Law Commons^™

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 …

The White Supremacist Constitution, Ruth Colker

Utah Law Review

The United States Constitution is a document that, during every era, has helped further white supremacy. White supremacy constitutes a “political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings.”1 Rather than understand the Constitution as a force for progressive structural change, we should understand it as a barrier to change.

From its inception, the Constitution enshrined slavery and the degradation of Black people by …

Protecting A Woman’S Right To Abortion During A Public Health Crisis, San Juanita Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

As COVID-19 infected our nation, states were quick to issue executive orders restricting various aspects of daily life under the pretense of public safety. It was clear at the outset that certain civil liberties were going to be tested. Among them, the constitutional right to an abortion.

This comment explores Texas’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the limitations it imposed on abortion access. It will attempt to address the legitimacy of the “public health concerns” listed in executive orders issued throughout numerous states and will discuss the pertinent legal framework and judicial scrutiny to apply.

According to the Fifth …

Giving The Equal Rights Amendment Teeth: A Proposal For Gender Equality Legislation Modeled After The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Samantha Gagnon

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Contrary to the belief of eighty percent of Americans, the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. The effect of this lack of protection can be seen in every corner of our society, including economic inequalities and a lack of representation in leadership. For almost one hundred years, women’s organizations and activists have attempted to rectify this by advocating for the inclusion of an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the Constitution. In the past few years, there has been a revived push for the ERA due to the amendment’s first congressional hearing in thirty-six years, …

Reparations And The International Law Origin Story, John Linarelli

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.