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Full-Text Articles in Law
Postracial Discrimination, Girardeau A. Spann
Postracial Discrimination, Girardeau A. Spann
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Claims of racial injustice can be challenged by arguing that the culture makes it possible for minorities to compete with whites on a level playing field. Under this reasoning, racial disparities that continue to inhere in the allocation of societal benefits and burdens must be caused by the attributes of individual minority group members themselves, rather than by any invidious consideration of their race. The election of President Obama now gives this argument more apparent plausibility than it has had in the past. Indeed, if one were inclined to preserve the nation’s tradition of privileging white interests over the interests …
The Conscience Of A Court, Girardeau A. Spann
The Conscience Of A Court, Girardeau A. Spann
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The author explains his conclusion that the Supreme Court, as a matter of conscience, considers racial discrimination to be good for America. That conclusion, he argues, offers the only plausible account of the Court's repeated insistence on displacing populist efforts to promote racial equality with the Court's own, more-regressive, version of expedient racial politics. Although the Court has had what is at best a checkered history when called upon to adjudicate claims of racial injustice, until now, the contemporary Court might arguably have been accorded the benefit of the doubt. But after its five-to-four ruling in the 2007 Resegregation case, …
Celebrating Thurgood Marshall: The Prophetic Dissenter, Susan Low Bloch
Celebrating Thurgood Marshall: The Prophetic Dissenter, Susan Low Bloch
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Thurgood Marshall was born 100 years ago into a country substantially divided along color lines. Marshall could not attend the University of Maryland School of Law because he was a Negro; he had trouble locating bathrooms that were not for “whites only.” Today, by contrast, we celebrate his life and accomplishments. Broadway has a play called Thurgood devoted to him; Baltimore/Washington International Airport is now BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport; even the University of Maryland renamed its law library in his honor. How did we come this far? How far do we still have to go? This article will consider what …