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Stepping Through Grutter'S Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen L. Norton
Stepping Through Grutter'S Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen L. Norton
Faculty Scholarship
In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling -- specifically, a public law school’s interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well. The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court’s narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning whether …
Controlling Identity: Plessy, Privacy, And Racial Defamation, Jonathan Kahn
Controlling Identity: Plessy, Privacy, And Racial Defamation, Jonathan Kahn
Faculty Scholarship
This Article explores the origins of privacy law in early twentieth century America in relation to the legal solidification of Jim Crow in the aftermath of Plessy v. Ferguson. It considers some distinctively southern aspects of the origins of the right to privacy and argues that by viewing privacy, racial defamation, and Jim Crow in relation to each other, we can gain new insights into each-coming to understand that Plessy was not just about controlling space, or property, or even equality but also about controlling identity itself, and coming to see that in its origins, the right to privacy had …