Law Commons^™

Interpreting The Fourteenth Amendment: Two Don'ts And Three Dos, Garrett Epps

All Faculty Scholarship

A sophisticated reading of the legislative record of the framing of the Fourteenth Amendment can provide courts and scholars with some general interpretive principles to guide their application of the Amendment to current legal problems. The author argues that two common legal conceptions about the Amendment are, in fact, misconceptions. The first is that the Amendment was chiefly concerned with the immediate situation of freed slaves in the former slave states. Instead, he argues, the legislative record suggests that the framers were broadly concerned with the rights not only of freed slaves but also of foreign-born immigrants in the North …

Proportionality And The Supreme Court's Jurisprudence Of Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The evolution of the Supreme Court’s remedial jurisprudence evinces a quest for the ultimate judicial measure of appropriate relief, emerging as a norm of remedial proportionality. The Court’s decisions since 2000 on punitive damages, injunctions, and remedial legislation, all mandate a strict balance and precise measurement in the formulation of civil remedies. These cases have often fallen below the radar of general interest or have been ignored for their remedial significance. However, these cases demonstrate, somewhat surprisingly, the manner in which the Court has ventured into the arena of common-law remedies to unexpectedly alter the foundational principles of crafting remedies. …

Restoring Congressional Intent And Protections Under The Americans With Disabilities Act: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions, 110th Cong., Nov. 15, 2007 (Statement Of Chai R. Feldblum, Geo. U. L. Center), Chai R. Feldblum

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Rendition To Torture: The Case Of Maher Arar: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On Foreign Affairs,, 110th Cong., Oct. 18, 2007 (Statement Of David D. Cole, Geo. U. L. Center), David Cole

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

The Ada Restoration Act Of 2007: Hearing Before The H. Subcomm. On Constitution, Civil Rights, And Civil Liberties Of The H. Comm. On The Judiciary, 110th Cong., Oct. 4, 2007 (Statement Of Statement Of Chai R. Feldblum, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Chai R. Feldblum

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Tribute In Honor Of Oliver W. Hill, Esq., Jonathan K. Stubbs

Law Faculty Publications

Memorial tribute to Oliver W. Hill, pioneer Richmond civil rights attorney.

Slides: Meaningful Engagement: The Public's Role In Resource Decisions, Mark Squillace

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado Law School

22 slides

Property Outlaws, Eduardo M. Peñalver, Sonia K. Katyal

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Most people do not hold those who intentionally flout property laws in particularly high regard. The overridingly negative view of the property lawbreaker as a wrong-doer comports with the nearly sacrosanct status of property rights within our characteristically individualist, capitalist, political culture. This dim view of property lawbreakers is also shared to a large degree by property theorists, many of whom regard property rights as a fixed constellation of allocative entitlements that collectively produce stability and order through ownership. In this Article, we seek to rehabilitate, at least to a degree, the maligned character of the intentional property lawbreaker, and …

Unlawful Enemy Combatants: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On Armed Services, 110th Cong., Apr. 26, 2007 (Statement Of Neal Kumar Katyal, Geo. U. L. Center), Neal K. Katyal

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Majority Politics And Race Based Remedies, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay applies the principles of social movement theory and analyzes the legal status of race-based remedies. Many scholars have debated the constitutionality and efficacy of affirmative action, the appropriateness of race-consciousness (from legal and social perspectives) and the legitimacy of structural judicial remedies for various types of discrimination. This paper will add to this literature by demonstrating the influence of conservative race politics and ideology on Court doctrine concerning affirmative action and other race-based remedies. In particular, this Essay will demonstrate that, consistent with broader political trends, the Court disfavors governmental usage of race as a remedy for discrimination …

Military Commissions Act And The Continued Use Of Guantanamo Bay As A Detention Facility: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On Armed Services, 110th Cong., Mar. 29, 2007 (Statement Of Professor Neal Kumar Katyal, Geo. U. L. Center), Neal K. Katyal

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights And Related Decisions, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Coalitions And Collective Memories: A Search For Common Ground, Ediberto Román

Faculty Publications

The following pages explore this contemporary debate, and ultimately sides in favor of inter-minority group coalitions, as they may be effective democratic vehicles towards social change. Part II examines the argument in favor of inter-minority group coalitions. Part III addresses the challenges to those positions, including the arguments posed by leading skeptics. Finally, Part IV rejects the cynicism associated with coalitions and proposes a concrete point of commonality that may help forge much needed common ground for many racial and ethnic outsider groups.

Toward A Sui Generis View Of Black Rights In Canada? Overcoming The Difference-Denial Model Of Countering Anti-Black Racism, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

No abstract provided.

Hearing: Civil Rights Division Oversight, Helen L. Norton

Congressional Testimony

No abstract provided.

The Storm Between The Quiet: Tumult In The Texas Supreme Court, 1911-21, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

The Texas Supreme Court from 1911–1921 is best known not for the law it made or the opinions it wrote, but for its failure to decide cases. Although the supreme court’s difficulty in clearing its docket existed before 1911, the number of outstanding cases exploded during the second decade of the twentieth century.

Arguably, the issue of statewide prohibition and the divergent views held on that issue by members of the Texas Supreme Court was the driving force behind the disharmony and dysfunctionality of the court during this decade. Statewide prohibition explains why elections of candidates to the court were …

Other Civil Rights Decisions In The October 2005 Term: Title Vii, Idea, And Section 1981(Eighteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

New Frameworks For Racial Equality In The Criminal Law, Jeffery Fagan, Mukul Bakhshi

Faculty Scholarship

This Symposium, " Pursuing Racial Fairness in the Administration of Justice: Twenty Years After McClesky v. Kemp," was conceived and inspired by Theodore Shaw, Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Ted Shaw and his staff worked with Columbia Law School Professor Jeffrey Fagan to recruit an outstanding group of scholars and activists who met on March 2-3, 2007 to hear and comment on the articles appearing in this Symposium. In addition to the authors whose work appears in this issue, many others made important contributions to the Symposium through their commentaries and presentations. These …

Disparity Rules, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

In 1992, Congress required states receiving federal juvenile justice funds to reduce racial disparities in the confinement rates of minority juveniles. This provision, now known as the disproportionate minority contact standard (DMC), is potentially more far-reaching than traditional disparate impact standards: It requires the reduction of racial disparities regardless of whether those disparities were motivated by intentional discrimination orjustified by "legitimate" agency interests. Instead, the statute encourages states to address how their practices exacerbate racial disadvantage.

This Article casts the DMC standard as a partial response to the failure of constitutional and statutory standards to discourage actions that produce racial …

Welcome To Hazelton - Illegal Immigrants Beware, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

On July 13, 2006, the city of Hazleton made national news as the first municipality in the country to pass ordinances against illegal immigrants. The majority of municipal legislation that passed regulated the employment of undocumented workers. The ordinances resulted from municipal perceptions that the federal government has failed to enact and enforce comprehensive immigration legislation. Thereafter, several states and municipalities across the country passed ordinances against illegal immigration. Since then, the federal courts have been inundated with lawsuits challenging the validity of municipal ordinances.

This article delves into the profound impact that municipal ordinances that sanction businesses for employing …

Toward A New Civil Rights Framework, Guy-Uriel Charles

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review Of Thirteenth Amendment Legislation: 'Congruence And Proportionality' Or 'Necessary And Proper'?, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment has relatively recently been rediscovered by scholars and litigants as a source of civil rights protections. Most of the scholarship focuses on judicial enforcement of the Amendment in lawsuits brought by individuals. However, scholars have paid relatively little attention as of late to the proper scope of congressional action enforcing the Amendment. The reason, presumably, is that it is fairly well settled that Congress enjoys very broad authority to determine what constitutes either literal slavery or, to use the language of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., a "badge or incident of slavery" falling within the Amendment's …

The Immigrant Rights Marches (Las Marchas): Did The “Gigante” (Giant) Wake Up Or Does It Still Sleep Tonight?, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

This article documents the genesis of the March 2006 immigrant rights protests and analyzes their impact. Las Marchas were truly spontaneous grassroots protests, the largest massive civil rights mobilization effort for a single event in the United States to date. This paper provides a macro- and micro-analysis of the forces that account for this success. First, the catalyst, HR 4437, a bill that was successfully approved by the House of Representatives would have criminalized illegal presence. This law was perceived as unjust, and engendered a debate around immigrant rights debate in terms with universal and simple appeal, human dignity, the …

Perceiving Subtle Sexism: Mapping The Social-Psychological Forces And Legal Narratives That Obscure Gender Bias, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

This essay seeks to explain the Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education case as an interpretation of discrimination that notably and correctly focuses on how institutions cause sex-based harm, rather than on whether officials within chosen institutions act with a discriminatory intent. In the process, I discuss what appears to be the implicit theory of discrimination underlying the Davis decision: that schools cause the discrimination by exacerbating the harm that results from sexual harassment by students. I then explore the significance of the deliberate indifference requirement in this context, concluding that the standard, for all its flaws, is distinct …

Title Ix As Pragmatic Feminism, Deborah Brake

Articles

This paper uses Title IX as a vehicle for exploring the potential benefits of pragmatism for feminist legal theory. Title IX is unusual in antidiscrimination law for its eclectic approach to theory, drawing from liberal feminism, substantive equality, antisubordination and different voice models of equality at various points in the law's approach to gender equality in sports. This paper argues that Title IX, as a pragmatic approach to theory, provides a promising example of how feminist legal theory can draw from pragmatism to navigate the double-bind and the backlash.

Following an introduction in Part I, Part II of this Article …

Derrick Bell's Narratives As Parables, George H. Taylor

Articles

Use of the narrative form in law and legal analysis remains controversial, especially by advocates of critical race theory. Critics maintain that narratives can distort if they are not sufficiently based on empirical fact or reason. Narratives, the claim goes, must be evaluated on the basis of objective standards. My Article argues that this posture critical of narrative is mistaken. I contend that to comprehend how narratives should be interpreted, their literary character must first be understood.

The Article examines the narratives of Derrick Bell, the preeminent critical race and narrative scholar, and maintains that Bell's narratives should be read …

The Mississippi Burning Trial (U. S. Vs. Price Et Al.), Douglas O. Linder

Faculty Works

It was an old-fashioned lynching, carried out with the help of county officials, that came to symbolize hardcore resistance to integration. Dead were three civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney. All three shot in the dark of night on a lonely road in Neshoba County, Mississippi. Many people predicted such a tragedy when the Mississippi Summer Project, an effort that would bring hundreds of college-age volunteers to the most totalitarian state in the country was announced in April, 1964. The FBI's all-out search for the conspirators who killed the three young men, depicted in the movie …

Against Citizenship As A Predicate For Basic Rights, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The subject of my remarks will be citizenship, or more precisely the lack thereof, as a wedge issue on matters of rights, the rule of law, and the war on terror. I will argue that we ought to be careful about relying on citizenship as a rallying call for rights and protections precisely because the distinction between citizenship and its lack has proven to be such a tempting avenue for illegitimate trade-offs between liberty and security.