Law Commons^™

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 …

Research To Practice: Employment Services And Outcomes Of People Receiving Welfare Benefits And Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Susan Foley, Jonathan Woodring

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Poverty programs have undergone substantial reform in the past decade, and there has been a heightened interest in exploring the experiences of people with disabilities who receive welfare benefits. This report profiles people with disabilities who had TANF, GA, or both at application to VR services and completed these services in the year 2003.

Slides: Forestry On The Yakama Reservation: The Balancing Of Natural Resources Management, Philip Rigdon

Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, and Lessons Learned (June 16-19)

Presenter: Philip Rigdon, Yakama Nation, Toppenish, WA

64 slides

Slides: Ecotrust Forests, Bettina Von Hagen

Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, and Lessons Learned (June 16-19)

Presenter: Bettina Von Hagen, Ecotrust Forests, OR

25 slides

Democracy And Dispute Resolution: Systems Design And The New Workplace, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

There has been growing discussion in law reviews and business journals about the so-called new workplace, which is distinguished from the old, in part, by greater employee mobility and job flexibility. This article extends that discussion by exploring the implications of the new workplace for the design of dispute resolution systems. In particular, it argues that the structure and values of the new workplace correspond to the essential values of democratic governance, and that dispute resolution should be integrated into the new workplace in a way that enhances rather than diminishes these core democratic values. As I have articulated in …

Research To Practice: Job Networking In Diverse Communities, Rooshey Hasnain, Jennifer Bose, Joy Gould, John Butterworth

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

While individuals with disabilities face many obstacles when seeking employment, there are usually additional challenges for those from diverse cultures. To address this issue, ICI formed partnerships with community immigrant organizations to teach networking techniques to job seekers.

Going Home To Stay: A Review Of Collateral Consequences Of Conviction, Post-Incarceration Employment, And Recidivism In Ohio, Marlaina Freisthler, Mark A. Godsey

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Currently, Ohio's legislative and administrative schemes dealing with employment are unduly punitive toward convicted felons. This article suggests an alternative approach to achieve the same legitimate purposes that the current scheme purports to serve. The first part of the article is a general discussion of collateral consequences. The second part discusses the manner in which collateral consequences can be imposed to achieve inappropriate results and describes the ABA's recent Criminal Justice Standards on collateral consequences as a method to avoid inappropriate results. The third part evaluates Ohio's efforts to return prisoners to communities following conviction and the effect that current …

The Doctrine Of Good Faith In Contract Law: A (Nearly) Empty Vessel?, Emily Houh

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Empty Vessel explores both the positive and normative questions of what the contractually implied obligation of good faith does and should require of contracting parties. The Article attempts to assess and evaluate the ways in which courts are currently employing the good faith doctrine in contract disputes, as part of a larger project whose goal is to re-conceive and reinvigorate the private law doctrine of good faith as one that might assist in effecting the public law norm of equality. Empty Vessel identifies two dominant theoretical approaches to how to define good faith, which I refer to as the fairness …

Making Work Pay: Promoting Employment And Better Child Support Outcomes For Low-Income And Incarcerated Parents, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice prepared this report in response to concerns about child support debt—in particular as it creates a barrier to employment for low-income parents and works at cross-purposes with the goals of the child support program. Drawing on examples from other states, this report identifies a range of policies that inform child support practice in New Jersey and offers administrative, legislative, and programmatic solutions to address child support arrears owed by low-income and incarcerated parents.

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 …

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 …

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

Publications

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 …

The Allure And Danger Of Practicing Law As Taxonomy, Marcia L. Mccormick

All Faculty Scholarship

In this article, I hope to contribute to the ongoing debate on how our society treats the problem of discrimination. Many scholars have criticized the types of antidiscrimination statutes we have enacted as well as the ways in which the courts have interpreted those laws. While I agree with many of these critiques, rather than tackle those very large issues at the outset, I focus on the test the courts currently use to evaluate the evidence to determine whether an inference can be made that discrimination has occurred. I argue that lawyers and courts have become so caught up in …

A Defense Of Paid Family Leave, Gillian Lester

Faculty Scholarship

The problem of combining work and family life is perhaps the central challenge for the contemporary American family. In this Article, I evaluate and defend government provision of paid family leave, a benefit that would allow workers to take compensated time off from work for purposes of family caregiving.

A legal intervention in the arena of work-family accommodation can only build on some prior normative understanding of the family, and embedded within that, contested value choices about women's identities and entitlements in workplace, family, and society. I am not the first legal scholar to advocate paid family leave of some …