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"Off With His __": Analyzing The Sex Disparity In Chemical Castration Sentences, Zachary Edmonds Oswald Jan 2013

"Off With His __": Analyzing The Sex Disparity In Chemical Castration Sentences, Zachary Edmonds Oswald

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Societies around the world have performed castration, in its various forms, on their male and female members for thousands of years, for numerous reasons. Even within the United States, prisoners have been sentenced to castration (as a form of punishment or crime prevention) since the early twentieth century. In recent years, legislatures have perpetuated this practice but with a modern twist. Now, states use chemical injections to castrate their inmates. It turns out, however, that systemic problems plague the chemical castration sentencing regime. These problems arise from the nature of the crimes eligible for chemical castration sentences, the manner of …


Passions We Like… And Those We Don't: Anti-Gay Hate Crime Laws And The Discursive Construction Of Sex, Gender, And The Body, Yvonne Zylan Jan 2009

Passions We Like… And Those We Don't: Anti-Gay Hate Crime Laws And The Discursive Construction Of Sex, Gender, And The Body, Yvonne Zylan

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article proceeds as follows. In Part II, the author catalogs the history of anti-gay hate crime laws in the United States, describing the rapid spread of state-level laws extending race- and religion-based hate crime laws to LGB people. The Article also provides an overview of federal legislation addressing anti-gay hate crime. In Part III, it examines the policy environment within which anti-gay hate crime laws have been, and continue to be, considered. Specifically, the jurisprudential frameworks that shape, define, and constrain discourses of equality, rights, and social identity are analyzed. The argument is made that the policy environment of …


Eatin' Good? Not In This Neighborhood: A Legal Analysis Of Disparities In Food Availability And Quality At Chain Supermarkets In Poverty-Stricken Areas, Nareissa Smith Jan 2009

Eatin' Good? Not In This Neighborhood: A Legal Analysis Of Disparities In Food Availability And Quality At Chain Supermarkets In Poverty-Stricken Areas, Nareissa Smith

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Many Americans-especially the poor-face severe hurdles in their attempts to secure the most basic of human needs-food. One reason for this struggle is the tendency of chain supermarkets to provide a limited selection of goods and a lower quality of goods to patrons in less affluent neighborhoods. Healthier items such as soy milks, fresh fish, and lean meats are not present in these stores, and the produce that is present is typically well past the peak of freshness. Yet, if the same patron were to go to another supermarket owned by the same chain--but located in a wealthier neighborhood-she would …


Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner Jan 2005

Justifying The Disparate Impact Standard Under A Theory Of Equal Citizenship, Rebecca S. Giltner

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Note outlines the limitations on congressional power under Section V and their implications for justifying the constitutionality of the disparate impact standard. Part II explores the prohibition of intentional discrimination as a justification for the disparate impact standard and argues that justifying the disparate impact standard through this theory, as some courts currently do, may eventually narrow disparate impact doctrine and thus constrain the possibilities for substantive equality in employment. This Part also analogizes the limits of using an intentional discrimination rationale to justify the disparate impact standard to the limits of using the diversity rationale …


Equal Protection And Disparate Impact: Round Three, Richard A. Primus Jan 2003

Equal Protection And Disparate Impact: Round Three, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Prior inquiries into the relationship between equal protection and disparate impact have focused on whether equal protection entails a disparate impact standard and whether laws prohibiting disparate impacts can qualify as legislation enforcing equal rotection. In this Article, Professor Primus focuses on a third question: whether equal protection affirmatively forbids the use of statutory disparate impact standards. Like affirmative action, a statute restricting racially disparate impacts is a race-conscious mechanism designed to reallocate opportunities from some racial groups to others. Accordingly, the same individualist view of equal protection that has constrained the operation of affirmative action might also raise questions …


Disability, Equal Protection, And The Supreme Court: Standing At The Crossroads Of Progressive And Retrogressive Logic In Constitutional Classification, Anita Silvers, Michael Ashley Stein Dec 2001

Disability, Equal Protection, And The Supreme Court: Standing At The Crossroads Of Progressive And Retrogressive Logic In Constitutional Classification, Anita Silvers, Michael Ashley Stein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article compares current disability jurisprudence with the development of sex equality jurisprudence in the area of discrimination. It demonstrates that current disability law resembles the abandoned, sexist framework for determining sex equality and argues that disability equality cases should receive similar analysis as the more progressive, current sex equality standard. As such, the Article attempts to synthesize case law (14th Amendment Equal Protection jurisprudence) and statutory law (Title VII and the ADA) into a comprehensive overview of the state of current disability law viewed within the context of discrimination law in general.


Private Remedies For Public Wrongs Under Section 5 (Symposium: New Directions In Federalism), Evan H. Caminker Jan 2000

Private Remedies For Public Wrongs Under Section 5 (Symposium: New Directions In Federalism), Evan H. Caminker

Articles

The Supreme Court has ushered in the new millennium with a renewed emphasis on federalism-based limits to Congress's regulatory authority in general, and Congress's Section 5 power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in particular. In a recent string of cases, the Court has refined and narrowed Section 5's enforcement power in two significant ways.1 First, the Court made clear that Congress lacks the authority to interpret the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive provisions themselves, and may only "enforce" the judiciary's definition of Fourteenth Amendment violations. 2 Second, the Court embraced a relatively stringent requirement concerning the relationship between means …


The Baker [Baker V. State, 744 A.2d 864 (Vt. 1999)] Case, Civil Unions, And The Recognition Of Our Common Humanity: An Introduction And A Speculation, David L. Chambers Jan 2000

The Baker [Baker V. State, 744 A.2d 864 (Vt. 1999)] Case, Civil Unions, And The Recognition Of Our Common Humanity: An Introduction And A Speculation, David L. Chambers

Articles

Every. Vermonter seems to know about two recent decisions of the Vermont Supreme Court. In the first, the court struck down the system of local financing of public schools. Like similar decisions in many other states, the school financing case led to a struggle in the legislature and difficulties for legislators at election time. In the second and even more controversial decision, the court reached an outcome that no other state supreme court had ever reached: it held unconstitutional the state's marriage law on the ground that it inappropriately denied the legal benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. This decision, …


Dissecting The State: The Use Of Federal Law To Free State And Local Officials From State Legislatures' Control, Roderick M. Hills Jr. Mar 1999

Dissecting The State: The Use Of Federal Law To Free State And Local Officials From State Legislatures' Control, Roderick M. Hills Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In discussions about American federalism, it is common to speak of a "state government" as if it were a black box, an individual speaking with a single voice. State governments are, of course, no such thing. Rather, a "state" actually incorporates a bundle of different subdivisions, branches, and agencies controlled by politicians who often compete with each other for electoral success and governmental power. In particular, these institutions compete with each other for the power to control federal funds and implement federal programs. This article explores one aspect of this intrastate competition - the extent to which federal law can …


Polygamy And Same-Sex Marriage, David L. Chambers Jan 1997

Polygamy And Same-Sex Marriage, David L. Chambers

Articles

In the American federal system, state governments bear the responsibility for enacting the laws that define the persons who are permitted to marry. The federal government, throughout our history, has accepted these definitions and built upon them, fixing legal consequences for those who validly marry under state law. Only twice in American history has Congress intervened to reject the determinations that states might make about who can marry. The first occasion was in the late nineteenth century when Congress enacted a series of statutes aimed at the Mormon Church, prohibiting polygamy in the Western territories and punishing the Church and …


Marriage Today: Legal Consequences For Same Sex And Opposite Sex Couples, David L. Chambers Jan 1997

Marriage Today: Legal Consequences For Same Sex And Opposite Sex Couples, David L. Chambers

Articles

Laws that treat married persons in a different manner than they treat single persons permeate nearly every field of social regulation in this country -- taxation, otrts, evidence, social welfare, inheritance, adoption, and on and on.


Is Title Vi A Magic Bullet? Environmental Racism In The Context Of Political-Economic Processes And Imperatives, Steven A. Light, Kathryn R.L. Rand Jan 1996

Is Title Vi A Magic Bullet? Environmental Racism In The Context Of Political-Economic Processes And Imperatives, Steven A. Light, Kathryn R.L. Rand

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article examines avenues of redress and pollution prevention for impoverished people of color that flow from Title VI litigation strategies within the larger context of the environmental justice movement. Environmental justice issues can serve as tools with which to question status quo distributive policymaking processes and outcomes. Specifically, this Article concerns itself with practical routes toward increasing distributive justice and democratic efficacy.


What If? The Legal Consequences Of Marriage And The Legal Needs Of Lesbian And Gay Male Couples, David L. Chambers Jan 1996

What If? The Legal Consequences Of Marriage And The Legal Needs Of Lesbian And Gay Male Couples, David L. Chambers

Articles

Laws that treat married persons in a different manner than they treat single persons permeate nearly every field of social regulation in this country - taxation, torts, evidence, social welfare, inheritance, adoption, and on and on. In this article I inquire into the patterns these laws form and the central benefits and obligations that marriage entails, a task few scholars have undertaken in recent years. I have done so because same-sex couples, a large group not previously eligible to marry under the laws of any American jurisdiction, may be on the brink of securing the opportunity to do so in …


The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler Oct 1985

The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler

Michigan Law Review

This Note focuses on Scott's impact on attempts to determine what groups fall within the statute. Part I examines the various class-based animus formulas generated by the circuits since Griffin and the potential impact of Scott on these formulas. Part II argues that the key to understanding the scope of the class-based animus requirement lies in traditional fourteenth amendment equal protection analysis.


The Conclusive Presumption Doctrine: Equal Process Or Due Protection?, Michigan Law Review Mar 1974

The Conclusive Presumption Doctrine: Equal Process Or Due Protection?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In Vlandis v. Kline and United States Department of Agriculture v. Murry, decided during its past term, the Supreme Court invoked the conclusive presumption doctrine to invalidate statutory provisions, that restricted access to certain state and federal government benefits. This term, in Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, the Court used the same rationale to strike down school board rules requiring teachers to take maternity leaves without pay. The essence of the doctrine is as follows: When a statutory provision imposes a burden upon a class of individuals for a particular purpose and certain individuals within the burdened class …


The Powers Of The Michigan Civil Rights Commission, Roger C. Cramton Nov 1964

The Powers Of The Michigan Civil Rights Commission, Roger C. Cramton

Michigan Law Review

The thesis of this article is that the Attorney General has misread the language and actions of the constitution-makers. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission is an important and powerful agency of government which has substantial tasks to perform. But it does not possess the exclusive powers envisioned by the Attorney General. Other governmental units-the legislature, the executive, the courts, and the local governments-may continue to play a creative and positive role in fashioning a legal order that accords to every human being in society a reasonable opportunity to realize his potentialities.


The Administraton's Anti-Literacy Test Bill: Wholly Constitutional But Wholly Inadequate, William W. Van Alstyne Feb 1963

The Administraton's Anti-Literacy Test Bill: Wholly Constitutional But Wholly Inadequate, William W. Van Alstyne

Michigan Law Review

The nature of American national government has undergone a profound metamorphosis, moving from the near oligarchy which characterized the system as established in 1789 to the imperfectly representative government which it is today. At the time the Constitution was ratified, all restrictions then imposed by the several states on the right to vote for state and federal electors were preserved. These various limitations on the franchise restricted the active body politic to approximately four percent of the total population. Disfranchisement applied then, as now, to those under twenty-one, to those lacking sufficient residence in a given community, to the insane, …


The Constitutions Of West Germany And The United States: A Comparative Study, Paul G. Kauper Jun 1960

The Constitutions Of West Germany And The United States: A Comparative Study, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this article is to present a descriptive overall picture of the fundamental features of the system established by the Basic Law and at the same time point up significant comparisons and contrasts by reference to the Constitution. Eleven years have now elapsed since the Basic Law went into effect, and significant decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht ) noted at the appropriate points, serve to illuminate the working of the system established by it.


Civil Rights - Due Process - Action For Civil Conspiracy Based On Section 1983, James B. Blanchard Mar 1960

Civil Rights - Due Process - Action For Civil Conspiracy Based On Section 1983, James B. Blanchard

Michigan Law Review

In an action for damages based on sections 1983 and 1985 of the Civil Rights Act, plaintiff alleged that a county health officer and his deputy, pursuant to a conspiracy, forcibly took plaintiff to a mental hospital and confined him there for a period of two months in willful violation of a state court order requiring plaintiff to be brought before the court for a sanity hearing. Plaintiff also alleged a false return of citation to the court by the officers and an intentional suppression of facts by the officers and the examining physician regarding plaintiff's illegal detention. Plaintiff contended …


Anti-Chain Store Legislation, Hugh A. Fulton Dec 1931

Anti-Chain Store Legislation, Hugh A. Fulton

Michigan Law Review

During the past few years chain store merchandising has made such serious inroads upon the trade of independent wholesale and retail merchants that they have been forced to use every expedient within their reach in order to survive. They have banded together in order to achieve the economies which have made chain store merchandising so successful and have been rewarded with a large measure of success and even with the hope of competing on an equal basis with the average chain system. But they have not been satisfied with merely seeking to operate on a smaller margin of profit. They …


Note And Comment, Edgar N. Durfee, Cyril E. Bailey, Edwin B. Stason, William C. O'Keefe, Clyde Y. Morris Apr 1922

Note And Comment, Edgar N. Durfee, Cyril E. Bailey, Edwin B. Stason, William C. O'Keefe, Clyde Y. Morris

Michigan Law Review

The Basis of Relief from Penalties and Forfeitures - The equitable principle of relief from penalties and forfeitures is so far elementary as almost to defy analysis. Many, perhaps most, of the judicial explanations of the principle have based it upon interpretation or construction, appealing to the doctrine that equity regards intent rather than form. Yet a logical application of this doctrine would lead to results very different from those which have actually been arrived at in the decisions. Thus, a stipulation in a mortgage that the mortgagor waives his equity of redemption can hardly be interpreted as meaning that …