Law Commons^™

College Students' Perceptions, Myths, And Stereotypes About African American Athleticism: A Qualitative Investigation, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

Examining the ‘natural’ athlete myth and utilizing the recent literature on cultural/social factors in athleticism, this study through survey research examines the myth of the ‘natural’ African American athlete. Participants consist of 301 university students from a large, traditionally White, midwest institution. The primary research question is to determine the attitudes of college students in terms of how they perceive the success of the African American athlete in certain sports. The purpose is to assess participants’ perceptions of the African American athlete and their opinion as to whether or not African American athletes are superior in certain sports (football, basketball, …

Racism As 'The National Crucial Sin': Theology And Derrick Bell, George H. Taylor

Articles

The Article probes a paradox that lies at the heart of the work of critical race scholar Derrick Bell. Bell claims on the one hand that racism is permanent, and yet on the other he argues that the fight against racism is both necessary and meaningful. Although Bell's thesis of racism's permanence has been criticized for rendering action for racial justice unavailing, the Article advances an understanding of Bell that supports and defends the integrity of his paradox. The Article draws upon the work of Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Niebuhr's paradox that social action is both necessary and meaningful …

The Narratives Of Cyberspace Law (Or, Learning From Casablanca), Michael J. Madison

Articles

Cyberspace scholars have wrestled extensively with the question of the "right" metaphorical approach to the Internet, in order to guide legal and policy decisions. Literary theorists have wrestled with the perception that cyberspace undermines conventional ideas about narrative. This Essay suggests that each group could learn from the other. Cyberspace tells a better story than literary scholars believe, and the lawyers should pay more attention to the narrative attributes of cyberspace. To illustrate the argument, the Essay proposes a specific story framework for cyberspace: the film Casablanca.

Racism's Past And Law's Future, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

Legal scholars, lawmakers and, increasingly, the general public seem to place ever-increasing hope in the potential of law and legal theory, and of enforceable uniform international legal standards. Many appear to believe that identifying and enacting laws and a legal framework that correspond worldwide to human rights will solve the age-old problem of legalized barbarism. The historical propensity of courts, even in democratic states, to legitimate and enable racist policies provides compelling evidence that the current level of faith in law is misplaced.

This Article argues the limitations of law and legal theory, contesting the view that on their own …

“Black People’S Money”: The Impact Of Law, Economics, And Culture In The Context Of Race On Damage Recoveries, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

“’Black People’s Money’: The Impact of Law, Economics, and Culture in the Context of Race on Damage Recoveries” is one of a series of articles by the author dealing with black economic marginalization; prior work considered such topics as shopping and selling as forms of deviance, street vending, restraints on leisure, and the importance of informality in loan transactions. This article deals with the linkage between the social significance of black people’s money and its material value. It analyzes the construction of “black money,” its association with cash, and the taboos and cultural practices that assure that black money will …

Critical Praxis, Spirit Healing And Community Activism: Preserving A Subversive Dialogue On Reparations, Christian Sundquist

Articles

African-American reparations have the potential to deconstruct racial privilege, promote racial reconciliation, and heal the psychic injuries of the African-American community. However, many models of reparations have given up on the promise of reparations in exchange for the slim possibility of short-term progress.

A subversive dialogue on African-American reparations, however, will inevitably critique equal opportunity, individualism, and white innocence and privilege. Embraced by the majority, and internalized by the African-American community, the principles of individualism, equal opportunity, and meritocracy reinforce white innocence and privilege to the extent that future, current and past inequality are cast as the natural and inevitable …

African American Student Athletes' Perceptions Of Career Transition In Sport: A Qualitative And Visual Elicitation, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

This study focuses on 26 African American athletes and explores their perceptions of athletic career transition. Participants consisted of student athletes from a United States National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division IIA institution in the Southeastern region. Participants completed the Life After Sports Scale (LASS), a 58-item inventory utilized to qualitatively and quantitatively examine seven different domains which influence perceptions of the career transition process. The scope of this inquiry examines the qualitative domain of the LASS in which participants were visually primed with a narrative description of a student athlete that has made transition out of sport successfully. Five …

Rights Of Access And The Shape Of The Internet, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This Article reviews recent developments in the law of access to information, that is, cases involving click-through agreements, the doctrine of trespass to chattels, the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and civil claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Though the objects of these different doctrines substantially overlap, the different doctrines yield different presumptions regarding the respective rights of information owners and information consumers. The Article reviews those presumptions in light of different metaphorical premises on which courts rely: Internet-as-place, in the trespass, DMCA, and CFAA contexts, and contract-as-assent, in the click-through context. It argues that …

Equal Opportunity, Individual Liberty And Meritocracy In Education: Reinforcing Structures Of Privilege And Inequality, Christian Sundquist

Articles

The paradigm of equal opportunity inevitably seeks to reproduce and maintain structures of class and racial privilege. The deficit story of equal opportunity is as follows: equal opportunity is a truly objective, neutral, and fair method to allocate educational, employment, and political resources to members of society, without regard to race, class, gender or ethnicity. The ideal of equality assumes the possibility of an objective measure of merit under which individuals' free choices and preferences may be evaluated. Accordingly, through the creation of a baseline that presupposes the inherent sameness of all people and disregards systemic discrimination as a fallacy, …

African American Racial Identity And Sport, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to synthesize and apply African American racial identity theory and related research to the development of sport and physical activity patterns and preferences in African American youth. Historically the African American over-representation in particular sports phenomena has been examined genetically, anthropocentrically, physiologically, sociologically, and psychologically. The profusion of explanations is a testimony to the complexity of this phenomena. This manuscript provides yet another compelling perspective. Cross [(1995) The psychology of Nigrescence: revising the Cross Model, in: J.G. PONTEROTTO et al. (Eds) Handbook of Multicultural Counseling (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage)] outlines the metamorphic …

Scholar Or Baller In American Higher Education? A Visual Elicitation And Qualitative Assessment Of The Studentathlete's Mindset, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

Eminent scholar Harry Edwards (2000) has articulated three major realities of African American males in sports: a) The presumption of innate, race-linked black athletic superiority and intellectual deficiency; b) media propaganda portraying sports as a broadly accessible route to African American social and economic mobility; and c) a lack of comparably visible, high-prestige African American role models beyond the sports arena. Driven by labeling theory (Becker, 1963; Goffman, 1959), eight African American male student athletes were surveyed and interviewed. The last two points of Edwards' scholarship were investigated. "We have pretty good historical data and quantitative data about African American …

Who Can A Baller Trust? Analyzing Public University Response To Alleged Student-Athlete Misconduct In A Commercial And Confusing Environment, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

No abstract provided.

The Image Of Paul Robeson:Role Model For The Student And Athlete, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

No abstract provided.

Law And The "Other": Karl N. Llewellyn, Cultural Anthropology, And The Legacy Of The Cheyenne Way, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

School Liability For Peer Sexual Harassment After Davis: Shifting From Intent To Causation In Discrimination Law, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

This essay seeks to explain the Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education case as an interpretation of discrimination that notably and correctly focuses on how institutions cause sex-based harm, rather than on whether officials within chose institutions act with a discriminatory intent. In the process, I discuss what appears to be the implicit theory of discrimination underlying the Davis decision: that schools cause the discrimination by exacerbating the harm that results from sexual harassment by students. I then explore the significance of the deliberate indifference requirement in this context, concluding that the standard, for all its flaws, is distinct …

What's My Copy Right?, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This piece consists of an early 21st century whimsy, a dialogue that borrows and blends history and humor to illustrate some puzzles of copyright law in the context of digital technology (with references to Folsom v. Marsh and Abbott & Costello).

An Ethnography Of Abstractions?, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Black Athletes At The Millenium, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

No abstract provided.

Complexity And Copyright In Contradiction, Michael J. Madison

Articles

The title of the article is a deliberate play on architect Robert Venturi's classic of post-modern architectural theory, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The article analyzes metaphorical 'architectures' of copyright and cyberspace using architectural and land use theories developed for the physical world. It applies this analysis to copyright law through the lens of the First Amendment. I argue that the 'simplicity' of digital engineering is undermining desirable 'complexity' in legal and physical structures that regulate expressive works.

The Cruelest Of The Gender Police: Student-To-Student Sexual Harassment And Anti-Gay Peer Harassment Under Title Ix, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

Title IX, like other sex discrimination laws, addresses discrimination that occurs because of an individual’s sex. Courts interpreting Title IX, like those interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, have struggled to demarcate a line separating discrimination because of sex from discrimination because of sexual orientation. This article constructs an argument for viewing anti-gay discrimination, and in particular anti-gay harassment between students, as a form of sex discrimination under Title IX. The article first explores why school inaction in the face of sexual harassment discriminates on the basis of sex. Although sex discrimination law generally has long …

Themes That Thread Through Society: Racism And Athletic Manifestation In The African-American Community, Keith Harrison

EGS Content

The purpose of this article is to examine and critically analyze the impact of sport in the African-American community. This critique of the social and behavioral outcomes of sport in the African-American community will include philosophical, historical, and sociological inquiry most affecting the plight of the African-American male in academics and athletics. Data on the perceptions of contemporary African-American men participating in sport in higher education will also add more support to the conclusion that race and sport are socially constructed in society.

Legal-Ware: Contract And Copyright In The Digital Age, Michael J. Madison

Articles

ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, which enforced a shrinkwrap license for computer software, has encouraged the expansion of the shrinkwrap form beyond computer programs, forward, onto the Internet, and backward, toward such traditional works as books and magazines. Authors and publishers are using that case to advance norms of information use that exclude, practically and conceptually, a robust public domain and a meaningful doctrine of fair use. Contesting such efforts by focusing on the contractual nature of traditional shrinkwrap, by relying on market principles, on adhesion theory, on commercial law concepts of usage and custom, or on federal preemption doctrine, feeds …

Cooperative Agreements Between Tribes And The States, Bernard P. Becker

Natural Resource Development in Indian Country (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

36 pages.

Resources Development On Navajo: The Dineh Power Project, Donald R. Wharton

Natural Resource Development in Indian Country (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

42 pages (includes illustrations and maps).

The Governmental Context For Development In Indian Country: Modern Tribal Institutions And The Bureau Of Indian Affairs, Susan M. Williams

Natural Resource Development in Indian Country (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

26 pages.

Agenda: Natural Resource Development In Indian Country, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Natural Resource Development in Indian Country (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Conference organizers and/or faculty included University of Colorado School of Law professors David H. Getches, Charles F. Wilkinson, Lawrence J. MacDonnell and Richard B. Collins.

Indian reservations constitute about 2.5% of all land in the country and 5% of all land in the American West. During the last two decades, Indian natural resources issues have moved to the forefront as tribal governments have dramatically expanded their regulatory programs, judicial systems. and resource development activities. This major symposium will address current developments and assess likely future directions in the areas of tribal, federal, and state regulation; tribal-state intergovernmental agreements; financing; mineral …

The Process Of Decision-Making In Tribal Courts, Tom Tso

Natural Resource Development in Indian Country (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

11 pages.

The Historical Policy Of Federal Restraints On Resource Development In Indian Country, Robert A. Williams, Jr.

Natural Resource Development in Indian Country (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

6 pages.

Contains references.

The Origins Of The Occupational Safety And Health Act Of 1970, Patrick G. Donnelly

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes the emergence of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and finds previous explanations of its origin inadequate. I trace the roots of this law to the protests of rank-and-file workers across the United States at a time when the support of these workers was particularly important to the two main political parties. The protest was directed not only at those employers who operated unsafe and unhealthy workplaces, but also at union officials who paid little or no attention to safety and health issues in negotiating new contracts.