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Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action And The Geography Of Educational Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin Jul 2014

Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action And The Geography Of Educational Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Ultimately, I argue that one important response to the demise of race-based affirmative action should be to incorporate the experience of segregation into diversity strategies. A college applicant who has thrived despite exposure to poverty in his school or neighborhood deserves special consideration. Those blessed to come of age in poverty-free havens do not. I conclude that use of place, rather than race, in diversity programming will better approximate the structural disadvantages many children of color actually endure, while enhancing the possibility that we might one day move past the racial resentment that affirmative action engenders. While I propose substituting …


Toward Equality: Nonmarital Children And The Uniform Probate Code, Paula A. Monopoli Jun 2012

Toward Equality: Nonmarital Children And The Uniform Probate Code, Paula A. Monopoli

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article traces the evolution of the Uniform Probate Code's (UPC) broad equality framework for inheritance by nonmarital children in the context of the wider movement for legal equality for such children in society. It concludes that the UPC is to be lauded for its efforts to provide equal treatment to all nonmarital children. The UPC's commitment to such equality serves an expressive function for state legislatures and courts to follow its lead. The UPC has fulfilled its promise that all children regardless of marital status shall be equal for purposes of inheritance from or through parents, with one exception: …


Leveling Localism And Racial Inequality In Education Through The No Child Left Behind Act Public Choice Provision, Erika K. Wilson Apr 2011

Leveling Localism And Racial Inequality In Education Through The No Child Left Behind Act Public Choice Provision, Erika K. Wilson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

School district boundary lines play a pivotal role in shaping students' educational opportunities. Living on one side of a school district boundary rather than another can mean the difference between being able to attend a high-achieving resource-enriched school or having to attend a low-achieving resource-deprived school. Despite the prominent role that school district boundary lines play in dictating educational opportunities for students, remedies formulated by the federal judiciary-the institution frequently looked upon to address issues of school segregation and inequality-are ineffective in ameliorating disparities between school districts. They are ineffective because the federal judiciary evidences a doctrinal preference for localism …


Subordination And The Fortuity Of Our Circumstances, Sergio J. Campos May 2008

Subordination And The Fortuity Of Our Circumstances, Sergio J. Campos

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The antisubordination principle exists at the margins of equality law. This Article seeks to revive the antisubordination principle by taking a fresh look at its structure and underlying justification. First, the Article provides an account of the harm of subordination that focuses on one's position in society, rejecting the focus on groups popular in the existing antisubordination literature. Second, it argues for a theory of state obligation that goes beyond both the existing state action doctrine of the Equal Protection Clause and the failure to protect doctrine associated with Charles Black. The Article argues instead that the antisubordination principle mandates …


Disability, Equal Protection, And The Supreme Court: Standing At The Crossroads Of Progressive And Retrogressive Logic In Constitutional Classification, Anita Silvers, Michael Ashley Stein Dec 2001

Disability, Equal Protection, And The Supreme Court: Standing At The Crossroads Of Progressive And Retrogressive Logic In Constitutional Classification, Anita Silvers, Michael Ashley Stein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article compares current disability jurisprudence with the development of sex equality jurisprudence in the area of discrimination. It demonstrates that current disability law resembles the abandoned, sexist framework for determining sex equality and argues that disability equality cases should receive similar analysis as the more progressive, current sex equality standard. As such, the Article attempts to synthesize case law (14th Amendment Equal Protection jurisprudence) and statutory law (Title VII and the ADA) into a comprehensive overview of the state of current disability law viewed within the context of discrimination law in general.


School Finance Adequacy As Vertical Equity, Julie K. Underwood May 1995

School Finance Adequacy As Vertical Equity, Julie K. Underwood

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this Article, Dean Underwood explains that school finance cases can be divided into three waves of reform. The first wave involved efforts to use the Federal Equal Protection Clause to overturn financing systems. Litigants in the second wave turned to state equal protection and due process clauses. Finally, the third wave involved the utilization of education clauses in state constitutions as the predominant litigation vehicle. These three waves embody two primary approaches to school finance litigation. The first approach involves a challenge to the adequacy of a state's funding system under either the state or federal equal protection clause, …


Establishing Education Program Inadequacy: The Alabama Example, Martha I. Morgan, Adam S. Cohen, Helen Hershkoff May 1995

Establishing Education Program Inadequacy: The Alabama Example, Martha I. Morgan, Adam S. Cohen, Helen Hershkoff

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The authors draw on their experience as attorneys for a statewide class of plaintiff school children in the liability phase of ongoing public education reform litigation in Alabama to demonstrate the availability of state and nationally recognized standards concerning educational resources (inputs) and results (outputs) that can serve as evidentiary tools for assessing and for establishing a state public education system's failure to satisfy constitutional mandates of educational adequacy. The Article discusses the usefulness and limitations of using such standards as a starting point in a court's constitutional analysis. It suggests an integrated approach that links input and output standards …


Accelerated Education As A Remedy For High-Poverty Schools, William H. Clune May 1995

Accelerated Education As A Remedy For High-Poverty Schools, William H. Clune

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

High-poverty schools, and the students who attend them, have historically faced substantial challenges in providing and receiving, adequate education. Despite some relief from the courts, school finance remedies that require the redistribution of monetary aid to low-wealth districts have encountered strong political opposition. In this Article, Professor Clune makes a renewed claim for accelerated education as the primary focus of adequacy litigation in school reform cases. He describes the nation's educational condition, in which there exists a disturbing correlation between poverty and low educational outcomes. He then drafts a vision of a comprehensive, school reform remedy, one that emphasizes institutional …


Achieving Equity And Excellence In Kentucky Education, C. Scott Trimble, Andrew C. Forsaith May 1995

Achieving Equity And Excellence In Kentucky Education, C. Scott Trimble, Andrew C. Forsaith

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this Article, Trimble and Forsaith discuss the landmark Kentucky school finance case, Rose v. Council for Better Education, 790 S.W.2d 186 (Ky. 1989), and the school reform efforts it spawned. In Council for Better Education, the Kentucky Supreme Court held that the state had failed its duty under the state constitution to provide all students with an adequate education, which it defined in terms of seven categories of knowledge and skills students should acquire. The State General Assembly responded with the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), which significantly boosted state funding as well as established an ambitious accountability system …


Oklahoma School Finance Litigation: Shifting From Equity To Adequacy, Mark S. Grossman May 1995

Oklahoma School Finance Litigation: Shifting From Equity To Adequacy, Mark S. Grossman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article traces the history of Oklahoma school finance litigation from the initial challenge based on funding inequity to a recent lawsuit founded on alleged constitutional inadequacies in the state system. Although the legal challenge based on funding inequity was unsuccessful in the courts, the pendency of the suit helped push the state legislature toward some reforms. The threat of a new lawsuit based on alleged inadequacies in the state school system, together with a serious funding shortfall, propelled a comprehensive education reform plan through the state legislature in 1990. The association of local school boards that led the equity …


The Bar In America: The Role Of Elitism In A Liberal Democracy, Philip S. Stamatakos Jul 1993

The Bar In America: The Role Of Elitism In A Liberal Democracy, Philip S. Stamatakos

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note argues that liberal democracy, the free market, and science have contributed to the increasing atomization of American society. When each person and her views are glorified, universal standards of good become undermined, values become relative, and a sense of community becomes evanescent. Part II argues that individualism is incapable of accounting for the commonweal and therefore is inherently amoral because morality is concerned largely with determining when an individual's will should be subservient to the will of others. Part III considers the nature of elitism and equality and attributes the demise of elitist institutions in …


Equity In Public Education: School-Finance Reform In Michigan, William S. Koski Oct 1992

Equity In Public Education: School-Finance Reform In Michigan, William S. Koski

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that the only adequate compromise between the pressure to limit taxes and the need to provide both educational quality and equity is to institute a form of full-state funded education. Part I of this Note briefly defines equity in public education and discusses the importance of increasing equity. Part II discusses other values and concerns that arise in the school-finance debate, such as liberty, local control, efficiency, and quality of education. Part III considers several fundamental school-finance alternatives. Part IV provides a historical overview of Michigan school finance reform and a description of the current State School …


Beyond The Warren Court And Its Conservative Critics: Toward A Unified Theory Of Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Donald A. Dripps Jun 1990

Beyond The Warren Court And Its Conservative Critics: Toward A Unified Theory Of Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Donald A. Dripps

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I develops more fully the differences that divide liberal and conservative commentators on criminal procedure, taking special note of the series of Reports prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy and published recently in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform. Part II explains my disquiet with the suggestion that original-meaning jurisprudence ought to guide criminal procedure doctrine. Part II also defends the thesis that the fourteenth amendment protects the individual interest in freedom from unjust punishment, rather than any abstract interest in truth for its own sake. Part III considers two familiar controversies in criminal …


Forcing Attorneys To Represent Indigent Civil Litigants: The Problems And Some Proposals, Greg Stevens Apr 1985

Forcing Attorneys To Represent Indigent Civil Litigants: The Problems And Some Proposals, Greg Stevens

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that uncompensated court appointments represent an unsatisfactory means to provide counsel for indigents. Part I discusses the policy arguments for and against forced, uncompensated court appointments. Part I concludes that the arguments against these appointments outweigh the arguments in favor of them. Part II argues that they violate the Constitution's prohibitions against uncompensated takings and involuntary servitude. Part III offers a proposal that would provide effective representation for indigent civil litigants, while avoiding infringement of attorneys' constitutional rights.