Law Commons^™

Mapping Racial Capitalism: Implications For Law, Carmen G. Gonzalez, Athena D. Mutua

Journal Articles

The theory of racial capitalism offers insights into the relationship between class and race, providing both a structural and a historical account of the ways in which the two are linked in the global economy. Law plays an important role in this. This article sketches what we believe are two key structural features of racial capitalism: profit-making and race-making for the purpose of accumulating wealth and power. We understand profit-making as the extraction of surplus value or profits through processes of exploitation, expropriation, and expulsion, which are grounded in a politics of race-making. We understand race-making as including racial stratification, …

Fair Housing’S Third Act: American Tragedy Or Triumph?, Heather R. Abraham

Journal Articles

Fifty-two years ago, Congress enacted a one-of-a-kind civil rights directive. It requires every federal agency—and state and local grantees by extension—to take affirmative steps to undo segregation. In 2020, this overlooked Fair Housing Act provision—the “affirmatively furthering fair housing” or “AFFH” mandate—has heightened relevance. Perhaps most visible is Donald Trump’s racially charged “protect the suburbs” campaign rhetoric. In an apparent appeal to suburban constituents, his administration repealed a race-conscious fair housing rule, replacing it with a no-questions-asked regulation that elevates “local control” above civil rights.

The maneuver is especially stark as protesters fill the streets, marching in opposition to systemic …

The Case Of Dixon V. Alabama: From Civil Rights To Students' Rights And Back Again, Philip Lee

Journal Articles

On February 25, 1960, African American students from Alabama State College participated in a sit-in at a segregated lunch grill at the Montgomery County Courthouse. The lunch grill refused to serve the students and ordered them to leave. The students left and went to the courthouse corridor, where they remained for an hour before going back to campus.

When Alabama State College learned of the students’ actions, it summarily expelled them without notice or hearing. In expelling the students, the college relied on Alabama State Board of Education regulations that allowed it to expel students for “conduct unbecoming a student …

A Supplementary State Civil Rights Act, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

Under the following statute, civil rights groups, with the approval of the state civil rights commission, may enter into agreements with employers, labor organizations, school authorities, or other public or private agencies, for a direct attack on de facto segregation through a deliberate mixing of races in a desired proportion. Professor Rodes characterizes his draft as "a suggestion for controlled concessions to the principle of direct mixing of the races" in such a manner as to be "philosophically consistent with an ultimate commitment to a society in which racial considerations play no part."

The Legality Of De Facto Segregation, Charles E. Rice

Journal Articles

There are three basic fields with which a discussion of racial segregation must deal: education, employment and housing. Opinions will vary as to which, if any, is paramount, but none will deny that they are interrelated. In all three areas, the engines of legal proscription have been brought to bear to eliminate affirmative, legally-sanctioned segregation. But there remains the stubborn fact that the removal of legal discrimination has not been attended by either a resultant improvement in the living conditions of minority groups or a substantial integration of the races. The lack of causal connection between the elimination of legal …