Law Commons^™

Documenting Discrimination In Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act Since 1982, Ellen D. Katz, Margaret Aisenbrey, Anna Baldwin, Emma Cheuse, Anna Weisbrodt

Other Publications

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the most remarkable and consequential pieces of congressional legislation ever enacted. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ("the VRA") targeted massive disfranchisement of African-American citizens in numerous Southern states. It imposed measures drastic in scope and extraordinary in effect. The VRA eliminated the use of literacy tests and other "devices" that Southern jurisdictions had long employed to prevent black residents from registering and voting. The VRA imposed on these jurisdictions onerous obligations to prove to federal officials that proposed changes to their electoral system would not discriminate against minority voters. Resistance …

Brown And Lawrence (And Goodridge), Michael J. Klarman

Michigan Law Review

One year shy of the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Justices issued another equality ruling that is likely to become a historical landmark. In Lawrence v. Texas, the Court invalidated a state law that criminalized same-sex sodomy. This article contrasts these historic rulings along several dimensions, with the aim of shedding light on how Supreme Court Justices decide cases and how Court decisions influence social reform movements. Part I juxtaposes Brown and Lawrence to illustrate how judicial decisionmaking often involves an uneasy reconciliation of traditional legal sources with broader social and political mores and …

Tribute To John Pickering, Elaine R. Jones

Michigan Law Review

This talented, persuasive, committed lawyer-leader, John Pickering, had several abiding personal and professional interests, two of which enhanced my life directly, and most of which enhanced my life indirectly. The first was the great personal interest he took in lawyers younger than himself, and the second was his passion about civil rights and combating the effects of racial discrimination.

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Gaffney And The Improper Role Of Politics In The Districting Process, Robert A. Koch

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that excessive partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. A plurality of the Court, however, would hold partisan gerrymandering claims to be nonjusticiable due to the lack of a judicially manageable standard. This Note synthesizes the opinions of a majority of the Court in Vieth v. Jubelirer on the precise harms of partisan gerrymandering and argues that excessive partisan gerrymandering unconstitutionally burdens the representational rights of individual voters. This Note proposes a judicially manageable standard to address that representational harm based on the Court's standard in Shaw v. Reno.

Applying 42 U.S.C. § 1981 To Claims Of Consumer Discrimination, Abby Morrow Richardson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores several interesting legal questions regarding the proper interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which prohibits racial discrimination in contracting, when discrimination arises in the context of a consumer retail contract. The Note further explores how the Fifth Circuit's and other federal courts' narrow interpretation of § 1981's application in a retail setting (which allows plaintiffs to invoke the statute only when they have been prevented from completing their purchases) is contrary to the statute's express language, congressional intent, and to evolving concepts of contract theory, all of which reflect a commitment to the strict enforcement of civil …

Sexual Harassment: Limiting The Affirmative Defense In The Digital Workplace, Donald P. Harris, Daniel B. Garrie, Matthew J. Armstrong

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Digital communications sexual harassment is on the rise. Such harassment occurs through sexually offensive and unwarranted e-mails, placing harassing messages on electronic bulletin boards, and other forms of harassment that occur through the Internet. To date, courts have remained silent on the issue of sexual harassment by digital communications. Should this type of harassment be treated any differently than harassment that occurs in the physical space? The somewhat surprising answer is yes.

This Article advocates applying a new judicial framework for addressing digital communications sexual harassment. This new framework accounts for the real-world technology in the digital workplace and the …

Fair Representation On Juries In The Eastern District Of Michigan: Analyzing Past Efforts And Recommending Future Action, Andrew J. Lievense

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note builds on past recommendations to reform jury selection systems to make juries more representative of the community. Juries representing a fair cross section of the community are both a statutory and constitutional requirement, as well as a policy goal. How a judicial district designs and implements its jury selection system is important to meeting this requirement.

Part I of this Note analyzes the history and development of the representativeness interest on juries, explains how the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan attempted to meet this interest in the 1980s and 1990s, and reports and …

For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Michigan Law Review

Fifty years after the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education, black comedian and philanthropist Dr. Bill Cosby astonished guests at a gala in Washington, D.C., when he stated, "'Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. (Black people] have got to take the neighborhood back . . . . (Lower economic Blacks] are standing on the comer and they can't speak English.'" Cosby, one of the wealthiest men in the United States, complained about "lower economic" Blacks "not holding up their end in this deal." He then asked the question, "'Well, Brown …

"Has The Millennium Yet Dawned?": A History Of Attitudes Toward Pregnant Workers In America, Courtni E. Molnar

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article will focus on what might be considered the "prehistory" of the PDA in an attempt to shed new light on the equality/difference debate. Beginning as early as the nineteenth century, pregnant workers have been forced into either the equality approach or the difference approach depending mostly on race and class. This Article will show that, at times, both approaches restrained the autonomy of women and even caused harm to individual women and society by contributing to the development of the stereotypes and social attitudes that continue to permit pregnancy discrimination today.

"Just" Married?: Same-Sex Marriage And A Hustory Of Family Plurality, Judith E. Koons

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

To contribute to a full moral deliberation about same-sex marriage, this Article inquires into the meanings of marriage, sexuality, and family from historical and narrative perspectives that are situated at the intersection of religious and political domains.

Expanding Gender And Expanding The Law: Toward A Social And Legal Conceptualization Of Gender That Is More Inclusive Of Transgender People, Dylan Vade

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In Part I, the article first describes the many different ways in which one can be transgender. Many transgender women and men defy gender stereotypes. Part I next suggests a non-linear view of gender. Often, when we get past the binary gender system, the notion that there are only two genders, female and male, we do so by seeing gender as a spectrum or line running from female to male. In Part II, the article argues that the sex-gender distinction is not part of the new conceptualization of gender, the gender galaxy. In Part III, after a brief overview of …

Discrimination In Sentencing On The Basis Of Afrocentric Features, William T. Pizzi, Irene V. Blair, Charles M. Judd

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article does not challenge the prior research on sentencing discrimination between racial categories that found no significant difference in sentences given to similarly-situated African Americans and Whites. In fact, in the jurisdiction investigated- Florida- no discrimination between African Americans and Whites was found in the sentences imposed on defendants, looking only at racial category differences. Rather, the research suggests that in focusing exclusively on discrimination between racial groups, the research has missed a type of discrimination related to race that is taking place within racial categories: namely, discrimination on the basis of a person's Afrocentric features. By Afrocentric features, …

Felon Disenfrachisement Laws: Partisan Politics In The Legislatures, Jason Belmont Conn

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This examination of the institutional changes to state legislatures, synthesized with an analysis of the handling of felon disenfranchisement laws by state legislatures, presents a troubling realization about the law today: in the twenty-first century, partisan politics moderates decisions about even the most basic and fundamental principles of democracy. This Note suggests that because state legislators follow their party leadership and position, a state's traditional treatment of racial minorities, geographic location, and even ideology are not the strongest indicators of a state's disenfranchisement laws. Rather, partisan politics drives changes to the state laws governing felon voter eligibility.

Does The Supreme Court Matter? Civil Rights And The Inherent Politicization Of Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Lassiter

Michigan Law Review

More than a decade ago, in a colloquium sponsored by the Virginia Law Review, scholars of the civil rights movement launched a fierce assault on Michael J. Klarman's interpretation of the significance of the Supreme Court's famous school desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Klarman's "backlash thesis," initially set forth in a series of law review and history journal articles and now serving as the centerpiece of his new book, revolves around two central claims. First, he argues that the advancements toward racial equality generally attributed to Brown were instead the inevitable products of long-term political, …

After Georgia V. Ashcroft: The Primacy Of Proportionality, Felix B. Chang

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Note argues that the majority in Ashcroft have left courts with an unadministerable standard-not so much for reasons that Justice Souter articulated in his dissent, but rather because the Court provided no guidance on navigating around the myriad of factors in the convoluted totality analyses. In the face of this uncertainty, lower courts will rely increasingly on the proportionality standard of Johnson v. De Grandy, which marked the midpoint in the judicial shift from Justice Brennan's worldview to Justice O'Connor's world-view. Part I examines two cases after Ashcroft which represent different degrees of racial vote dilution: Shirt v. …

Credit Where It Counts: The Community Reinvestment Act And Its Critics, Michael S. Barr

Articles

Despite the depth and breadth of U.S. credit markets, low- and moderate-income communities and minority borrowers have not historically enjoyed full access to credit. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was enacted in 1977 to help overcome barriers to credit that these groups faced. Scholars have long leveled numerous critiques against CRA as unnecessary, ineffectual, costly, and lawless. Many have argued that CRA should be eliminated. By contrast, I contend that market failures and discrimination justify governmental intervention and that CRA is a reasonable policy response to these problems. Using recent empirical evidence, I demonstrate that over the last decade CRA …