Law Commons^™

Epigenetics And Reparations: How Epigenetics Can Help Federal Plaintiffs Meet The Constitutional Article Iii Standing Requirements In Reparation Lawsuits, William Chin

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Resistance Proceduralism: A Prologue To Theorizing Procedural Subordination, Portia Pedro

Washington and Lee Law Review

Several legal scholars have discussed the role of slavery within their own family histories and a growing number of scholars are exploring the successes and strategies of lawyers and Black litigants in freedom suits and other litigation in the United States antebellum South. I build on these literatures with a focus on procedure. In this Article, I analyze procedures involved in a few of my ancestral and personal experiences. Some of the experiences with process involved litigation to be free from slavery while other experiences did not explicitly involve any law. But they all involved process.

Engaging in this practice—marshaling …

Rethinking Antebellum Bankruptcy, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

Bankruptcy law has been repeatedly reinvented over time in response to changing circumstances. The Bankruptcy Act of 1841—passed by Congress to address the financial ruin caused by the Panic of 1837—constituted a revolutionary break from its immediate predecessor, the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, which was the nation’s first bankruptcy statute. Although Congress repealed the 1841 Act in 1843, the legislation lasted significantly longer than recognized by scholars. The repeal legislation permitted pending bankruptcy cases to be finally resolved pursuant to the Act’s terms. Because debtors flooded the judicially understaffed 1841 Act system with over 46,000 cases, the Act’s administration continued …

Haiti’S Legal Claim For Restitution: The Political Context For The Recovery Of The Double-Debt, Ira J. Kurzban

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article discusses Haiti’s efforts to seek restitution from France for the “Double-Debt” imposed in 1825. After Haiti gained independence in 1804 following a slave revolt, France threatened to invade and re-enslave the Haitian people if they did not pay compensation to French slave owners for their lost “property.” This became known as the Double-Debt, as French and American banks profited by converting the debt into high-interest loans. In 2003, on the 200th anniversary of Haitian hero Toussaint Louverture’s death, Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced his intention to demand repayment from France. This sparked retaliation from France and Haiti’s elite, …

Redress For Historical Injustices: Haiti’S Claim For The Restitution Of Post-Independence Payments To France, Günther Handl

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restitution For Haiti, Reparations For All: Haiti’S Place In The Global Reparations Movement, Brian Concannon Jr., Kristina Fried, Alexandra V. Filippova

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

Haiti’s claim for restitution of the debt coerced by France in exchange for Haiti’s 1804 independence has unique legal advantages that can open the door to broader reparations for the descendants of all people harmed by slavery. But in order to assert the claim, Haiti first needs help reclaiming its democracy from a corrupt, repressive regime propped up by the powerful countries that prospered through slavery and overthrew the Haitian President who dared to assert his country’s legal claim. This article explores Haiti’s Independence Debt, and the fight for restitution of it, in the context of two centuries of continued …

Haiti And The Indemnity Question, Alex Dupuy

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

1) Haiti did not agree to pay an indemnity to France in 1825 because it feared a war with its former colonial power. In 1814, France sent envoys to Haiti to demand that King Henry Christophe, who controlled the north of Haiti, and President Alexandre Pétion, who controlled the south and west, resubmit to French sovereignty. Christophe had that envoy arrested and jailed. Pétion, on the other hand, offered to pay an indemnity to France to compensate the former colonial property owners in return for France’s official recognition of Haiti’s independence.

2) Jean-Pierre Boyer succeeded Pétion as president of the …

The Lost Haitian Generation And The 1826 “French Debt”: The Case For Restitution To Haiti, Charlot Lucien

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Haiti: Confronting An Immense Challenge, Irwin Stotzky

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article analyzes the history of Haiti, from its origins as a slave colony of France, which was the richest colony in the Americas, to its war of independence leading to the first Black independent nation in the Americas, to its economic re-enslavement under the power of France and then the United States. The article discusses the great harm the French caused the Haitian people by imposing through force a ransom of billions of dollars that has led Haiti to its present position of being on the brink of becoming a failed state, with all of the disastrous consequences for …

Haiti And The Burden Of History, Frédérique Beauvois

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

James Oakes's Treatment Of The First Confiscation Act In Freedom National: The Destruction Of Slavery In The United States, 1861-1865, Angi Porter

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In his work, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865, James Oakes provides an overview of several Civil War era legal instruments regarding enslavement in the United States. One of the statutes he examines is An Act to Confiscate Property Used for Insurrectionary Purposes, passed by the Thirty Seventh Congress in August, 1861. This law, popularly known as the First Confiscation Act (FCA), is one of the several "Confiscation Acts" that contributed to the weakening of legal enslavement during the War. Fortunately, scholars have contextualized and deemphasized President Lincoln's role as the "Great Emancipator" by examining …

A New Deal For A Right To Work: Confronting Racism And Inequality In The U.S., James A. Gross

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Whites have always controlled the country’s major economic and political institutions at all levels. Starting with slavery, the enduring and pervasive dogmas of White superiority and Black inferiority, once openly asserted as “keeping Negroes in their place,” were also used to restrict Black men and women to subordinate “negro jobs.” The vast riches of the United States “were available to all who had the enterprise to take them and the good fortune to be White.”

This denial of the right to work in freely chosen endeavors continues to have immense consequences for Black men, women, and children in every aspect …

Shades Of Justice: Racial Profiling Then And Now, F. Michael Higginbotham

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Higher Education Redress Statutes: A Preliminary Analysis Of States’ Reparations In Higher Education, Christopher L. Mathis

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Slave Law, Race Law, Gabriel J. Chin

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Looking Back To Move Forward: Exploring The Legacy Of U.S. Slavery, Suzette Malveaux

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Higher Education Redress Statutes: A Critical Analysis Of States’ Reparations In Higher Education, Christopher L. Mathis

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article introduces a novel concept, higher education redress statutes (“HERS”), to illustrate efforts that acknowledge and amend past wrongs towards African Americans. More proximally, the Article shines a probing light on the escalation of HERS in southeastern states that serve as a site for state regulation and monitoring. The Author exposes how higher education redress statutes, designed to provide relief or remedy to Black people for states’ higher education’s harm, categorically ignore groups of Black people who rightfully should also be members of the statutorily protected class. This Article queries whether legislators can expand the scope of such statutes …

Foreword: Expanding The Boundaries Of Knowledge About Slavery And Its Legacy, Lolita Buckner Inniss

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Territorial Paternalism, Anthony M. Ciolli

Mississippi College Law Review

This Article strives to deconstruct and dismantle the most prominent misconceptions and outright lies being used to justify the continued withholding of constitutional rights and liberties from American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Part II addresses the claim that territories are not self- governing or are otherwise effectively ruled from Washington, D.C., by a Congress that is completely unresponsive to any of their concerns. Part III examines the portrayal of the territories as geographically isolated, crumbling, lacking safe drinking water, and otherwise substantially underdeveloped compared to the mainland United States. Finally, Part …

Antiracist Lawyering In Practice Begins With The Practice Of Teaching And Learning Antiracism In Law School, Danielle M. Conway

Utah Law Review

I was honored by the invitation to deliver the 2021 Lee E. Teitelbaum keynote address. Dean Teitelbaum was a gentleman and a titan for justice. I am confident the antiracism work ongoing at the S.J. Quinney College of Law would have deeply resonated with him, especially knowing the challenges we are currently facing within and outside of legal education, the legal academy, and the legal profession. I am fortified in this work by Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner’s commitment to antiracism and associated diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Finally, I applaud the students who serve on the Utah Law Review for …

Freedom Seekers: The Transgressive Constitutionalism Of Fugitives From Slavery, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Notre Dame Law Review

In the years leading up to the Civil War, fugitives from slavery put their lives on the line to improve their own status and that of their families in their quest for freedom. Fugitives from slavery, or “freedom seekers,” engaged in civil disobedience, resisting laws that they believed to be unjust and inhumane. In the North, free black people and their white allies supported the freedom seekers by engaging in civil disobedience of their own. The transgressive actions of freedom seekers sparked constitutional controversy during the antebellum era over issues of interstate comity, federalism, citizenship rights, and fundamental human rights. …

Law School News: Welcome, Professor Bernard Freamon 04-20-2022, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Declaration Of Independence, Constitution, And Slavery, Johnny B. Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

The paper address the nature of the principles of the Declaration and the Declaration's relationship to the Constitution and how these related to slavery. The argument is that the Declaration did stand for universal equality of the individual before God and the law and therefore its principles condemned slavery. The Constitution did not embrace slavery even though it failed to ban slavery but did set the foundation for the end of slavery.

Truth And Reconciliation: The Ku Klux Klan Hearings Of 1871 And The Genesis Of Section 1983, Tiffany R. Wright, Ciarra N. Carr, Jade W.P. Gasek

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Over the course of seven months in 1871, Congress did something extraordinary for the time: It listened to Black people. At hearings in Washington, D.C. and throughout the former Confederate states, Black women and men—who just six years earlier were enslaved and barred from testifying in Southern courts—appeared before Congress to tell their stories. The stories were heartbreaking. After experiencing the joy of Emancipation and the initial hope of Reconstruction, they had been subjected to unspeakable horror at the hands of white terrorists. They had been raped and sexually humiliated. Their children and spouses murdered. They had been savagely beaten …

Can I Touch Your Hair?: Business Diversity, Slavery, Disparate Outcomes, And The Crown Act, Ashley Jones

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This comment will begin by looking at why hair in the United States is related to issues of race. This comment will then look at how businesses’ rules for appearance and hair disproportionately affect Black employees. Next, this paper will look at Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to point out how the vague language has created loopholes, which allow businesses to lawfully discriminate against people with natural hair. We will then move to explore what role some city and state governments have had in creating natural hair-safe workspaces for employees in their respective boundaries. Lastly, we …

Structural Racism And The Redressing Of Foundational Wrongs, Natsu Taylor Saito

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Reparations And The International Law Origin Story, John Linarelli

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Africana Legal Studies: A New Theoretical Approach To Law & Protocol, Angi Porter

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: In 1743, a group of enslaved Africans from various estates in French colonial New Orleans gathered, held a musical ceremony sung in their native language, and discussed the actions and fate of a slaveholder named Corbin. Earlier, Corbin had threatened to shoot one of the enslaved Africans in this group, and Corbin’s brother then actually shot that person with a gun loaded with salt. Now, as the group of Africans gathered, they determined that Corbin had to die. Two months later, Corbin disappeared and was never found.

If we use a traditional (Western) legal framework to describe this …

On Time, (In)Equality, And Death, Fred O. Smith Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, American institutions have inadvertently encountered the bodies of former slaves with increasing frequency. Pledges of respect are common features of these discoveries, accompanied by cultural debates about what “respect” means. Often embedded in these debates is an intuition that there is something special about respecting the dead bodies, burial sites, and images of victims of mass, systemic horrors. This Article employs legal doctrine, philosophical insights, and American history to both interrogate and anchor this intuition.

Law can inform these debates because we regularly turn to legal settings to resolve disputes about the dead. Yet the passage of …

The Religion Of Race: The Supreme Court As Priests Of Racial Politics, Audra Savage

Utah Law Review

The tumultuous summer of 2020 opened the eyes of many Americans, leading to a general consensus on one issue—racism still exists. This Article offers a new descriptive account of America’s history that can contextualize the zeitgeist of racial politics. It argues that the Founding Fathers created a national civil religion based on racism when they compromised on the issue of slavery in the creation of the Constitution. This religion, called the Religion of Race, is built on a belief system where whiteness is sacred and Blackness is profane. The sacred text is the Constitution, and it is interpreted by the …