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Full-Text Articles in Law
What Corporate Veil?, Joshua C. Macey
What Corporate Veil?, Joshua C. Macey
Michigan Law Review
Review of Adam Winkler's We the Corporations: How American Business Won Their Civil Rights.
Is There Any Silver Lining To Trinity Lutheran Church, Inc. V. Comer?, Caroline Mala Corbin
Is There Any Silver Lining To Trinity Lutheran Church, Inc. V. Comer?, Caroline Mala Corbin
Michigan Law Review Online
Trinity Lutheran Church, Inc. v. Comer is a significant setback for a strong separation of church and state. Missouri denied a playground grant to Trinity Lutheran because of a state constitutional provision that bans financial aid to churches. The church sued. The Supreme Court held not only that the Establishment Clause allowed the government to give taxpayer money to Trinity Lutheran, but that the Free Exercise Clause required it. The decision's many flaws are not the focus of this short Essay. Instead, this Essay dissects the Supreme Court's reasoning in order to apply it to current controversies in related areas …
Gerrymandering And The Constitutional Norm Against Government Partisanship, Michael S. Kang
Gerrymandering And The Constitutional Norm Against Government Partisanship, Michael S. Kang
Michigan Law Review
This Article challenges the basic premise in the law of gerrymandering that partisanship is a constitutional government purpose at all. The central problem, Justice Scalia once explained in Vieth v. Jubilerer, is that partisan gerrymandering becomes unconstitutional only when it “has gone too far,” giving rise to the intractable inquiry into “how much is too much.” But the premise that partisanship is an ordinary and lawful purpose, articulated confidently as settled law and widely understood as such, is largely wrong as constitutional doctrine. The Article surveys constitutional law to demonstrate the vitality of an important, if implicit norm against …
Disparate Impact And The Role Of Classification And Motivation In Equal Protection Law After Inclusive Communities, Samuel Bagenstos
Disparate Impact And The Role Of Classification And Motivation In Equal Protection Law After Inclusive Communities, Samuel Bagenstos
Articles
At least since the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, disparate-impact liability has faced a direct constitutional threat. This Article argues that the Court’s decision last Term in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., which held that disparate-impact liability is available under the Fair Housing Act, has resolved that threat, at least for the time being. In particular, this Article argues, Inclusive Communities is best read to adopt the understanding of equal protection that Justice Kennedy previously articulated in his pivotal concurrence in the 2007 Parents Involved case—which argued that …
The Future Of Disparate Impact, Richard A. Primus
The Future Of Disparate Impact, Richard A. Primus
Articles
The Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano foregrounded the question of whether Title VIl's disparate impact standard conflicts with equal protection. This Article shows that there are three ways to read Ricci, one of which is likely fatal to disparate impact doctrine but the other two of which are not.
Constitutional Expectations, Richard A. Primus
Constitutional Expectations, Richard A. Primus
Articles
The inauguration of Barack Obama was marred by one of the smallest constitutional crises in American history. As we all remember, the President did not quite recite his oath as it appears in the Constitution. The error bothered enough people that the White House redid the ceremony a day later, taking care to get the constitutional text exactly right. Or that, at least, is what everyone thinks happened. What actually happened is more interesting. The second time through, the President again departed from the Constitution's text. But the second time, nobody minded. Or even noticed. In that unremarked feature of …
Post-Admissions Educational Programming In A Post-Grutter World: A Response To Professor Brown, Evan H. Caminker
Post-Admissions Educational Programming In A Post-Grutter World: A Response To Professor Brown, Evan H. Caminker
Articles
When asked to provide commentary on another scholar's reflections on Grutterl and Gratz and affirmative action, I am usually struck by two fears. First, because so much ink has been spilled on this topic, I worry the main presenter will have nothing new and interesting to say. Today this worry has been put to rest; I am so pleased that Professor Dorothy Brown offers a number of novel and intriguing observations and, in the end, advances a novel and intriguing proposal about the role Critical Race Theory ought to play in our nation's law school classrooms. Second, for the same …
The Journey From Brown V. Board Of Education To Grutter V. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation To Diversity, Harry T. Edwards
The Journey From Brown V. Board Of Education To Grutter V. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation To Diversity, Harry T. Edwards
Michigan Law Review
Fifty years ago, in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court confronted a precise and straightforward question: "Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other 'tangible' factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities?" The Court's answer was precise and straightforward: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs ... are, by reason of the segregation complained of, …
Bolling Alone, Richard A. Primus
Bolling Alone, Richard A. Primus
Articles
Under the doctrine of reverse incorporation, generally identified with the Supreme Court's decision in Bolling v. Sharpe, equal protection binds the federal government even though the Equal Protection Clause by its terms is addressed only to states. Since Bolling, however, the courts have almost never granted relief to litigants claiming unconstitutional racial discrimination by the federal government. Courts have periodically found unconstitutional federal discrimination on nonracial grounds such as sex and alienage, and reverse incorporation has also limited the scope of affirmative action. But in the presumed core area of preventing federal discrimination against racial minorities, Boiling has virtually no …
A Glimpse Behind And Beyond Grutter, Evan H. Caminker
A Glimpse Behind And Beyond Grutter, Evan H. Caminker
Articles
Many people have suggested that the recent battle over affirmative action was a defining moment for the contemporary relevance of Brown v. Board of Education and that it would determine the promise and potential for widespread societal integration. In my remarks, I want to comment upon a couple of comparisons and links between the Brown, Bakke, Grutter, and Gratz cases.
Equal Protection And Disparate Impact: Round Three, Richard A. Primus
Equal Protection And Disparate Impact: Round Three, Richard A. Primus
Articles
Prior inquiries into the relationship between equal protection and disparate impact have focused on whether equal protection entails a disparate impact standard and whether laws prohibiting disparate impacts can qualify as legislation enforcing equal rotection. In this Article, Professor Primus focuses on a third question: whether equal protection affirmatively forbids the use of statutory disparate impact standards. Like affirmative action, a statute restricting racially disparate impacts is a race-conscious mechanism designed to reallocate opportunities from some racial groups to others. Accordingly, the same individualist view of equal protection that has constrained the operation of affirmative action might also raise questions …
What's Wrong With Our Talk About Race? On History, Particularity, And Affirmative Action, James Boyd White
What's Wrong With Our Talk About Race? On History, Particularity, And Affirmative Action, James Boyd White
Michigan Law Review
One of the striking and original achievements of the Michigan Law Review in its first century was the publication in 1989 of a Symposium entitled Legal Storytelling. Organized by the remarkable editor-in-chief, Kevin Kennedy - who tragically died not long after his graduation - the Symposium not only brought an important topic to the forefront of legal thinking, it did so in an extraordinarily interesting way. For this was not a mere collection of papers; the authors met in small editorial groups to discuss their work in detail, and as a result the whole project has a remarkable coherence and …
'Appropriate' Means-Ends Constraints On Section 5 Powers, Evan H. Caminker
'Appropriate' Means-Ends Constraints On Section 5 Powers, Evan H. Caminker
Articles
With the narrowing of Congress' Article I power to regulate interstate commerce and to authorize private suits against states, Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment provides Congress with an increasingly important alternative source of power to regulate and police state conduct. However, in City of Boerne v. Flores and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court has tightened the doctrinal test for prophylactic legislation based on Section Five. The Court has clarified Section Five's legitimate ends by holding that Congress may enforce Fourteenth Amendment rights only as they are defined by the federal judiciary, and the Court has constrained Section Five's permissible …
Ending Male Privilege: Beyond The Reasonable Woman, Stephanie M. Wildman
Ending Male Privilege: Beyond The Reasonable Woman, Stephanie M. Wildman
Michigan Law Review
A Law of Her Own: The Reasonable Woman as a Measure of Man by Caroline A. Forell and Donna M. Matthews aspires to provide a solution for an enigmatic jurisprudential problem - the systemic failure of the legal order to recognize and to redress the injuries that women experience. Feminist scholars have agreed that, for women, the legal separation of public and private spheres often insulates from legal review behavior that harms women. But even in the so-called public sphere, women suffer harms that remain invisible and unnamed. The authors identify four legal arenas in which the "spectrum of violence …
Private Remedies For Public Wrongs Under Section 5 (Symposium: New Directions In Federalism), Evan H. Caminker
Private Remedies For Public Wrongs Under Section 5 (Symposium: New Directions In Federalism), Evan H. Caminker
Articles
The Supreme Court has ushered in the new millennium with a renewed emphasis on federalism-based limits to Congress's regulatory authority in general, and Congress's Section 5 power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in particular. In a recent string of cases, the Court has refined and narrowed Section 5's enforcement power in two significant ways.1 First, the Court made clear that Congress lacks the authority to interpret the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive provisions themselves, and may only "enforce" the judiciary's definition of Fourteenth Amendment violations. 2 Second, the Court embraced a relatively stringent requirement concerning the relationship between means …
An Essay On Texas V. Lesage, Christina B. Whitman
An Essay On Texas V. Lesage, Christina B. Whitman
Articles
When I was invited to participate in this symposium, I was asked to discuss whether the causation defense developed in Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle applied to cases challenging state action under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As I argue below, it seems clear that Mt. Healthy does apply to equal protection cases. The Supreme Court explicitly so held last November in Texas v. Lesage. But the implications of Lesage go beyond questions of causation. The opinion suggests that the Court may be rethinking (or ignoring) its promise in Carey v. Piphus …
Dissecting The State: The Use Of Federal Law To Free State And Local Officials From State Legislatures' Control, Roderick M. Hills Jr.
Dissecting The State: The Use Of Federal Law To Free State And Local Officials From State Legislatures' Control, Roderick M. Hills Jr.
Michigan Law Review
In discussions about American federalism, it is common to speak of a "state government" as if it were a black box, an individual speaking with a single voice. State governments are, of course, no such thing. Rather, a "state" actually incorporates a bundle of different subdivisions, branches, and agencies controlled by politicians who often compete with each other for electoral success and governmental power. In particular, these institutions compete with each other for the power to control federal funds and implement federal programs. This article explores one aspect of this intrastate competition - the extent to which federal law can …
Reconsidering Strict Scrutiny Of Affirmative Action, Brent E. Simmons
Reconsidering Strict Scrutiny Of Affirmative Action, Brent E. Simmons
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Under the artificial constraints of strict scrutiny, however, the courts are free to veto the government's choice of more effective, race-conscious means. The Supreme Court's unfortunate and ill-conceived adoption of strict scrutiny as the constitutional standard for reviewing race-conscious affirmative action should be reconsidered for several reasons. This Article examines those reasons.
Legislative Inputs And Gender-Based Discrimination In The Burger Court, Earl M. Maltz
Legislative Inputs And Gender-Based Discrimination In The Burger Court, Earl M. Maltz
Michigan Law Review
In An Interpretive History of Modem Equal Protection, Michael Klarman poses a powerful challenge to the conventional wisdom regarding the structure of Burger Court jurisprudence. Most commentators have concluded that during the Burger era the Court lacked a coherent vision of constitutional law, and was given to a "rootless" activism or a "pragmatic" approach to constitutional analysis. Klarman argues that, at least in the area of equal protection analysis, the Burger Court's approach did reflect a unifying theme, which he describes as a focus on "legislative inputs." According to Klarman, this approach "directs judicial review towards purging legislative decision-making of …
An Interpretive History Of Modern Equal Protection, Michael Klarman
An Interpretive History Of Modern Equal Protection, Michael Klarman
Michigan Law Review
My enterprise here is to write a limited history of modem equal protection - one that will facilitate understanding of the important conceptual shifts that have occurred over time. By "modem" I mean the period following the switch-in-time in 1937 that signaled the demise of the Lochner era. By "limited" I mean an account that falls substantially short of a full-scale history of equal protection, which would, for example, necessarily encompass a good deal of political and social history. My aim here, rather, is to tell a story about the evolution of equal protection as a legal concept; I shall, …
The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler
The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler
Michigan Law Review
This Note focuses on Scott's impact on attempts to determine what groups fall within the statute. Part I examines the various class-based animus formulas generated by the circuits since Griffin and the potential impact of Scott on these formulas. Part II argues that the key to understanding the scope of the class-based animus requirement lies in traditional fourteenth amendment equal protection analysis.
Rewriting Roe V. Wade, Donald H. Regan
Rewriting Roe V. Wade, Donald H. Regan
Articles
Roe v. Wade is one of the most controversial cases the Supreme Court has decided. The result in the case - the establishment of a constitutional right to abortion - was controversial enough. Beyond that, even people who approve of the result have been dissatisfied with the Court's opinion. Others before me have attempted to explain how a better opinion could have been written. It seems to me, however, that the most promising argument in support of the result of Roe has not yet been made. This essay contains my suggestions for "rewriting" Roe v. Wade
Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow
Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow
Articles
In United States v. Carolene Products Co., Justice Stone suggested by indirection that there "may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality" when courts are called upon to determine the validity "of statutes directed at particular religious . . . or national . . . or racial minorities."' In such cases, he explained, "prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry."' Forty years later, …
Illegitimates And Equal Protection, David Hallissey
Illegitimates And Equal Protection, David Hallissey
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Illegitimates often have been discriminated against by legislatures in the enactment of statutes, as well as by courts which have sanctioned such legislation. This article will examine the judicial response to legislative treatment of the illegitimate in social insurance, loss compensation, and intestacy statutes. Emphasizing the Supreme Court's analysis of the legal status of illegitimates in terms of the equal protection clause, it will also discuss how the principle of equal protection may be applied in order to reduce the number of illegitimates denied the benefit and protection of the law.
A New Dimension In Equal Protection?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
A New Dimension In Equal Protection?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Two of America's most cherished values will collide head-on this year, when the U.S. Supreme Court comes to grips with the most significant civil rights suit since the school desegregation cases of 1954. Arrayed on one side is the principle of governmental "color-blindness," the appealing notion that the color of a person's skin should have nothing to do with the distribution of benefits or burdens by the state. Set against it is the goal of a truly integrated society and the tragic realization that this objective cannot be achieved within the foreseeable future unless race and color are taken into …
The Conclusive Presumption Doctrine: Equal Process Or Due Protection?, Michigan Law Review
The Conclusive Presumption Doctrine: Equal Process Or Due Protection?, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
In Vlandis v. Kline and United States Department of Agriculture v. Murry, decided during its past term, the Supreme Court invoked the conclusive presumption doctrine to invalidate statutory provisions, that restricted access to certain state and federal government benefits. This term, in Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, the Court used the same rationale to strike down school board rules requiring teachers to take maternity leaves without pay. The essence of the doctrine is as follows: When a statutory provision imposes a burden upon a class of individuals for a particular purpose and certain individuals within the burdened class …
Boraas V. Village Of Belle Terre: The New, New Equal Protection, Michigan Law Review
Boraas V. Village Of Belle Terre: The New, New Equal Protection, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
In Boraas v. Village of Belle Terre a group of unrelated college students who rented a home in Belle Terre challenged a zoning ordinance that limited home occupancy to persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, finding for the students, decided the case using a novel equal protection theory, and the Supreme Court reversed. This Note deals with the theory adopted by the Second Circuit, its sources, and its future in light of the subsequent Supreme Court opinion in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez and the Supreme Court's analysis of …
Reapportionment: Success Story Of The Warren Court, Robert B. Mckay
Reapportionment: Success Story Of The Warren Court, Robert B. Mckay
Michigan Law Review
The fascinating thing about this major engagement of the Warren Court is that the principal decisions came to the Court late-1962 and after. Although these decisions precipitated a revolution in the concept and practice of legislative representation at every level of government, they were implemented quickly and with surprisingly little dislocation. The following remarks are intended to report the fact of that adjustment and to explain, to the extent the phenomenon is now understandable, why the change was so easily accomplished. When compared with the delay in public acceptance of decisions in the other areas mentioned above, the success of …
Color Blindess But Not Myopia: A New Look At State Action, Equal Protection, And "Private" Racial Discrimination, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Color Blindess But Not Myopia: A New Look At State Action, Equal Protection, And "Private" Racial Discrimination, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Michigan Law Review
Mr. Justice Frankfurter has remarked: "In law also the right answer usually depends on putting the right question." For nearly one hundred years now the courts have been putting certain key questions whenever confronted by the claim that a person was being deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution. From the time the "separate-but-equal" doctrine was enunciated in Plessy v. Ferguson until it was repudiated in the School Segregation Cases two principal questions were likely to be asked about any classification based on racial grounds: (I) Did the classification result, …
Constitutional Law - State Action - Effect Of State Court Interpretation Of A Contract, Dudley H. Chapman
Constitutional Law - State Action - Effect Of State Court Interpretation Of A Contract, Dudley H. Chapman
Michigan Law Review
Mrs. Doris Walker, president of her local union, was discharged by Cutter Laboratories in 1949 because of membership in the Communist Party and falsification of her employment application. The employer acquired knowledge of these facts in 1947, but did not act at that time to avoid charges of persecuting a union officer. The union, pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, which authorized discharge for "just cause" only, sought and obtained reinstatement from the arbitration board, which action was affirmed by the district court of appeal, but reversed by the California Supreme Court. On certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, …