Law Commons^™

What's The Difference? Interpretation, Identity And R. V. R.D.S., Allan Hutchinson, Kathleen Strachan

Dalhousie Law Journal

Lawyers hanker after authority. Whether it be in enforcing the law or justifying law's institutional power, there is an almost desperate yearning to establish and maintain the legitimacy of law and, therefore, of themselves, in a social world in which the whole notion of authority is challenged and undermined. When it comes to matters of legal interpretation, jurists and judges still crave some method that will ground or trace back an interpretation to a foundational or ultimate source that can confer authority on one particular interpretation over another. However, recent jurisprudential debate has done fatal damage to the notion that …

Whose Federalism, S. Elizabeth Malloy

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article examines briefly the Seminole Tribe and City of Boerne decisions. Part II then focuses on the ADA and the reasons why Congress made it applicable to government conduct as well as private conduct. Finally, Part III examines the argument, based on the new federalism, that the ADA should not apply to state entities. It does not appear that the Court's new federalism has had a liberty-enhancing effect for some of the most vulnerable persons in our society. The Court's revitalized federalism jurisprudence has led to questions about the continuing validity of many of our civil rights statutes as …

"Reverse Discrimination" And Higher Education Faculty, Joyce A. Hughes

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In this Article, the author critiques the use of "reverse discrimination" claims by White plaintiffs to challenge the hiring of Blacks in institutions of higher education. The author argues that "reverse discrimination" is a myth since no such claim is possible when one White candidate is selected over another; assumptions of inferiority are implicit where such a claim is made when a Black candiate is selected over a White candidate. In other words, allowing such a claim, even if ultimately unsuccessful, implies a presumption of superiority on the part of the White candidate. For this reason, the author argues that …

State Successions And Statelessness: The Emerging Right To An Effective Nationality Under International Law, Jeffrey L. Blackman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This paper surveys some of the recent developments in international law relating to nationality and state succession, and suggests a growing convergence among several legal principles-specifically the principle of effective nationality, the individual right to a nationality and the corresponding duty of states to prevent statelessness, and the norm of nondiscrimination. At some point this convergence of such diverse areas of law as nationality, diplomatic protection, and human rights will impose positive duties on successor states with respect to their inherited populations: namely the duty to secure effective nationality for persons affected by state succession.

Baseball And The Rule Of Law, Paul Finkelman

Cleveland State Law Review

Most cultures have a new year of some kind; a season of beginning. For lawyers who are baseball fans, there are two beginnings, two seasons. The first season begins in April, and begins to wind down in October. That is of course, the baseball season. But, with baseball finished, we can turn to the Court, and watch it with a keen eye. The Court's season continues to build to its climax in the Spring. Just as the baseball season is beginning its slow opening, the Court overwhelms us in the spring with what sometimes seems to be an avalanche of …

Thou Shalt Not Sue The Church: Denying Court Access To Ministerial Employees, Shawna Meyer Eikenberry

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Disparate Impact Discrimination: American Oddity Or Internationally Accepted Concept?, Elaine W. Shoben, Rosemary C. Hunter

Scholarly Works

Griggs v. Duke Power Co. was a landmark United States decision because it recognized that barriers to equal employment opportunity need not be overt and that practices that appear neutral on their face may nonetheless have an unjustifiably exclusionary effect on protected groups. This American insight has not been lost on other Western legal systems in the context of their antidiscrimination statutes and opinions. This article explores the favorable reception that disparate impact analysis has had bother in other countries with similar legal heritages and in international law.

Despite the wide acceptance of disparate impact analysis in the international marketplace …

Protecting Unionized Employees Against Discrimination: The Fourth Circuit's Misinterpretation Of Supreme Court Precedent, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

This article will first review the Supreme Court's arbitration jurisprudence, concentrating on labor and employment law cases. Next, the article will analyze the cases involving arbitration under collective bargaining agreements decided by the courts of appeals subsequent to Gilmer. The article will then evaluate the two different approaches of the circuit courts in light of the law relating to collective bargaining and union representation. Finally, the article will review alternative methods of protecting employee rights to determine whether unions can preserve employees' statutory rights under the rule of the Fourth Circuit. The article concludes that the Supreme Court should …

Book Review Of Employment Discrimination Law, James S. Heller

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

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

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Mysteries: Can We Ever Know Anything About Race And Tax?, Beverly I. Moran

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The politics behind tax legislation are explored in order to demonstrate that, rather than being surprising or unexpected, it is easily predictable that federal tax laws would favor whites over blacks.

Hopwood, Bakke And The Future Of The Diversity Justification, Lackland H. Bloom Jr.

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Hopwood v. Texas sent shock waves through the academic community with its holding that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited the University of Texas Law School from taking account of race as a factor in its admissions process. In the course of invalidating certain procedures employed by the law school, the Fifth Circuit concluded that Justice Powell's influential opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which recognized the pursuit of diversity in higher education as a compelling state interest, had never constituted …

Affirmative Action Awash In Confusion: Backward-Looking-Future-Oriented Justifications For Race-Conscious Measures, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, decided Taxman v. Board of Education of the Township of Piscataway, in August 1996. Eight judges agreed that he Board of Education of Piscataway Township, New Jersey violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by using race, in accordance with its affirmative action policy, to break a tie between two teachers in the Business Department at Piscataway High School when determining which teacher to lay off. A strong dissent by Chief Judge Sloviter was joined by two other Court of Appeals judges. The majority decision is remarkable in its breadth, …

Arbitration Of Workplace Discrimination Claims: Federal Law And Compulsory Arbitration, Norris Case

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Purely Reproductive Disorders Under The Americans With Disabilities Act, Todd Lebowitz

Michigan Law Review

Approximately 2.8 million American couples suffer from infertility, a condition generally defined by the medical community as the failure to conceive after one year of unprotected intercourse. During the past thirty years, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques for treating infertility have improved drastically, enabling many previously infertile couples to bear children. These techniques, however, involve considerable expense and inconvenience, frequently requiring patients to take time off from work. Disputes with employers may follow, sometimes resulting in the infertile employee's termination. Some terminated employees, claiming that infertility constitutes a disability, then sue their former employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act of …

Equal Protection, Class Legislation, And Colorblindness, Melissa L. Saunders

Michigan Law Review

Scholars and judges have long assumed that the Equal Protection Clause is concerned only with state action that has the effect of singling out certain persons or groups of persons for special benefits or burdens. Under the traditional doctrinal framework, state action that has this purpose and effect bears a certain burden of justification under the clause, a burden whose stringency varies, depending on the criteria used to define the class being singled out for special treatment and the importance of the interest affected. But state action that lacks such a "discriminatory effect" is not, on the traditional understanding, subject …

Note, Moving Ground, Breaking Traditions: Tasha’S Chronicle, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This Note uses a fictional dialogue to analyze and engage issues concerning stereotypes, stigmas, and affirmative action. It also highlights the importance of role models for students of color and the disparate hiring practices of law firms and legal employers through the conversations and thoughts of its main character, Tasha Crenshaw.

Modern Discrimination Theory And The National Labor Relations Act, Rebecca H. White

Scholarly Works

This Article explores the concept of discrimination under the NLRA [National Labor Relations Act]. Specifically, it examines discrimination under the statute through the lens of Title VII, an approach that brings a fresh perspective to doctrine long considered settled. The purpose of this comparison is to explore the extent to which Title VII's discrimination concepts make sense under the NLRA. This analysis focuses on three specific areas. First, it examines discrimination cases under section 8(a)(1), concluding that the lower courts are wrong to apply Title VII concepts and to insist that without disparate treatment of union activities, no unlawful discrimination …

Crime And Custom In Corporate Society: A Cultural Perspective On Corporate Misconduct, John M. Conley, William M. O'Barr

Law and Contemporary Problems

Conley and O'Barr take an anthropological perspective on three cases of alleged corporate misconduct--car dealer discrimination, Archer Daniels Midland, and the tobacco industry trials.

Psychosocial Risks Of Storing And Using Human Tissues In Research, Jon F. Merz

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Merz argues that genetics technology makes it more compelling that researchers plan more carefully for the collection and disposition of information derived from subjects' tissues and blood.

An Equal Opportunity Disorder, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article describes some of the problems associated with the worthy endeavor of minimizing discrimination against people diagnosed with mental disorders.

When Physicians Balk At Futile Care: Implications Of The Disability Rights Laws, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

Part I of this article reviews the factual background of the futility debate. Part II introduces the antidiscrimination laws. Thereafter, Parts III, IV, and V examine the three components of the proposal suggested above.

An Analysis Of Gender In Admission To The Canadian Common Law Schools From 1985-86 To 1994-95, Brian M. Mazer

Dalhousie Law Journal

Using statistical data covering a ten year period, this study examines the issue of gender representation in admissions to first year law study at common law schools in Canada. After addressing three identifiable steps in the admission process-applications, offers and registration-the author concludes that while there has been progress and the gap has narrowed, the problem of gender inequality persists.

The Dynamics Of Democracy: Travel, Premature Predation, And The Components Of Political Identity, Nicholas S. Zeppos

Vanderbilt Law Review

Democracy is indeed an elusive concept and any effort to develop the constituent elements of so important a political idea ought to be encouraged. From any number of perspectives it is clear that democracy must include more than simply ratifying the outcomes of either citizen or representative voting., And when a court is asked to set aside the results of a process some describe as democratic, the challenge to enrich the concept becomes even more pressing, particularly when the judicial power is invoked in the name of enhancing democracy. The Supreme Court's decision in Romer v. Evan dramatically poses the …

Doma: An Unconstitutional Establishment Of Fundamentalist Christianity, James M. Donovan

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

According to the text of the Act, DOMA's purposes are "to define and protect the institution of marriage," where marriage is defined to exclude same-sex partners. To be constitutionally valid under the Establishment Clause, this notion that heterosexual marriages require "protection" from gay and lesbian persons must spring from a secular and not religious source. This Article posits that DOMA has crossed this forbidden line between the secular and the religious. DOMA, motivated and supported by fundamentalist Christian ideology, and lacking any genuine secular goals or justifications, betrays the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Fighting Anti-Gay Abuse In Schools: The Opening Appellate Brief Of Plaintiff Jamie Nabozny In Nabozny V. Podlesny, Patricia M. Logue, David S. Buckel

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In Nabozny v. Podlesny, 92 F.3d 446 (7th Cir. 1996), a case of first impression, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recognized the constitutional right of a gay male public school student to equal protection from anti-gay harassment and assaults. The court held that Jamie Nabozny had stated equal protection claims against his school district and three school principals for gender and sexual orientation discrimination based on allegations that, because he is gay and a boy, defendants had failed to afford him the same kinds of protection given to other harassed students. At trial on remand a jury found …

Intersectionality And Positionality: Situating Women Of Color In The Affirmative Action Dialogue, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the position of women of color in the affirmative action dialogue. Affirmative action has come under attack locally, statewide, and federally. During this same period, critical race feminists have brought into sharp relief how women of color are marginalized or erased in discourses over sex and gender, as well as over race and ethnicity. Despite these protests and warnings, the current debate over affirmative action continues this history of invisibility, perpetuating America's spoken and unspoken conceptions about where women of color belong. For example, most discussion of affirmative action focuses on race, more specifically on African-Americans. Some …

Honesty, Privacy, And Shame: When Gay People Talk About Other Gay People To Nongay People, David L. Chambers, Steven K. Homer

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

There is a longstanding convention among lesbians and gay men in the United States: Do not reveal the sexuality of a gay person to a heterosexual person; unless you are certain that the gay person does not regard his sexuality as a secret. Lie if necessary to protect her secret. Violating the convention by "outing" another person is widely considered a serious social sin.

Deconstructing The Ideology Of White Aesthetics, John M. Kang

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In this Article, the author provides a discussion on the dynamic between race and aesthetics. The author states that because Whites are the dominant group in America, they dictate what is beautiful. The consequence of this power dynamic is that the dominant group, Whites, can exercise preferences in deciding how to look or express themselves, whereas people of color are limited to either conforming to an imposed White standard or rejecting it. The author starts by laying out some of the features to what he terms the "ideology of White aesthetics." He then commences to examine how this ideology has …

Policing Hatred: Police Bias Units And The Construction Of Hate Crime, Jeannine Bell

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Much of the scholarly debate about hate crime laws focuses on a discussion of their constitutionality under the First Amendment. Part of a larger empirical study of police methods of investigating hate crimes, this Note attempts to shift thinking in this area beyond the existing debate over the constitutionality of hate crime legislation to a discussion of how low-level criminal justice personnel, such as the police, enforce hate crime laws. This Note argues that, since hate crimes are an area in which police have great discretion in enforcing the law, their understanding of the First Amendment and how it relates …