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Full-Text Articles in Law
Race Nuisance: The Politics Of Law In The Jim Crow Era, Rachel D. Godsil
Race Nuisance: The Politics Of Law In The Jim Crow Era, Rachel D. Godsil
Michigan Law Review
This Article explores a startling and previously unnoticed line of cases in which state courts in the Jim Crow era ruled against white plaintiffs trying to use common law nuisance doctrine to achieve residential segregation. These "race-nuisance" cases complicate the view of most legal scholarship that state courts during the Jim Crow era openly eschewed the rule of law in service of white supremacy. Instead, the cases provide rich social historical detail showing southern judges wrestling with their competing allegiances to both precedent and the pursuit of racial exclusivity. Surprisingly, the allegiance to precedent generally prevailed. The cases confound prevailing …
Reading, Writing, And Reparations: Systemic Reform Of Public Schools As A Matter Of Justice, Verna L. Williams
Reading, Writing, And Reparations: Systemic Reform Of Public Schools As A Matter Of Justice, Verna L. Williams
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article analyzes Virginia's effort to remedy massive resistance and posits that, under reparations theory, a broader remedy is necessary to redress the scope of the state's wrongdoing. To do this, Part I briefly examines reparations theory, which provides the tools to identify the proper scope of the injury to be addressed, and, in turn, informs the proper choice of remedy. With this background, Part II discusses the Brown Fund Act and the massive resistance it seeks to remedy. In this connection, the Article demonstrates that the school shutdowns were part of a statewide decision to defy Brown and maintain …