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Full-Text Articles in Law
An Equal Protection Standard For National Origin Classifications: The Context That Matters, Jenny Rivera
An Equal Protection Standard For National Origin Classifications: The Context That Matters, Jenny Rivera
Washington Law Review
The Supreme Court has stated, "[c]ontext matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause."' Judicial review of legislative race-based classifications has been dominated by the context of the United States' history of race-based oppression and consideration of the effects of institutional racism. Racial context has also dominated judicial review of legislative classifications based on national origin. This pattern is seen, for example, in challenges to government affirmative action programs that define Latinos according to national origin subclasses. As a matter of law, these national origin-based classifications, like race-based classifications, are subject to strict scrutiny and can only …
Bortz V. Suzuki, Judgment Of October 12, 1999, Hamamatsu Branch, Shizuoka District Court, Timothy Webster
Bortz V. Suzuki, Judgment Of October 12, 1999, Hamamatsu Branch, Shizuoka District Court, Timothy Webster
Washington International Law Journal
The Bortz case links a series of truly comparative moments. In the first, the unsuspecting foreigner crosses into another culture’s blind spot, and emerges a very different person. Ana Bortz was shopping for a necklace in a Japanese jewelry store when the owner asked her where she was from. A westerner in Japan, Bortz likely thought little of the question, having answered it many times. She answered first in Japanese, and then in English, “from Brazil.” Neither response pleased the storeowner. Foreigners, or perhaps just Brazilians, were not allowed in the store. Their ensuing argument revealed other comparative moments. Enraged …