Law Commons^™

Applying 42 U.S.C. § 1981 To Claims Of Consumer Discrimination, Abby Morrow Richardson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores several interesting legal questions regarding the proper interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which prohibits racial discrimination in contracting, when discrimination arises in the context of a consumer retail contract. The Note further explores how the Fifth Circuit's and other federal courts' narrow interpretation of § 1981's application in a retail setting (which allows plaintiffs to invoke the statute only when they have been prevented from completing their purchases) is contrary to the statute's express language, congressional intent, and to evolving concepts of contract theory, all of which reflect a commitment to the strict enforcement of civil …

Take Us Back To The Ball Game: The Laws And Policy Of Professional Sports Ticket Prices, Nathan R. Scott

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The prices of professional sports tickets have skyrocketed in recent years, depriving many fans of the time-honored tradition of taking their families out to a ball game. This Article argues that legal reform and political action are appropriate responses to these soaring prices.

First, the Article rebuts the threshold objection that economics alone justify current ticket prices. Professional sports teams reap a windfall from the public through corporate welfare, special-interest legislation, and favorable antitrust and tax laws. This preferential legal treatment undercuts the argument that teams are simply charging, or should charge, what the market will bear. In addition, teams …

Sailing Toward Safe Harbor Hours: The Constitutionality Of Regulating Television Violence, Eric C. Chaffee

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Because of the recent focus on television violence, it is more a question of "when," rather than "if," Congress will take action on this issue. "Safe harbor" regulation, or restricting violent programming to certain hours of the day, is one form of regulation that is recurrently suggested as a means for dealing with the potential ills created by television violence. The possibility of such regulation implicates numerous constitutional issues. This Article addresses whether "safe harbor" regulation of television violence is feasible without violating the First Amendment and other provisions of the Constitution.

For Whom The School Bell Tolls But Not The Statute Of Limitations: Minors And The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Lynn M. Daggett, Perry A. Zirkel, Leeann L. Gurysh

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article explores whether claims under the federal special education statute should be tolled on account of minority. Adult disabled students typically assert this type of tolling claim when alleging statutory violations dating back ten or more years, when they were minors. However this tolling claim is decided, there may be undesired results. First, even if the student has a very strong case, the merits are never reached if the court dismisses the hearing request as untimely. Second, if the hearing request is timely and the case proceeds to the merits, the student must remain in her current educational placement, …

Not Enough Of A Minority?: Arab Americans And The Language Assistance Provisions (Section 203) Of The Voting Rights Act, Brenda Fathy Abdelall

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

With the Voting Rights Act set to expire in 2007, debate has ensued regarding the protections it provides for minority groups. Section 203 of the Act protects language minorities, but under these protections, only four minority groups are afforded bilingual access to voting materials. This Note argues that the Act is imperative to the protection of minority voters, especially those belonging to a language minority group. This Note further argues that not only should the Voting Rights Act be renewed, but § 203 should be revised to include Arab Americans. The Note focuses on the Arab American community because it …

Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens And Alien Citizens, Leti Volpp

Michigan Law Review

America is a nation of immigrants, according to our national narrative. This is the America with its gates open to the world, as well as the America of the melting pot. Underpinning this national narrative is a very particular story of immigration that foregrounds the inclusion of immigrants, rather than their exclusion. Highlighted in this story is the period before 1924, of relatively unfettered European immigration, and the period after 1965, post the lifting of national origins quotas. Also underlying this national narrative is a particular story about what happens once immigrants enter. In this story the immigrant traverses smoothly …

God In The Machine: A New Structural Analysis Of Copyright's Fair Use Doctrine, Matthew Sag

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Recognition of the structural role of fair use has the potential to mitigate some of the uncertainty of current fair use jurisprudence. The statutory framework for fair use both mitigates and causes uncertainty. It mitigates uncertainty by providing a consistent framework of analysis the four statutory factors. However, when judges apply the statutory factors without articulating or justifying their own assumptions, they increase uncertainty. The statutory factors mean nothing without certain a priori assumptions as to the scope of the copyright owner's rights. A more stable and predictable fair use jurisprudence would begin to emerge if those assumptions were made …

Against Dictionaries: Using Analogical Reasoning To Achieve A More Restrained Textualism, Jason Weinstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that new textualists should abandon dictionaries as a source for legal interpretation. Textualists believe in restricting judges to the intent discernible from the words of a statute and contend that legislative history is unacceptable as a source of this intention. Both of these sentiments lead textualists to dictionaries as the intuitively correct solution for ambiguities in a text. The author argues, however, that dictionaries by their very nature cannot help discern between reasonable definitions at the margins of meaning. The use of dictionaries in these situations allows for a sham formalism, unrestrictive in result and unrevealing of …

Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Note outlines the limitations on congressional power under Section V and their implications for justifying the constitutionality of the disparate impact standard. Part II explores the prohibition of intentional discrimination as a justification for the disparate impact standard and argues that justifying the disparate impact standard through this theory, as some courts currently do, may eventually narrow disparate impact doctrine and thus constrain the possibilities for substantive equality in employment. This Part also analogizes the limits of using an intentional discrimination rationale to justify the disparate impact standard to the limits of using the diversity rationale …

State Legislation And Human Trafficking: Helpful Or Harmful?, Stephanie Richard

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Human trafficking is the modern day form of slavery. Despite the fact that thousands of people are trafficked into the United Sates each year, the majority of U.S. citizens are not aware of the nature and extent of this problem. In 2000, the U.S. government passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) to combat this grave human rights abuse. This federal legislation takes a comprehensive approach to addressing the problem of human trafficking in the United States by acknowledging that effective prosecution cannot occur without safeguards and benefits for trafficking victims. To this end, the VTVPA enumerates …

An Implied Warranty Of Freedom From Sexual Harassment: The Solution For Harassed Tenants Where The Fair Housing Act Has Failed, Theresa Keeley

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Although sexual harassment in the workplace is recognized as a problem, sexual harassment in housing has largely been ignored. When confronting sexual harassment in housing, courts have borrowed standards for sexual harassment in the workplace. Criticism of this practice exists; however this Article examines the real source of the problem: bringing sexual harassment claims under the Fair Housing Act. Specifically, this Article shows how and why the Fair Housing Act fails to address the problem of sexual harassment in housing. To remedy this failure, this Article proposes an "implied warranty of freedom from sexual harassment" that both restores the tenant's …

Global Sex Trafficking And The Trafficking Victims Protection Act Of 2000: Legislative Responses To The Problem Of Modern Slavery, Rosy Kandathil

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Human trafficking is becoming the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. Generally, trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons across international borders for labor purposes, by means of force, fraud, or coercion. Commerce directly related to human slavery yields approximately $7-$10 billion a year, trailing only behind drugs and weapons trade for international profit. According to recent congressional findings, over 700,000 human beings are trafficked across international borders each year, including approximately 50,000 women and children into the United States. Women and girl children are the primary targets for sexual exploitation into prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other …

"Has The Millennium Yet Dawned?": A History Of Attitudes Toward Pregnant Workers In America, Courtni E. Molnar

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article will focus on what might be considered the "prehistory" of the PDA in an attempt to shed new light on the equality/difference debate. Beginning as early as the nineteenth century, pregnant workers have been forced into either the equality approach or the difference approach depending mostly on race and class. This Article will show that, at times, both approaches restrained the autonomy of women and even caused harm to individual women and society by contributing to the development of the stereotypes and social attitudes that continue to permit pregnancy discrimination today.

The Passage Of Community Property Laws, 1939-1947: Was "More Than Money" Involved?, Jennifer E. Sturiale

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Part I of this article reviews the legal landscape that provided the backdrop against which Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania later adopted community property laws. It also examines the tax consequences of the two Supreme Court cases, Lucas v. Earl and Poe v. Seaborn, that resulted in the disparate tax treatment of married couples in common law and community property law states. Part II briefly reviews the subsequent passage of community property laws by Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania; the passage of a federal tax reduction bill that provided for equal treatment of community property law and …

La Responsabilisation De L'Economie: What The United States Can Learn From The New French Law On Consumer Overindebtedness, Jason J. Kilborn

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article on the French law continues a study of European consumer debt-relief systems, which the author began previously in an article on the German system. With rapid legal and practical developments in consumer debt-relief law, Europe provides an excellent comparative legal laboratory for observing the potential benefits and pitfalls of consumer bankruptcy reforms. In particular, French and German experiences with long-term payment plans shed useful light on the great debate raging in the United States over similar plans.

Civil Aircraft As Weapons Of Large-Scale Destruction: Countermeasures, Article 3bis Of The Chicago Convention, And The Newly Adopted German "Luftsicherheitsgesetz", Robin Geiß

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is thus the aim of this Article to map out the international legal framework relevant for designing countermeasures against nonstate actors who convert civil aircraft into weapons of destruction. As a first step, this Article sketches out the applicable rules relating to international civil aviation security and highlights the dichotomy between nonstate actor threats and interstate threats at the base of these rules. As will be seen below, nonstate actors abusing civil aircraft as weapons of destruction is a new challenge not only in terms of destructive quality but also in a legal sense, in that the question of …

Can The Sauvegarde Reform Save French Bankruptcy Law?: A Comparative Look At Chapter 11 And French Bankruptcy Law From An Agency Cost Perspective, Robert Weber

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will attempt to explain the intersection of agency costs and bankruptcy law, looking first to general agency problems involved when firms are insolvent and moving next to discussions of how U.S. Chapter 11 and French bankruptcy laws attempt to address these problems. First, I will attempt to articulate the relationship between agency costs and (1) debtor control over the firm during Chapter 11 reorganizations and (2) deviations from the absolute priority rule in Chapter 11. Specifically, I will argue that creditors voluntarily accede to plans proposed by management that impair the same creditors' legal entitlements, and that this …

Apology Within A Moral Dialectic: A Reply To Professor Robbennolt, Lee Taft

Michigan Law Review

Over the last several years, much has been written about the role of apology in facilitating the resolution of legal disputes. Within this body of work a debate has developed among legal scholars, practitioners, and legislators. Under traditional rules of evidence an apology which acknowledged fault would enter evidence as an admission against interest. Now there is a movement to legislatively "protect" apologies from the effects of the traditional rule in order to facilitate apology without evidentiary encumbrance. Scholars who have argued in favor of the relaxation of the traditional rule have largely relied on anecdotal evidence to support their …