Law Commons^™

Labor Pains: The Inadequacies Of Current Federal Pregnancy Laws And The Alternative Routes To Accommodation, Sara Alexander

Mississippi College Law Review

Although many women are able to work through their pregnancies without employer accommodations, some pregnant workers who require accommodations "are forced out of their jobs unnecessarily when minor adjustments would enable them to keep working." In 2003, a hardware assembler in Ohio was terminated after her doctor limited her weight-lifting to twenty pounds and ordered that she work no more than eight hours at a time. In 2009, a retail worker in Kansas was fired because she needed to keep a water bottle with her in order to stay hydrated and prevent bladder infections. In 2011, an activity director at …

The Work-Rule Doctrine Doesn't Work After Reeves V. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Grafton Bragg

Mississippi College Law Review

This Note is about an existing plague on employment-law jurisprudence in the Fifth Circuit. Small and big companies alike can terminate an employee for no discriminatory reason but then be tagged with a lawsuit that has a fair chance of success, just because the disgruntled former employee is willing to lie or the parties disagree over the facts. This is true even though no evidence of actual discrimination exists. The work-rule doctrine changes at-will employment to good-will employment under the guise of federal employment discrimination statutes. Whatever your position is on the longstanding at-will employment regimes, there can be no …

Protecting "Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs": Lessons From Mississippi Hb 1523, Lindsay Krout Roberts

Mississippi College Law Review

The United States Supreme Court's revolutionary ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed marriage equality for homosexual couples in every state, gave life to a new challenge in the area of free exercise of religion: to what extent should persons with religious objections to same-sex marriages be forced to participate in them? Should a Christian baker be legally required to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual marriage to which he or she objects? Must a county clerk with religious objections to homosexual marriage sign a marriage license for a same-sex couple?

In an attempt to pre-empt these types of …

Environmental (In)Justice: Evaluating The Factors That Led To The Jackson Water Crisis & Proposing A Solution For Environmental Justice In Mississippi, Emily Brennan

Mississippi College Law Review

40,000. That is the number of residents that were left without potable water for nearly five weeks during Jackson, Mississippi’s February 2021 water crisis. An unusual cold front rolled through, freezing plant equipment, bursting water pipes, and causing many in Jackson to lose access to running water. This was not, however, the first time that Jackson residents had endured hardships with regard to their drinking water—it was just the first time that national attention turned to, and has seemed to remain on, Mississippi’s capital city. Those in Jackson are all too familiar with water pipes bursting, low water pressure, boil …

A Call For Effective Leniency: How The Circuit Split Regarding The Prison Mailbox Rule Fails To Properly Alleviate Issues For Prisoners, Shelby E. Parks

Mississippi College Law Review

The prison population has long been an overlooked segment of society. This is particularly true when it comes to pro se litigants within the federal prison system. A pro so litigant is someone involved in litigation, whether civil or criminal, and is representing themselves instead of being represented by an attorney. In other words, pro se prisoners do not have the aid of counsel at their disposal. Although it is an individual’s constitutional right to represent themselves, it can come at a cost, especially when it comes to understanding the nuances of civil or criminal court procedure. For pro se …

Introduction, Stephanie Durr

Mississippi College Law Review

The 2022 Mississippi College Law Review Symposium celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Passage of Title IX. With the benefit of hindsight, the Symposium critically examined Title IX and its progeny, analyzing the benefits and the downfalls over the past fifty years. The 2022 Symposium celebrated Title IX for its accomplishments in eliminating sex-based discrimination in educational institutions but refused to let previous accomplishments overshadow the still-existing gender inequality. While history allows celebration, advocacy demands a commitment to work toward solutions for the persisting inequality. Armed with this intention, the Mississippi College Law Review set out to provide a forum …

Title Ix 50 Years Later. . . Reflections From A Title Ix Coordinator, Dr. Kristena Gaylor

Mississippi College Law Review

On June 23, 1972, Congress enacted the Title IX Education Amendment of 1972. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities operated by recipients of federal financial assistance. Title IX’s core is the concept that students may not be denied educational opportunities based on their sex. Title IX’s protections extend to school activities, including admissions, financial aid, student services, counseling services, athletics, and physical education. The Title IX legislation eliminates sex-based discrimination to ensure all students—both male and female––have access to and equality in education.

The enactment of Title IX led to an upward trajectory for …

A Third Way: Title Ix’S Potential Beyond Criminal And Civil Law Paradigms, Gabriella Kamran

Mississippi College Law Review

A single occurrence of sexual violence on a college campus can lead to any of three major legal outcomes. The first is a traditional criminal prosecution of the alleged perpetrator. The second is a civil lawsuit against the school under Title IX, in which the victim alleges that the school’s disciplinary procedures failed to deliver an adequate response according to the body of law developed by courts interpreting Title IX. The third, which has become increasingly important and visible after a decade of student activism and initiatives by the Department of Education, is an administrative enforcement action by the Department’s …

Charting A Course To Gender Equity: Sexual Harassment Reporting Rates In Charter Schools, Gabriella Kamran

Mississippi College Law Review

Charter schools and sexual harassment are two hot-button issues in the education landscape, but their intersection is seldom addressed in research or public discourse. This Article examines whether K-12 charter schools report allegations of sexual harassment, including harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, at a rate different from that of traditional public schools. I analyzed data from the Department of Education’s 2015-16 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) report and found that the average national reporting rate of sexual harassment allegations is significantly higher among traditional public schools than it is among charter schools. I then used the National Alliance …

Territorial Paternalism, Anthony M. Ciolli

Mississippi College Law Review

This Article strives to deconstruct and dismantle the most prominent misconceptions and outright lies being used to justify the continued withholding of constitutional rights and liberties from American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Part II addresses the claim that territories are not self- governing or are otherwise effectively ruled from Washington, D.C., by a Congress that is completely unresponsive to any of their concerns. Part III examines the portrayal of the territories as geographically isolated, crumbling, lacking safe drinking water, and otherwise substantially underdeveloped compared to the mainland United States. Finally, Part …

More Than Fifty Years After The Enactment Of Federal Laws Forbidding Discrimination In Pay, The Wage Disparity Based On Sex Continues: Focusing On The Circuit Courts’ Differing Interpretations Of “Factors Other Than Sex”, Audrey K. Hurt

Mississippi College Law Review

The broad scope of this fourth affirmative defense available to employers under the EPA and Title VII allows for inconsistency in its interpretation and is responsible, at least in part, for the continued existence of wage discrimination. Without a prescribed means of application— specifically, a stricter means of application—employers are more readily absolved from liability under the FOTS defense. The best solution to this problem is for Congress to adopt a more stringent approach to the FOTS defense under the Equal Pay Act of 1963—an approach which would apply to Title VII, as well. However, with little headway being made …

“Pigs In The Parlor”: The Legacy Of Racial Zoning And The Challenge Of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing In The South, Jade A. Craig

Mississippi College Law Review

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 includes a provision that requires that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administer the policies within the Act to “affirmatively further” fair housing. Scholars have largely derived their analysis from studying large urban areas and struggles to integrate the suburbs. The literature, however, has not focused on the impact of zoning and discriminatory land use policies within and around low-income rural and small communities or specifically in the southeastern United States. Scholars have also insufficiently considered the implications of these policies on the duty to “affirmatively further” fair housing.

Racial zoning was …

The Influence Of Justice Thurgood Marshall On The Development Of Title Vii Jurisprudence, Wendy B. Scott, Jada Akers, Amy White

Journal Articles

This Article highlights Justice Marshall’s influence on the development of Title VII jurisprudence. Part I presents a brief overview of Justice Marshall’s personal and professional life before becoming a Justice to show how his experience influenced the development of his judicial philosophy. Part II summarizes the Court’s approach to some of the issues left unresolved by Congress in the initial passage of Title VII. Specifically, it explores how the Court determined what would constitute a violation of Title VII and standards of pleading and proof. Part III examines the changes in the Court’s jurisprudence before Justice Marshall retired from the …

Breaking Cartels To Stymie The Reproduction Of Racism And Breaking Them In Time, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Daria Roithmayr’s book, Reproducing Racism: How Everyday Choices Lock in White Advantage, situates the reproduction of racism outside of intentionally inflicted racist acts. She argues that even if racism by individual design ceases, everyday decisions by Whites lock in the many decades’, and even centuries’, of entrenched structures of White advantage. Tracing the history of race in America especially from Jim Crow, Roithmayr illustrates how White advantage was locked in through wealth accumulation protections given Whites and denied Blacks, through the real estate market practices favoring Whites, in educational policies perpetuated through a de jure then a de facto system, …

Book Review, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America’s Civil Rights Murders is an exceptional work by Renee C. Romano. This review will first discuss a concern I had prior to reading her book. Discussion of this alleviated concern will be followed by brief consideration of Romano’s well selected titled, which will be followed by a discussion of what I see as major contributions of the book.

Desegregation Law And Jurisprudence, Wendy B. Scott

Journal Articles

My Essay provides context for the articles that query the contemporary relevance of integration. Part I addresses the challenge of understanding desegregation and its relationship to integration. Part II explores the equality rationales offered by courts and scholars to support or reject integration as the most viable method for achieving desegregation. The Essay concludes that we should move beyond substantive equality to anti-subordination strategies targeted at the deeply entrenched structural inequalities that marginalize children in poor or racially-isolated schools.

The State As Batterer: Learning From Family Law To Address American's Family-Like Racial Dysfunction, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

The women's movement for equality bootstrapped to the movement for equality for Blacks. Now the reverse can happen. This Article uses family law and the plight of some battered women, as a lens to address analogous racial conflicts in the broader American family.

Simply Put: How Diversity Benefits Whites And How Whites Can Simply Benefit Diversity, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Although there are surmountable legal barriers to racial integration in education, fuller integration is possible. But first, whites must see how they benefit from diversity, and, second, whites must take simple steps toward integration that may, in turn, reveal to whites their desire to become more fully integrated. These two steps may help remove the limiting point to true integration.

Book Review, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

YOUR BLUES AIN’T LIKE MINE is an excellently written, fictionalized account of the lives of several people set in the fifties as a rural Mississippi community reacts to impending school racial desegregation and the killing of a fifteen year old black boy who had the misfortune of speaking French in the direction of a white woman. I’ve used this book to facilitate discussion on issues of race, gender, the law, class, and politics in several of my law school classes such as Race and the Law, Gender and the Law, and Civil Rights.

From An Act Of God To The Failure Of Man: Hurricane Katrina And The Economic Recovery Of New Orleans, Wendy B. Scott

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Affirmative Action, Wendy B. Scott

Journal Articles

The author served as the moderator of a panel at the Symposium entitled Twenty-Five Years: The Future of Affirmative Action. In this Commentary, she reviews articles by Professors Kevin Brown, Leland Ware, and John Valery Mute appearing elsewhere in this Issue.

For White Women: Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, But We All Hide Our Faces And Cry--Literary Illumination For White And Black Sister/Friends, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Anita Hill Meets Godzilla: Confessions Of A Horror Movie Fan, Wendy B. Scott

Journal Articles

The cases and events discussed in this Essay involve African- American women who have confronted oppression in the civil and criminal courts, and other arenas, in both celebrated and unsung victories: victories not only for Black women, but for women and men of all hues who seek social justice. I will use these cases and events to illustrate the relationship between stereotypes and myths, born during the antebellum and Jim Crow era, and contemporary manifestations of sexual harassment and other forms of sex-based exploitation. I will go on to discuss the means used by women, in the workplace of chattel …