Law Commons^™

Blacks In The Nevada Legal Profession, Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

This article discusses the history of African-Americans in the Nevada legal profession. It is part of "A Special Series on African Americans in Nevada Politics - Past and Present" on pages 16-21 of the issue. Sources are on page 21 of the issue.

Timeline Of African-American Legal History In Nevada (1861-2011), Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

For the first time in Nevada history, this timeline depicts selected events in the history of African-American lawyers, civil rights, and diversity in Nevada's bar and bench. It includes many historically significant pictures and is part of a special Black History Month issue of the Nevada Lawyer, the official publication of the State Bar of Nevada. That issue highlights the achievements and contributions of African-American lawyers in Nevada in honor of the 51st anniversary of the first African American (Charles L. Kellar) passing the Nevada state bar examination, the 48th anniversary of the first two African Americans admitted to the …

Erasing Boundaries: Masculinities, Sexual Minorities, And Employment Discrimination, Ann C. Mcginley

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This Article analyzes the application of employment discrimination law to sexual minorities--lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex individuals. It evaluates Title VII and state anti-discrimination laws' treatment of these individuals, and is the first article to use masculinities research, theoretical and empirical, to explain employment discrimination against sexual minorities. While the Article concludes that new legislation would further the interests of sexual minorities, it posits that it is neither necessary nor sufficient to solving the employment discrimination problems of sexual minorities. A major problem lies in the courts' binary view of sex and gender, a view that identifies men and …

Discrimination Redefined, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

In this Response to Professor Natasha Martin's article Pretext in Peril, Professor Ann McGinley argues that courts' retrenchment in cases interpreting Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act results from a narrow definition of discrimination that focuses on conscious, intentional discrimination. Increasingly social science research demonstrates that much disparate treatment occurs as a result of unconscious biases, but the courts' reluctance to consider this social science has led, in many cases, to a literal, narrow definition of “pretext." Moreover, she posits that the recent Supreme Court case of Ricci v. DeStefano redefines discrimination in an ahistorical and acontextual …

The Activist Insecurity And The Demise Of Civil Rights, John Valery White

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Civil rights law is today moribund. An impressive edifice, built upon the ruins of Jim Crow, with the blood and sweat of the civil rights movement, and intended to both dismantle that system and ensure the civil liberties that Jim Crow illustrated were all too easily lost, civil rights law was to be the lasting monument of the civil rights struggle. Fortified by this legacy, civil rights law retains a symbolic value, implying that there are formidable forces working to protect citizens from abusive state action, to ensure a broad anti-discrimination ethic, and to fix the wrongs of Jim Crow. …

Foreward: Is Civil Rights Law Dead?, John Valery White

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This forward to The Louisiana Law Review’s Spring 2003 Symposium on civil rights presents a hypothetical that highlights the perils of civil rights litigation.

Brown V. Board Of Education And The Origins Of The Activist Insecurity In Civil Rights Law, John Valery White

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The peculiar thing about Brown v. Board of Education is that, when it was decided, liberal legal scholars trashed it. Indeed, the modern conservative movement has built its attack on civil rights initiatives and its critique of the judiciary on the disparaging assessments of the opinion offered by Henry Hart, Hebert Wechsler, and Alexander Bickel. This peculiar aspect of Brown has become the keystone supporting all arguments about what is excessive about the modern jurisprudence; federal courts are said to have a realist disposition producing an unbounded, relativistic, interdisciplinary judicial craft and characterized by an activist proclivity. These dual pillars …

Credulous Courts And The Tortured Trilogy: The Improper Use Of Summary Judgment In Title Vii And Adea Cases, Ann C. Mcginley

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Civil rights are under siege. In mid-1989, the United States Supreme Court decided several cases that severely limit the civil rights claims and remedies available to a plaintiff claiming employment discrimination. This Article examines the gradual and continuing erosion of the factfinder's role in federal employment discrimination cases and its replacement by an increasing use of summary judgment through which the courts make pretrial determinations formerly reserved for the factfinder at trial. This trend not only represents a major shift in court procedure and, in the case of age discrimination claims, a transfer of power from juries to judges, but …

Patterson And Civil Rights: What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Bethlehem To Be Born?, Peter Brandon Bayer

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Contrary to its assertions, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Patterson decision marks a stark departure from the federal courts' former practice of according Congressional civil rights enactments a broad reading to effectuate their remedial purposes. Indeed, Patterson offers an exceedingly narrow interpretation of this nation's oldest civil rights law, the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

In addition to its effect on the scope and application of § 1981, Patterson must be read in conjunction with several other decisions issued during the same term that limit—indeed retreat from—the application of civil rights laws designed to restore both lost opportunities and …

Civil Rights In Employment: The New Generation, Linda H. Edwards

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In July 1989, Title VII was twenty-five years old. It is generally assumed that the first twenty-five years have seen significant changes in the economic opportunities available to America’s minorities and women. But with the rise to power of the Reagan appointees, the Supreme Court is clearly fashioning a new approach to issues of civil rights in employment. This article analyzes the new Court’s emerging themes and proposes a congressional response.

Watson V. Ft. Worth Bank And Trust: The Changing Face Of Disparate Impact, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 constitutes this country’s first serious commitment to eradicating the enormous economic disadvantages caused by hundreds of years of racial and gender-related prejudice. But there is also cause for concern. While members of once excluded groups have entered the mid-level workforce, most have not progressed to top-level positions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the elimination of barriers to mid-level employment has spotlighted the unique barriers to equal employment in top-level jobs. Title VII’s capacity to deal effectively with these barriers will be its major challenge for the next quarter-century. Its success will depend, in …

Rationality - And The Irrational Underinclusiveness Of The Civil Rights Laws, Peter Brandon Bayer

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Congress has enacted a series of civil rights laws designed to protect individuals from public an private forms of irrational discrimination. To be lawful, such civil rights statutes must conform with the definition of rationality required by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Yet, in one fashion, these statutes are as irrational as the behavior they seek to control. The statutes protect only certain classes of individuals in limited instances. This article argues that the existing civil rights laws, although integral to a free society, are but a first step. The statute will never be fully rational, never completely fair, until …