Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Law
Beyond Common Sense: A Social Psychological Study Of Iqbal's Effect On Claims Of Race Discrimination, Victor D. Quintanilla
Beyond Common Sense: A Social Psychological Study Of Iqbal's Effect On Claims Of Race Discrimination, Victor D. Quintanilla
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) once operated as a notice pleading rule, requiring plaintiffs to set forth only a "short and plain" statement of their claim. In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, and then Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the United States Supreme Court recast Rule 8(a) into a plausibility pleading standard. To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter "to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Iqbal requires federal courts, when deciding whether a complaint is plausible, to draw on their "judicial experience and common sense." Courts apply this standard …
Poll Workers, Election Administration, And The Problem Of Implicit Bias, Antony Page, Michael J. Pitts
Poll Workers, Election Administration, And The Problem Of Implicit Bias, Antony Page, Michael J. Pitts
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Racial bias in election administration-more specifically, in the interaction between poll workers and voters at a polling place on election day-may be implicit, or unconscious. Indeed, the operation of a polling place may present an "optimal" setting for unconscious racial bias. Poll workers sometimes have legal discretion to decide whether or not a prospective voter gets to cast a ballot, and they operate in an environment where they may have to make quick decisions, based on little information, with few concrete incentives for accuracy, and with little opportunity to learn from their errors. Even where the letter of the law …
Choosing Those Who Will Die: The Effect Of Race, Gender, And Law In Prosecutorial Decision To Seek The Death Penalty In Durham County, North Carolina, Isaac Unah
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
District prosecutors in the United States exercise virtually unfettered power and discretion to decide which murder cases to prosecute for capital punishment. According to neoclassical theory of formal legal rationality, the process for determining criminal punishment should be based upon legal rules established and sanctioned by the state to communicate the priorities of the political community. The theory therefore argues in favor of a determinate mode of decision-making that diminishes the importance of extrinsic elements such as race and gender in the application of law. In the empirical research herein reported, I test this theory using death eligible cases in …
Rethinking Customary Law In Tribal Court Jurisprudence, Matthew L.M. Fletcher
Rethinking Customary Law In Tribal Court Jurisprudence, Matthew L.M. Fletcher
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Customary law still appears in many of the decisions of American state and federal courts. Modern courts rely less on customary law, part and parcel of the English common law adopted and adapted by the Founders of the United States, with statutory and administrative law dominating the field. In contrast, the importance of customary law in American Indian tribal courts cannot be understated. Indian tribes now take every measure conceivable to preserve Indigenous cultures and restore lost cultural knowledge and practices. Tribal court litigation, especially litigation involving tribal members and issues arising out of tribal law, often turns on the …
The New Cultural Diversity And Title Vii, Steven A. Ramirez
The New Cultural Diversity And Title Vii, Steven A. Ramirez
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article will show that the most progressive diversity initiatives taking hold in the business community are facially neutral in their approach, merit-driven, and fundamentally culture-conscious (as opposed to race-conscious). These initiatives do not allow for any racial preference or gender preference and draw any such bias not from the inherent values of diversity but from the largely segregated pre-existing corporate tradition: hiring culturally aware minorities unleashes value because they bring insights previously unavailable to segregated businesses. In other words, White males can be and are hired in the name of cultural diversity when they bring cultural insights to the …