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Full-Text Articles in Law
Cultural Norms And Race Discrimination Standards: A Case Study In How The Two Diverge, Derek W. Black
Cultural Norms And Race Discrimination Standards: A Case Study In How The Two Diverge, Derek W. Black
Faculty Publications
The legal standard for race discrimination - the intent standard - has been scrutinized and justified for decades, but that conversation has occurred almost entirely within the legal community. Relatively little effort has been made to engage the public. This Article posits that the discussion of discrimination standards must account for and include public understandings of race and discrimination because race is a socially constructed concept and discrimination is culturally contingent. Race discrimination standards based solely upon the legal community’s perceptions are susceptible to significant flaws. This Article begins the incorporation of public understandings of race and discrimination by examining …
The Mysteriously Reappearing Cause Of Action: The Court’S Expanded Concept Of Intentional Gender And Race Discrimination In Federally Funded Programs, Derek W. Black
Faculty Publications
This Article addresses whether a cause of action exists under federal statutes to challenge gender and racial inequity in federally funded programs. The question has widespread ramifications because Congress appropriates funds to millions of programs that are subject to these statutes. The Court has held that the only cause of action that exists under these statutes is for intentional discrimination, but in a series of recent cases the Court has developed a framework that broadens the concept of intentional discrimination. Unfortunately, lower courts have focused on older and narrower interpretations of intentional discrimination without accounting for the more complex nuances …
Framework For The Next Civil Rights Act: What Tort Concepts Reveal About Goals, Results, And Standards, Derek W. Black
Framework For The Next Civil Rights Act: What Tort Concepts Reveal About Goals, Results, And Standards, Derek W. Black
Faculty Publications
This article anticipates that the next president and the current Congress will likely pursue civil rights legislation for the first time since 1991. Their most significant and difficult task will be determining whether to retain the Supreme Court’s intentional discrimination standard. Because this issue has so often led to polemic debates and court decisions in the past, this article attempts to provide a neutral framework for that discussion. Relying on tort concepts and their longstanding connection to constitutional torts, it demonstrates that the attempt to create a standard to prohibit immoral or “wrongful” conduct is both misguided and will prove …
The Contradiction Between Equal Protection's Meaning And Its Legal Substance: How Deliberate Indifference Can Cure It, Derek W. Black
The Contradiction Between Equal Protection's Meaning And Its Legal Substance: How Deliberate Indifference Can Cure It, Derek W. Black
Faculty Publications
This Article highlights the inherent ambiguities of racial antidiscrimination’s core legal language: “equal protection under the law” and “discrimination based on race.” It then analyzes how and why the Court has never answered fundamental questions regarding the meaning of these terms. Thus, this Article answers these fundamental questions itself by exploring the original intent behind the Equal Protection Clause. Against this backdrop, this Article reveals how the Court’s standard for assessing discrimination claims, the intent doctrine, assumes a meaning for equal protection that is inconsistent with its original meaning. Rather than reflecting equal protection’s meaning, the standard lacks any basis …