Law Commons^™

The Road Not Taken: A Critical Juncture In Racial Preferences For Naturalized Citizenship, Ming Hsu Chen

William & Mary Law Review

In The “Free White Person” Clause of the Naturalization Act of 1790 as Super-Statute, Gabriel Jack Chin and Paul Finkelman argue that racist results in naturalization have arisen despite, or maybe because of, the race neutral interpretation. This happened in a manner that could have been predicted by the federal government’s attitudes toward non-White persons in the Naturalization Act of 1790 and the nearly unbroken chain of legal developments. This leads them to think of the law as a “super-statute.” While I agree that this is the path actually taken in history, I view the mid-1960s civil rights era …

Paradoxical Citizenship, Amanda Frost

William & Mary Law Review

In their article, The “Free White Person” Clause of the Naturalization Act of 1790 as Super-Statute, Gabriel J. Chin and Paul Finkelman make a powerful case that the Naturalization Act of 1790 is a “super-statute” that has shaped not only U.S. immigration law and policy, but also America’s conception of itself as a “White nation.”

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This Comment explores the conflict between the Naturalization Act’s racial restrictions on citizenship (and its proponents’ vision of the United States as a White nation) and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause (and its proponents’ vision of the United States as a multiracial …

Testing Privilege: Coaching Bar Takers Towards “Minimum Competency” During The 2020 Pandemic, Benjamin Afton Cavanaugh

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

Abstract forthcoming.

Is Solitary Confinement A Punishment?, John F. Stinneford

Northwestern University Law Review

The United States Constitution imposes a variety of constraints on the imposition of punishment, including the requirements that the punishment be authorized by a preexisting penal statute and ordered by a lawful judicial sentence. Today, prison administrators impose solitary confinement on thousands of prisoners despite the fact that neither of these requirements has been met. Is this imposition a “punishment without law,” or is it a mere exercise of administrative discretion? In an 1890 case called In re Medley, the Supreme Court held that solitary confinement is a separate punishment subject to constitutional restraints, but it has ignored this …

United States V. Hatahley: A Legal Archaeology Case Study In Law And Racial Conflict, Debora L. Threedy

American Indian Law Review

This article is a case study of United States v. Hatahley using the methodology of "legal archaeology" to reconstruct the historical, social, and economic context of the litigation. In 1953, a group of individual Navajos brought suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the destruction of over one hundred horses and burros. The first section of the article presents two contrasting narratives for the case. The first relates what we know about the case from the reported opinions, while the second locates the litigated case within the larger social context by examining the parties, the history of incidents culminating …