Law Commons^™

Newroom: Do Lord Remember Me: Black Church In Ri 02-21-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Increased Franchising Opportunities For Minorities: Some Legal Options, Philip Harris, Frank J. Macchiarola

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Discrimination In Employment, Housing, And Education: Constitutional Concepts And Social Theories, Frederick D. Braid

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Ideology, Race, And The Death Penalty: "Lies, Damn Lies, And Statistics" In Advocacy Research, Anthony Walsh, Virginia Hatch

Journal of Ideology

We use the literature on race in death penalty to illustrate the hold that ideology has on researchers and journalists alike when a social issue is charged with emotional content. We note particularly how statistical evidence become misinterpreted in ways that support a particular ideology, either because of innumeracy or because—subconsciously or otherwise—one’s ideology precludes a critical analysis. We note that because white defendants are now proportionately more likely to receive the death penalty and to be executed than black defendants that the argument has shifted from a defendant-based to a victim-based one. We examine studies based on identical data …

Forgotten Youth: Homeless Lgbt Youth Of Color And The Runaway And Homeless Youth Act, Michelle Page

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Over the years, the rate of youth homelessness in America has steadily risen, prompting the creation and subsequent revision of corrective policies. One such policy is the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act of 1974. The Act is not a cure-all for homelessness but it does provide services and programs specifically designed to aid homeless youth. It has had some success, but not all homeless youth benefit from it equally.

Obviously, the youth population is not a homogenous one. Youth are of varying ages, races, genders, and sexualities. Unfortunately, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act does not specifically account for these …

Dismantling The School-To-Prison Pipeline: Tools For Change, Jason P. Nance

Jason P. Nance

The school-to-prison pipeline is one of our nation’s most formidable challenges. It refers to the trend of directly referring students to law enforcement for committing certain offenses at school or creating conditions under which students are more likely to become involved in the criminal justice system, such as excluding them from school. This article analyzes the school-to-prison pipeline’s devastating consequences on students, its causes, and its disproportionate impact on students of color. But most importantly, this article comprehensively identifies and describes specific, evidence-based tools to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline that lawmakers, school administrators, and teachers in all areas can immediately …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Gonzalez's Post: Why I Marched... 1-25-2017, Deborah Gonzalez

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Jim Crow Effect: Denial, Dignity, Human Rights, And Racialized Mass Incarceration, 29 J. Civ. Rts. & Econ. Dev 15 (2016), Cecil J. Hunt Ii

Cecil J. Hunt II

The overarching theme of this paper is that the racialization of mass incarceration in America, which has been taking place since the latter part of the last century, and continues to this very day, is characterized by what I term, the “Jim Crow effect".

Trending @ Rwu Law: David Logan's Post: Reliving The Civil Rights Movement With Rep. John Lewis 1-17-2017, David Logan

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Catholic University Law Review

When individuals in the United States face civil justice issues, they are not entitled to legal counsel and therefore must secure paid counsel, proceed pro se or qualify for free legal assistance. As a result of the economic downturn, the number of Americans who are unable to afford legal counsel is now at an all-time high. In response to this ever-widening justice gap, the public interest community has launched multiple initiatives to supplement the underfunded legal aid system. Though valiant, this article argues that this approach has unfortunately created a complex, fragmented and overlapping delivery system for legal aid. This …

Charles A. Moose: Race, Community Policing, And Portland's First African American Police Chief, Douglas Jon Kenck-Crispin

Dissertations and Theses

In 1993, Charles Moose became Portland, Oregon's first black police chief. A nationally recognized student of the developing theories of community policing, Chief Moose's promotion was also hoped to help strengthen the diversity of the Portland Police Bureau. Ultimately, Portlanders were unable to look past Moose's public outbursts and demeanor and recognize his accomplishments. As a city, they missed an opportunity.

This thesis uses transcripts of speeches and policy papers to present some political history to the reader, but also letters to the mayor's office, letters to the editor and the like to consider the social history of 1990's Portland. …

Reproducing Gender And Race Inequality In The Blawgosphere, Jane C. Murphy, Solangel Maldonado

All Faculty Scholarship

The use of the Internet and other digital media to disseminate scholarship has great potential for expanding the range of voices in legal scholarship. Legal blogging, in particular, with its shorter, more informal form, seems ideal for encouraging commentary from a diverse group of scholars. This Chapter tests this idea by exploring the role of blogging in legal scholarship and the level of participation of women and scholars of color on the most visible academic legal blogs. After noting the predominance of white male scholars as regular contributors on these blogs, we analyze the relative lack of diversity in this …

Measuring Diversity, Yuvraj Joshi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Choctaw Nation Of Oklahoma: History, Influences, And Contemporary Setting Of The Choctaw Legal Structure, Austin C. Megli

Tribal Law Journal

The goal of this tribal profile is to provide an overview of the internal laws of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma; to give a detailed emphasis on the tribe’s historic use of customary law, governance structures, enacted law, case law; and to examine how their internal law changed throughout history. By helping the reader become familiar with the history of Choctaw customary law and the contemporary structure of the Choctaw government, this profile will assist practitioners and academics in understanding the Choctaw Nation. Part I of this paper will describe the customary laws of the Choctaw Nation. Part II of …

If Trees Could Lobby They Would Be People Too: The Environmental And Cultural Benefits Of Granting Legal Personality To Nature, M. Alexis Volner

Tribal Law Journal

In the Western culture today, the environment is perceived as a source for goods and resources. However, this perspective has resulted in serious environmental degradation and a real threat to our species’ survival. To combat these problems there must be a radical shift in the Western culture’s conception of nature.

The first step in this shift is to recognize the environment as a legal person. The United States should grant legal personality to all publicly owned lands containing sites held sacred by Indigenous peoples and establish a collaborative board to manage the sites to recognize Indigenous cultural rights and encourage …

Implicit Bias In Daily Perceptions And Legal Judgments, Keith B. Maddox, Samuel R. Sommers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In today’s demonstration, we explored the audience’s positive and negative associations with blacks and whites. The demonstration is an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test (www.projectimplicit.net), a computer-based task designed to explore mental connections between various concepts. Participants were presented with a list of concepts (stereotypically black and white names, pleasant and unpleasant concepts) in a column down the middle of a screen along with the response categories (black/white or Pleasant/Unpleasant) along the left and right sides. When reading a word, participants were asked to categorize it by slapping the knee (left or right) that corresponds to the category displayed …

Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives From Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics: Question And Answer Session, Kimberly Thomas, Keith B. Maddox, Samuel R. Sommers, Patrick Barnes, Richard Leo

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A transcript of the Question and Answer session during the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Symposium, Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives from Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics.

Race And Police Power, Jamila Jefferson-Jones

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Undignified: The Supreme Court, Racial Justice, And Dignity Claims, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause as a formal equality mandate. In response, legal scholars have advocated alternative conceptions of equality, such as antisubordination theory, that interpret equal protection in more substantive terms. Antisubordination theory would consider the social context in which race-based policies emerge and recognize material distinctions between policies intended to oppress racial minorities and those designed to ameliorate past and current racism. Antisubordination theory would also closely scrutinize facially neutral state action that systemically disadvantages vulnerable social groups. The Court has largely ignored these reform proposals. Modern Supreme Court rulings, however, have invoked the …

Disparate Impact In Big Data Policing, Andrew D. Selbst

Georgia Law Review

Data-driven decision systems are taking over. No
institution in society seems immune from the
enthusiasm that automated decision-making generates,
including-and perhaps especially-the police. Police
departments are increasingly deploying data mining
techniques to predict, prevent, and investigate crime.
But all data mining systems have the potential for
adverse impacts on vulnerable communities, and
predictive policing is no different. Determining
individuals' threat levels by reference to commercial
and social data can improperly link dark skin to higher
threat levels or to greater suspicion of having
committed a particularcrime. Crime mapping based
on historical data can lead to more arrests for nuisance
crimes …

Mandation Of Two Police Officers Per Patrol Unit And The Impact Of Diversity, Jolito Rivera

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

The purpose of this research is to explore the operation of police patrol units. Many police patrol units currently lack diversity as well as accountability on police officers. The first phase of correcting the deficits of the patrol units is identifying pros and cons of the current police patrolling methods. The second phase involves alternative solutions that could be put in place to create safer and more efficient police patrolling units. I analyze these solutions to determine why they would be positive and what restrictions prevent them from being feasible. In the final phase of the paper, I present a …

Introduction To Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Book Chapters

Could a feminist perspective change the shape of the tax law? Most people understand that feminist reasoning has tremendous potential to affect, for example, the law of employment discrimination, sexual harassment, and reproductive rights. Few people may be aware, however, that feminist analysis can likewise transform tax law (as well as other statutory or code-based areas of the law). By highlighting the importance of perspective, background, and preconceptions on the reading and interpretation of statutes, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions shows what a difference feminist analysis can make to statutory interpretation. This volume, part of the Feminist Judgments Series, brings …

Death-Dealing Imaginations: Racial Profiling, Criminality, And Black Innocence, Blanche Bong Cook

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Biased And Broken Bodies Of Proof: White Heteropatriarchy, The Grand Jury Process, And Performance On Unarmed Black Flesh, Blanche Bong Cook

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Magical Black Girls In The Education Industrial Complex: Making Visible The Wounds Of Invisibility, Teri A. Mcmurtry-Chubb

Journal of Educational Controversy

Black girls in public school are constantly exposed to physical violence, racialized gender hostility and harassment, and hate speech. Yet, the national narrative perpetuates the belief that Black boys are the main targets of such behaviors. This narrative renders Black girls invisible, and normalizes their treatment as another beam in the framework of white supremacy. This article addresses Black girls' invisibility first creatively, though the African diasporic rhetorical practice of storytelling. It then turns to an exploration of Fennell v. Marion Independent School District, where three sisters were subjected to a racially hostile educational environment in Marion, TX. The article …

Blog: Reducing Racial Bias In Capital Jury Selection By Eliminating Peremptory Challences, Kaitlin Bigger

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Jezebels And Jungle Bunnies: How The Stereotypes Of Black Women Shape Legislation, The Legal Profession, And Feminist Jurisprudence, Kersti Myles

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Lack Of Diversity In The Legal Profession, At The Undergraduate Level, Michael W. Carroll, Troy Romero

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The study and practice of law is among the most respected and well-regarded pursuits; unfortunately, it is also among the least diverse. The persistent and alarming lack of diversity is prevalent in the industry regardless of the culture. In the United States and in Europe, statistics show that lawyers are overwhelmingly comprised by white males, especially in the higher ranks of the profession. Several factors contribute to this lack of diversity, including access to legal professionals and costs associated with pursuing a legal degree. Several strategies have been initiated to increase diversity in the field, including increasing awareness of the …

The Divide - Sylvia Ryerson Biographical Introduction, Sally Brown

Promotion

No abstract provided.

The Divide "Public Airwaves Through Prison Walls" Presentation Program, Sally Brown

Promotion

Presentation program for "Public Airwaves Through Prison Walls" presentation in conjunction with the exhibit "The Divide" presented on Nov. 15, 2017 in the WVU Downtown Campus Library.