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Full-Text Articles in Law
Breathing Room For The Right Of Assembly, Tabatha Abu El-Haj
Breathing Room For The Right Of Assembly, Tabatha Abu El-Haj
William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
This Article explores the legal and political fault lines that the wave of protests highlighting police violence and systemic racism in the summer of 2020 reveal. It focuses in depth on Detroit, Michigan, as a window into the ways that the First Amendment, as currently construed, under-protects those seeking political change and racial reckoning by demonstrating in the streets.
Marriage Mandates: Compelled Disclosures Of Race, Sex, And Gender Data In Marriage Licensing Schemes, Mikaela A. Phillips
Marriage Mandates: Compelled Disclosures Of Race, Sex, And Gender Data In Marriage Licensing Schemes, Mikaela A. Phillips
William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
This Note argues that mandatory disclosures of personal information—specifically race, sex, and gender—on a marriage license application constitute compelled speech under the First Amendment and should be subject to heightened scrutiny. Disclosing one’s race, sex, or gender on a marriage license application is an affirmative act, and individuals may wish to have their identity remain anonymous. These mandatory disclosures send a message that this information is still relevant to marriage regulation. Neither race nor gender is based in science; rather they are historical and social constructs created to uphold a system of white supremacy and heteronormativity. Thus, such statements are …
Free-Speech Formalism And Social Injustice, Stephen M. Feldman
Free-Speech Formalism And Social Injustice, Stephen M. Feldman
William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
The Roberts Court has shifted constitutional law in a formalist direction. This Essay explains the Court’s formalism and its causes and consequences in First Amendment free-expression cases. The thesis is that the current conservative justices’ reliance on formalism intertwines with their attitudes toward public and private spheres of activity. Their attitudes toward the public-private dichotomy are, in turn, shaped by their political ideologies as well as by the contemporary practices of democratic government, which have shifted significantly over American history. Formalism contains an inherent political tilt favoring those who already wield power in the private sphere. Formalism favors the wealthy …