Law Commons^™

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

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 …

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

Alev Dudek

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

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

Kate Elengold

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

Peter Siegelman

Surrogacy, Equal Status And Social Welfare Benefits, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins