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The Return Of The Ring: Welfare Reform’S Marriage Cure As The Revival Of Post-Bellum Control, Angela Onwuachi-Willig Dec 2005

The Return Of The Ring: Welfare Reform’S Marriage Cure As The Revival Of Post-Bellum Control, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

In 1996, the United States Congress began its imposition of a marital solution to poverty when it enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ("PRWORA"). Nearly ten years later, Congress has strengthened its commitment to marriage as a cure for welfare dependency with proposals such as the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2005. If passed, this bill would provide 1.5 billion dollars for pro-marriage programs and require each state to explain how its welfare program will encourage marriage for single mothers who receive public aid. With these proposals, Congress has continued to construct poverty as …


Stepping Through Grutter'S Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen L. Norton Oct 2005

Stepping Through Grutter'S Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen L. Norton

Faculty Scholarship

In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling -- specifically, a public law school’s interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well. The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court’s narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning whether …


For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig May 2005

For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This review essay analyzes Derrick Bell's provocative new book, Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (2004). In Silent Covenants, Professor Bell reviews Brown v. Board of Education, and inquires "whether another approach than the one embraced by the Brown decision might have been more effective and less disruptive in the always-contentious racial arena." Specifically, Professor Bell joins black conservatives in critiquing what he describes as a misguided focus on achieving racial balance in schools and argues that the quality of education for minority children, in particular Blacks, would have been better today …


Destabilizing The Normalization Of Rural Black Land Loss: A Critical Role For Legal Empiricism, Thomas W. Mitchell Mar 2005

Destabilizing The Normalization Of Rural Black Land Loss: A Critical Role For Legal Empiricism, Thomas W. Mitchell

Faculty Scholarship

Mitchell's study exemplifies the New Legal Realist goal of combining qualitative and quantitative empirical research to shed light on important legal and policy issues. He also demonstrates the utility of a ground-level contextual analysis that examines legal problems from the bottom up. The study tracks processes by which black rural landowners have gradually been dispossessed of more than 90% of the land held by their predecessors in 1910. Mitchell points out that despite the continuing practices that contribute to this problem, there has been very little research on the issue, and what little attention legal scholars have paid to it …


Just Another Brother On The Sct?: What Justice Clarence Thomas Teaches Us About The Influence Of Racial Identity, Angela Onwuachi-Willig Mar 2005

Just Another Brother On The Sct?: What Justice Clarence Thomas Teaches Us About The Influence Of Racial Identity, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Clarence Thomas has generated the attention that most Justices receive only after they have retired. He has been boycotted by the National Bar Association, caricatured as a lawn jockey in Emerge Magazine, and protested by professors at an elite law school. As a general matter, Justice Thomas is viewed as a "non-race" man, a Justice with a jurisprudence that mirrors the Court's most conservative white member, Justice Antonin Scalia­, in other words, Justice Scalia in "blackface." This Article argues that, although Justice Thomas's ideology differs from the liberalism that is more widely held by Blacks in the United States, …


Under A Critical Race Theory Lens -- Brown V. Board Of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone And Its Troubled Legacy, Carlo A. Pedrioli Jan 2005

Under A Critical Race Theory Lens -- Brown V. Board Of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone And Its Troubled Legacy, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Faculty Scholarship

This critical book review argues that James T. Patterson’s narrative in, "Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy," is a mostly balanced historical reflection. Here, the term balanced will refer to giving consideration to both the negative and positive aspects of the phenomenon in question. To advance its thesis, the book review initially offers an overview of Patterson’s historical narrative and evaluation of the Brown legacy. Then the book review analyzes Patterson’s conclusions through a Critical Race Theory lens. Given the focus of Critical Race Theory on race and the law, especially on how …


How The Contentious Nature Of Federal Judicial Appointments Affects "Diversity" On The Bench, Theresa M. Beiner Jan 2005

How The Contentious Nature Of Federal Judicial Appointments Affects "Diversity" On The Bench, Theresa M. Beiner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


By Any Other Name?: On Being “Regarded As” Black, And Why Title Vii Should Apply Even If Lakisha And Jamal Are White, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Mario Barnes Jan 2005

By Any Other Name?: On Being “Regarded As” Black, And Why Title Vii Should Apply Even If Lakisha And Jamal Are White, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Mario Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years after the passage of Title VII, scholars Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan reported the results of their groundbreaking study, Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination. Their study revealed that simply having an African American-sounding name significantly decreased one's opportunity to receive a job interview, regardless of occupation or industry. The results of Bertrand and Mullainathan's investigation raise critical questions about the effectiveness of Title VII as a remedy for race discrimination in the hiring market today, especially as employment discrimination has evolved into different forms. As shown …


Cry Me A River: The Limits Of 'A Systemic Analysis Of Affirmative Action In American Law Schools', Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Kevin Johnson Jan 2005

Cry Me A River: The Limits Of 'A Systemic Analysis Of Affirmative Action In American Law Schools', Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Kevin Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

This article is a response to Richard H. Sander's article, A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools, which recently appeared in the Stanford Law Review. In his article, Professor Sander argues that affirmative action in law schools harms, rather than helps, African American law students by setting up African American students, who are out-matched by their white peers in terms of undergraduate grade point average and LSAT scores, for failure. Specifically, Professor Sander contends that because affirmative action enables African Americans to attend law schools for which they are unqualified, they are more likely to perform poorly …


An Essay Challenging The Racially Biased Selection Of Arbitrators For Employment Discrimination Suits, Michael Z. Green Jan 2005

An Essay Challenging The Racially Biased Selection Of Arbitrators For Employment Discrimination Suits, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

Since 1991, employers have increasingly decided to require that employees agree to arbitrate statutory employment discrimination claims as a condition of employment. This Essay seeks to expose some of the potential discriminatory components that may arise in the arbitrator selection process while highlighting the lack of legal remedy for those who believe that employers, in conjunction with neutral service provders, have stacked the pool in favor of having arbitrators who tend to be older, white and male. The Essay suggests the use of 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 as a potential remedy and challenge to the dearth of arbitrators of color …


Using The Master’S “Tool” To Dismantle His House: Why Justice Clarence Thomas Makes The Case For Affirmative Action, Angela Onwuachi-Willig Jan 2005

Using The Master’S “Tool” To Dismantle His House: Why Justice Clarence Thomas Makes The Case For Affirmative Action, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Clarence Thomas, the second black man to sit on the Supreme Court, is famous, or rather infamous, for his opposition to affirmative action. His strongest critics condemn him for attacking the very preferences that helped him reach the Supreme Court. None, however, have considered how Thomas's life itself may be used as a justification for affirmative action. In what ways can the master's "tool" be used to dismantle his house? This Article analyzes Justice Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court and contends that his nomination to and performance on the Court ironically make the case for forward-looking affirmative action. …


Against Prediction: Sentencing, Policing, And Punishing In An Actuarial Age, Bernard E. Harcourt Jan 2005

Against Prediction: Sentencing, Policing, And Punishing In An Actuarial Age, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

Actuarial methods – i.e., the use of statistical rather than clinical methods on large datasets of criminal offending rates to determine different levels of offending associated with one or more group traits, in order to (1) predict past, present or future criminal behavior and (2) administer a criminal justice outcome – now permeates the criminal law and its enforcement. With the single exception of racial profiling against African-Americans and Hispanics, most people view the turn to the actuarial as efficient, rational, and wealth-maximizing. The fact is, law enforcement agencies can detect more crime with the same resources if they investigate …


Latinas In Legal Education- Through The Doors Of Opportunity: Assimilation, Marginalization, Cooptation Or Transformation?, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez Jan 2005

Latinas In Legal Education- Through The Doors Of Opportunity: Assimilation, Marginalization, Cooptation Or Transformation?, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


An Analysis Of The Nypd's Stop-And-Frisk Policy In The Context Of Claims Of Racial Bias, Andrew Gelman, Alex Kiss, Jeffrey Fagan Jan 2005

An Analysis Of The Nypd's Stop-And-Frisk Policy In The Context Of Claims Of Racial Bias, Andrew Gelman, Alex Kiss, Jeffrey Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

Recent studies by police departments and researchers confirm that police stop racial and ethnic minority citizens more often than whites, relative to their proportions in the population. However, it has been argued stop rates more accurately reflect rates of crimes committed by each ethnic group, or that stop rates reflect elevated rates in specific social areas such as neighborhoods or precincts. Most of the research on stop rates and police-citizen interactions has focused on traffic stops, and analyses of pedestrian stops are rare. In this paper, we analyze data from 175,000 pedestrian stops by the New York Police Department over …