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Full-Text Articles in Law
Setting The Stage For Ferguson: Housing Discrimination And Segregation In St. Louis, Rigel C. Oliveri
Setting The Stage For Ferguson: Housing Discrimination And Segregation In St. Louis, Rigel C. Oliveri
Missouri Law Review
The history of St. Louis is replete with discriminatory housing laws, policies, and practices: racially restrictive covenants, redlining, blockbusting and white flight, and exclusionary zoning. While these were common in virtually every part of the United States, they were particularly egregious, widespread, and pervasive in industrial Midwestern cities like Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis – which saw a large influx of blacks migrating from the south at the close of the nineteenth century. In fact, three of the most foundational housing cases originated in St. Louis. When we look closely at these cases – not just the legal principles that …
Fighting Hidden Discrimination: Disparate Impact Claims Under The Fair Housing Act, Sean Milford
Fighting Hidden Discrimination: Disparate Impact Claims Under The Fair Housing Act, Sean Milford
Missouri Law Review
This Note will provide a brief overview of the history of disparate impact claims under the FHA and outline why they are an important tool in fighting housing discrimination in the United States. The ruling of the Third Circuit preserves this important tool and will help to protect minority homeowners from future discriminatory redevelopment of their neighborhoods. The parties settled this case on November 13, 2013, before the Supreme Court could rule on its merits. Should the Supreme Court hold in a future case that disparate impact claims are not cognizable under the FHA the Court would strike a serious …
Federalism, Diversity, Equality, And Article Iii Judges: Geography, Identity, And Bias , Sharon E. Rush
Federalism, Diversity, Equality, And Article Iii Judges: Geography, Identity, And Bias , Sharon E. Rush
Missouri Law Review
Each individual has a background, and that background shapes the individual's views about life, creating an inevitable form of bias referred to as "experiential bias." Experiential bias is shaped by many identity traits, including, among others, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion and even geography. The geographic identity of state judges and their potential unfair experiential bias is the common justification for federal court diversity jurisdiction. But experiential bias is inescapable, affecting everyone who's ever had an experience, and is generally not unfair, as demonstrated by most studies regarding the "fairness" justification for diversity jurisdiction. More recently, Justice O'Connor connected racial …
Taking In Strays: A Critique Of The Stray Comment Doctrine In Employment Discrimination Law, Kerri Lynn Stone
Taking In Strays: A Critique Of The Stray Comment Doctrine In Employment Discrimination Law, Kerri Lynn Stone
Missouri Law Review
This Article argues that the stray comments "doctrine" does more harm than good and that those courts wishing to grant a defendant summary judgment on a claim should have to do so by looking at the totality of the circumstances, rather than summarily using a single facet of a comment to dismiss it from consideration. It points out that the doctrine and its premises fail to comport with even a basic understanding of social science and how people foment, act upon, and reveal discriminatory bias. Interestingly, another judge-made doctrine built into employment discrimination law - the same actor inference - …
Role Of Individuals Discrimination In Free Exercise Claims: Putting Iqbal In Its Place, The, Leila Mcneill
Role Of Individuals Discrimination In Free Exercise Claims: Putting Iqbal In Its Place, The, Leila Mcneill
Missouri Law Review
Ashcroft v. Iqbal has been widely discussed for three reasons: (1) its extension of Twombly's pleading standard to cases outside the realm of antitrust suits, (2) its application of the collateral order doctrine to a district court order denying an official's motion to dismiss on the basis of qualified immunity in a Bivens claim, and (3) its implication for national security and postSeptember 11th terrorist detainments and investigations. However, Iqbal also implicates the nature of what constitutes unconstitutional religious discrimination under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause. Therefore, the Iqbal Court's discussion of religious liberty will present problems of interpretation …
Anti-Discrimination Law In Peril, Trina Jones
Anti-Discrimination Law In Peril, Trina Jones
Missouri Law Review
In this short Essay, I explore the tendency of courts to summarily dismiss employment discrimination claims and consider whether the judicial skepticism, if not outright hostility, we are witnessing is limited to statutory actions under Title VII or is instead part of a broader movement against discrimination claims. In Part II, I suggest that between 1973, when McDonnell Douglas was decided, and 2009 societal beliefs about the prevalence of discrimination in the United States changed. In 1973, as the country emerged from the Jim Crow era, the presumption was one of widespread discrimination. Today, in so-called "post-racial" America, an opposite …
Discrimination Redefined, Ann. C. Mcginley
Discrimination Redefined, Ann. C. Mcginley
Missouri Law Review
I agree with Professor Martin's premise that it has become increasingly difficult to prove disparate treatment, especially in light of courts' aggressive use of summary judgment. I argue in this essay that the courts' retrenchment in Title VII cases results from a narrow definition of discrimination that focuses on conscious, intentional discrimination. Increasingly social science research demonstrates that much disparate treatment occurs as a result of unconscious biases, but the courts' reluctance to consider this social science has led, in many cases, to a literal, narrow definition of"pretext." Moreover, I posit that the recent Supreme Court case of Ricci v. …
Pretext Without Context, D. Wendy Greene
Pretext Without Context, D. Wendy Greene
Missouri Law Review
First, this response addresses the lower courts' opinions in Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc., as well as the Supreme Court's per curiam opinion in this case, which espouses a more contextualized analysis of pretext in race-based disparate treatment cases. Next, this response examines Holiness v. MooreHandley, Inc. and the acontextual, colorblind analysis the court applied. Each case illustrates the negative effects of courts analyzing pretext without context at different stages of race discrimination litigation: during post-trial phases in Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc. and at the summary judgment stage in Holiness v. Moore-Handley, Inc. Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc. and …
Pretext In Peril, Natasha T. Martin
Pretext In Peril, Natasha T. Martin
Missouri Law Review
This Article addresses the connections among substance, procedure, and equality in the American workplace. Exploring the deepening struggle for plaintifs under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this Article seeks to add clarity to an enduring quandary - why does Title VII fail to combat the prejudicial disparate treatment it was designed to eradicate? This Article offers a critique of the hardships shouldered by plaintiffs in proving contemporary workplace discrimination. Challenging the seemingly unfettered discretion of the courts in evaluating claims of workplace bias, this Article pursues the interplay of procedural and substantive law to expose how …
Pragmatism Over Politics: Recent Trends In Lower Court Employment Discrimination Jurisprudence, Lee Reeves
Pragmatism Over Politics: Recent Trends In Lower Court Employment Discrimination Jurisprudence, Lee Reeves
Missouri Law Review
This Article has five parts. After considering empirical evidence, Part I concludes that judges' political ideology plays only a limited role in their decisionmaking. Part II identifies the increase in case filings over the last two decades as a likely non-ideological cause of the increased judicial skepticism towards claims of employment discrimination. This Part begins by examining aggregate trends in the district and appellate caseload and then translates caseload into the more meaningful metric of workload. Part II next evaluates various steps courts have taken to handle these workload increases. Finally, Part II concludes with a discussion of why employment …
Discrimination After Daugherty: Are Missouri Courts Contributing To Or Motivated By The Number Of Cases On The Discrimination Docket, Amanda Stogsdill
Discrimination After Daugherty: Are Missouri Courts Contributing To Or Motivated By The Number Of Cases On The Discrimination Docket, Amanda Stogsdill
Missouri Law Review
For more than twenty years, Missouri courts have applied the federal McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting analysis to determine the outcome of a defendant's motion for summary judgment in claims of employment discrimination. However, the Missouri Supreme Court recently abandoned the McDonnell Douglas framework in favor of a new method of analysis derived from a Missouri Approved Jury Instruction. This new analysis has become known as the "contributing factor" test. In the months since Daugherty, controversy has surrounded this standard. Many defense attorneys claim that the "contributing factor" test significantly lowers the bar that a discrimination plaintiff must meet in order to …
Viewpoint Discrimination In Law School Clinics: Teaching Students When And How To Just Say No, Jason A. Kempf
Viewpoint Discrimination In Law School Clinics: Teaching Students When And How To Just Say No, Jason A. Kempf
Missouri Law Review
In 1996, the American Bar Association ("ABA") amended its law school accreditation standards and required that all ABA-approved law schools offer "live-client or other real-life practice experience. '' In doing so, the ABA confirmed the increasingly important role of law school clinics in legal education. This unique teaching environment moves students and professors out of the classroom and into real-world courtrooms. As these "student-lawyers" work on behalf of live clients, they "experience the legal ethics issues lawyers face every day, such as client confidentiality, conflict of interest, and competency issues." Not surprisingly, with these ethical issues come difficult decisions for …
Local Man Phones Spiritual Leaders, Ends Up In Federal Prison: Congressional Commerce Power To Curb Discrimination Motivated Violence, Courtney C. Stirrat
Local Man Phones Spiritual Leaders, Ends Up In Federal Prison: Congressional Commerce Power To Curb Discrimination Motivated Violence, Courtney C. Stirrat
Missouri Law Review
In United States v. Corum,12 the Eighth Circuit examined two categories of congressional commerce power used to eradicate religious discrimination.13 The result in this case perpetuates a split among the circuits regarding the extent of congressional authority to regulate non-economic, criminal activity. 14 This Note examines the parameters of the Commerce Clause and the continuing confusion in the Courts of Appeals following the Supreme Court's holdings in United States v. Lopez'5 and United States v. Morrison.16
Credit Opportunities, Race, And Presumptions: Does The Mcdonnell Douglas Framework Apply In Fair Lending Cases, Richard A. Hill
Credit Opportunities, Race, And Presumptions: Does The Mcdonnell Douglas Framework Apply In Fair Lending Cases, Richard A. Hill
Missouri Law Review
Congress has recognized that "[i]n a credit oriented society such as ours, impediments to sources of credit based on extraneous factors such as race, color, religion, age, sex, marital status, and the like, have a deleterious effect on both the individual victims of discrimination, and on the economy as a whole."2 Minority borrowers feel the impact of credit discrimination. "They make me feel like I was wasting my time. Like I wasn't worthy of being a home owner."3 Lenders often do not realize what they have done. "The discrimination in mortgage lending with which I've become familiar is not necessarily …
Getting Tossed From The Ivory Tower: The Legal Implications Of Evaluating Faculty Performance, John D. Copeland, John W. Murry Jr.
Getting Tossed From The Ivory Tower: The Legal Implications Of Evaluating Faculty Performance, John D. Copeland, John W. Murry Jr.
Missouri Law Review
This Article examines some of the legal issues that permeate the performance review process in higher education and offers some suggestions for improving faculty evaluations. As will be apparent, the courts have generally given institutions of higher education great latitude in devising and administering performance review programs. However, colleges and universities do not have carte blanche with their performance reviews and there are critical constraints on what institutions of higher education can do. These constraints are rooted in principles of fundamental fairness and due process, as well as constitutional and statutory requirements.
Title Ii Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964 And Membership Organizations Unconnected To A Physical Facility, Sandra J. Colhour
Title Ii Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964 And Membership Organizations Unconnected To A Physical Facility, Sandra J. Colhour
Missouri Law Review
In Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America, the Seventh Circuit interpreted Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At the time of the 1964 Act, almost ninety years had passed since Congress last focused on civil rights legislation in public accommodations? While Congress clearly intended for Title II to end racial and certain other types of discrimination in public accommodations,4 congressional intent with regard to entities that do not clearly resemble any of Title II's specific examples is less clear. This Note examines the sources behind the court's decision, evaluates the court's theory of interpretation, and predicts the …
Edmonson V. Leesville Concrete Co.: Has Batson Been Stretched Too Far, Melissa C. Hinton
Edmonson V. Leesville Concrete Co.: Has Batson Been Stretched Too Far, Melissa C. Hinton
Missouri Law Review
Peremptory challenges have a long history, dating back to 1305 in England. In Swain v. Alabama, Justice Byron R. White stated, "[t]he persistence of peremptories and their extensive use demonstrate the long and widely held belief that peremptory challenge is a necessary part of trial by jury." Peremptory challenges enable litigants to exclude potential jurors "without a reason stated, without inquiry and without being subject to the court's control.", In Batson v. Kentucky, however, decided in 1986, the Supreme Court restricted the power of prosecutors to exercise peremptory challenges based solely upon race. This Note discusses the facts and holding …