramatically in terms of what the individual is seeking to achieve through his or her research output and actions that might be taken related to the findings reflected in that product. Similarly, there is a diverse set of targets at which the work is directed. These targets include communicating ideas and knowledge to other scholars who are invested in a specific sub-discipline. They also include …

“Something Wicked This Way Comes”: Political Correctness And The Reincarnation Of Chairman Mao, David Barnhizer

David Barnhizer

Mao’s Red Guards and the “Wicked Wisdom” of Lesley Gore There could not possibly be any parallel between the actions of Mao Tse Tung’s young Red Guard zealots and the intensifying demands of identity groups that all people must conform to their version of approved linguistic expression or in effect be condemned as “reactionaries” and “counter-revolutionaries” who are clearly “on the wrong side of history”. Nor, in demanding that they be allowed to effectively take over the university and its curriculum while staffing faculty and administrative positions with people who think like them while others are subjected to “re-education” sessions …

Victim Or Thug? Examining The Relevance Of Stories In Cases Involving Shootings Of Unarmed Black Males, Sherri Keene

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Race, Place And Historic Moment – Black And Japanese American World War Ii Veterans: The G.I. Bill Of Rights And The Model Minority Myth, Taunya L. Banks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Poor, Black And "Wanted": Criminal Justice In Ferguson And Baltimore, Michael Pinard

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Post-Katrina Suppression Of Black Working-Class Political Expression, Taunya L. Banks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

Returning Citizens: How Shifting Law And Policy In Maryland Will Help Citizens Who Return From Incarceration, Khyla D. Craine, Esq., Glenn E. Martin

University of Baltimore Law Forum

In America, the concept of “time served” is a misnomer, as the shackles of a lifetime of collateral consequences make a criminal record a scathing obstacle for over 100 million Americans. Each year, more than 650,000 people are expected to reintegrate into our communities, often with substance abuse and mental health issues, minimal education, no job to sustain a life, and no stable home awaiting them.

While these numbers are staggering on their own, they do not reflect the even larger number of people who cycle through the court system and jails. For example, some take pleas for a lesser …

Community Development Vs. Economic Development: Residential Segregation, Tax Credits, And The Lack Of Economic Development In Baltimore's Black Neighborhoods, Jennifer Nwachukwu

University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development

In 1967, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders penned one of the most famous statements about race in America: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white— separate and unequal.”2 For the city of Baltimore, MD, that statement rings true even in 2013. Outsiders think of Baltimore through the lens of HBO’s The Wire. Those who are from Baltimore or live in the city likely would say that driving through Baltimore is like driving through two different cities—nice areas with shops, restaurants, and beautiful architecture; and “not so nice” areas with blocks of dilapidated buildings and …

Overcoming Land Use Localism: How Hud's New Fair Housing Regulation Can Push States To Eradicate Exclusionary Zoning, Thomas Silverstein

University of Baltimore Journal of Land and Development

Since 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and various housing and community development stakeholders have grappled with the question of what it means to affirmatively further fair housing (AFFH). In some respects, HUD’s publication of a final AFFH rule on July 16, 2015 was the culmination of that process, 2 but the rule did not resolve all outstanding questions. In particular, the one point that has been reiterated by a range of groups with often competing interests is that no one is entirely clear how the framework that HUD has developed will work for states.3 To …

Toward A Structural Theory Of Implicit Racial And Ethnic Bias In Health Care, Dayna Bowen Matthew

Publications

No abstract provided.

Crisis And Trigger Warnings: Reflections On Legal Education And The Social Value Of The Law, 90 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 615 (2015), Kim D. Chanbonpin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This Essay begins by understanding the law school crisis through the framework of disaster capitalism. This framing uncovers the ways in which reformers are taking advantage of the current crisis to restructure legal education. Under the circumstances, faculty may reasonably read the contemporaneous student-led movement to require trigger warnings in the classroom as an assault on academic freedom. This reading, however, clouds the water. Part II attempts to clear the confusion by decoupling the trigger-warning movement from the broader phenomenon of law school corporatization. Trigger-warning demands might alternatively be read as a student critique of traditional law school pedagogy. Especially …

Between Black And White: The Coloring Of Asian Americans, 14 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev. 637 (2015), Kim D. Chanbonpin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

As in other ethnic and racial groups, colorism plays a significant role in the social interactions in and among Asian Americans. Investigating colorism in the Asian American community provides insights into how group members construct their own racial identities in relation to the broader race-stratified society. A colorism inquiry is a necessary intervention into the existing discourse of Asian American identity construction because it complicates common understandings of the Black/White binary in ways that shed new light on inter- and intra-racial relationships. This article addresses colorism in the Asian American community, and demonstrates both how Asian Americans have been racialized …

Law Enforcement And White Power: An F.B.I. Report Unraveled, 41 T. Marshall L. Rev. 103 (2015), Samuel Vincent Jones

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Because of intensifying civil strife over the recent killings of unarmed Black men, women, and boys, many Americans are wondering, “What's wrong with our police?” Remarkably, one of the most compelling but unexplored explanations may rest with an FBI warning of October, 2006, which reported that “[W]hite supremacist infiltration of law enforcement” represented a significant national threat.

Race And Rapport: Homophily And Racial Disadvantage In Large Law Firms, Kevin Woodson

Law Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades, clients and other constituencies have pushed large law firms to pursue greater racial diversity in attorney hiring and retention. Although these firms have devoted extraordinary resources toward better recruiting and retaining attorneys of color, and despite a proliferation of “best practices” guides and diversity policy recommendations, these considerable efforts have yielded only modest gains. With respect to black attorneys in particular, the tide of racial progress in these firms has moved forward at a glacial pace, even ebbing and receding in recent years.

Although large law firms now hire significant numbers of black attorneys as …

After The Hurricane: The Legacy Of The Rubin Carter Case, Judith L. Ritter

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter died in the spring of 2014 at the age of seventy-six. He was a top middleweight boxing contender in the early 1960s, twice convicted of a triple homicide, but then freed by a federal court in 1985 after he served nineteen years in prison. This Article recalls his life, the homicide trials, and the constitutional issues that led to his release. The Article makes the point that had Rubin Carter's federal habeas corpus petition been adjudicated under current law, he would have remained behind bars. Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996. The …