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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Summary Judgment Revolution That Wasn't, Jonathan R. Nash, D. Daniel Sokol
The Summary Judgment Revolution That Wasn't, Jonathan R. Nash, D. Daniel Sokol
Faculty Articles
The U.S. Supreme Court decided a trilogy of cases on summary judgment in 1986. Questions remain as to how much effect these cases have had on judicial decision-making in terms of wins and losses for plaintiffs. Shifts in wins, losses, and what cases get to decisions on the merits impact access to justice. We assemble novel datasets to examine this question empirically in three areas of law that are more likely to respond to shifts in the standard for summary judgment: antitrust, securities regulation, and civil rights. We find that the Supreme Court’s decisions had a statistically significant effect in …
The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, And Supreme Court Politics, Darren L. Hutchinson
The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, And Supreme Court Politics, Darren L. Hutchinson
Faculty Articles
This Article challenges liberal and conservative assessments of Lawrence, Gratz, and Grutter. Although the outcome of these cases might indeed prove helpful to the agendas of social movements for racial and sexual justice, progressive scholars and activists should not receive these cases with elation. Instead, the research of constitutional theorists, critical legal scholars, and political scientists allows for a more contextualized and guarded account of and reaction to these decisions. Instead of representing extraordinary victories for oppressed classes, these cases reflect majoritarian and moderate views concerning civil rights, and the opinions contain many doctrinal elements that reinforce, …