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Full-Text Articles in Law

Retaining Color, Veronica Root Sep 2016

Retaining Color, Veronica Root

Veronica Root

It is no secret that large law firms are struggling in their efforts to retain attorneys of color. This is despite two decades of aggressive tracking of demographic rates, mandates from clients to improve demographic diversity, and the implementation of a variety of diversity efforts within large law firms. In part, law firm retention efforts are stymied by the reality that elite large law firms require some level of attrition to function properly under the predominant business model. This reality, however, does not explain why firms have more difficulty retaining attorneys of color — in particular black and Hispanic attorneys …


Destabilizing The Normalization Of Rural Black Land Loss: A Critical Role For Legal Empiricism, Thomas W. Mitchell Sep 2016

Destabilizing The Normalization Of Rural Black Land Loss: A Critical Role For Legal Empiricism, Thomas W. Mitchell

Thomas W. Mitchell

Mitchell's study exemplifies the New Legal Realist goal of combining qualitative and quantitative empirical research to shed light on important legal and policy issues. He also demonstrates the utility of a ground-level contextual analysis that examines legal problems from the bottom up. The study tracks processes by which black rural landowners have gradually been dispossessed of more than 90% of the land held by their predecessors in 1910. Mitchell points out that despite the continuing practices that contribute to this problem, there has been very little research on the issue, and what little attention legal scholars have paid to it …


Inherently Discriminatory Conduct Revisited: Do We Know It When We See It?, Barbara J. Fick Aug 2016

Inherently Discriminatory Conduct Revisited: Do We Know It When We See It?, Barbara J. Fick

Barbara J. Fick

"This article traces the development of the inherently discriminatory doctrine, proposes some guidelines for determining when employer conduct falls under the rubric of the inherently discriminatory doctrine, and analyzes two cases dealing with employer use of temporary replacements during offensive lockouts in light of the proposed guidelines."


The Bank Manager Always Rings Twice: Stereotyping In Equity After Garcia, Richard Haigh, Samantha Hepburn Aug 2016

The Bank Manager Always Rings Twice: Stereotyping In Equity After Garcia, Richard Haigh, Samantha Hepburn

Richard Haigh

Stereotyping is an inevitable part of human interaction. Everyone is judged, to some extent, according to individual perception, with reference to such factors as physical appearance, social position, marital status, language facility and ethnicity. It is not possible to eradicate stereotyping because it is a natural, automatic - sometimes instinctive - human response. In a legal context, however, there is a need for some mechanisms to control the degree to which stereotyping influences judicial decision-making so as to ensure that justice is administered in as neutral and impartial a manner as possible. Whether it be in the determination of facts …


Color At Century's End: Race In Law, Policy, And Politics, Christopher Edley, Jr. Aug 2016

Color At Century's End: Race In Law, Policy, And Politics, Christopher Edley, Jr.

Christopher Edley

No abstract provided.


Prosecuting Rape Victims While Rapists Run Free: The Consequences Of Police Failure To Investigate Sex Crimes In Britain And The United States, Lisa Avalos May 2016

Prosecuting Rape Victims While Rapists Run Free: The Consequences Of Police Failure To Investigate Sex Crimes In Britain And The United States, Lisa Avalos

Lisa Avalos

    Imagine that a close friend is raped, and you encourage her to report it to the police. At first, she thinks that the police are taking her report seriously, but the investigation does not seem to move forward.  The next thing she knows, they accuse her of lying and ultimately file charges against her.  You and your friend are in shock; this outcome never entered your minds. This nightmare may seem inconceivable, but it has in fact occurred repeatedly in both the United States and Britain – countries that are typically lauded for their high levels of gender equality. …


Power, Economics And The 'Islamic Terrorism' Narrative, Alev Dudek Feb 2016

Power, Economics And The 'Islamic Terrorism' Narrative, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Similar to other forms of politics, the terrorist narrative, too, is about economics and power. It is a crucial catalyst for the 21st century military industrial complex. Makers of the war on terror, in fact, don't have a problem with Islam or Muslims per se, as their close relationships with one of the most repressive Islamic regimes in the world who support these terrorists, shows. Except, at some point, they start believing their own dehumanizing messages, regardless of the truth factor. In the war on terror, Muslims happen to be the convenient group to build the narrative around. It could …


A Strategic Legal Challenge To The Unforeseen Anticompetitive And Racially Discriminatory Effects Of Baseball’S North American Draft, Stephen Ross, Michael James Jan 2016

A Strategic Legal Challenge To The Unforeseen Anticompetitive And Racially Discriminatory Effects Of Baseball’S North American Draft, Stephen Ross, Michael James

Stephen F Ross

Major League Baseball (MLB) has honored a single player by retiring his number for every club. Absent special commemorations, no player will wear the number “42” in honor of the man who broke the color barrier to become the first African American to play major league baseball in the modern era: Jackie Robinson. MLB has also honored a single player—chosen from nominees from each individual club—by presenting an annual award for humanitarian service in his name; that honoree is Roberto Clemente. However, the sad reality is that if a fifteen-year-old Jackie Robinson were growing up today in South Pasadena, California, …


Acting Gay, Acting Straight: Sexual Orientation Stereotyping, Luke Boso Dec 2015

Acting Gay, Acting Straight: Sexual Orientation Stereotyping, Luke Boso

Luke A. Boso

What does it mean to discriminate "because of sexual orientation?" This legal question will arise increasingly as many states and municipalities enact laws that prohibit discrimination because of sexual orientation. Without evidence of animus, plaintiffs will likely resort to evidence of sexual orientation stereotyping. How should courts determine whether evidence is of sexual orientation stereotyping, and therefore evidence of sexual orientation discrimination? This question is important for courts and litigants who will increasingly face the question, as well as for those invested in anti-essentialist antidiscrimination law more broadly. When the law attempts to define identity categories by offering universalizing definitions, …


Structural Subjugation: Theorizing Racialized Sexual Harassment In Housing, Kate Elengold Dec 2015

Structural Subjugation: Theorizing Racialized Sexual Harassment In Housing, Kate Elengold

Kate Elengold

ABSTRACT: This Article identifies and analyzes the structural forces that permit and ignore racialized sexual harassment in housing. Although scholarship on sexual harassment in housing is sparse, the existing research and resulting body of law generally advances a narrative focused on the female tenants’ economic vulnerability and violation of the sanctity of her home. The narrative advanced in scholarship and advocacy, along with the resulting jurisprudence, presents an archetype of a deviant male landlord abusing his authority to take advantage of women sexually who, because of their economic circumstances, have no alternatives. This Article terms it the “dirty old man” …


Protecting The Compromised Worker: : A Challenge For Employment Discrimination Law, Peter Siegelman Dec 2015

Protecting The Compromised Worker: : A Challenge For Employment Discrimination Law, Peter Siegelman

Peter Siegelman

Why do employment discrimination plaintiffs fare so poorly? Many explanations have been offered, but this essay suggests a new one: a substantial fraction of all plaintiffs are “compromised” workers, meaning that they have done something on the job that might plausibly justify the treatment about which they are complaining. As a matter of both doctrine and logic, compromised plaintiffs can be legitimate victims of discrimination. But they face substantial difficulties in proving that their employer relied on a prohibited characteristic in its treatment of them because, by definition, their behavior offers a plausibly legitimate explanation for their treatment. After demonstrating …


Playing With Cards: Discrimination Claims And The Charge Of Bad Faith, David Schraub Dec 2015

Playing With Cards: Discrimination Claims And The Charge Of Bad Faith, David Schraub

David Schraub

A common response to claims of bias, harassment, or discrimination is to say that these claims are made in bad faith. Claimants are supposedly not motivated by a credible or even sincere belief that unfair or unequal treatment has occurred, but simply seek to illicitly gain public sympathy or private reward. Characterizing discrimination claims as systemically made in bad faith enables them to be screened and dismissed prior to engaging with them on their merits. This retort preserves the dominant groups' self-image as unprejudiced and innocent without having to risk critical analysis of the claim's substance.


Surrogacy, Equal Status And Social Welfare Benefits, Mel Cousins Dec 2015

Surrogacy, Equal Status And Social Welfare Benefits, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

The issue of surrogacy in Irish law has received considerable (if somewhat belated) attention. The Supreme Court has overturned the decision of the High Court to recognise a surrogate mother as the child’s mother for the purposes of birth certification. The European Court of Justice has also considered and rejected a complaint in which it has been argued that the failure to provide leave to a surrogate mother was in breach of EU and international law. A claim has also been brought under the Equal Status Acts (ESA) arguing that the failure of the Department of Social Protection (DSP) to …