Law Commons^™

Privacy Doesn't Exist In A Vacuum, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Windsor, Surrogacy, And Race, Khiara Bridges

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars and activists interested in racial justice have long been opposed to surrogacy arrangements, wherein a couple commissions a woman to become pregnant, give birth to a baby, and surrender the baby to the couple to raise as its own. Their fear has been that surrogacy arrangements will magnify racial inequalities inasmuch as wealthy white people will look to poor women of color to carry and give birth to the white babies that the couples covet. However, perhaps critical thinkers about race should reconsider their contempt for surrogacy following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor. In …

We Don't Need A "Right To Be Forgotten." We Need A Right To Evolve, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

The sad symptom of a judgmental culture

Why The Supreme Court Beard Case Matters, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Serious Is The Supreme Court About Religious Freedom?, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

A new case will test whether the justices' defense of conscience in Hobby Lobby applies to minority religions like Muslims, or just to Christians.

10 Reasons Preet Bharara Should Be The Next Attorney General, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Angela Harris: The Person, The Teacher, The Scholar, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

Angela Harris has written eloquently about the creative tensions that define her as a person, a teacher, and a scholar. She has explored the challenges of maintaining a private identity when called upon to share her life experience with a public audience, whether in the classroom, at a conference, or in an essay. She has reflected on the ways in which legal teaching privileges reason over emotion, wondering whether this dynamic impoverishes the exchange of ideas and undervalues the joy that can motivate a caring advocate. And, she has explored the dialectic between identity politics and the structural forces that …

Competitive Federalism: Five Clarifying Questions, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

Before I looked into the two fine books we are reviewing here,1 I would have said that arguments from federalism are typically fraudulent, neither more nor less than deliberate attempts to cloud the discussion of real issues. Now that I have read what Sotirios A. Barber and Michael S. Greve have written, I am largely confirmed in my prejudices. But my suspicions about federalism contentions have been shaken a bit – enough to ask some questions of Professor Greve, whose answers might persuade me that there is some good in this federalism business, after all. I doubt it, but I …

Introduction: Challenging Authority: A Symposium Honoring Derrick Bell, Jasmine Gonzales Rose

Faculty Scholarship

This is the Introduction to the University of Pittsburgh Law Review’s Challenging Authority: A Symposium Honoring Derrick Bell (L.L.B. 1957). This special symposium issue of the 75th volume of the Law Review celebrates and seeks to continue Bell’s critical inquiry into and fight against racial injustice. It features leading and emerging voices that examine and build upon some of Bell’s most eminent concepts, such as the permanence of racism and Interest Convergence Theory; explore Bell’s impact as a professor and activist; and look ahead to the next wave of critical race study.

Language Disenfranchisement In Juries: A Call For Constitutional Remediation, Jasmine Gonzales Rose

Faculty Scholarship

Approximately thirteen million U.S. citizens, mostly Latinos and other people of color, are denied the right to serve on juries due to English language requirements and despite the possibility (and centuries-old tradition) of juror language accommodation. This exclusion results in the underrepresentation of racial minorities on juries and has a detrimental impact on criminal defendants, the perceived legitimacy of the justice system, and citizen participation in democracy. Yet, it has been virtually ignored. This Article examines the constitutionality of juror language requirements, focusing primarily on equal protection and the fair cross section requirement of the Sixth Amendment. Finding the existing …

Let's Talk About Race, Ronald E. Wheeler

Faculty Scholarship

Despite other scholars’ suggestions that law librarianship and the American Association of Law Libraries lack diversity, Mr. Wheeler examines numerical and anecdotal data indicating that efforts to promote racial and ethnic diversity within AALL and the profession are beginning to show positive results.

Legal Education At A Crossroads: Innovation, Integration, And Pluralism Required!, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez, Robert F. Seibel, Peggy Maisel, Karen Tokarz

Faculty Scholarship

We conclude in this Article that expanded practice-based, experiential education will provide foundational learning for the successful transition from law student to law practice, and that clinical education (in-house clinics, hybrid clinics, and externships) is crucial to the preparation of competent, ethical law graduates who are "ready to become professionals." We urge law schools to require each graduate complete a minimum of twenty-one experiential course credits over the three years of law school, including at least five credits in law clinics or externships. Twenty-one required credits (or roughly 25 percent of the eighty-three required credits for graduation from an American …

Judicial Modesty In The Wartime Context, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

“The most important thing we do is not doing,” Justice Louis D. Brandeis noted of the Supreme Court. At the height of the Civil War, the Supreme Court in Roosevelt v. Meyer claimed that it could not review, and therefore let stand, a state court decision upholding the Legal Tender Act (“Act”), a critical wartime measure designed to stabilize the Union economy and fund the Union’s war efforts. In this essay, I suggest that this oft-overlooked case warrants the legal community’s consideration because it implicates a question fundamental to our constitutional system: should the courts decline judicial review—or, “not do”—in …

Brief Of Public Law Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Retaining Color, Veronica Root

Faculty Scholarship

It is no secret that large law firms are struggling in their efforts to retain attorneys of color. This is despite two decades of aggressive tracking of demographic rates, mandates from clients to improve demographic diversity, and the implementation of a variety of diversity efforts within large law firms. In part, law firm retention efforts are stymied by the reality that elite, large law firms require some level of attrition to function properly under the predominant business model. This reality, however, does not explain why firms have so much difficulty retaining attorneys of color—in particular black and Hispanic attorneys.

And …

Title Vii At 50: Contemporary Challenges For U.S. Employment Discrimination Law, Trina Jones

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Race Inequity Fifty Years Later: Language Rights Under The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Jasmine Gonzales Rose

Faculty Scholarship

As Latinos have become the largest racialized minority in the United States, we should ask whether the civil rights laws of yesterday are equipped to address the race problems of today. Half a century after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racial discrimination still exists, but it manifests itself differently. Rather than explicitly barring someone from employment, education, public accommodations, or civic participation on the basis of his or her race, racially discriminatory exclusion is often couched in seemingly race-neutral terms. English language requirements are one example of this. A sign outside a restaurant stating, “No Mexicans, …

The Islamic Influence In (Pre-)Colonial And Early America: A Historico-Legal Snapshot, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Following Fisher: Narrowly Tailoring Affirmative Action, Eang L. Ngov

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hiv, Violence Against Women, And Criminal Law Interventions, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

The growing calls for the “securitization of body and property,”[ii] documented by Jonathan Simon in his book Governing Through Crime, illustrates a deep tension in our understanding of the role of criminal law as a tool for societal transformation.[iii] For some, including communities of color, the criminal legal system is a place where inequality flourishes;[iv] for others, including those feminists who have support criminal law interventions, it has become a tool to realize equality.[v] The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, reauthorized in 2013 as an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA),[vi] relies heavily on the criminal law to obtain …

Name Narratives: A Tool For Examining And Cultivating Identify, Margaret E. Montoya, Irene Morris Vasquez, Diana V. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

This paper uses Critical Race Theory and LatCrit terminology, analytical approaches, and discursive conventions, including autobiographical narratives. From their inception, names are embedded with meaning and coded with identity, and over time, they become layered with nuance and memory. We divide this article into three sections, Part I is a brief overview of recent commentaries in newspapers and public radio related to names, particularly as they pertain to identity and specifically to Latinas/os. Part II is a description of how Professor Irene Vasquez has used Name Narratives in the undergraduate classroom to help students deepen their understanding of their cultural …

The Story Behind A Letter In Support Of Professor Derrick Bell, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

Jointly authored with Cheryl Nelson Butler, Sherrilyn Ifill, Suzette Malveaux, Natsu Taylor Saito, Nareissa L. Smith and Tanya Washington. Professor Derrick A. Bell, Jr. had a long and proud history of disturbing authority. He is widely noted as one of the founders of Critical Race Theory. His scholarship on race was not only a direct challenge to the traditionally conservative legal academy, but also to the more liberal bastions within the academy, such as the Critical Legal Studies movement. His writings about the role of race in American law have made him one of the most prominent legal scholars of …

Probabilities, Perceptions, Consequences And "Discrimination": One Puzzle About Controversial "Stop And Frisk", Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

A troubling aspect of the practice of "stop and frisk" in New York and other cities is the evidence that this police tactic is employed predominantly against young men in racial minorities. On August 12, 2013, the federal district court ruled in Floyd v. City of New York that New York's practices and policies regarding stop and frisk violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and its Due Process Clause, which makes the Fourth Amendment ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures" applicable against the states. Judge Shira A. Scheindlin found that a number of specific stops and subsequent …

Foreword: A Tribute To Margaret Montoya, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

Dean Moran provides opening remarks to the Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review symposium, "Un/Masking Power: The Past, Present, and Future of Marginal Identities in Legal Academia."

Street Stops And Police Legitimacy: Teachable Moments In Young Urban Men's Legal Socialization, Tom Tyler, Jeffrey Fagan, Amanda Geller

Faculty Scholarship

An examination of the influence of street stops on the legal socialization of young men showed an association between the number of police stops they see or experience and a diminished sense of police legitimacy. This association was not primarily a consequence of the number of stops or of the degree of police intrusion during those stops. Rather, the impact of involuntary contact with the police was mediated by evaluations of the fairness of police actions and judgments about whether the police were acting lawfully. Whether the police were viewed as exercising their authority fairly and lawfully shaped the impact …

Leveraging Antidiscrimination, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

As the Civil Rights Act of 1964 turns fifty, antidiscrimination law has become unfashionable. Civil rights strategies are posited as not up to the serious task of addressing contemporary problems of inequality such as improving mobility for low-wage workers or providing access into entry-level employment. This Article argues that there is a danger in casting aside the Civil Rights Act as one charts new courses to address inequality. This Article revisits the implementation strategies that emerged in the first decade of the Act to reveal that the Act was not limited to addressing formal discrimination or bias, but rather drew …