Law Commons^™

Rights Of Belonging For Women, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Is The Antidiscrimination Project Being Ended?, Michael J. Zimmer

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Bush V. Gore: What Happened, And What Does The Supreme Court's New Equal Protection Standard Mean For State Election Officials?, Michael Louis Newman

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Proposition 8 Is Unconstitutional, But Not Because The Ninth Circuit Said So: The Equal Protection Clause Does Not Support A Legal Distinction Between Denying The Right To Same-Sex Marriage And Not Providing It In The First Place, Nathan Rouse

Seattle University Law Review

In Perry v. Brown, the Ninth Circuit held that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. But in doing so, the court stepped back from the breadth of the district court’s decision. The Ninth Circuit did not address whether same-sex marriage is a fundamental constitutional right. Nor did the Ninth Circuit address whether the Equal Protection Clause categorically prevents states from limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Instead, the Ninth Circuit reached the narrow conclusion that Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause because it withdrew a preexisting legal right from a marginalized group without any legitimate purpose. The Ninth Circuit should have held …

Lawrence's Stealth Constitutionalism And Same-Sex Marriage Litigation, Eric Berger

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Constitutional law scholarship often focuses on two taxonomies: doctrinal categories and interpretive methodologies. Consequently, constitutional scholars sometimes neglect other important facets of constitutional decisionmaking, particularly extra-doctrinal stealth determinations that courts render frequently in constitutional opinions. The U.S. Supreme Court regularly confronts the questions underlying these determinations, but despite their centrality to constitutional decisionmaking, these issues often escape careful scrutiny.

Lawrence v. Texas exemplifies the phenomenon. Lawrence framed its central question at a broad level of generality; relied on hybrid reasoning, using equal-protection rationales to support a substantive due process holding; declined to identify a level of scrutiny; and invoked changing …

Crossing The Final Border: Securing Equal Gender Protection In Immigration Cases, Michelle L. Sudano

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

E Pluribus Unum: Liberalism's March To Be The Singular Influence On Civil Rights At The Supreme Court, Aaron J. Shuler

Aaron J Shuler

Rogers Smith writes that American political culture can best be understood as a blend of liberal, republican and illiberal ascriptive ideologies. The U.S. Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence has largely reflected this thesis. While the Court moved away from permitting laws that explicitly construct hierarchies in the 20th century and made tepid references to egalitarian principles during the Warren Court, liberalism has prevailed in the majority of the Court’s decisions. Gains in civil rights through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process clauses were achieved primarily through liberal notions of de-regulation, a market economy and individual freedom. Conversely, State …

'Lonesome Road': Driving Without The Fourth Amendment, Lewis R. Katz

Faculty Publications

American states and municipalities have so many minor traffic regulations that every time a driver gets behind the wheel of a car he or she is likely to commit multiple violations. The violation of any traffic regulation empowers police officers to stop the vehicle, ticket and, in some states, arrest the motorist. Police are physically unable to stop and ticket, let alone arrest, every motorist committing a traffic violation. Instead, police are vested with unlimited discretion when choosing which motorists to stop, warn, ticket, or arrest. So long as there is probable cause for a traffic violation, courts will not …

Antidiscrimination Law And The Multiracial Experience: A Reply To Nancy Leong, Tina F. Botts

Tina F Botts

Misunderstanding the concept of race as based in biology is the root error of Professor Nancy Leong's recommendation of a switch to "perceived race" in antidiscrimination law in order to protect multiracial persons from illegal racial discrimination. Once race is understood as socio-historically constructed and context-dependent rather than as rooted in biology, antidiscrimination law need only add multiracial persons to the categories of specially protected groups in order to protect multiracial persons from illegal discrimination.