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Remediating Racism For Rent: A Landlord’S Obligation Under The Fha, Mollie Krent Jun 2021

Remediating Racism For Rent: A Landlord’S Obligation Under The Fha, Mollie Krent

Michigan Law Review

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) is an expansive and powerful piece of legislation that furthers equal housing in the United States by ferreting out discrimination in the housing market. While the power of the Act is well recognized by courts, the full contours of the FHA are still to be refined. In particular, it remains unsettled whether and when a landlord can be liable for tenant-on-tenant harassment. This Note argues, first, that the FHA does recognize liability in such a circumstance and, second, that a landlord should be subject to liability for her negligence in such a circumstance. Part I …


A Different Type Of Property: White Women And The Human Property They Kept, Michele Goodwin Apr 2021

A Different Type Of Property: White Women And The Human Property They Kept, Michele Goodwin

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. by Harriet A. Jacobs, and They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South. by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers.


For Cause: Rethinking Racial Exclusion And The American Jury, Thomas Ward Frampton Apr 2020

For Cause: Rethinking Racial Exclusion And The American Jury, Thomas Ward Frampton

Michigan Law Review

Peremptory strikes, and criticism of the permissive constitutional framework regulating them, have dominated the scholarship on race and the jury for the past several decades. But we have overlooked another important way in which the American jury reflects and reproduces racial hierarchies: massive racial disparities also pervade the use of challenges for cause. This Article examines challenges for cause and race in nearly 400 trials and, based on original archival research, presents a revisionist account of the Supreme Court’s three most recent Batson cases. It establishes that challenges for cause, no less than peremptory strikes, are an important—and unrecognized—vehicle of …


Racial Purges, Robert L. Tsai Jan 2020

Racial Purges, Robert L. Tsai

Michigan Law Review

Review of Beth Lew-Williams' The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America.


Tax Policy And Our Democracy, Clinton G. Wallace Jan 2020

Tax Policy And Our Democracy, Clinton G. Wallace

Michigan Law Review

Review of Anthony C. Infanti's Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves.


Separate And Unequal: The Law Of "Domestic" And "International" Terrorism, Shirin Sinnar Jan 2019

Separate And Unequal: The Law Of "Domestic" And "International" Terrorism, Shirin Sinnar

Michigan Law Review

U.S. law differentiates between two categories of terrorism. “International terrorism” covers threats with a putative international nexus, even when they stem from U.S. citizens or residents acting only within the United States. “Domestic terrorism” applies to political violence thought to be purely domestic in its origin and intended impact. The law permits broader surveillance, wider criminal charges, and more punitive treatment for crimes labeled international terrorism. Law enforcement agencies frequently consider U.S. Muslims “international” threats even when they have scant foreign ties. As a result, they police and punish them more intensely than white nationalists and other “domestic” threats. This …


Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher Jan 2019

Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Michigan Law Review

Review of David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.


The Outcome Of Influence: Hitler’S American Model And Transnational Legal History, Mary L. Dudziak Jan 2019

The Outcome Of Influence: Hitler’S American Model And Transnational Legal History, Mary L. Dudziak

Michigan Law Review

Review of James Q. Whitman's Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law.


Article Ii And Antidiscrimination Norms, Aziz Z. Huq Jan 2019

Article Ii And Antidiscrimination Norms, Aziz Z. Huq

Michigan Law Review

The Supreme Court’s opinion in Trump v. Hawaii validated a prohibition on entry to the United States from several Muslim-majority countries and at the same time repudiated a longstanding precedent associated with the Japanese American internment of World War II. This Article closely analyzes the relationship of these twin rulings. It uses their dichotomous valences as a lens on the legal scope for discriminatory action by the federal executive. Parsing the various ways in which the internment of the 1940s and the 2017 exclusion order can be reconciled, the Article identifies a tension between the Court’s two holdings in Trump …


The Banality Of Evil And The First Amendment, W. Bradley Wendel May 2004

The Banality Of Evil And The First Amendment, W. Bradley Wendel

Michigan Law Review

In the late spring and early summer of 1994, hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda - an estimated ten percent of the population - were brutally murdered by their fellow citizens, generally for the "crime" of belonging to the socially and economically dominant, but numerically minority Tutsi ethnic group. The slaughter followed a systematic propaganda campaign coordinated by the Rwandan government, dominated by members of the Hutu ethnic group, who had long harbored grievances against Tutsis. The campaign demonized Tutsis as "devils," stirred up fear among the largely rural and poor Hutu population by propagating false information about a …


The Politicization Of Clarence Thomas, Jagan Nicholas Ranjan May 2003

The Politicization Of Clarence Thomas, Jagan Nicholas Ranjan

Michigan Law Review

Perception often shapes memory. In particular, the way one perceives a noteworthy public figure often shapes that figure's historical legacy. For example, history largely remembers John Coltrane as one of the greatest jazz saxophone players of our time. His improvisational skill, innovative style, and mastery over his instrument all serve to classify him in the public memory as the ultimate jazz performer. Yet, as the example of Coltrane might demonstrate, perception is unjustly deficient. Coltrane was not merely a great saxophone player; he was first and foremost a religious figure whose spirituality drove his creativity and manifested itself in prayerful …


Live And Let Love: Self-Determination In Matters Of Intimacy And Identity, Kim Forde-Mazrui May 2003

Live And Let Love: Self-Determination In Matters Of Intimacy And Identity, Kim Forde-Mazrui

Michigan Law Review

Are you free to choose the race of your spouse, . . . of your child, . . . of yourself? Historically, the legal and social answer to these questions was No. Matters of racial identity and interracial intimacy were strictly circumscribed by ideologies of racial essentialism and separation, ostensibly rooted in science, morality, and religion. In contrast, according to Professor Randall Kennedy in his new book, Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption, the answer to all three questions should be a resounding Yes. The exclusive source of racial identification and intimacy should be individual choice, free from legal …


The Arrangements Of Race, Frank H. Wu May 2003

The Arrangements Of Race, Frank H. Wu

Michigan Law Review

In his debut novel, Stephen Carter takes pains to explain that although he and his protagonist, Talcott Garland (who goes by "Misha"), share superficial aspects of their identities, they should not be confused as twins. Carter and Misha may both be middle-aged professors at prestigious East Coast universities who grew up as members of the African-American elite that summered on Martha's Vineyard as segregation was officially ending; and they may both be passionate about chess. Beyond that, however, they are dissimilar. Carter drives no faster than the speed limit and otherwise leads a life that appears to be boring beyond …


White Interests And Civil Rights Realism: Rodrigo's Bittersweet Epiphany, Richard Delgado Mar 2003

White Interests And Civil Rights Realism: Rodrigo's Bittersweet Epiphany, Richard Delgado

Michigan Law Review

I had just settled down, taken off my tie, and was about to go over the two-page handout entitled "Information for Wedding Parties " that the minister of the small church had handed me minutes earlier, when I heard a knock and familiar voice from the other side of the anteroom door.


Cleansing Moments And Retrospective Justice, Margaret M. Russell Mar 2003

Cleansing Moments And Retrospective Justice, Margaret M. Russell

Michigan Law Review

We live in an era of questioning and requestioning long-held assumptions about the role of race in law, both in criminal prosecutions specifically and in the legal process generally. Certainly, the foundational framework is not new; for decades, both legal literature and jurisprudence have explored in great detail the realities of racism in the legal system. Even among those who might prefer to ignore the role of race discrimination in more than two centuries of American law, denial is no longer a viable or intellectually defensible option. Rather, debate now centers upon whether or not the extensive history of American …


American Racial Jusice On Trial - Again: African American Reparations, Human Rights, And The War On Terror, Eric K. Yamamoto, Susan K. Serrano, Michelle Natividad Rodriguez Mar 2003

American Racial Jusice On Trial - Again: African American Reparations, Human Rights, And The War On Terror, Eric K. Yamamoto, Susan K. Serrano, Michelle Natividad Rodriguez

Michigan Law Review

Much has been written recently on African American reparations and reparations movements worldwide, both in the popular press and scholarly publications. Indeed, the expanding volume of writing underscores the impact on the public psyche of movements for reparations for historic injustice. Some of that writing has highlighted the legal obstacles faced by proponents of reparations lawsuits, particularly a judicial system that focuses on individual (and not group-based) claims and tends to squeeze even major social controversies into the narrow litigative paradigm of a two-person auto collision (requiring proof of standing, duty, breach, causation, and direct injury). Other writings detail the …


Some Effects Of Identity-Based Social Movements On Constitutional Law In The Twentieth Century, William N. Eskridge Jr. Aug 2002

Some Effects Of Identity-Based Social Movements On Constitutional Law In The Twentieth Century, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

What motivated big changes in constitutional law doctrine during the twentieth century? Rarely did important constitutional doctrine or theory change because of formal amendments to the document's text, and rarer still because scholars or judges "discovered" new information about the Constitution's original meaning. Precedent and common law reasoning were the mechanisms by which changes occurred rather than their driving force. My thesis is that most twentieth century changes in the constitutional protection of individual rights were driven by or in response to the great identity-based social movements ("IBSMs") of the twentieth century. Race, sex, and sexual orientation were markers of …


(E)Racing The Fourth Amendment, Devon W. Carbado Mar 2002

(E)Racing The Fourth Amendment, Devon W. Carbado

Michigan Law Review

It's been almost two years since I pledged allegiance to the United States of America - that is to say, became an American citizen. Before that, I was a permanent resident of America and a citizen of the United Kingdom. Yet, I became a black American long before I acquired American citizenship. Unlike citizenship, black racial naturalization was always available to me, even as I tried to make myself unavailable for that particular Americanization process. Given the negative images of black Americans on 1970s British television and the intra-racial tensions between blacks in the U.K. and blacks in America, I …


Sexualized Racism/Gendered Violence: Outraging The Body Politic In The Reconstruction South, Lisa Cardyn Feb 2002

Sexualized Racism/Gendered Violence: Outraging The Body Politic In The Reconstruction South, Lisa Cardyn

Michigan Law Review

From its establishment in the months following the Civil War by a motley assortment of disgruntled former rebels, the first Ku Klux Klan, like its many vigilante counterparts, employed terror to realize its invidious social and political aspirations. This terror assumed disparate shapes - from the storied nightriding of disguised bands on horseback, to cryptic threats, horrific assaults, and, not infrequently, murder. While students of Reconstruction have considered many facets of klan violence, none to date has focused exclusively on sexual violence in its historical specificity. Yet, as the work of Catherine Clinton, Laura Edwards, and Martha Hodes persuasively demonstrates, …


What's Wrong With Our Talk About Race? On History, Particularity, And Affirmative Action, James Boyd White Jan 2002

What's Wrong With Our Talk About Race? On History, Particularity, And Affirmative Action, James Boyd White

Michigan Law Review

One of the striking and original achievements of the Michigan Law Review in its first century was the publication in 1989 of a Symposium entitled Legal Storytelling. Organized by the remarkable editor-in-chief, Kevin Kennedy - who tragically died not long after his graduation - the Symposium not only brought an important topic to the forefront of legal thinking, it did so in an extraordinarily interesting way. For this was not a mere collection of papers; the authors met in small editorial groups to discuss their work in detail, and as a result the whole project has a remarkable coherence and …


Usa 2050: Identity, Critical Race Theory, And The Asian Century, Adrien Katherine Wing May 2001

Usa 2050: Identity, Critical Race Theory, And The Asian Century, Adrien Katherine Wing

Michigan Law Review

Robert Chang, a promising young scholar, has given us the first book on Asian Critical Race Theory, or AsianCrit, in his short, readable volume Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation-State. It is a loosely woven collection of essays divided into three parts, drawing upon work Professor Chang published in several earlier law review articles. This book is part of the Critical America Series of New York University Press. The general editors are Critical Race Theory (CRT) senior scholar Professor Richard Delgado of the University of Colorado Law School and his wife, legal researcher Jean Stefancic. The series has produced …


The Importance Of Being Biased, Anthony M. Dillof Jan 2000

The Importance Of Being Biased, Anthony M. Dillof

Michigan Law Review

The war against bias crimes is far from finished. In contrast, the battle over bias-crime laws is largely over. Bias-crime laws, as commonly formulated, increase the penalties for crimes motivated by bias. The Supreme Court has held that such laws do not violate the First Amendment. Virtually every state has enacted some sort of biascrime law. Even the federal government, which may consider itself without power to enact a general bias-crime law, has made bias a sentence-aggravating factor for the range of federal criminal offenses. Bias-crime laws thus are an established feature of the legal landscape. Against this background, Frederick …


Equal Rights, Special Rights, And The Nature Of Antidiscrimination Law, Peter J. Rubin Nov 1998

Equal Rights, Special Rights, And The Nature Of Antidiscrimination Law, Peter J. Rubin

Michigan Law Review

Despite the continued belief held by most Americans that certain characteristics should not form the basis for adverse decisions about individuals in employment, housing, public accommodations, and the provision of a wide range of governmental and private services and opportunities, antidiscrimination laws have increasingly come under attack on the ground that they provide members of the group against whom discrimination is forbidden with "special rights." The "special rights" objection has been voiced most strongly, but not exclusively, against laws that seek to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This line of attack has not always been effective, but …


The Color Line Of Punishment, Jerome H. Skolnick May 1998

The Color Line Of Punishment, Jerome H. Skolnick

Michigan Law Review

If "the color line," (in W.E.B. Du Bois's 1903 phrase and prophecy) was to be the twentieth century's greatest challenge for the domestic life and public policy of the United States, the law has had much to do with drawing its shape. No surprise, this. By now, legal theorists accept that law does not advance in preordained fashion, immune from the sway of political interest, belief systems and social structure. Still, it is hard to exaggerate how powerfully the law has shaped the life chances of Americans of African heritage, for good or ill, and in ways that we scarcely …


The Devil And The One Drop Rule: Racial Categories, African Americans, And The U.S. Census, Christine B. Hickman Mar 1997

The Devil And The One Drop Rule: Racial Categories, African Americans, And The U.S. Census, Christine B. Hickman

Michigan Law Review

For generations, the boundaries of the African-American race have been formed by a rule, informally known as the "one drop rule," which, in its colloquial definition, provides that one drop of Black blood makes a person Black. In more formal, sociological circles, the rule is known as a form of "hypodescent" and its meaning remains basically the same: anyone with a known Black ancestor is considered Black. Over the generations, this rule has not only shaped countless lives, it has created the African-American race as we know it today, and it has defined not just the history of this race …


Legal Narratives, Theraputic Narratives: The Invisibility And Omnipresence Of Race And Gender, Leslie G. Espinoza Feb 1997

Legal Narratives, Theraputic Narratives: The Invisibility And Omnipresence Of Race And Gender, Leslie G. Espinoza

Michigan Law Review

My first introduction to Denise Gray was through a form. The intake sheet was dated October 17, 1994. The legal problem was straightforward. My introduction to Denise Gray would come much later. I am a clinical law professor. The clinic, Boston College Legal Assistance Bureau, is known as "LAB." I teach students law by supervising them as they represent, usually for the first time, a real person with real problems.


Afterword: Other Americas, Angela P. Harris Feb 1997

Afterword: Other Americas, Angela P. Harris

Michigan Law Review

In an article published by Harper's Magazine in July 1991, James Traub, a white journalist, reported that participants on "The Gary Byrd Show," a New York City-based black radio talk show, insisted on attributing nearly every event adversely affecting African Americans to racist conspiracies. Traub titled his article "A CounterReality Grows in Harlem," and he was clearly shocked and dismayed by what he saw as the widespread irrationalism, even paranoia, of Harlem's black residents. His article suggested that the emergence of this counterreality was a measure of the dangerous isolation of certain segments of African America from the rest of …


Beyond "Sellouts" And "Race Cards": Black Attorneys And The Straitjacket Of Legal Practice, Margaret M. Russell Feb 1997

Beyond "Sellouts" And "Race Cards": Black Attorneys And The Straitjacket Of Legal Practice, Margaret M. Russell

Michigan Law Review

For attorneys of color, the concept of "representing race" within the context of everyday legal practice is neither new nor voluntarily learned; at a basic level, it is what we do whenever we enter a courtroom or conference room in the predominantly white legal system of this country.


Straightjacketing Professionalism: A Comment On Russell, David B. Wilkins Feb 1997

Straightjacketing Professionalism: A Comment On Russell, David B. Wilkins

Michigan Law Review

Professor Russell's essay sounds a much needed cautionary note about the public's characterization of Christopher Darden and Johnnie Cochran both during and after the spectacle of O.J. Simpson's criminal trial. Russell cogently argues that Darden and Cochran's choices, as well as those of other black lawyers confronting similar problems, must be evaluated against the backdrop of racism that devalues and constrains the lives of African Americans in general and African-American lawyers in particular. Black lawyers, Russell insists, not only face "glass ceilings" inhibiting their advancement, but must also live inside "glass bubble[s] ... that severely circumscribe[ ] the flexibility and …


Unshackling Black Motherhood, Dorothy E. Roberts Feb 1997

Unshackling Black Motherhood, Dorothy E. Roberts

Michigan Law Review

When stories about the prosecutions of women for using drugs during pregnancy first appeared in newspapers in 1989, I immediately suspected that most of the defendants were Black women. Charging someone with a crime for giving birth to a baby seemed to fit into the legacy of devaluing Black mothers. I was so sure of this intuition that I embarked on my first major law review article based on the premise that the prosecutions perpetuated Black women's subordination. My hunch turned out to be right: a memorandum prepared by the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project documented cases brought against pregnant women …