Digital Commons Network^™

Race, Redistricting, And The Manufactured Conundrum, Justin Levitt

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Race and redistricting each lie at the core of recurring contests over American political identity. It is therefore perhaps no surprise that cases concerning the role of race in redistricting have offered the Supreme Court a steady diet. In 2017, for the fourth time in four decades, the Court struck North Carolina districts based on the legislature’s misuse of race. And the North Carolina legislature, proclaiming the whole business too complicated, simply threw up its hands.

This petulance is likely performance. The law of race and redistricting is resistant to shortcuts and stereotypes, but that does not render it intractable, …

Darwinian Evolutionary Theory And Constructions Of Race In Nazi Germany: A Literary And Cultural Analysis Of Darwin’S Works And Nazi Rhetoric, Emily M. Wollmuth

Departmental Honors Projects

First published in 1856, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is one of the most impactful scientific writings in history. While the influence of Darwinian evolutionary theory on historical events has been widely studied, no single work of scholarship has previously combined close reading of Origin’s representations of “race” with analysis of how those constructions of “racial” difference are (mis)translated across the cultural discourses of the eugenics movement and Nazi Germany. Through comparative cultural studies and close literary analysis of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Darwin’s works—including Origin, Descent of Man, and Voyage of the Beagle, this paper examines how evolutionary …

The Color Factor: How Paulo Freire’S Philosophy Of Education Highlights That Race Affects Human Growth And Development Of United States Citizens, Alyse Krevh

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Political Gerrymandering: Was Elbridge Gerry Right, C. Daniel Chill

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

"White" Space: The Racialization Of Claremont, California, Emily Audet

Scripps Senior Theses

The City of Claremont, California—a suburb of Los Angeles and the home of the Claremont Colleges—stands out as disproportionately non-Hispanic white in comparison to neighboring cities and counties. This research employs the concept of racialization of place to examine how Claremont has been racialized as “white.” Through an analysis of land-use regulations and descriptions of the city, this research analyzes the structural and ideological processes that racialized the city. The city government used exclusionary zoning ordinances and private citizens employed racially restrictive housing covenants to maintain Claremont’s majority-white status. The city government and local organizations and businesses also implicitly assert …

Learning Race And Racism While Learning: Experiences Of International Students Pursuing Higher Education In The Midwestern United States, Donald Mitchell Jr. Et Al.

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Researchers have documented how race and racism influence the college experiences of U.S. citizens. However, research on the ways that race and racism affect international students warrants similar attention. This qualitative study explored how international students learned about U.S. concepts of race and racism and how such concepts shaped their college experiences. The participating international college students learned about U.S. concepts of race and racism through media, relationships, formal education, and lived experiences. They defined these concepts in varying ways and had varying racial ideologies.

Variations In The Marital Attitudes And Marital Status Of Black And White Americans: An Intersectional Approach, Stacey Ellen Coleman

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to assess the unique socio-demographic positions of Black and White Americans related to variations in marital attitudes and marital status and differences in sex. The study was guided by two research aims: 1.) to assess whether socio-demographic factors were related to racial variations in marital attitudes of Blacks and Whites and if the relationships differ by race and sex and 2.) to assess whether socio-demographic factors were differentially associated with marital status of Black and White Americans and if they varied by race and sex. The study drew on individual-level, nationally representative, cross-sectional, 2010 …

Decriminalizing Childhood, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

Even though the number of juveniles arrested, tried and detained has recently declined, there are still a large number of delinquency cases, children under supervision by state officials, and children living in state facilities for youth and adults. Additionally, any positive developments in juvenile justice have not been evenly experienced by all youth. Juveniles living in urban areas are more likely to have their cases formally processed in the juvenile justice system rather than informally resolved. Further, the reach of the justice system has a particularly disparate effect on minority youth who tend to live in heavily-policed urban areas.

The …

Overreach And Innovation In Equality Regulation, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

At a time of heightened concern about agency overreach, this Article highlights a less appreciated development in agency equality regulation. Moving beyond traditional bureaucratic forms of regulation, civil rights agencies in recent years have experimented with new forms of regulation to advance inclusion. This new "inclusive regulation" can be described as more open ended, less coercive, and more reliant on rewards, collaboration, flexibility, and interactive assessment than traditional modes of civil rights regulation. This Article examines the power and limits of this new inclusive regulation and suggests a framework for increasing the efficacy of these new modes of regulation.

Eating Your Greens: Community Gardens And Gentrification In Oakland, Nicholas C. Felicich

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The issue of gentrification is paramount to the viability of poor and at risk communities in Oakland. Literature on gentrification has historically focused on larger societal and economic movements, but little has been studied about the role planned green space and gardens play in the spatial transformation of the urban environment. In this case study of two gardens in West Oakland, I explore questions of community involvement in the gardens, the role of garden aesthetics in attracting development and new residents to the neighborhood, the unique relationship between the City government and the gardens, the larger symbolic significance of green …

Reclaiming The Streets: Black Urban Insurgency And Antisocial Security In Twenty-First-Century Philadelphia, Jeff Maskovsky

Publications and Research

This article focuses on the emergence of a new pattern of black urban insurgency emerging in major US metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia. I locate this pattern in the context of a new securitization regime that I call “antisocial security.” This regime works by establishing a decentered system of high-tech forms of surveillance and monitory techniques. I highlight the dialectic between the extension of antisocial security apparatuses and techniques into new political and social domains on the one hand and the adoption of these same techniques by those contesting racialized exclusions from urban public space on the other. I end …

Black-White Disparities In Criminal Justice Referrals To Drug Treatment: Addressing Treatment Need Or Expanding The Diagnostic Net?, Karen Mcelrath, Angela Taylor, Kimberly K. Tran

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Slightly more than half of admissions to U.S. publicly-funded treatment for marijuana use are referred by the criminal justice system; this pattern has remained for at least 20 years. Nationally, Blacks comprise nearly a third of treatment admissions for marijuana use. This article explores the interplay between race and criminal justice referrals to treatment for marijuana use. Using data from the (U.S.) 2011 Treatment Episode Data Set, we examine the relationship between race and diagnosis of cannabis use disorder (dependence versus abuse) among referrals to community-based treatment in North Carolina. We compare Black/White differences in cannabis diagnoses across four referral …

A New American Dream For Detroit, Andrea Boyack

Faculty Publications

The problem of neighborhood deterioration is keenly visible in Detroit today, but Detroit’s housing struggles are not unique. Like most of America, the Detroit metropolitan area is racially fragmented, and minority neighborhoods are the most likely to be impoverished and failing. Detroit’s problems of housing abandonment and neighborhood decay are both caused and exacerbated by decades of housing segregation and inequality. The “American Dream” has always been one of equal opportunity, but there can be no equality of opportunity when there is such stark inequality among home environments. Detroit’s neighborhood decline is a symptom of the city’s population loss and …

Declining City, Born-Again Citadel: Faith-Based Organizations And The Reconstitution Of Inequality In Postindustrial America, Michael J. Boyle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the context of the hegemonic neoliberalism of recent decades, faith-based organizations (FBOs) have flourished as mechanisms for addressing poverty and other varieties of social need. For all of the contributions of contemporary anthropological research to the study of FBOs, however, most analyses have stressed the potency of FBOs and elided the agency of recipients. The present dissertation aims, through a multisited study of Evangelical FBOs in the postindustrial American city of Plainfield, to focus on the latter theme. Owing to the traditional behaviorism of American culture and also its Evangelical reproduction in FBO settings, the pursuit of charity thrusts …

Architecture Of Diversity: Using The Lens And Language Of Space To Examine Racialized Experiences Of Students Of Color On College Campuses, Michelle Samura

Education Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"[A]n examination of racial diversity in higher education requires serious consideration of space... [A] spatial perspective offers a lens for locating and examining processes of racialization. And a spatial approach also provides a language participants and researchers can use to talk about the discreet ways race still operates in everyday interactions, including subtle forms of racism that are overlooked or ignored because race is often understood by students to matter less today. Essentially, a spatial approach sheds light on race relations and racial structures in tangible campus environments."

Black Boys Matter: Developmental Equality, Nancy E. Dowd

Hofstra Law Review

The life course of Black boys is a stark reminder of the realities of inequality. While recent attention to policing and high profile deaths of Black youth and adults has raised consciousness of life-threatening situations, this focus exposes the most visceral and deadly aspect of a much larger set of issues. Those issues begin at birth, and are powerfully framed before adulthood, creating inequality particularly when the individual is most vulnerable, in childhood. This Article confronts the inequalities of Black boys and their subordination, as a vehicle to expose inequalities more generally based on children’s identities. The life course of …

How Do You Define The Color Line?: Exploring The Impacts And Perceptions Of Racial Representation In Brazilian Telenovelas, Kelsey R. Flitter

Open Access Theses

This thesis explores the impact and perceptions surrounding racial representation in Brazilian society, using three modern Brazilian telenovelas as the microcosm for the study. Beginning in 1996 with the release of Xica da Silva, followed by Duas Caras in 2007, and ending with Malhação in 2014, each telenovela is examined in relation to the political context in which it was released, a thorough content analysis focusing on prevalent themes, and a look into the audience’s perception of these programs through user generated YouTube comments. This thesis touches on the connections between traditional forms of media such as television, together with …

How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a series of events that occurred in the spring of 1876. The relationship between the Indianapolis city government, the Marion County Courts, the Indianapolis Police Department, and the African American community came together to usher in changes never before envisioned. The Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) was formed in 1855, then disbanded 12 months later in a political dispute. From 1857-to-1876, the IPD was all white. These changes took place as the Reconstruction era was coming to a close. The first Ku Klux Klan was at its apex, terrorizing black communities, and Jim Crow was coming into its …

Otherness And Belonging In “Democratic Empires”: The Syrian Diaspora And Transatlantic Discourses Of Identity, 1890s-1930s, Bryan A. Garrett

History Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation examines the arguments that Syrians in diaspora at the turn of the twentieth century used in constructing their group identity. It traces the transnational and transimperial discourses that centered on the pack-peddler mythology, or rather, it traces the diaspora intelligentsia’s narrative for the business diaspora. Their narrative framed the business elites as the quintessence of upward mobility in the modern world. The historiography of this subfield has been separated into two camps: one that takes for granted the assimilation of the business class into Western societies, and the other that offers a more critical rendering of Syrian migrant …

New Destinations Of Empire: Imperial Migration From The Marshall Islands To Northwest Arkansas, Emily Mitchell-Eaton

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines Marshall Islander migration to Arkansas as an outcome of an international agreement, the Compact of Free Association, between the U.S. and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), a former U.S. territory. While the Compact marked the formal end of U.S. colonial administration over the islands, it also re-entrenched imperial power relations between the two countries, at once consolidating U.S. military access to the islands and creating a Marshallese diaspora whose largest resettlement site is now Springdale, Arkansas. As a result, Springdale, an “all-white town” for much of the 20th century, has recently been remade by Marshallese …

Making A Place For People At A Wildlife Corridor On Chicago's South Side, Alexis Winter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

What role do environmental conservation projects play in the transformation of American cities? How do these projects affect city residents? In this study, I ask these questions at the Burnham Wildlife Corridor, where the Chicago Park District worked with institutional and community-based partner organizations to engage city residents in the creation of a lakefront wildlife habitat and public nature area. Through ethnographic interviews and participant observation I explored how actors at various levels understand this changing landscape and their roles in shaping it. I situate the Burnham Wildlife Corridor project in the broader context of a state-level plan, the Millennium …

In The Land Of The Mountain Gods: Ethnotrauma And Exile Among The Apaches Of The American Southwest, M. Grace Hunt Watkinson

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

In the mid to late nineteenth century, two Indigenous groups of New Mexico territory, the Mescalero and the Chiricahua Apaches, faced violence, imprisonment, and exile. During a century of settler influx, territorial changeovers, vigilante violence, and Indian removal, these two cousin tribes withstood an experience beyond individual pain best described as ethnotrauma. Rooted in racial persecution and mass violence, this ethnotrauma possessed layers of traumatic reaction that not only revolved around their ethnicity, but around their relationship with their home lands as well. Disconnected from the ritual resources and sacred geographies that made up every day Apache living, both groups …

Different Script, Same Caste In The Use Of Passive And Active Racism: A Critical Race Theory Analysis Of The (Ab)Use Of “House Rules” In Race-Related Education Cases, Steven L. Nelson

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Historic Preservation As Social Justice: Analyzing Historic Charleston Foundation's Elliottborough Neighborhood Impact Initiative, Lourdes Naomi Doddington

All Theses

While scholars debate the causes of gentrification and some question if it exists, the revitalization of inner-city neighborhoods more often than not results in the displacement of many of its residents. Failure to engage the unintended consequences of gentrification are world-wide. Some policy-makers embraced gentrification as a panacea for all their city's problems. The displacement of the urban poor and lower-middle class weakens not only their bonds with generations of community but also the character of the neighborhood which attracted the gentrifiers in the first place. Grassroots organizations have attempted anti-displacement efforts by in many places, but there have been …

Whiteness In Contemporary Feminist Campaigns : Free The Nipple., Laura Patterson

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Factors Of Political Party Competitiveness In Mississippi, Anna Kate Baygents

Honors Theses

This research project examines the relationship between urbanization and political party competitiveness in Mississippi. Using elections results from the 2011 and the 2015 Mississippi House of Representatives races, this project seeks to find if there is a relationship between urbanization and competitiveness in Mississippi, and if not, which factors do affect competitiveness. Previous research indicates that as an area urbanizes, its elections become more competitive among different political parties. However, this study finds that there is no clear correlation between urbanization and party competitiveness in Mississippi elections, and that other factors, including race, education, and geographic location, may have more …

Stand Your Ground In Florida: The Effect Of Race, Location And Weapons On Convictions, Kevin M. Wagner, Dukhong Kim, Jeremy C. Hagler

Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs

The implications of laws allowing citizens to respond with deadly force when they believe they are threatened is the subject of significant conjecture in the media and scholarship. The adoption of “Stand Your Ground” laws has increased across the nation despite little data or findings that attempt to capture the ramifications of enacting this policy. This research explores the effect of the “Stand Your Ground” legal defense on criminal convictions in Florida. After exploring the historic assumptions and motivations behind the adoption and use of the Stand Your Ground law in Florida, we use data gathered from local newspapers, the …

"Race-Conscious" School Finance Litigation: Is A Fourth Wave Emerging?, David G. Hinojosa

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discrimination In Mortgage Lending: Evidence From A Correspondence Experiment, Andrew R. Hanson, Zackary Hawley, Hal Martin, Bo Liu

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

We design and implement an experimental test for differential response by mortgage loan originators (MLOs) to requests for information about loans. Our e-mail correspondence experiment is designed to analyze differential treatment by client race and credit score. Our results show net discrimination by 1.8% of MLOs through non-response. We also find that MLOs offer more details about loans and are more likely to send follow up correspondence to whites. The effect of being African American on MLO response is equivalent to the effect of having a credit score that is 71 points lower.

Animal Performance In Big-Time Vaudeville, Catherine M. Young

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Animal vaudevillians have been neglected by academic accounts of vaudeville. Drawing on the rapidly proliferating and highly interdisciplinary field of animal studies, this dissertation combines archival research and cultural theory to fill an important gap in our understanding of how animal bodies and images circulated during the vaudeville era. Taking up Nicole Shukin’s notion of animal capital as both animal “signs and substances” circulating in cultures of capital, I argue that vaudeville animal acts theatricalized animal capital for US citizen-consumers and often circulated animalized capital via racist ideologies and performance modes.

Theatre bookers balanced their reliance on animal acts …