Law Commons^™

Understanding An American Paradox: An Overview Of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, Spearit

Articles

In The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, Sahar Aziz unveils a mechanism that perpetuates the persecution of religion. While the book’s title suggests a problem that engulfs Muslims, it is not a new problem, but instead a recurring theme in American history. Aziz constructs a model that demonstrates how racialization of a religious group imposes racial characteristics on that group, imbuing it with racial stereotypes that effectively treat the group as a racial rather than religious group deserving of religious liberty.

In identifying a racialization process that effectively veils religious discrimination, Aziz’s book points to several important …

Bristol And Newport And The Transatlantic Slave Trade 09-01-2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Jacquelyn L. Bridgeman Interview; Oral History Project, Jacquelyn L. Bridgeman, Cristina E. Salazar, Shelby Nivitanont

Wyoming Oral History

Jacquelyn L. Bridgeman, Kepler Professor of Law, Director of School of Culture, Gender & Social Justice.

In this oral history, Professor Bridgeman discuses what it was like to grow up in Laramie, WY, her experience as a woman of color in the legal career field, and her accomplishments as a lawyer, law professor, and magistrate. Professor Bridgeman touches on stories from when President Obama was her professor at University of Chicago Law School, insights into current events in the Wyoming Legislature, and her perspective on diversity recruitment.

Eyes On The Street: Racialized Bodies And Surveillance In Urban Space, Hana Parker Soule

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Towards A Psychological Science Of Abolition Democracy: Insights For Improving Theory And Research On Race And Public Safety, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Phillip Atiba Goff

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We call for psychologists to expand their thinking on fair and just public safety by engaging with the “Abolition Democracy” framework that Du Bois (1935) articulated as the need to dissolve slavery while simultaneously taking affirmative steps to rid its toxic consequences from the body politic. Because the legacies of slavery continue to produce disparities in public safety in the U.S, both harming Black people and the institutions that could keep them safe, psychologists must take seriously questions of history and structure in addition to immediate situations. In the present article, we consider the state of knowledge regarding psychological processes …

Law Library Blog (September 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Parameters Autumn: 2020, Usawc Parameters

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

From The Editor In Chief, Antulio J. Echevarria Ii

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Creating And Undoing Legacies Of Resilience: Black Women As Martyrs In The Black Community Under Oppressive Social Control, Leah Iman Aniefuna, M. Amari Aniefuna, Jason M. Williams

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper contextualizes the struggles and contributions of Black motherhood and reproductive justice under police surveillance in Baltimore, Maryland. We conducted semi-structured interviews with mothers regarding their experiences and perceptions of policing in their community during the aftermath of the police-involved death of Freddie Gray. While the literature disproportionately focuses on Black males, little knowledge is known about the struggles and contributions of Black mothers in matters concerning police brutality and the fight against institutional violence. There still remains the question regarding the role of and impact on Black mothers during matters of institutional violence against Black children. We fill …

Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System Of Taxation, Palma Joy Strand, Nicholas A. Mirkay

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article describes the connection between wealth inequality and the increasing structural racism in the U.S. tax system since the 1980s. A long-term sociological view (the why) reveals the historical racialization of wealth and a shift in the tax system overall beginning around 1980 to protect and exacerbate wealth inequality, which has been fueled by racial animus and anxiety. A critical tax view (the how) highlights a shift over the same time period at both federal and state levels from taxes on wealth, to taxes on income, and then to taxes on consumption—from greater to less progressivity. Both of these …

Equal In His Sight: An Examination Of The Evolving Opinions On Race In The Life Of Jerry Falwell, Sr., Kathryn Legg

Senior Honors Theses

The late Reverend Jerry Falwell, Sr., founder of Thomas Road Baptist Church and president of the Moral Majority, was a prominent figure in conservative politics beginning in the late 1970s. His opinions regarding preachers and politics changed throughout his life, as did his beliefs about race in America and the church. His views on race affected his preaching and political involvement, and in his later life he retracted from the segregationist beliefs he held at the beginning of his ministry. While Falwell’s prominent roles in the Religious Right and Moral Majority have previously been explored, this paper seeks to present …

Immigration, Incarceration, Deportation: Asian Americans In The Criminal Justice System, Agnes Mung

History

Asian Americans have been long overlooked in the United States for their contributions and have been restricted by ever-changing stereotypes and perceptions. Within the Asian American community, the incarcerated population and former criminals have been hidden because of cultural stigmas and missing statistics. In the 1980s, a large population of Asian American youth were becoming involved in criminal activity because of difficulty adapting to life in the United States after arriving at a young age. Gang membership and racial profiling increased the chances that Asian Americans would be arrested, although Asian Americans are less likely to be sentenced to prison …

The Slaughterhouse Cases: “Unforeseen” Consequences And Public Reaction, Gavin Jensen

Departmental Honors Projects

This Project focuses on the Slaughterhouse Cases, the ramifications of the Supreme Court decision, and the reaction to the decision from the public. The Slaughterhouse Cases were a series of cases originating in New Orleans around the year 1869. The white, French butchers inside the city of New Orleans had been creating a sanitary and health issue for the city for decades. The lack of ways to dispose of offal and inedible product mixed with general apathy from the butchers as to how their practices were impacting the city led to widespread cholera epidemics.

To solve this issue the newly …

Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Foreword, I make the case for an abolition constitutionalism that attends to the theorizing of prison abolitionists. In Part I, I provide a summary of prison abolition theory and highlight its foundational tenets that engage with the institution of slavery and its eradication. I discuss how abolition theorists view the current prison industrial complex as originating in, though distinct from, racialized chattel slavery and the racial capitalist regime that relied on and sustained it, and their movement as completing the “unfinished liberation” sought by slavery abolitionists in the past. Part II considers whether the U.S. Constitution is an …

What Happens In Vagueness Stays In Vagueness: The United States Constitution's Ideas On Race, Austin Clements

History Class Publications

The United States’ Constitution, while it may not explicitly discuss race in detail, has echoes of race throughout both its language and its history. Even during the origination of the Constitution, the inclusion of slavery was a hotly contested subject among the authors of the Constitution. The United States’ Constitution only uses the words “race” and “color” once and that is in the Fifteenth Amendment, which essentially gave black Americans the right to vote. While the US Constitution may not explicitly talk about race much, I argue that race is a present theme throughout the Constitution as well as behind …

Eugenics, Margaret Ann Donnell

History Class Publications

Naturally, and quite understandably, people avoid discussing the dark periods of human history, specifically the inconceivable acts of dehumanization imposed on their fellow man.

Individuals struggle to understand, sometimes simply because they cannot fathom, how a person—and in some cases, an institution—can manipulate and devalue another human being or groups of people. Often, the standards by which those with the “authority” to determine the lack of worth of the individual or population are arbitrary and subjective.

All of this is relevant in a conversation over the eugenics movement of the United States, occurring in the early to mid-twentieth century.

When …

American Exceptionalism In Mass Incarceration, Isabell Murray

Global Honors Theses

American exceptionalism is often positively connotated; America’s exceptionalism often refers to the nation’s unique, progressive ideals of liberty during the nation’s founding, as well as the premise of a free Democratic Republic. While the United States of America has many positive and exceptional qualities, this research illustrates an unfortunate exceptional American quality: the mass incarceration of over 2.3 million people in the United States of America. This paper reviews the literature to understand the evolution of mass incarceration on the basis of three lines: the United States’ history of race, the nation’s governmental structure and the development of policy. Additionally, …

The Military As A Social Experiment: Challenging A Trope, Jacqueline E. Whitt, Elizabeth A. Perazzo

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

A Painful History : Symbols Of The Confederacy: A Conversation About The Tension Between Preserving History And Declaring Contemporary Values 1-19-2018, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Precarious Responsibility: Teaching With Feminist Politics In The Marketized University, Lena Wånggren

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

One of the most pressing characteristics of the neoliberal restructuring of academia, together with increased managerialism, performativity measures, and a “customer service” approach, is the casualization or precarization of academic work. Casualization entails a fragmentation of academic work, where academics are forced to move between workplaces on hourly-paid and fixed-term contracts, often doing their job without access to resources such as an office, training, or paid research time. While a number of feminist scholars have investigated the ways in which feminist academics negotiate the ever-increasing mechanisms of individualization, ranking, and auditing of their work, this article focuses on the precarious …

The Loving Analogy: Race And The Early Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Samuel W D Walburn

The Purdue Historian

In the early same-sex marriage debates advocates and opponents of marriage equality often relied upon comparing mixed-race marriage jurisprudence and the Loving v Virginia decision in order to conceptualize same-sex marriage cases. Liberal commentators relied upon the analogy between the Loving decision in order to carve out space for the protection of same-sex marriage rights. Conservative scholars, however, denounced the equal protection and due process claims that relied on the sameness of race and sexuality as inexact parallels. Finally, queer and black radicals called the goal of marriage equality into question by highlighting the white supremacist and heterosexist nature of …

"Only Steers And Queers Come From Texas": The Texas Sodomy Statutes And The Making Of An Other, 1860-1973, Jecoa Ross

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis explores the history of sodomy as it has been conceptualized through the creation and enforcement of the Texas sodomy statutes between 1860 and 1973. In analyzing state court cases, legislative records, and newspaper accounts, I argue that the evolution of the concept of sodomy from its inception as a broad criminal category in the 1860 Texas sodomy statute to its more-narrow conceptualization by Texas legislators as a behavioral characteristic of homosexual status in the 1973 homosexual conduct statute was a political and historically contingent process. This process was political firstly in that it allowed for the construction of …

Seeing Color In Black And White : New York Defines Its Color Line In Ridgway V. Cockburn In 1937, Nicholas A. Soares

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis examines the role Ridgway v. Cockburn played in exposing the “Negro race” as a subjective experience rather than a definitive label. Blacks in the 20th century were seen as undesirable. The NAACP fought for blacks’s rights to property and justice in the courts. Racially restrictive covenants became a popular method used by whites to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods. Arthur Garfield Hays, a white lawyer, defended the Cockburns as they moved into Edgemont Hills, a white elite neighborhood.

“El No Murio, El Se Multiplico!” Hugo Chávez : The Leadership And The Legacy On Race, Cynthia Ann Mckinney

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

“Chávez, Chávez, Chávez: Chávez no murio, se multiplico!” was the chant outside the National Assembly building after several days of mourning the death of the first President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This study investigates the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his legacy on race as seen through the eyes and experiences of selected interviewees and his legacy on race. The interviewees were selected based on familiarity with the person and policies of the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his legacy on race. Unfortunately, not much has been written about this aspect of Hugo Chávez despite the myriad attempts …

Shelby County V. Holder - Brief Contextualized, Mark W. Wolfe

Student Publications

This paper begins with three major factors that set the stage for Shelby: first, a history of the VRA; second, an overview of Northwest Austin with a focus on how it led directly to Shelby; and finally, Shelby County’s motivations for bringing the suit. An examination of racial demographics compared to statistics on voter registration and minority officeholders in Alabama and Louisiana—two states originally subject to preclearance—follows in light of the Court’s claims on the matter. A conclusion will take a brief look at laws passed since Shelby with an eye towards a future critique. [excerpt]

America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions Of Power And Community, Robert Tsai

Robert L Tsai

The U.S. Constitution opens by proclaiming the sovereignty of all citizens: "We the People." Robert Tsai's gripping history of alternative constitutions invites readers into the circle of those who have rejected this ringing assertion--the defiant groups that refused to accept the Constitution's definition of who "the people" are and how their authority should be exercised. America's Forgotten Constitutions is the story of America as told by dissenters: squatters, Native Americans, abolitionists, socialists, internationalists, and racial nationalists. Beginning in the nineteenth century, Tsai chronicles eight episodes in which discontented citizens took the extraordinary step of drafting a new constitution. He examines …

Decolonizing Higher Education: Black Feminism And The Intersectionality Of Race And Gender, Heidi Safia Mirza

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Drawing on black feminist theory, this paper examines the professional experiences of postcolonial diasporic black and ethnicized female academics in higher education.1 The paper explores the embodiment of gendered and racialized difference and reflects on the power of whiteness to shape everyday experiences in such places of privilege. The powerful yet hidden histories of women of color in higher education, such as the Indian women suffragettes and Cornelia Sorabji in late nineteenth century, are symbolic of the erasure of an ethnicized black feminist/womanist presence in mainstream (white) educational establishments. The paper concludes that an understanding of black and ethnicized female …

Teaching Postcolonial Literature In An Elite University: An Edinburgh Lecturer’S Perspective, Michelle Keown

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This reflective essay explores some of the pedagogical challenges I have faced in teaching postcolonial literature and theory at the University of Edinburgh. There are particular social dynamics at work at Edinburgh that make engaging with intersectionality, particularly in the context of colonialism and racism, a rather complex endeavor. Edinburgh is a Russell Group university, and our undergraduate constituency is overwhelmingly white, middle class and British, with a high proportion of students coming from British public-school backgrounds. Many of these students approach postcolonial writing with well-meaning liberal intentions, but often adopt what Graham Huggan (2001) would term an exoticizing perspective …

Neoliberalism And Public University Agendas: Tensions Along The Global/Local Divide, Peter Wanyenya, Donna Lester-Smith

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Over the last decade, internationalization efforts have accelerated at leading postsecondary institutions in North America and elsewhere, with universities now aggressively competing for the most talented students worldwide. With the focus on recruiting international students, one of the major attendant objectives has seemingly been a social-justice-oriented agenda on tackling pressing global issues; the local has indeed become the global. However, not everyone is ostensibly benefiting from this new global focus. For some, their local issues and conditions are increasingly precarious and nonprioritized in institutional and broadening neoliberal governmental agendas. In the Canadian context, various Indigenous and low-income racialized communities, youth …

Introduction To The Workplace Constitution From The New Deal To The New Right, Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Today, most American workers do not have constitutional rights on the job. As The Workplace Constitution shows, this outcome was far from inevitable. Instead, American workers have a long history of fighting for such rights. Beginning in the 1930s, civil rights advocates sought constitutional protections against racial discrimination by employers and unions. At the same time, a conservative right-to-work movement argued that the Constitution protected workers from having to join or support unions. Those two movements, with their shared aim of extending constitutional protections to American workers, were a potentially powerful combination. But they sought to use those protections to …