Law Commons^™

Civil Rights In Transition: Sections 1981 And 1982 Cover Discrimination On The Basis Of Ancestry And Ethnicity, Eileen R. Kaufman, Martin A. Schwartz

Martin A. Schwartz

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights In Transition: Sections 1981 And 1982 Cover Discrimination On The Basis Of Ancestry And Ethnicity, Eileen R. Kaufman, Martin A. Schwartz

Martin A. Schwartz

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights In Transition: Sections 1981 And 1982 Cover Discrimination On The Basis Of Ancestry And Ethnicity, Eileen R. Kaufman, Martin A. Schwartz

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

Thurgood Marshall, The Race Man, And Gender Equality In The Courts, Taunya Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

Renowned civil rights advocate and race man Thurgood Marshall came of age as a lawyer during the black protest movement in the 1930s. He represented civil rights protesters, albeit reluctantly, but was ambivalent about post-Brown mass protests. Although Marshall recognized law's limitations, he felt more comfortable using litigation as a tool for social change. His experiences as a legal advocate for racial equality influenced his thinking as a judge. Marshall joined the United States Supreme Court in 1967, as dramatic advancement of black civil rights through litigation waned. Other social movements, notably the women's rights movement, took its place. The …

Dodging A Bullet: Mcdonald V. City Of Chicago And The Limits Of Progressive Originalism, Dale E. Ho

Dale E Ho

The Supreme Court’s decision in last term’s gun rights case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, punctured the conventional wisdom after District of Columbia v. Heller that “we are all originalists now.” Surprisingly, many progressive academics were disappointed. For “progressive originalists,” McDonald was a missed opportunity to overrule the Slaughter-House Cases and to revitalize the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In their view, such a ruling could have realigned progressive constitutional achievements with originalism and relieved progressives of the albatross of substantive due process, while also unlocking long-dormant constitutional text to serve as the source of new unenumerated …

“For Any Reason”: Paper Promises To Protect Service Members, Tami Martin

Legislation and Policy Brief

In short, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) is the law that prohibits lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals from serving openly in the military. Despite the fact that the Obama Administration has yet to fulfill the campaign promise of ending DADT, many believe the question is more "when" than "if" it will be repealed. Much attention has focused on ending the policy, but it is also important to consider what might happen after repeal. This article briefly examines the history of DADT, major policies meant to protect service members from harassment they experience because of their actual or perceived sexual …

Desegregating Legal Education, Peggy Cooper Davis

Georgia State University Law Review

This is a transcription of the 44th Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture given by Professor Peggy Cooper Davis of New York University School of Law.

Of Fat People And Fundamental Rights: The Constitutionality Of The New York City Trans-Fat Ban, Katharine Kruk

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Torts, Over-Deterrence And Supervisory Liability After Iqbal (2010) (Symposium), Sheldon Nahmod

All Faculty Scholarship

My forthcoming Article is divided into the following parts. In Part I, I survey relevant aspects of the law of § 1983 and Bivens. Painting with a broad brush and for the most part descriptively, I maintain that the Court’s concern with over-deterrence has increasingly dominated constitutional torts. In Part II, I address the relevance of that concern for supervisory liability, set out what the Court said about supervisory liability in Iqbal and very briefly summarize the pre-Iqbal circuit consensus on supervisory liability. In Part III, I delve more deeply into the nature of supervisory liability and conclude that the …

From Immutable To Existential: Protecting Who We Are And Who We Want To Be With The 'Equalerty' Of The Substantive Due Process Clause, Aaron J. Shuler

Aaron J Shuler

Abstract Scholars have written about the duality of the substantive due process and equal protection doctrines and described how they have worked in tandem, although many academics have focused on, or outright called for, a preference for the use of the equal protection clause. Another contingent of the academic community, however, has discussed the favored use of substantive due process in the last fifty years in providing equal treatment for all groups by ferreting out discrimination against marginalized minorities. Scholars have also separately alluded to substantive due process’ ability to protect the most existential of liberties. This works seeks to …

Briscoe V. Virginia: Reexamining The Scope Of Melendez-Diaz, Caroline Mix

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

Violent Crimes And Known Associates: The Residual Clause Of The Armed Career Criminal Act, David C. Holman

David Holman

Confusion reigns in federal courts over whether crimes qualify as “violent felonies” for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The ACCA requires a fifteen-year minimum sentence for felons convicted of possessing a firearm who have three prior convictions for violent felonies. Many offenders receive the ACCA’s mandatory minimum sentence of fifteen years based on judges’ guesses that their prior crimes could be committed in a violent manner—instead of based on the statutory crimes of which they were actually convicted. Offenders who do not deserve a minimum sentence of fifteen years may receive it anyway.

The courts’ application of …

Pearson, Iqbal, And Procedural Judicial Activism, Goutam U. Jois

Goutam U Jois

In its most recent term, the Supreme Court decided Pearson v. Callahan and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, two cases that, even at this early date, can safely be called “game-changers.” What is fairly well known is that Iqbal and Pearson, on their own terms, will hurt civil rights plaintiffs. A point that has not been explored is how the interaction between Iqbal and Pearson will also hurt civil rights plaintiffs. First, the cases threaten to catch plaintiffs on the horns of a dilemma: Iqbal says, in effect, that greater detail is required to get allegations past the motion to dismiss stage. …

The Constitutional Canon As Argumentative Metonymy, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

This article builds on Philip Bobbitt's Wittgensteinian insights into constitutional argument and law. I examine the way that we interact with canonical texts as we construct arguments in the forms that Bobbitt has described. I contend that these texts serve as metonyms for larger sets of associated principles and values, and that their invocation usually is not meant to point to the literal meaning of the text itself. This conception helps explain how a canonical text's meaning in constitutional argument can evolve over time, and hopefully offers the creative practitioner some insight into the kinds of arguments that might accomplish …

No Bueno, Buono: An Essay On Salazar V. Buono And Establishment Clause Remedies, David B. Owens

David B. Owens

Atop Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert sat a Latin Cross. The only problem, for some, was that this land happened to be owned by the federal government. After contentious litigation, the cross was deemed a violation of the Establishment Clause, and the district court issued an injunction forbidding the cross to remain. That judgment became final and unreviewable, but the district court’s subsequent remedial action—declaring invalid Congress’ attempt to sell only a small “donut” of land around the cross—was not. Congress’ interesting end-around spawned further litigation and an order by the district court modifying the injunction despite the fact …

The Right To Arms In The Living Constitution, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This Article presents a brief history of the Second Amendment as part of the living Constitution. From the Early Republic through the present, the American public has always understood the Second Amendment as guaranteeing a right to own firearms for self-defense. That view has been in accordance with élite legal opinion, except for a period in part of the twentieth century.

"Living constitutionalism" should be distinguished from "dead constitutionalism." Under the former, courts looks to objective referents of shared public understanding of constitutional values. Examples of objective referents include state constitutions, as well as federal or state laws to protect …

Color-Blind: Procedure's Quiet But Crucial Role In Achieving Racial Justice, Benjamin V. Madison Iii

Benjamin V Madison, III

This article explores the role of procedural institutions, both in the Constitution and in other laws related to the judicial system, that promote impartial justice. The article explores the twin principles of human fallibility and the equality of all human beings as the fundamental bases of the judicial system. The role of procedure in enabling federal courts to enforce the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education is a featured part of the article.

Clear As Mud: How The Uncertain Precedential Status Of Unpublished Opinions Muddles Qualified Immunity Determinations, David R. Cleveland

David R. Cleveland

While unpublished opinions are now freely citeable under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1, their precedential value remains uncertain. This ambiguity muddles the already unclear law surrounding qualified immunity and denies courts valuable precedents for making fair and consistent judgments on these critical civil rights issues. When faced with a claim that they have violated a person’s civil rights, government officials typically claim qualified immunity. The test is whether they have violated “clearly established law.” Unfortunately, the federal circuits differ on whether unpublished opinions may be used in determining clearly established law. This article, Clear as Mud: How the Uncertain …

Race, Sex, And Rulemaking: Administrative Constitutionalism And The Workplace, 1960 To The Present, Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article uses the history of equal employment rulemaking at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Power Commission (FPC) to document and analyze, for the first time, how administrative agencies interpret the Constitution. Although it is widely recognized that administrators must implement policy with an eye on the Constitution, neither constitutional nor administrative law scholarship has examined how administrators approach constitutional interpretation. Indeed, there is limited understanding of agencies’ core task of interpreting statutes, let alone of their constitutional practice. During the 1960s and 1970s, officials at the FCC relied on a strikingly broad and affirmative interpretation of …

The Voting Rights Act’S Secret Weapon: Pocket Trigger Litigation And Dynamic Preclearance, Travis Crum

Scholarship@WashULaw

Following NAMUDNO, the search is on for a way to save section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). This Note offers a solution through an examination of the VRA’s most obscure provision: section 3. Commonly called the bail-in mechanism or the pocket trigger, section 3 authorizes federal courts to place states and political subdivisions that have violated the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments under preclearance. This Note makes a two-part argument. First, the pocket trigger should be used to alleviate the NAMUDNO Court’s anxiety over the coverage formula’s differential treatment of the states. The Justice Department and civil rights groups …

The Sit-Ins And The State Action Doctrine, Christopher W. Schmidt

Christopher W. Schmidt

By taking their seats at “whites only” lunch counters across the South in the spring of 1960, African American students not only launched a dramatic new stage in the civil rights movement, they also sparked a national reconsideration of the scope of the constitutional equal protection requirement. The critical constitutional question raised by the sit-in movement was whether the Fourteenth Amendment, which after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) prohibited racial segregation in schools and other state-operated facilities, applied to privately owned accommodations open to the general public. From the perspective of the student protesters, the lunch counter operators, and …