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2008

Civil rights

Civil Rights and Discrimination

Faculty Publications

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Framework For The Next Civil Rights Act: What Tort Concepts Reveal About Goals, Results, And Standards, Derek W. Black Jan 2008

Framework For The Next Civil Rights Act: What Tort Concepts Reveal About Goals, Results, And Standards, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

This article anticipates that the next president and the current Congress will likely pursue civil rights legislation for the first time since 1991. Their most significant and difficult task will be determining whether to retain the Supreme Court’s intentional discrimination standard. Because this issue has so often led to polemic debates and court decisions in the past, this article attempts to provide a neutral framework for that discussion. Relying on tort concepts and their longstanding connection to constitutional torts, it demonstrates that the attempt to create a standard to prohibit immoral or “wrongful” conduct is both misguided and will prove …


Undercover Power: Examining The Role Of The Executive Branch In Determining The Meaning And Scope Of School Integration Jurisprudence, Lia Epperson Jan 2008

Undercover Power: Examining The Role Of The Executive Branch In Determining The Meaning And Scope Of School Integration Jurisprudence, Lia Epperson

Faculty Publications

This paper focuses on the interaction of the federal judicial and executive branches of government in one key area of civil rights, determining the scope and direction of school integration. Specifically, this paper examines the extremely powerful role of the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights ("OCR") in shaping the application of the Supreme Court's decisions with respect to racial inclusion in public education in the wake of two watershed rulings, Brown v. Board of Education and Grutter v. Bollinger. In addition, this paper discusses the possible consequences of executive and judicial interplay in the aftermath of …


Is Acquisition Everything? Protecting The Rights Of Occupants Under The Fair Housing Act, Rigel C. Oliveri Jan 2008

Is Acquisition Everything? Protecting The Rights Of Occupants Under The Fair Housing Act, Rigel C. Oliveri

Faculty Publications

This article addresses a recent trend among the federal courts to deny housing discrimination claims under the Fair Housing Act in cases where the plaintiff was an occupant of the housing at the time the discrimination occurred. Put another way, the courts have begun to read the FHA as protecting only the right to obtain housing, not the right to occupy that housing free of discrimination.The trend began with a 2004 Seventh Circuit opinion authored by Judge Richard Posner in the case of Halprin v. The Prairie Single Family Homes. Halprin dismissed most of the claims of a Jewish couple …