Law Commons^™

(How) Does Unconscious Bias Matter?: Law, Politics, And Racial Inequality, Richard Banks, Richard Thompson Ford

R. Banks

During the past several years, psychological research on unconscious racial bias has grabbed headlines, as well as the attention of legal scholars. The most well-known test of unconscious bias is the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a sophisticated and methodologically rigorous computer-administered measure that has been taken by millions of people, and featured in major print and broadcast media. Its proponents contend that the IAT reveals widespread unconscious bias against African-Americans, even among individuals who believe themselves to be free of racial bias.

In fact, however, the findings of the IAT are ambiguous. The test could just as plausibly be thought …

Good Ole’ Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

An Empirical Examination Of The Impact At The Polls Of Indiana's Voter Identification Law, Michael J. Pitts

Michael J. Pitts

No abstract provided.

Good Ole’ Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

Good Ole’ Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

Good Ole' Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

Good Ole’ Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

Good Ole' Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

Good Ole’ Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

Good Ole’ Boys Apply Only: How The Ncaa Discriminates Against Minorities & Women In Collegiate Coaching, Nathan Berkeley

Nathan Berkeley

This note discusses the early-2008 NCAA Rule mandating that every NCAA Division I football team interview at least one minority head coach candidate when a vacancy evolves. I explore the possible reasons for the racial inequities and the unique circumstances in trying to implement an affirmative action program for unique high level positions. I argue that the NCAA Rule, as it stands now, is ineffective because there is currently no enforcement mechanism and that the Rule should be expanded to include other sports and women.

State Actors Beating Children: A Call For Judicial Relief, Deana Ann Pollard Sacks

Deana A Pollard

Controversy over public school corporal punishment is at an all-time high. On August 20, 2008, the Human Rights Watch/ACLU brought public attention to the issue by releasing its report on corporal punishment of children in American public schools. Lawsuits challenging this state action on constitutional grounds continue to be filed, as advocates seeking to ban school paddling refuse to accept that beating students is constitutionally permissible, despite their repeated losses in the federal courts, and the Supreme Court’s refusal to consider the issue again on June 23, 2008. Ignoring the uproar, nearly half of the United States continue to employ …

The Coercion Test: On Prayer, Offense, And Doctrinal Inculcation, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

Several different tests have been proposed to determine whether a state practice violates the Establishment Clause, including the Lemon test, the Endorsement test, and the Coercion test. While no test yet commands the consistent support of members of the Court, it is clear that several members of the Court favor some version of the Coercion test. Interpretation and evaluation of that test are rather difficult, however, because Court members differ greatly both about what kind of coercion triggers the relevant protections and about what the test is designed to prevent. The great disparity in views both about the reach and …

What Will The Life Of Riley V. Kennedy Mean For Section 5 Of The Voting Rights Act?, Michael J. Pitts

Michael J. Pitts

No abstract provided.

Is Arbitration Under Attack? Exploring The Recent Judicial Skepticism Of The Class Arbitration Waiver And Innovative Solutions To The Unsettled Legal Landscape, Ramona L. Lampley

Ramona L. Lampley

This article explores the hotly debated field of enforcing arbitration clauses with binding class-action waivers. While the enforcement of arbitration clauses generally, and those with class-action waivers specifically, has undergone much debate in the past three years in both the academic and judicial fora; this article casts a new look on the analysis. Instead of advocating simply for or against the enforcement of the class-action waiver, this article analyzes the dialogue between the consumer products industry and the consuming public, via the court system. This dialogue has resulted in a “new wave” of consumer products arbitration agreements: agreements that are …

Exporting Harshness: How The War On Crime Has Made The War On Terror Possible, James Forman

James Forman Jr.

This Essay responds to a consensus that has formed among many opponents of the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror. The consensus narrative goes like this: America has a long-standing commitment to human rights and due process, reflected in its domestic criminal justice system’s expansive protections. Since September 11, 2001, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and their allies have dishonored this tradition.

It is too simple, I suggest, to assert that the Bush administration remade our justice system and betrayed American values. This Essay explores the ways in which our approach to the war …

The Congressional Chaplaincies, Christopher C. Lund

Christopher C Lund

Twenty five years ago, in Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court considered the congressional chaplaincies, and concluded that they were not “an ‘establishment’ of religion or a step toward establishment,” but instead were “simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.” That latter phrase has been repeated hundreds of times in cases and law review articles; it suggests that the chaplaincies are uninteresting and uncontroversial and that they have been so throughout our history.

The Court in Marsh looked only briefly at the history of the chaplaincies. But a deeper look at that history …

Gendercide And The Cultural Context Of Sex Trafficking In China, Susan W. Tiefenbrun, Susan W. Tiefenbrun

Susan W Tiefenbrun

Abstract:Gendercide and the Cultural Context of Sex Trafficking in China

By Susan Tiefenbrun and Christie Edwards

Women in China are bought and sold, murdered and made to disappear in order to comply with a strict government One Child Policy that coincides with the cultural tradition of male-child preference and discrimination against women. Everyday “500 female suicides” occur in China because of “violence against women and girls, discrimination [against women] in education and employment, the traditional preference for male children, the country’s birth limitation policies, and other societal factors…” As a result of a widespread and arguably systematic disappearance and death …

Reconceptualizing Competence: An Appeal, Mae C. Quinn

Mae C. Quinn

This article builds on contemporary critiques of the justice system’s treatment of the mentally impaired, examining an important issue that until now has gone wholly unaddressed -- the effect of defendant impairment on the criminal appeals process. It argues that conventional wisdom stressing the importance of defendant competence during criminal trials but ignoring the incompetence of defendants during direct appeals makes little sense. Such an approach to defendant capacity not only fails to account for the realities of criminal practice, but works to undermine the fairness and efficacy of the American appellate process. Thus this paper calls for reconceptualization of …

Some Penetrating Observations On The Fifth Anniversary Of Lawrence V. Texas: Privacy, Dominance, And Substantive Equality Theory, Shannon Gilreath

Shannon Gilreath

This article, “Some Penetrating Observations on the Fifth Anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas: Privacy, Dominance, and Substantive Equality Theory,” asks the reader to look at the equality claims of minority groups at a new conceptual level. With the Lawrence decision as its critical paradigm, the essay proceeds through several observations on the failure of privacy/substantive due process grounded opinions to deliver rights to minorities. This discussion feeds an ultimate criticism of the equality analysis (or lack thereof) of many of the Court’s principal minority rights opinions. Particularly, I am critical of the longstanding notion that equal protection of the laws …

The Tort Of Negligence Or The State-Created Danger: Two Avenues For School Liability In The Case Of The Injured Student Informant, Michele H. Berger

Michele H Berger

Schools use students as the watchdogs of the school to report to authorities about drugs and weapons possession. There is a lack of liability assigned to schools for placing students in this inherently dangerous situation. If it is absolutely necessary for high schools to use students as informants, courts should charge schools with an affirmative duty to protect student informants.

Where there is a duty, there is the potential to breach that duty, thus exposing the school to liability for negligence. So long as that breach of a duty causes an injury to the plaintiff through cause in fact, proximate …

It Takes Three, Baby: The Lack Of Standard, Legal Definitions Of “Best Interest Of The Child” And The Right To Contract For Lesbian Potential Parents, Harvey L. Fiser, Paula K. Garrett

Harvey L. Fiser

In order to consider the plausibility of contracts regarding AI, this article will first review various options and legal ramifications for choices regarding AI and then focus on the effect of inconsistent application of the Uniform Parentage Act among states that have chosen to adopt any legislation. This legal conundrum creates major obstacles for lesbian couples in procreation and in legal protection for children and often denies lesbian Americans the right to equal enforcement of contracts. This article will then consider how the current standard of “best interest of the child” is being used in the absence of the UPA …

Scalia’S Ship Of Revulsion Has Sailed: Will Lawrence Protect Adults Who Adopt Lovers To Help Ensure Their Inheritance From Incest Prosecution?, Terry L. Turnipseed

Terry L Turnipseed

SCALIA’S SHIP OF REVULSION HAS SAILED: WILL LAWRENCE PROTECT ADULTS WHO ADOPT LOVERS TO HELP ENSURE THEIR INHERITANCE FROM INCEST PROSECUTION? Terry L. Turnipseed Associate Professor of Law Syracuse University College of Law in•cest (ĭn'sěst') Sexual relations between family members or close relatives, including children related by adoption. There is a growing trend in this country – startling to many – of adopting one’s adult lover or spouse for various reasons, mostly inheritance-based. Should one who adopts his or her adult lover or spouse be prosecuted for incest? Think about it: the person is having sexual relations with his or …

From Pedagogical Sociology To Constitutional Adjudication: The Meaning Of Desegregation In Social Science Research And Law, Anne Richardson Oakes

Anne Richardson Oakes

In the United States following the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) federal judges with responsibility for public school desegregation but no expertise in education or schools management appointed experts from the social sciences to act as court advisors. In Boston, MA, educational sociologists helped Judge W. Arthur Garrity design a plan with educational enhancement at its heart, but the educational outcomes were marginalized by a desegregation jurisprudence conceptualized in terms of race rather than education. This paper explores the frustration of outcomes in Boston by reference to the differing conceptualizations of desegregation in law and social science. …

The Real Id Act: Is It Really Worth It?, Sheena Eastman

Sheena Eastman

No abstract provided.

Heller, The Second Amendment, And The Right To Arms, Clayton E. Cramer

Clayton E Cramer

D.C. v. Heller (2008) was immediately recognized as a dramatic change in how the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the Second Amendment. This paper explains why the Court accepted what is now called the Standard Model of the Second Amendment—and rejected various other theories. It also explains why the Heller decision may actually make it easier to move forward and adopt moderate gun control laws, now that the Court has recognized that the Constitution protects an individual right of law-abiding adults to possess firearms for self-defense.

The Protection And Alienation Of Religious Minorities: On The Evolution Of The Endorsement Test, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The Endorsement test is one of the tests currently used by the United States Supreme Court to determine whether a particular state practice implicating religion passes constitutional muster and has been described as the test to make that determination. While commentators have noted that the current test is difficult for lower courts to apply and is likely to result in relevantly similar cases being decided dissimilarly, too little attention has been paid to the ways that the test itself has evolved. The Court’s more recent applications of the test have conveyed a message far different from the one previously communicated, …

The Medium Of Exchange Paradigm: A Fresh Look At Compensated Live-Organ Donation, Dean Lhospital

Dean Lhospital

For over twenty years, human live-organ sales have been banned in the United States and most of the rest of the world. Observations and data arising from black market transactions and the few legal markets for organs suggest that permitting and regulating organ sales leads to more humane conditions than outlawing sales. Despite the data, opponents of organ sales still argue that selling human organs devalues human life. This article examines the panoply of organ markets – white, grey, and black – and identifies the source of this cognitive dissonance. Recognizing that there is a fundamental paradox in ethical objections, …

In The Name Of Efficiency, Scott Shackelford

Scott Shackelford

India, the most populous and diverse democracy in the world, has a legal system to match. This system, a composition of ancient Hindi panchayats (village assemblies), Islamic law, and a formal British judiciary, has long been under immense strain, stifling economic competiveness and the pursuit of justice alike. As Lord Delvin famously quipped “If our business methods were as antiquated as our legal methods we should be a bankrupt country.” There are currently nearly 25 million cases pending in Indian courts, some of which have been appealed and argued for more than 20 years. Meanwhile, India spends only .2 percent …

Billy Budd, Joseph Story, And Racial Liberals Frying Fish--A Polemical Essay, Peter Linzer

Peter Linzer

Please see cover letter.

Theoretical Perspectives On Public Law, Administration And Public Health History, Lydia C. Stewart Ferreira

Lydia C. Stewart Ferreira

The struggle between authority and liberty, the tyranny of the majority, the prevention of harm, unlimited state control, the necessary rights belonging to citizens, and the establishment of contritutional checks by a consenting community - is the theory and practice of public health. This paper seeks to explore the interaction of epidemics on public and administrative legal theory. It is proposed that the legal theories of Locke in the 1600s and Mills in the 1800s regarding state and individual legal rights were shaped by public health disease epidemics of their day.