Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Serving Only To Oppress: An Intersectional And Critical Race Analysis Of Constitutional Originalism Inflicting Harm, Ethan Dawson
Serving Only To Oppress: An Intersectional And Critical Race Analysis Of Constitutional Originalism Inflicting Harm, Ethan Dawson
Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality
“[T]imes can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress.” - Justice Anthony Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
This Note will first focus on a historical analysis of originalist constitutional interpretation, drawing attention to initial disparities in the Constitution incompatible with our current social context. It will discuss modern originalism as a method of perpetuating systemic shortcomings, drawing specific attention to originalist interpretation as a method of oppression against white women and people of color, specifically Black women. In analyzing the harm originalism does to …
Systemic Racism In The U.S. Immigration Laws, Kevin R. Johnson
Systemic Racism In The U.S. Immigration Laws, Kevin R. Johnson
Indiana Law Journal
This Essay analyzes how aggressive activism in a California mountain town at the tail end of the nineteenth century commenced a chain reaction resulting in state and ultimately national anti-Chinese immigration laws. The constitutional immunity through which the Supreme Court upheld those laws deeply affected the future trajectory of U.S. immigration law and policy.
Responding to sustained political pressure from the West, Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, an infamous piece of unabashedly racist legislation that commenced a long process of barring immigration from all of Asia to the United States. In upholding the Act, the Supreme Court …