Law Commons^™

Teaching "Ferguson", Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

What we now refer to simply as "Ferguson" erupted in August of 20T4 and immediately raised a cluster o f legal issues. What crime had Michael Brown allegedly committed? Did Officer Darren Wilson commit a crime when he shot at Brown? Protests ensued, and they in turn inspired a police response, a response that seemed to many more violent than the protests themselves. What of the First Amendment rights o f the protesters and o f the journalists covering them? What laws were they-protestors and some journalists-supposedly breaking?¹

As the days and weeks passed, the legal issues multiplied, and …

It's Not Just Ferguson: Missouri Supreme Court Should Consolidate The Municipal Court System, Thomas Harvey, John Mcannar, Michael-John Voss, Joshua Feinzig, Chris Mcallister

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The Missouri Supreme Court's unprecedented decision to take control of Ferguson's Municipal Court was based primarily on issues raised during sustained protest following the killing of Mike Brown and reports published by ArchCity Defenders and the Department of Justice. These reports highlighted racial disparity in traffic stops, excessive revenue generation, and excessive warrants and arrests and confirmed the lived experiences of poor and Black people in St. Louis: there is a racially discriminatory and profit-driven approach to law enforcement made possible only by the collaborative efforts of local government, police, and courts.

These condemned practices are not unique to Ferguson. …

Diversity As A Law School Survival Strategy, Aaron N. Taylor

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Over the past few years, law schools have been dealing with a drastic and, so far, unyielding decline in student interest. Between 2010 and 2013, student enrollments fell almost 25%, to levels not seen in 40 years. This trend has prompted many to wonder what schools have done, and what they can do, to ensure their survivalin this new climate. This article explores the extent to which law schools have used students of color, particularly black and Hispanic students, to bolster enrollments and lessen the effects of the downturn. The results of this analysis suggest that a school’s median LSAT …

Our Uneasiness With Police Unions: Power And Voice For The Powerful?, Marcia L. Mccormick

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The police shooting of Michael Brown, and the other recent police shootings of black men and boys, gave rise to many important discussions about race, inequality, power, and policing. But one issue not as widely discussed was the the role and propriety of police unions. This Essay describes the history and uniqueness of public sector unions, such as police unions, and why they are both useful and problematic.

This Essay describes ways police unions might be used to help solve the current problems, such as helping to connect officers with the community. The Federal and State governments have provided recommendations …

Jim Crow's Unwritten Code, Anders Walker

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In The Jim Crow Routine, historian Stephen Berrey brings fresh eyes to the intricate set of legal rules that maintained racial segregation in the American South. Building on works like Leon Litwack’s Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow and Neil R. McMillen’s Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow, Berrey focuses not on the rise or demise of Jim Crow so much as the manner in which it disciplined daily life. For average folks, argues Berrey, Jim Crow turned the South into a stage where whites and blacks learned to negotiate one …

The Injustice Of Inclusion And Fair Opportunity: Exploiting Children In Medical Research For The Benefit Of An Unworthy Society, Ruqaiijah Yearby

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The history of pediatric medical research has been characterized as a history of child abuse. Usually, the debate regarding the use of children in medical research has centered on questions of Autonomy (informed consent) and Beneficence (the best interest of the child based on a benefit risk analysis). The debate has rarely focused on the question of which children should participate in medical research by discussing the legal principle of Justice (prohibits use of vulnerable populations for medical research who are already overly burdened for medical research unrelated to health issues affecting them and requires that populations who participate in …

Let’S Pretend That Federal Courts Aren’T Hostile To Discrimination Claims, Marcia L. Mccormick

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Professor Sandra Sperino’s article, Let’s Pretend Discrimination Is a Tort,[1] makes a valuable contribution to the debate about the proper interpretation of Title VII and other employment discrimination laws in light of Supreme Court trends. Professor Sperino ably describes the way that the Supreme Court has used tort concepts increasingly in recent cases,[2] even having gone so far as to have called employment discrimination statutes federal torts.[3] This development has created significant concern among scholars,[4] including Professor Sperino herself.[5]

Rather than simply reiterate those concerns, however, in her article Professor Sperino adopts a novel approach: she takes the Court at …

What Patients With Disabilities Teach Us About The Everyday Ethics Of Health Care, Elizabeth Pendo

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In Healers: Extraordinary Clinicians at Work, by David Schenck and Dr. Larry Churchill, and in What PatientsTeach: The Everyday Ethics of Health Care, their follow-up with Joseph Fanning, the authors look at theeveryday experience of health care and the relationships that shape it. This article expands upon that inquiry by exploring the experiences and challenges of patients with disabilities and by exploring what patients withdisabilities can teach us about the everyday ethics of health care.

The authors of What Patients Teach provide a framework in which to focus on the everyday experience ofhealth care from the perspective of patients. This …