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Full-Text Articles in Law

Explicit Bias, Jessica A. Clarke Jan 2018

Explicit Bias, Jessica A. Clarke

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In recent decades, legal scholars have advanced sophisticated models for understanding prejudice and discrimination, drawing on disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and economics. These models explain how inequality is implicit in cognition and seamlessly woven into social structures. And yet, obvious, explicit, and overt forms of bias have not gone away. The law does not need empirical methods to identify bias when it is marching down the street in Nazi regalia, hurling misogynist invective, or trading in anti-Muslim stereotypes. Official acceptance of such prejudices may be uniquely harmful in normalizing discrimination. But surprisingly, many discrimination cases ignore explicit bias. Courts …


The Free Exercise Of Religious Identity, Lauren Sudeall Jan 2017

The Free Exercise Of Religious Identity, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In recent years, a particular strain of argument has arisen in response to decisions by courts or the government to extend certain rights to others. Grounded in religious freedom, these arguments suggest that individuals have a right to operate businesses or conduct their professional roles in a manner that conforms to their religious identity. For example, as courts and legislatures have extended the right to marry to same-sex couples, court clerks have refused to issue marriage certificates to such couples, claiming that to do so would violate their religious beliefs. Similarly, corporations have refused, for reasons grounded in religious identity, …


The Forest And The Trees, Lisa Schultz Bressman Jan 2002

The Forest And The Trees, Lisa Schultz Bressman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Ask those who carefully follow the Supreme Court, and they will tell you that--for good or bad, depending on their perspective--the current Supreme Court has reduced to near rubble the metaphorical wall separating church and state.


Accommodation And Equal Liberty, Lisa Schultz Bressman Jan 2001

Accommodation And Equal Liberty, Lisa Schultz Bressman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

How should legislatures respond to requests from religious individuals or institutions for exemptions to generally applicable laws? In Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court held that the Free Exercise Clause does not require legislatures (federal or state) to honor such requests. The question remains whether they should do so on a voluntary basis. This is the problem of permissive accommodation-that is, accommodation of religious liberty as a matter of political discretion rather than constitutional compulsion. Put in the terms of this Symposium, it is the problem of accommodation in the public square. It is not immediately apparent why permissive …