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Cleveland State Law Review

Journal

2005

Articles 1 - 30 of 36

Full-Text Articles in Law

City And Citizen: Community-Making As Legal Theory And Social Struggle, Francisco Valdes Jan 2005

City And Citizen: Community-Making As Legal Theory And Social Struggle, Francisco Valdes

Cleveland State Law Review

The Eighth Annual LatCrit Conference met in Cleveland in May, 2003 to engage a timely and topical theme - City and Citizen: Operations of Power, Strategies of Resistance. Importantly, the theme explicitly drew critical attention not only to operations of power but also to strategies of resistance, and thereby implicitly invited LatCritical analysis of how the two converge in the messy and multifaceted processes of building communities on any human scale. To open and introduce this symposium, this Foreword similarly proceeds in two parts: the first Part, reviewing the four "clusters" of essays comprising the symposium, focuses mostly on "operations …

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Race, Nation-Building And Legal Transculturation During The Haitian Unification Period (1822-1844): Towards A Dominican Perspective, Charles R. Venator Santiago Jan 2005

Race, Nation-Building And Legal Transculturation During The Haitian Unification Period (1822-1844): Towards A Dominican Perspective, Charles R. Venator Santiago

Cleveland State Law Review

This paper offers some preliminary reflections on the relationship between law, race, and nation building during the Haitian unification period. My contention is that, while the Haitian occupation can be described as a domination of Santo Domingo, it is also possible to discern some important ways in which Dominicans benefited from this relationship. More importantly, I suggest that there are some important moments where Dominicans participate in the Haitian nation building process. This paper also draws on a critical reading of Fernando Ortiz's notion of legal transculturation as articulated in his book, Cuban Counterpoint, to reflect on the multiple clashes …

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Violation Of Latino Civil Rights Resulting From Ins And Local Police's Use Of Race, Culture And Class Profiling: The Case Of The Chandler Roundup In Arizona, Mary Romero, Marwah Serag Jan 2005

Violation Of Latino Civil Rights Resulting From Ins And Local Police's Use Of Race, Culture And Class Profiling: The Case Of The Chandler Roundup In Arizona, Mary Romero, Marwah Serag

Cleveland State Law Review

The case of the Chandler Roundup provides a unique window into law enforcement practices including the planning, staging and procedures employed in removing undocumented immigrants from a specific urban space. We begin with an overview of the Chandler Roundup and community protests resulting from the five-day immigration raid. This section provides a general outline of the five day raid, including incidents leading up to the joint operation, official investigations conducted and lawsuits filed. The basis of the lawsuits filed was that "individuals were stopped and interrogated by the Chandler Police Department based exclusively on the fact that their physical characteristics …

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Disguising Empire: Racialized Masculinity And The Civilizing Of Iraq, Nancy Ehrenreich Jan 2005

Disguising Empire: Racialized Masculinity And The Civilizing Of Iraq, Nancy Ehrenreich

Cleveland State Law Review

I will argue here that the rhetoric used by the Bush administration (and the media) to sell U.S. military aggression to the American public has played upon the gender insecurities and racial biases of the population. To be more specific, it has reinforced a racialized national sense of masculinity by playing on the association of maleness with violent domination of people of color - domination seen as laudable because it is undertaken "for their own good." In so doing, it has also reinforced the message that the way for people of color in this country to become true "Americans" is …

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Changes In Gender Ideology Among Professional Women And Men In Cuba Today, Marta Nunez Sarmiento Jan 2005

Changes In Gender Ideology Among Professional Women And Men In Cuba Today, Marta Nunez Sarmiento

Cleveland State Law Review

This presentation summarizes the reflections of what it means to be women and men in Cuba today, among a group of Havana professionals. I asked them to emphasize the influence in this process of women's employment and decision making among women, two citizen rights which have been strongly promoted in Cuba in the last forty years. I also asked them to think about the socialization processes, which took place in Cuba and which contributed to these changes. Therefore, this paper is divided into two main topics: First, changes in gender ideology among Cuban professional men and women under the influence …

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(E)Racing Youth: The Racialized Construction Of California's Proposition 21 And The Development Of Alternate Contestations, Nicholas Espiritu Jan 2005

(E)Racing Youth: The Racialized Construction Of California's Proposition 21 And The Development Of Alternate Contestations, Nicholas Espiritu

Cleveland State Law Review

Illustrating the way in which conceptions of race and crime shape and are shaped by law is California's Proposition 21. Enacted in 2000, Proposition 21, also known as the Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act," was the product of California's direct democratic process through which voters are able to change the California Constitution through a simple majority vote. Part II address the ideological foundations of direct democracy and examines critically its ability to serve a democratic function. I examine the founders' rationale behind the decision not to employ a representative form of government, and look at direct democracy in …

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Land, Labor And Reparations, Guadalupe T. Luna Northern Illinois University Jan 2005

Land, Labor And Reparations, Guadalupe T. Luna Northern Illinois University

Cleveland State Law Review

Kim David Chanbonpin and Ronald L. Mize, Jr. bring to LatCrit two legal historical essays that connect property and labor issues to the present. The first draws from the former Mexican land base presently comprising the American Southwest. The second examines a class of "agricultural underdogs" that provided their labor to the nation's food production systems during wartime. Both articles bring real life consequences impacting our communities of color generally but gente of Mexican descent specifically. The authors' treatment of difficult questions however, extends legal engagement that demands compensation for past injuries with consequences into the present. Their assertions of …

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Reparations For Mexican Braceros - Lessons Learned From Japanese And African American Attempts At Redress , Ronald L. Mize Jr. Jan 2005

Reparations For Mexican Braceros - Lessons Learned From Japanese And African American Attempts At Redress , Ronald L. Mize Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

The U.S.-Mexico Bracero Program, 1942-1964, was designed originally to be a war-time labor relief measure that brought Mexican laborers to the United States to work in the agricultural and railroad industries. Over the past six years, I have conducted field research in Colorado and California with those who were most directly impacted by the Bracero Program - the formerly contracted Mexican workers. During the summer of 2002, my research was submitted as expert testimony on behalf of Braceros in a class action lawsuit associated with the Bracero savings program. The ten percent deducted from workers' paychecks is, from my research, …

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Outsider Citizenships And Multidimensional Borders: The Power And Danger Of Not Belonging, Pedro A. Malavet Jan 2005

Outsider Citizenships And Multidimensional Borders: The Power And Danger Of Not Belonging, Pedro A. Malavet

Cleveland State Law Review

In this closing for the LatCrit VIII symposium, I adopt a collective view of the articles, and attempt to develop how the themes discussed in them fit within LatCrit scholarship. I will then interrogate the future of our enterprise by discussing the danger of succumbing to the seduction of the real or perceived need "to reinvent the wheel," or at least to clothe ideas in overly-developed language. Last, the Conclusion discusses how LatCrit scholarship is both promoted and challenged by the articles published here. I further include some suggested institutional responses to the opportunities for mentoring and nurturing that I …

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Use Of Colossus To Measure The General Damages Of A Personal Injury Claim Demonstrates Good Faith Claims Handling, Dawn R. Bonnett Jan 2005

Use Of Colossus To Measure The General Damages Of A Personal Injury Claim Demonstrates Good Faith Claims Handling, Dawn R. Bonnett

Cleveland State Law Review

Because the law of bad faith is the most volatile of the causes of action, this Note will discuss how using Colossus demonstrates good faith claims handling by insurance companies. Initially, this Note will discuss how Colossus works so readers have an understanding of the product. Following the Colossus section, the Note will discuss the history of bad faith. Finally, this Note will analyze how Colossus assists insurers in meeting the different good faith standards across the nation.

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Squeezing Subjectivity From The Doctrine Of Unconscionability, Paul Bennett Marrow Jan 2005

Squeezing Subjectivity From The Doctrine Of Unconscionability, Paul Bennett Marrow

Cleveland State Law Review

Issues of unconscionability are most often encountered in two arenas: commercial agreements and family law agreements. In the first arena this Article proposes that the analysis should focus on the impact of a suspect term on the integrity of the contracting system or to an enabling statute. If a contract term materially undermines or compromises the integrity of the system for contracting or the integrity of an enabling statute, it should be found unconscionable. In the family law arena things differ because of the substance of the relationships involved and because the need for mutual consideration is de-emphasized. Accordingly, in …

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Prenuptial Agreements: A New Reason To Revive An Old Rule, Jeffrey G. Sherman Jan 2005

Prenuptial Agreements: A New Reason To Revive An Old Rule, Jeffrey G. Sherman

Cleveland State Law Review

This article is divided into five parts. The first part discusses the justification for our society's continued promotion of the institution of marriage. The second discusses why prenuptial agreements have become so widespread. The third gives an account of American courts' shift from rejecting prenuptial agreements to routinely enforcing them. The fourth presents my argument for treating as inequitable per se the enforcement of prenuptial agreements. And the fifth explores how the adoption of my view of prenuptial agreements might affect the popularity of marriage.

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Equal Protection For Homosexuals: Why The Immutability Argument Is Necessary And How It Is Met, Kari Balog Jan 2005

Equal Protection For Homosexuals: Why The Immutability Argument Is Necessary And How It Is Met, Kari Balog

Cleveland State Law Review

The immutability factor is possibly the most disputed of the four factors of the Frontiero test, a test laid out by the Supreme Court to identify suspect classifications. Doctors and scientists have spent years studying sexual orientation, attempting to find the cause of homosexuality in order to determine whether or not sexual orientation may be changed. Unfortunately, the many studies have not provided a definitive answer to the question of immutability. This Note considers many of the psychological, hormonal, and more recent genetic studies and determines what the medical and scientific evidence means for homosexuals in their pursuit for equal …

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Love And Architecture: Race, Nation, And Gender Performances Inside And Outside The State, Angela P. Harris Jan 2005

Love And Architecture: Race, Nation, And Gender Performances Inside And Outside The State, Angela P. Harris

Cleveland State Law Review

In this essay, I will use the metaphor of "performance" to describe the complicated interplay of power and identity. Each of the essays in this Cluster, I suggest, is concerned with some facet of identity performance within the power fields of gender, race, and nation. Perry calls our attention to how skin color, though typically subsumed by "race" in legal discourse, is a resource for performing identity that in fact complicates our understanding of racial subordination. Nancy Ehrenreich and Nicholas Espiritu are concerned with how states mobilize individual and collective race and gender performances as a way of inciting and …

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How Parents And Children Disappear In Our Courts - And Why It Need Not Ever Happen Again, James A. Cosby Jan 2005

How Parents And Children Disappear In Our Courts - And Why It Need Not Ever Happen Again, James A. Cosby

Cleveland State Law Review

Part One of this Article further examines those moral, factual and legal dynamics in the family that make these cases so difficult. Part Two summarizes the present state of the law, and demonstrates precisely where and why the current legal approach is falling short. I will show how the law specifically fails to adequately define the rights of parents, substantively as well as procedurally and, I will furthermore demonstrate how, in their current forms, the doctrines of parental autonomy and the best interests of the child are far too broad and too rigid for many cases involving the parent-child relationship. …

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Rethinking America's Approach To Workplace Safety: A Model For Advancing Safety Issues In The Chemical Industry, Gwen Forte Jan 2005

Rethinking America's Approach To Workplace Safety: A Model For Advancing Safety Issues In The Chemical Industry, Gwen Forte

Cleveland State Law Review

In Part II of this note, I analyze the impact of tort litigation, workers' compensation, collective bargaining, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act on workplace safety. I begin by describing how each of these vehicles operated historically and then I provide a contemporary perspective. In this section, I also consider the advantages and disadvantages of using these approaches to prevent and compensate for injuries. In Part III, I propose an alternative approach to workplace safety: employee board representation. In this section, I analyze and critique various methods of employee board representation and ultimately recommend a form of representation in …

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Eastern Visions, Western Voices: A Sermon On Love In The Valley Of Law, John W. Teeter Jr. Jan 2005

Eastern Visions, Western Voices: A Sermon On Love In The Valley Of Law, John W. Teeter Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

This is an appeal to your generation, the generation struggling to make the prolonged and stressful transition from law student to seasoned attorney. This evolution can be painfully despiriting, and I hope that my little sermon will provide ideas on how to transform a potentially grueling struggle for sustenance into a genuine labor of love. My sources stem from divergent roots, both Eastern—Buddhist with pinches of Hindu—and Western— ranging from Platonic to perhaps the moronic. I make no pretense of being an expert in any philosophical school, and I have no desire to indoctrinate others. To the contrary, I aspire …

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Citizen And Citizenship Within And Beyond The Nation, Tayyab Mahmud Jan 2005

Citizen And Citizenship Within And Beyond The Nation, Tayyab Mahmud

Cleveland State Law Review

The Latina/o Critical Legal Theory (LatCrit) movement, whose point of departure was the ground furnished by Legal Realism, Critical Legal Studies, Feminist Legal Theory, and Critical Race theory, has over time incorporated teachings of Queer Theory, Postcolonial Studies, Culture Studies, and Subaltern Studies. The three contributions to this cluster in the Symposium are worthy exemplars of this legacy as they open new avenues to broaden and deepen the project of critical legal scholarship. Jointly, the three interventions constitute a formidable spatial and temporal canvas. One explores the past, one interrogates the present, and one contemplates the future. One has the …

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What You Can't Have Won't Hurt You - The Real Safety Objective Of The Firearms Safety And Consumer Protection Act, Dennis B. Wilson Jan 2005

What You Can't Have Won't Hurt You - The Real Safety Objective Of The Firearms Safety And Consumer Protection Act, Dennis B. Wilson

Cleveland State Law Review

This article examines an aspect of the debate described above. It begins by describing the federal firearms safety regulation that does exist and explaining the reason that there is relatively little federal firearms safety regulation. It will then examine one legislative proposal to subject firearms to federal safety regulation, the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act of 2003 (Firearms Safety Act) and compare it with the law that has been applied to seek to ensure the safety of other consumer products for over thirty years, the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA). That comparison will demonstrate that the genuine objective of …

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How The Border Crossed Us: Filling The Gap Between Plume V. Seward And The Dispossission Of Mexican Landowners In California After 1848, Kim David Chanbonpin Jan 2005

How The Border Crossed Us: Filling The Gap Between Plume V. Seward And The Dispossission Of Mexican Landowners In California After 1848, Kim David Chanbonpin

Cleveland State Law Review

The goal of this paper is to show how the rule in Plume v. Seward and the actual practice of the Board of Land Commissioners in California at the time are not in synch. In Section II, I provide the historical background to the United States imperialist goal of Manifest Destiny. This section also gives a factual introduction to Plume and the procedure of the Board of Land Commissioners. Section III contrasts the result in Plume with the outcomes in the Board's decisions in factually similar land claims. Section IV analyzes the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty Land Claims Act proposed to Congress …

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Cities In (White) Flight: Space, Difference And Complexity In Latcrit Theory, Keith Aoki Jan 2005

Cities In (White) Flight: Space, Difference And Complexity In Latcrit Theory, Keith Aoki

Cleveland State Law Review

This essay introduces three articles by Reggie Oh, Aaron Monty and Julian Webb that share themes related to the idea of decentralization and decentering. This essay obliquely approached the three LatCrit pieces by first evoking James Blish's science fictional vision of "Cities in Flight" - cities enabled by anti-aging and antigravitation technology to depart from the face of the Earth and roam interstellar space, a picture of radical physical decentralization. The essay then moved on to consider three justifications and visions of decentralization from Robert Nozick, Frank Michelman and Iris Young articulating libertarian, deliberative communitarian and arguably, postmodern approaches to …

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Traveling The Boundaries Of Statelessness: Global Passports And Citizenship , Berta Hawk Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol, Matthew Matthew Jan 2005

Traveling The Boundaries Of Statelessness: Global Passports And Citizenship , Berta Hawk Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol, Matthew Matthew

Cleveland State Law Review

This essay proposes a model of a formal global citizenship that will prove both practically and theoretically feasible. The model flows from the concept of dual or multiple nationality and offers global citizenship only as an elective nationality. To appreciate the interplay between the proposed formal global citizenship and the citizenship tradition, our discussion will first review citizenship theories grounded in the nation-state. We then will turn to critiques of these traditionalist approaches which suggest that not all questions of citizenship can be dealt with in national terms. The conflict between these two approaches is clear in the case of …

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Removing The Roadblocks To Successful Domestic Violence Prosecutions: Prosecutorial Use Of Expert Testimony On The Battered Woman Syndrome In Ohio, Matthew P. Hawes Jan 2005

Removing The Roadblocks To Successful Domestic Violence Prosecutions: Prosecutorial Use Of Expert Testimony On The Battered Woman Syndrome In Ohio, Matthew P. Hawes

Cleveland State Law Review

This note contends that Ohio should join the modern trend and allow expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome in a limited form in domestic violence prosecutions. Part II of this note explores the syndrome and its origins. Part III provides background on the evidentiary uses of the syndrome in Ohio. It discusses the emergence of the battered woman syndrome in Ohio courts, and then examines the unsuccessful initial attempts by prosecutors in Ohio to use expert testimony on the syndrome.Part IV looks at how several jurisdictions outside of Ohio have addressed this issue. Part V presents the argument that …

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Of Desi, J. Lo And Color Matters: Law, Critical Race Theory The Architecture Of Race, Imani Perry Jan 2005

Of Desi, J. Lo And Color Matters: Law, Critical Race Theory The Architecture Of Race, Imani Perry

Cleveland State Law Review

In this article I want to posit two ways in which a critique of the black white binary leads us to understandings of race and racism that are useful for the struggles of all peoples of color. The first is, the critique should lead us to advocate for an understanding of race as an architecture rather than categorical. The second argument is that when we focus upon race as an architecture it leads us away from a linear notion of racial hierarchy with white at the top and black at the bottom, and towards a sense that the distribution of …

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Raza Womyn Engaged In Love And Revolution: Chicana/Latina Student Activists Creating Safe Spaces Within The University, Anita Tuerina Revilla Jan 2005

Raza Womyn Engaged In Love And Revolution: Chicana/Latina Student Activists Creating Safe Spaces Within The University, Anita Tuerina Revilla

Cleveland State Law Review

My own and other research shows that Queer/Chicana/Latina college students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or marginalized communities to the university often engage in a process of resistance to oppressive practices and environments within those institutions, even while continuing their education. While a higher education can be a form of liberation for many of these women, it can simultaneously be oppressive to some. As women learn how to negotiate both privilege and oppression in the college setting, they develop tools for understanding their conditions. One of these tools is political and social consciousness, which is often internalized and acted upon …

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Legal Writing And Academic Support: Timing Is Everything, Dionne L. Koller Jan 2005

Legal Writing And Academic Support: Timing Is Everything, Dionne L. Koller

Cleveland State Law Review

Part I of this essay briefly explores the relationship between academic support and legal writing as it exists in many law schools today. Part II will outline the academic support program at Maryland to give context to the observations presented in this article. Part III will present some of the negative aspects of legal writing courses as they relate to the academic support mission of a law school. Finally, Part IV will describe how a legal writing course can avoid the negatives and be an effective vehicle to deliver more advanced academic support after the first year.

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Outdated Form Of Evidentiary Law: A Survey Of Dead Man's Statutes And A Proposal For Change, Ed Wallis Jan 2005

Outdated Form Of Evidentiary Law: A Survey Of Dead Man's Statutes And A Proposal For Change, Ed Wallis

Cleveland State Law Review

In order to understand why Dead Man's statutes should be amended by state legislatures, it is important to look at the historical context of Dead Man's statutes and how they have been handled, interpreted and applied in different states. Consequently, Part II of this paper presents an historical outline of Dead Man's statutes; Part III surveys nine states that currently have a common law Dead Man's statute; Part IV analyzes the weaknesses behind the Dead Man's statute; Part V presents three separate alternatives that states should consider adopting in lieu of their current Dead Man's statutes. Finally, part VI concludes …

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Repudiating Morals Legislation: Rendering The Constitutional Right To Privacy Obsolete, Sonu Bedi Jan 2005

Repudiating Morals Legislation: Rendering The Constitutional Right To Privacy Obsolete, Sonu Bedi

Cleveland State Law Review

This article is set out in three parts. Part II outlines the difficulties with the right to privacy. Part III articulates the relationship between morals legislation and privacy, demonstrating that we no longer need the latter as long as the state eschews the former. Part IV argues that the Court in Lawrence articulates a new standard of rational review where specific appeal to morality is constitutionally suspect, allowing us to reject the right to privacy

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Law, Ethics, And Complexity: Complexity Theory & (And) The Normative Reconstruction Of Law, Julian Webb Jan 2005

Law, Ethics, And Complexity: Complexity Theory & (And) The Normative Reconstruction Of Law, Julian Webb

Cleveland State Law Review

My intention in this paper is a modest one, and a preliminary to more detailed analysis of the relevance of complexity theory to law. Accordingly, this paper presents an argument in three phases: it looks first at the nature of complexity and the philosophical grounds which, I suggest, inform a social theory of complexity; second, it ascribes characteristics which can be seen as constitutive of complexity, and applies those to the field of law, before looking (third) at how an acknowledgment of complexity can assist us in the process of normative reconstruction.

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Mapping A Materialist Latcrit Discourse On Racism , Reginald C. Oh Jan 2005

Mapping A Materialist Latcrit Discourse On Racism , Reginald C. Oh

Cleveland State Law Review

This Essay will analyze the call for a return to a discourse on the material reality of racism, and offer two ways to develop a materialist LatCrit and Critical Race critique of dominant, inequality reinforcing legal narratives: by (1) critically analyzing the narrative structure of dominant legal narratives, and by (2) incorporating a critical geographical consciousness into LatCrit and Critical Race critique and discourse. This Essay contends that any critical discourse must explicitly recognize the multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, multi-causal reality of racism and racial subordination, and it must expose dominant legal narratives for obscuring and obfuscating that reality.

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