Law Commons^™

Vive La Difference? A Critical Analysis Of The Justification Of Sex-Dependent Workplace Restrictions On Dress And Grooming, Patrick S. Shin

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

How is it possible that sex-specific workplace dress and appearance codes do not constitute sex discrimination? I argue in this article that the general doctrines of employment discrimination law do not themselves provide a principled basis for distinguishing sex-dependent workplace dress codes from other kinds of policies that would clearly count as sex discrimination, and that supplementary strategies that courts have used to carve out dress and grooming codes as an area of separate concern are either inconclusive or question-begging. I then consider whether the courts' seemingly sui generis approach to sex-dependent restrictions on dress and grooming can be justified …

“Pick”Ering The Speech Rights Of Public School Teachers: Arguing For A Movement By Courts Toward The Hazelwood-Tinker Standard Under The First Amendment, Heather P. Bennett

ExpressO

This Note addresses freedom of speech issues facing the nation's public schools, concentrating on the recent decision by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lee v. York County School Division, for the final paper in my First Amendment course. Ultimately, this Note analyzes the court’s decision in this case and both standards set forth by the Supreme Court in dealing with free speech rights in the field of public education, which are currently creating a circuit split between the Courts of Appeals. The Note argues that the Hazelwood-Tinker standard applied to student speech should be the general …

The Constitutionality Of The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Of 2003, Katherine R. Atkinson

ExpressO

Evaluates the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, beginning with a general discussion of relevant abortion procedures and jurisprudence. The Article then analyzes the Act using the void for vagueness doctrine, the undue burden test, and the Court's analysis in Stenberg, ultimately concluding the Act is unconstitutionl.

The Diversity Rationale For Affirmative Action In Employment After Grutter: The Case For Containment, Jared M. Mellot

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Torch (December 2006), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Contradiction Between Equal Protection's Meaning And Its Legal Substance: How Deliberate Indifference Can Cure It, Derek W. Black

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article highlights the inherent ambiguities of racial antidiscrimination's core legal language: "equal protection under the law" and "discrimination based on race." It then analyzes how and why the Court has never answered fundamental questions regarding the meaning of these terms. Thus, this Article answers these fundamental questions itself by exploring the original intent behind the Equal Protection Clause. Against this backdrop, this Article reveals how the Court's standard for assessing discrimination claims, the intent doctrine, assumes a meaning for equal protection that is inconsistent with its original meaning. Rather than reflecting equal protection's meaning, the standard lacks any basis …

Religião, Direitos Humanos E Educação, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Não admira que haja atritos, incompreensões, entre as religiões e os poderes. Porque, antes de mais, foi preciso a uns e a outros comprimirem-se para darem lugar (espaço, mesmo) ao outro tipo de normatividade e de poder. Em muitos casos históricos se terá começado com um poder de índole teocrática. E só com o tempo e o progresso social e político se passaria a admitir a cisão do mando, num ramo secular e num ramo sacral. O grande problema do tratamento da questão religiosa do ponto de vista dos Direitos Humanos, é que se trata, no limite, de pôr uma …

Critical Race Realism: Towards An Integrative Model Of Critical Race Theory, Empirical Social Science, And Public Policy, Gregory S. Parks

ExpressO

Critical Race Theory was founded as “a race-based, systematic critique of legal reasoning and legal institutions….” Critics argue that it struggles to define its substantive mission, methodological commitments, and connection to the world outside of academia. This article attempts to provide a specific methodology—empirical social science—that is consistent with Critical Race Theory’s overarching mission and that has both applied and academic components. This methodology should ultimately 1) expose racism where it may be found, 2) identify its effects on individuals and institutions, and 3) put forth a concerted attack against it, in part, via public policy arguments. This concept, Critical …

The De-Gentrification Of New Markets Tax Credits, Roger M. Groves

ExpressO

This article provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the New Markets Tax Credits program established by Congress. The purpose of the NMTCs is to use tax credits as incentives for investors to provide equity funds into low income areas. The article reveals that over $2 billion of federal tax subsidies that have been allocated to gentrified projects for the wealthy, rather than the intended beneficiaries – low income residents in the urban core – as Congress intended. The article proposes amendments to the statute and regulations to close unintended loopholes.

How To Skip The Constitution, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Human Rights, Clif Bennette

ExpressO

American authorities believe torture is necessary to keep America safe from terrorists, but want to avoid being accused of war crimes. So, longstanding US law and the Geneva Conventions were reinterpreted to provide legal cover. Further, policy memos saying most torture is legal were written, and activities associated with torture are shielded from Congressional oversight.

Reconsidering Spousal Privileges After Crawford, R. Michael Cassidy

Boston College Law School Faculty Papers

In this article the author explores how domestic violence prevention efforts have been adversely impacted by the Supreme Court’s new “testimonial” approach to the confrontation clause. Examining the Court’s trilogy of cases from Crawford to Davis and Hammon, the author argues that the introduction of certain forms of hearsay in criminal cases has been drastically limited by the court’s new originalist approach to the Sixth Amendment. The author explains how state spousal privilege statutes often present a significant barrier to obtaining live testimony from victims of domestic violence. The author then argues that state legislatures should reconsider their spousal privilege …

Torch (November 2006), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

“Statistical Dueling” With Unconventional Weapons: What Courts Should Know About Experts In Employment Discrimination Class Actions, William T. Bielby, Pamela Coukos

ExpressO

When statistical evidence is offered in a litigation context, the result can be bad law and bad statistics. In recent high profile, high-stakes employment discrimination class actions against large multinationals like UPS, Wal-Mart, and Marriott, plaintiffs have claimed that decentralized and highly discretionary management practices result in systematic gender or racial disparities in pay and promotion. At class certification, plaintiffs have relied in part on statistical analyses of the company’s workforce showing companywide inequality. Defendants have responded with statistical presentations of their own, which frequently demonstrate widely varying outcomes for members of protected groups in different geographic areas of the …

The Public Forum Doctrine And Public Housing Authorities: Can You Say That Here?, Martin J. Rooney

ExpressO

This article reviews a number of federal cases applying the Public Forum Doctrine of the First Amendment. The doctrine concerns the use of public property for expressive purposes. These cases explore the application of this doctrine to situations were the government is acting as landlord, and not as sovereign. Several of these federal cases have been seriously questioned, if not outright rejected, by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The state court has taken a much more absolutist view of the Free Speech – First Amendment rights of public housing tenants than has most of the federal case law.

Ley Federal Del Procedimiento Contencioso Administrativo., Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Ponencia sobre la Ley Federal del Procedimiento Contencioso Administrativo, impartida por Bruno L. Costantini García.

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Compulsory Labor In A National Emergency: Public Service Or Involuntary Servitude? The Case Of Crippled Ports, Michael H. Leroy

ExpressO

The 13th Amendment ban on involuntary servitude has new relevance as the U.S. grapples with national emergencies such as catastrophic hurricanes, flu pandemics, and terrorism. This Article considers work refusal and coerced work performance in life-threatening employment contexts. Overwhelmed by fear, hundreds of police officers and health care workers abandoned their jobs during Hurricane Katrina. Postal clerks worked against their will without masks in facilities with anthrax. A report by Congress worries that avian flu will cause sick and frightened medical personnel to stay away from work, thus jeopardizing a coherent response to a crisis.

How far can the U.S. …

Keynote Speaker, Detention Reform And Girls: Challenge And Solutions, Francine Sherman

Francine T. Sherman

No abstract provided.

Cradled In The Declaration Of Independence, Jay Tidmarsh

ExpressO

This book review engages recent scholarship on the nature of civil-rights lawyering in the African-American bar in the generation before Brown v. Board of Education. Using the recent biography of Earl Burrus Dickerson, one of the leaders of the African-American bar before World War II, the book review finds support for the emerging view that, in the years before Brown, the African-American civil-rights bar was not focused on ending de jure segregation in public institutions, but rather in building up African-American institutions. Contrary to recent scholarship, however, the review suggests that Dickerson personally preferred a more integrationist strategy, and his …

Off To Elba: The Legitimacy Of Sex Offender Residence And Employment Restrictions, Joseph L. Lester

ExpressO

Overborne by a mob mentality for justice, officials at every level of government are enacting laws that effectively exile convicted sex offenders from their midst with little contemplation as to the appropriateness or constitutionality of their actions. These laws fundamentally alter the liberties and freedom of convicted sex offenders to satisfy the ignorant fear of the masses. As a result, residence and employment restrictions which in theory are to protect society, in practice only exacerbate the perceived recidivism problem. When such laws are passed and the political process is broken, it is necessary for the judicial branch to step forward …

Racial Justice And Equity For African-American Males In The American Educational System: A Dream Forever Deferred, Floyd D. Weatherspoon

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Reproduction And Religious Reproduction: A Democratic-Communitarian Analysis Of The Yoder Problem, Josh Chafetz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In 1972, Wisconsin v. Yoder presented the Supreme Court with a sharp clash between the state's interest in social reproduction through education -- that is, society's interest in using the educational system to perpetuate its collective way of life among the next generation -- and the parents' interest in religious reproduction -- that is, their interest in passing their religious beliefs on to their children. This Article will take up the challenge of that clash, a clash which continues to be central to current debates over issues like intelligent design in the classroom. This Article engages with the competing theories …

Property Lessons In August Wilson's The Piano Lesson And The Wake Of Hurricane Katrina, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

No abstract provided.

How Antidiscrimination Law Learned To Live With Racial Inequality, Matthew Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores a great paradox at the heart of the prevailing paradigm of American antidiscrimination law: the colorblindness ideal. In theory, and often in practice, that ideal is animated by a genuine commitment to liberal, individualist, race-neutral egalitarianism. For many of its partisans, colorblindness entails not only a negative injunction against race-conscious decisionmaking, but also, crucially, an affirmative program for the achievement of true racial equality. For these proponents, scrupulously race-neutral decisionmaking both advances the interests of racial minorities and embodies the best aspirations of the civil rights movement. In this worldview, colorblindness offers the only true antidote for …

Multiracial Identity And Affirmative Action, Nancy Leong

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Playing Cowboys And Indians, B. Glenn George

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Torch (October 2006), Amy Homans, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Equal Protection Misapplied: The Politics Of Gender And Legitimacy And The Denial Of Inheritance, Linda Kelly Hill

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Justifying Affirmative Action In K-12 Private Schools, Sharon H. Lee

ExpressO

In this Comment, the author examines the consequences of using substantially identical rules to govern affirmative action in both private employers and private schools. The author explores the law that governs private affirmative action and the justifications that courts have accepted for private affirmative action, focusing on whether these justifications are internal or external to the defendant. The author contends that the Supreme Court’s dicta in Johnson v. Transportation Agency, viewed in light of developments in Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence, weigh in favor of using external imbalances to justify private affirmative action. The author demonstrates that departing from the affirmative-action …