Law Commons^™

State V Fowler: North Carolina Dwi Procedure Considered, Jeffrey Martin

Jeffrey Martin

This case has its origin in attempts by the government of North Carolina to reduce drunk driving fatalities and improve road safety.

Ricci V. Destefano And Disparate Treatment: How The Case Makes Title Vii And The Equal Protection Clause Unworkable, Allen R. Kamp

Allen R. Kamp

Abstract

Although early commentators have focused on Ricci’s discussion of disparate impact, I see what Ricci is saying about disparate treatment as being more important.

One can see Ricci as the case in which the Court came down in favor of one of two competing interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VII. The anti-subordination principle “is most concerned with actions of a majority race to intentionally subjugate members of a minority race . . . it is when government serves to ‘perpetuate . . . the subordinate status of a specially disadvantaged group that the Fourteenth Amendment is …

Equal Protection, Same-Sex Marriage, And Classifying On The Basis Of Sex, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

Over the past several years, several plaintiffs have challenged same-sex marriage bans under the respective state constitution’s equal protection guarantees. Some state supreme courts have struck down those laws on that basis, whereas others have not. This lack of uniformity is unsurprising, both because the language in one state constitution might differ from that of another and because, even where the language is the same, the jurisprudence in the respective states fleshing out the depth and breadth of the guarantees might differ. What seems more surprising is that courts cannot even agree about whether same-sex marriage bans employ a sex-based …

Glimmers Of Hope: The Evolution Of Equality Rights Doctrine In Japanese Courts From A Comparative Perspective, Craig Martin

Craig Martin

There has been little study of the analytical framework employed by the Japanese courts in resolving constitutional claims under the right to be treated as an equal and not be discriminated against. In the Japanese literature the only comparative analysis done focuses on American equal protection jurisprudence. This article examines the development of the equality rights doctrine in the Japanese Supreme Court from the perspective of an increasingly universal “proportionality analysis” approach to rights enforcement, of which the Canadian equality rights jurisprudence is a good example, in contrast to the American approach. This comparative analysis, which begins with a review …

Teaching Values, Teaching Stereotypes: Sex Ed And Indoctrination In Public Schools, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Jennifer S. Hendricks

Many sex education curricula currently used in public schools indoctrinate students in gender stereotypes. As expressed in the title of one article: “If You Don’t Aim to Please, Don’t Dress to Tease,” and Other Public School Sex Education Lessons Subsidized by You, the Federal Taxpayer (Jennifer L. Greenblatt, 14 TEX. J. ON C.L. & C.R. 1 (2008)). Other lessons pertain not only to responsibility for sexual activity but to lifelong approaches to family life and individual achievement. One lesson, for example, instructs students that, in marriage, men need sex from their wives and women need financial support from their husbands. …

Perpetuating Ageism Via Adoption Standards And Practices, Sara C. Mills

Sara C Mills

More than a quarter of Americans consider adoption at some point in their lives. During the adoption process, courts strive to promote and foster the children’s best interests, but this often involves discriminatory decisions that deprive older adoptive parents of the same opportunities as younger adoptive parents. Discrimination in adoption proceedings is nothing new, and legislators, courts, and scholars have explored how it impacts minorities, same-sex couples, single parents, and divorcees. However, age discrimination in adoption also exists, and courts condone it by approving placements that are dictated by private agencies’ discriminatory ideologies. This article thus provides the first systematic …

From Immutable To Existential: Protecting Who We Are And Who We Want To Be With The 'Equalerty' Of The Substantive Due Process Clause, Aaron J. Shuler

Aaron J Shuler

Abstract Scholars have written about the duality of the substantive due process and equal protection doctrines and described how they have worked in tandem, although many academics have focused on, or outright called for, a preference for the use of the equal protection clause. Another contingent of the academic community, however, has discussed the favored use of substantive due process in the last fifty years in providing equal treatment for all groups by ferreting out discrimination against marginalized minorities. Scholars have also separately alluded to substantive due process’ ability to protect the most existential of liberties. This works seeks to …

On The Contemporary Meaning Of Korematsu: "Liberty Lies In The Hearts Of Men And Women", David A. Harris

David A Harris

ABSTRACT ON THE CONTEMPORARY MEANING OF KOREMATSU: “LIBERTY LIES IN THE HEARTS OF MEN AND WOMEN” In just a few years, seven decades will have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Korematsu v. U.S., one of the most reviled of all of the Court’s cases. Despised or not, however, similarities between the World War II era and our own have people looking at Korematsu in a new light. When the Court decided Korematsu in 1944, we were at war with the Japanese empire, and with this came considerable suspicion of anyone who shared the ethnicity of our foreign …

Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Jennifer S. Hendricks

The Supreme Court’s decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1 has been extensively analyzed as the latest step in the Court’s long struggle with the desegregation of public schools. This Article examines the decision’s implications for the full range of equal protection doctrine dealing with benign or remedial race and sex classifications. Parents Involved revealed a sharp division on the Court over whether government may consciously try to promote substantive equality. In the past, such efforts have been subject to an equal protection analysis that allows race-conscious or sex-conscious state action, contingent on existing, de …