Law Commons^™

Proclaiming Emancipation, University Of Michigan Law School, William L. Clements Library, Martha S. Jones

Event Materials

Program for Proclaiming Emancipation, held October 15 2012 - February 18 2013. This was a combination exhibit and symposium. Martha S. Jones and Clayton Lewis were Curators.

As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, commemorations can be a site for complex and nuanced reflections. They can also sanitize a messy past, making it palatable for popular consumption. Proclaiming Emancipation confronts myths with history. Oftentimes competing voices proclaim that no longer does Proclamation stand as an exceptional moment from the U.S. past. Instead, we understand January 1, 1863 as being situated on a timeline that stretches from …

Dawinder S. Sidhu On Hate Crimes, Terrorism, And Sikhs, Dawinder S. Sidhu, Benjamin Wittes

Faculty Scholarship

Dawinder S. Sidhu of the University of New Mexico School of Law writes in with the following comments on the fallout from the shooting at the Sikh Temple at Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Oak Creek And The Future Of Sikhs In America, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In The Wake Of The Temple Shootings, A New Call For Sikh Leadership, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ut Case Was Stop On Road To Brown V. Board Of Education, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

“Before Brown: Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice” is Gary Lavergne’s treatment of Sweatt v. Painter, an important 1950 Supreme Court decision on the way to Brown. Lavergne, director of admissions research at the University of Texas, tells an interesting and important story that fills many gaps between Plessy and Brown.

Violence Against Sikhs Stems From Ignorance And Fear, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Call The Colorado Shootings What They Were: Terrorism, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Minority Over-Representation In The Criminal Justice System―The Impact On African American Women, Families And Their Communities And Important Emerging Interventions, Brenda V. Smith

Presentations

sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in partnership with Mental Health Systems, Inc.

Families Of Color In Crisis: Bearing The Weight Of The Financial Market Meltdown, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Faculty Scholarship

The financial market crisis of 2008 landed heaviest and hardest upon communities of color. In the minority communities that continue to bear the crushing weight of this crisis—which continues unrequited—women of color, and by extension, their families, are by far the group most devastated by the global market meltdown. In an ultimate irony, most economists, scholars, and commentators now agree that the collapse, which continues to ravage Main Street, was caused primarily by a select group of privileged white men–i.e., Wall Street executives, bankers, and the politicians purchased by Wall Street largess. The impact of Wall Street’s fascination with securitizing …

Religious Freedom And Inmate Grooming Standards, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I argue that the Eleventh Circuit's general legal approach to such religious freedom claims and its support for restrictive inmate grooming standards are no longer sustainable. That is, a substantial and increasing number of jurisdictions have been able to respond to their penological concerns-the same penological interests that undergird and justify the restrictive inmate grooming standards adopted by the states within the Eleventh Circuit-without abridging the rights of inmates to grow their hair in accordance with their respective faiths. Accordingly, I posit that the Eleventh Circuit's jurisprudence must not only be revisited, but replaced with a more …

Derrick Bell: Godfather Provocateur, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Derrick Bell, the originator and founder of Critical Race Theory, passed away on October 5, 2011 at the age of 80. Around the world he is considered a hero, mentor, friend and exemplar. Known as a creative innovator and agitator, Professor Bell often sacrificed his career in the name of principles and objectives, inspiring a generation of scholars of color and progressive lawyers everywhere. Bell resigned a tenured position on the Harvard Law School faculty to protest Harvard’s refusal to hire and tenure women of color onto its law school faculty. For the past twenty years, Professor Bell taught …

Disparately Seeking Jurors: Disparate Impact And The (Mis)Use Of Batson, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How 'Duty To Retreat' Became 'Stand Your Ground', Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

(Re)Forming The Jury: Detection And Disinfection Of Implicit Juror Bias, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Looking South: Race, Gender, And The Transformation Of Labor From Reconstruction To Globalization By Mary E. Frederickson, Joel E. Black

Book Reviews

No abstract provided.

We Are Mad About The Wrong Thing, Tanya M. Washington

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Is Color Blind Justice Also Culturally Blind? The Cultural Blindness In Justice, Shiv Narayan Persaud

Journal Publications

As diverse ethnic groups continue to experience numeric growth and societal grounding in America, their advocacies for culturally competent representation within the legal system cannot be ignored or underplayed. Undoubtedly, some professions such as mental and physical health, and their related sectors, have developed and continue to integrate cultural competencies into their respective practices. Others such as the legal profession seem to lag in their advocacies and promotion of culturally competent practices.

In the criminal justice system, where discretionary legal decision-making authority is commonplace and may grossly affect the civil liberties of the citizenry, a paucity of standards requiring cultural …

Reimagining Criminal Prosecution: Toward A Color-Conscious Professional Ethic For Prosecutors, Justin Murray

Articles & Chapters

Prosecutors, like mostAmericans, view the criminal-justice system asfundamentally race neutral. They are aware that blacks are stopped, searched, arrested, and locked up in numbers that are vastly out of proportion to their fraction of the overall population. Yet, they generally assume that this outcome is justified because it reflects the sad reality that blacks commit a disproportionate share of crime in America. They are unable to detect the ways in which their own discretionary choices-and those of other actors in the criminal-justice system, such as legislators, police officers, and jurors-contribute to the staggering and disproportionate incarceration of black Americans. In …

Remediating Discrimination Against African American Females At The Intersection Of Title Ix And Title Vi, Alfred Dennis Mathewson

Faculty Scholarship

In Part I, I present a brief treatment of intersectionality in anti-discrimination law focusing on the distinction between cause of action and remedy. Harm caused by gender or racial discrimination may give rise to causes of action based on equal protection principles." In Part II, I go further and argue that the primary intersectionality problem presented by Title IX is one of remedy. I conclude that the differences in the remedial effects of Title IX result, in part, from unremedied racial discrimination, a conclusion that begins with Professor Jerome Dees's argument that Brown v. Board of Education and anti-discrimination laws …

Achieving Reproductive Justice In The International Surrogacy Market, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

Men and women are increasingly seeking surrogacy arrangements outside of their home country, mainly due to legal restrictions or the high cost of surrogacy in their home countries. Global surrogacy raises numerous issues including the economic status of women involved in surrogacy arrangements, poverty, issues related to what motherhood means and how women from different ethnic, socioeconomic, class, and national backgrounds interact in the global surrogacy market. This essay analyzes whether reproductive justice exists in the current international surrogacy market. Reproductive justice refers to the normative concept that all women, regardless of their ethnic, racial, national, social, or economic backgrounds, …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Thirteenth Amendment Scholars In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellee And Affirmance, William M. Carter Jr., Dawinder S. Sidhu, Alexander Tsesis, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Amici Briefs

In the case of United States v. Hatch, the defendant in a hate crimes prosecution brought the first major challenge to the constitutionality of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. This amicus brief argues that the Act is constitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment.

Foreword: Doing The Hard Work, Jose R. "Beto" Juarez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Predatory Mortgage Lending Changed African American Communities And Families, Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

This symposium focuses on efforts to reform the secondary mortgage market in the aftermath of the most potent economic downturn in U.S. history since The Great Depression. One question posed at the symposium in several forms was whether low-income Americans should be encouraged to own a home. Implicit in this question is the idea that low­-income homebuyers were responsible for the losses that investors in mortgage-backed securities incurred. This question is part of a familiar narrative: investors in mortgage-backed securities suffered, and the economy suffered, because low-income homebuyers defaulted. My essay, however, looks beyond the alleged irresponsibility of homebuyers …

The Thirteenth Amendment And Pro-Equality Speech, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment’s Framers envisioned the Amendment as providing federal authority to eliminate the “badges and incidents of slavery.” The freemen and their descendants are the most likely to be burdened with the effects of stigma, stereotypes, and structural discrimination arising from the slave system. Because African Americans are therefore the most obvious beneficiaries of the Amendment’s promise to eliminate the legacy of slavery, it is often mistakenly assumed that federal power to eradicate the badges and incidents of slavery only permits remedies aimed at redressing the subordination of African Americans. While African Americans were the primary victims of slavery …

Confronting Race In The Criminal Justice System: The Aba's Racial Justice Improvement Project, Cynthia E. Jones

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

A Fresh Cut In An Old Wound–A Critical Analysis Of The Trayvon Martin Killing: The Public Outcry, The Prosecutors’ Discretion, And The Stand Your Ground Law, Tamara F. Lawson

Articles

If the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case is to have value beyond its immediate facts, it is important to consider the case through a broad lens that encompasses law, politics, and culture and the relevant intersectionality of each. This essay gives a contextualized historical perspective with which to view the Black community’s reaction to the initial lack of criminal charges in the case. It explains why the circumstances surrounding Trayvon’s death were experienced as a fresh cut in an old, but deep, collective wound, for many Blacks. It addresses the exacerbation African Americans felt regarding law enforcement’s perceived indifference towards Trayvon, …

Rebellious State Crimmigration Enforcement And The Foreign Affairs Power, Mary Fan

Articles

The propriety of a new breed of state laws interfering in immigration enforcement is pending before the Supreme Court and the lower courts. These laws typically incorporate federal standards related to the criminalization of immigration ("crimmigration'), but diverge aggressively from federal enforcement policy. Enacting states argue that the legislation is merely a species of "cooperative federalism" that does not trespass upon the federal power over foreign affairs, foreign commerce, and nationality rules since the laws mirror federal standards. This Article challenges the formalist mirror theory assumptions behind the new laws and argues that inconsistent state crimmigration enforcement policy and resulting …

Tiger Cub Strikes Back: Memoirs Of An Ex-Child Prodigy About Legal Education And Parenting, Peter H. Huang

Publications

I am a Chinese American who at 14 enrolled at Princeton and at 17 began my applied mathematics Ph.D. at Harvard. I was a first-year law student at the University of Chicago before transferring to Stanford, preferring the latter's pedagogical culture. This Article offers a complementary account to Amy Chua's parenting memoir. The Article discusses how mainstream legal education and tiger parenting are similar and how they can be improved by fostering life-long learning about character strengths, emotions, and ethics. I also recount how a senior professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school claimed to have gamed the U.S. …

Race As A Legal Concept, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

Race is a legal concept, and like all legal concepts, it is a matrix of rules. Although the legal conception of race has shifted over time, up from slavery and to the present, one element in the matrix has remained the same: the background rules of race have always taken a view of racial identity as a natural aspect of human biology. To be sure, characterizations of the rule have oftentimes kept pace with developments in race science, and the original invention of race as a rationale for the subordination of certain human populations is now a rationale with little …

"Other Spaces" In Legal Pedagogy, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

There is an increasing focus upon the material and metaphoric spatial dimensions of various academic disciplines, including law. This essay considers the spatial dimensions of legal pedagogy, focusing on Critical Race Theory (CRT). The essay first explains the "critical program" in law and how CRT grows out of it. The essay then suggests that the critical program, and especially CRT, is as much a human geographic or spatial construct as it is a social, political or historic one, and briefly describes the nature of human geography and legal geography. It next considers how metaphors for understanding CRT's position in legal …