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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Sins Of Innocence In Standing Doctrine, Elise C. Boddie
The Sins Of Innocence In Standing Doctrine, Elise C. Boddie
Vanderbilt Law Review
Should reverse discrimination plaintiffs always be able to challenge race-conscious selection policies in court? Conventional standing doctrine requires plaintiffs to show that the contested policy or practice has caused a concrete, personal harm. Yet in affirmative action cases, courts seem to have quietly dispensed with this required showing. The Supreme Court's decision in Fisher v. University of Texas is a prime example. The university illustrated that the white plaintiff would not have been admitted whatever her race. Yet the Court completely ignored the standing inquiry, reinforcing the significant confusion among courts and scholars alike about the cognizability of racial injury. …
Baptizing O'Brien: Towards Intermediate Protection Of Religiously Motivated Expressive Conduct, Daniel J. Hay
Baptizing O'Brien: Towards Intermediate Protection Of Religiously Motivated Expressive Conduct, Daniel J. Hay
Vanderbilt Law Review
Despite the relative prominence of religious expression in society' and its elevated status in constitutional law, the Supreme Court has struggled to articulate a consistent standard of review for neutral, generally applicable laws that indirectly burden religious expression. Since the late nineteenth century, the Court has vacillated between a highly deferential belief-action dichotomy and a more searching (albeit selectively applied) compelling interest test. Currently, the Court embraces a hybrid categorical-rational basis standard that relies in part upon a highly criticized assumption that the political process will be solicitous of minority religious practice. This retreat to rational basis has subordinated religious …