Law Commons^™

Diversity As A Dead-End, Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Supreme Court cases on diversity could only assist if they defined diversity in a way that allowed institutions to admit significant numbers of the type of individuals that the institutions were lacking. This is precisely what the Supreme Court's cases on diversity do not do. Furthermore, the Supreme Court's view of diversity is flawed because it does not address existing power differentials between Blacks and Whites. As a result diversity, as it is defined by the Supreme Court, is a dead-end for those who are concerned about social justice and equity in higher education.

The Story Of Downes V. Bidwell: "The Constitution Follows The Flag ... But Doesn't Quite Catch Up With It", Pedro Malavet

Pedro A. Malavet

A study of the principal decision of the Insular Cases of 1901, which has provided constitutional authorization for the U.S. territorial empire for over a century. The cases were most recently referenced by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2008 opinion in Boumediene v. Bush.

Toward A Vibrant Peruvian Middle Class: Effects Of The Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement On Labor Rights, Biodiversity, And Indigenous Populations, Stephen J. Powell, Paola A. Chavarro

Stephen Joseph Powell

Past research confirms that trade and human rights are inextricably linked by trade's effects on poverty, labor, women, indigenous populations, health, and the environment. We identified surprisingly direct linkages between these two vital policies in WTO agreements as well as that regional trade agreements add positive indirect contributions by to rules-based governance through their emphasis on transparency, accountability, and due process by governments, as well as timeliness, inclusive record keeping, and impartiality in the administrative decisional process. The present research examines a particular country and a single trade agreement, Peru and the trade agreement between Peru and the United States. …

Majority Politics And Race Based Remedies, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay applies the principles of social movement theory and analyzes the legal status of race-based remedies. Many scholars have debated the constitutionality and efficacy of affirmative action, the appropriateness of race-consciousness (from legal and social perspectives) and the legitimacy of structural judicial remedies for various types of discrimination. This paper will add to this literature by demonstrating the influence of conservative race politics and ideology on Court doctrine concerning affirmative action and other race-based remedies. In particular, this Essay will demonstrate that, consistent with broader political trends, the Court disfavors governmental usage of race as a remedy for discrimination …

Dedication To Chesterfield H. Smith, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Blameworthiness, Intent, And Cultural Dissonance: The Unequal Treatment Of Cultural Defense Defendants, Nancy S. Kim

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Culture In Our Midst, Elaine M. Chiu

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Afterword: Outsider Citizenships And Multidimensional Borders: The Power And Danger Of Not Belonging, Pedro Malavet

Pedro A. Malavet

A critical review of the essays and articles included in the LatCrit VIII Symposium issue.

Afterword - Outsider Citizenships And Multidimensional Borders: The Power And Danger Of Not Belonging, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this closing for the LatCrit VIII symposium, I adopt a collective view of the articles, and attempt to develop how the themes discussed in them fit within LatCrit scholarship. I will then interrogate the future of our enterprise by discussing the danger of succumbing to the seduction of the real or perceived need "to reinvent the wheel," or at least to clothe ideas in overly-developed language. Last, the Conclusion discusses how LatCrit scholarship is both promoted and challenged by the articles published here. I further include some suggested institutional responses to the opportunities for mentoring and nurturing that I …

The Matthew Effect And Federal Taxation, Martin J. Mcmahon Jr.

UF Law Faculty Publications

The “Matthew Effect” is a synonym for the well-known colloquialism, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” This Article is about the Matthew Effect in the distribution of incomes in the United States and the failure of the federal tax system to address the problem. There has been a strong Matthew Effect in incomes in the United States over the past few decades, with an increasing concentration of income and wealth in the top one percent. Nevertheless, there has been a continuing trend of enacting disproportionately large tax cuts for those at the top of the income pyramid. …

Race, Gender, And Work/Family Policy, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Family leave is not an end in itself, but rather is part of a much bigger picture: work/family policy. The goal of work/family policy is to achieve a good society by supporting families. Ideally, families enable children to develop to their fullest capacity and to contribute to their communities and society. Public rhetoric in the United States has always strongly supported families. Our policies, however, have not. In the area of work/family policy, the United States continues to lag behind every other advanced industrialized country, as well as many developing countries, in the degree to which we provide affirmative support …

Diversity Matters: Race, Gender And Ethnicity In Legal Education., Nancy E. Dowd, Kenneth B. Nunn, Jane E. Pendergast

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article presents more evidence of the inequality that persists in legal education for students. Based on a survey of University of Florida law students conducted in 2001, this study reaffirms the existence of differential experience and an inegalitarian culture in legal education. However, it also demonstrates the importance of diversity and the recognition by a significant majority of students of the value of race and gender pluralism. These competing findings provide a clear guide to the future direction of legal education.

Familias Sin Fronteras: Mujeres Unidas Por Su Historia, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Does there exist a Cuban society that is culturally cohesive? Is Cubanidad dependent on territorial borders and political ideology? Can there be a singular narrative on Cubanidad that transcends geography and politics? This article asks those questions and posits that, while political and economic differences might result in very different lifestyles and ideologies, social and cultural tropes might provide some similarities and cultural cohesion. This thesis is tested through the study of available, albeit sparse, information on the role of Cubanas in society. First the role of women in Cuban society throughout history is examined. Next, changes in the laws …

Introduction: Latcritical Encounters With Culture, In North-South Frameworks, Pedro Malavet

Pedro A. Malavet

A critical introduction of a group of articles in the LatCrit VI Symposium issue, discussing the authors' diverse approaches to Latin American legal cultures and contextualizing the publications in the growing body of LatCrit scholarship.

Latcritical Encounters With Culture, In North-South Frameworks, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

A critical introduction of a group of articles in the LatCrit VI Symposium issue, discussing the authors' diverse approaches to Latin American legal cultures and contextualizing the publications in the growing body of LatCrit scholarship. The Essay discusses how the other essays in the issue fit within or challenge the themes of the specific roundtable, plenary, or workshop in which they were presented, and then locates the cluster within the present and the future of LatCrit Theory generally, and LatCritical praxi in particular. This Essay addresses each presentation, the specific conference context(s) in which it was delivered, and how the …

Law, Culture, And Family: The Transformative Power Of Culture And The Limits Of Law, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Law inevitably is involved in the resolution of cultural conflicts. Nonintervention acts as powerfully as intervention; in either case, law is a powerful actor in its role as a part of cultural dialogue, as well as in its role as a coercive force. Law is never neutral in my view. If it “stays out” of a situation, then it is complicit in the status quo or in permitting the conflict to be resolved without legal intervention, which may weight the outcome in a particular direction. If law “comes in,” it similarly “sides” with a particular position because, in part, our …

Glocalizing Law And Culture: Towards A Cross-Constitutive Paradigm, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This lecture addresses the relationship between law and culture in three general parts. The first part consists of a brief review of the theories addressing the relationship of law and culture, mainly the mirror theory. But I will suggest that there is more to the relationship of law and culture than one being an inert reflection of the other; hence my proposal for what I call, as a working concept, a cross-constitutive paradigm of law and culture. The second part reviews the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW''), a law that seeks to effect …

Building Bridges V—Cubans Without Borders: Mujeres Unidas Por Su Historia, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Essay traces the role of women in Cuban society throughout history. It includes a review of the development of Cuban laws concerning women, and women's role in developing them. This Part also addresses laws pertaining to women that were adopted by the present revolutionary regime. Part II sets out laws, beyond the laws of Cuba, that address the issue of gender/sex equality. It focuses on international norms that protect sex equality pertinent to women in Cuba as well as to Cuban women outside of Cuba. It also reviews U.S. laws on equality as they affect Cuban …

Race, Crime And The Pool Of Surplus Criminality: Or Why The "War On Drugs" Was A "War On Blacks", Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

The War on Drugs has had a devastating effect on African American communities nationwide. The concept of the pool of surplus criminality may explain the drug war's focus on African Americans. Faced with a perceived drug problem, White Americans naturally identified African American people as the source of that threat and targeted them for police harassment and penal control. There are ways in which the drug war may be construed as a race war. The disproportionate impact on the African American community, evidence that policy makers anticipated the drug war would disproportionately harm the African American community, and the historic …

Dissecting Axes Of Subordination: The Need For A Structural Analysis, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

Proceedings of a criminal trial in Dallas, Texas, demonstrate the vulnerability of LGBT individuals to judicial bias. Although the jury convicted the defendant of murdering two gay males, the judge explained his light sentence: "I put prostitutes and gays at about the same level, and I'd be hard put to give somebody life for killing a prostitute . . . had [the victims] not been out there trying to spread AIDS, they'd still be alive today . . . These two guys that got killed wouldn't have been killed if they hadn't been cruising the streets picking up teen-age boys …

Identity Crisis: “Intersectionality,” “Multidimensionality,” And The Development Of An Adequate Theory Of Subordination, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

While essentialism remains a prominent feature of progressive social movements, critical scholars have offered persuasive arguments against traditional, single-issue politics and have proposed reforms in a variety of doctrinal and policy contexts. The feminist of color critiques of feminism and antiracism provided the earliest framework for analyzing oppression in complex terms. Feminists of color and other critical scholars have examined racism and patriarchy as “intersecting” phenomena, rather than as separate and mutually exclusive systems of domination. Their work on the intersectionality of subordination has encouraged some judges and progressive scholars to discard the “separate spheres” analysis of race and gender. …

A Drug By Any Other Name Is Still A Drug: Why The Florida Judiciary Should Start Treating Dui As Any Other Drug Offense, Gail Sasnett-Stauffer, E. John Gregory

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Integrating Water Management And Land Use Planning: Uncovering The Missing Link In The Protection Of Florida's Water Resources, Mary Jane Angelo

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

A Look Back—One Lawyer's View, W. Dexter Douglass

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Accidental Crit Ii: Culture And The Looking Glass Of Exile, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

The current "Latin Music Craze" in United States mass media demands critical analysis from the LatCrit community. LatCrit scholars have engaged in the serious discussion of cultural production -- of culture generally and popular culture in particular. LatCrit theory has analyzed cultural production mostly by "others," that is, cultural production internal to outsider communities. LatCritters also have studied how United States mass media portrays Latinas/os, African-Americans and Filipinas/os. This article will examine the competing narratives of Puerto Rican cultures in Puerto Rico and in the United States that are illuminated by the current Latin Music Craze. It will then explore …

Literature And The Arts As Antisubordination Praxis: Latcrit Theory And Cultural Production: The Confessions Of An Accidental Crit, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

I attend LatCrit conferences to be educated on what I regard as the most exciting legal scholarship being produced today. Therefore, I naturally jumped at the opportunity to help organize the Fourth Annual LatCrit Conference and to chair one of its Plenary Panels. I have penned this Essay for the purpose not only of joining Critical Race Theory ("CRT") discourse, but also to create a recorded history of LatCrit travels.

In Part I of this Essay, I will describe the process that led the Planning Committee to include the Literature and Arts as Antisubordination Praxis: LatCrit Theory and Cultural Production …

“Gay Rights” For “Gay Whites”?: Race, Sexual Identity, And Equal Protection Discourse, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

While the resolution of the problem of gay and lesbian inequality will ultimately turn on a host of social, legal, political, and ideological variables, this Article argues that the success or failure of efforts to achieve legal equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals will depend in large part on how scholars and activists in this field address questions of racial identity and racial subjugation. Commonly, these scholars and activists currently discuss race by use of analogies between “racial discrimination” and “sexual orientation discrimination,” or between “people of color” and “gays and lesbians.” On one level, the “comparative approach” …

The "Darden Dilemma": Should African Americans Prosecute Crimes?, Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Christopher Darden (prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial) has come to epitomize the burdens that African American prosecutors face as they perform their professional tasks. Moreover, the "Darden Dilemma" has become a generic term for the anguish that these prosecutors endure as they negotiate between competing allegiances to the African American community and the State. Much has been written about the sense of isolation that African American prosecutors feel when confronting the conflict between their roles as prosecutors and their obligations to the African American community. This article argues that African Americans should not prosecute crimes in the current criminal …

Latindia Ii -- Latinas/Os, Natives, And Mestizajes -- A Latcrit Navigation Of Nuevos Mundos, Nuevas Fronteras, And Nuevas Teorias, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay is a journey that will elucidate a personal exploration of LatCrit's trinitarian goals of engagement of identity interrogations, community building, and self-critical analysis. It will reflect personal travels and travails, bumps in the road and epiphanies, theory and practice. The plot for these musings is a cultural voyage in which this viajera embarks to live and comprehend the meaning of mestizaje 5 in a personal quest for identity location; the stage is LatCrit IV.

My interrelated trips are chartered in three parts. Part I, Nuevos Mundos. Traveling LatCrit Community, presents the historical background of, contexts for, and evolutions …

Foreword: Toward A Multicultural Theory Of Property Rights, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

This panel, sponsored by the Minority group and Property Sections of the AALS for the January, 2000 annual meeting, was composed of an exciting group of scholars critically analyzing traditional theories of property and current distribution of resources. The panel, entitled "Reviewing the Legacy of Liberalism: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- Linking Property to Rights," challenged traditional notions of property rights, from a discussion of the gender implications of African property law, to a critique of traditional analyses of Johnson v. M'Intosh, to property as heteronormative. Because the articles provide so much rich and thought-provoking material, …