Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

O.P.P.: How "Occupy's" Race-Based Privilege May Improve Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence For All, Lenese C. Herbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article submits that Occupy’s race problem could, ironically, prove to be a solution if protesters grow more serious about exposing the injury of political subordination and systems of privilege that adhere to the criminal justice system. Privilege is a “systemic conferral of benefit and advantage [as a result of] affiliation, conscious or not and chosen or not, to the dominant side of a power system.” Accordingly, now that police mistreatment affects them personally, Occupy may finally help kill a fictitious Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that ignores oppression through improper policing based on racial stigma. Occupy may also help usher in …

The Impact Of Implicit Racial Bias On The Exercise Of Prosecutorial Discretion, Robert J. Smith, Justin D. Levinson

Seattle University Law Review

The Article is organized as follows: Part II provides an introduction to implicit bias research, orienting readers to the important aspects of implicit bias most relevant to prosecutorial discretion. Part III begins the examination of implicit bias in the daily decisions of prosecutors. The Part presents key prosecutorial discretion points and specifically connects each of them to implicit bias. Part IV recognizes that, despite compelling proof of implicit bias in a range of domains, there is no direct empirical proof of implicit bias in prosecutorial decision-making. It thus calls for an implicit bias research agenda designed to further examine how …

Preliminary Report On Race And Washington's Criminal Justice System, Task Force On Race And The Criminal Justice System

Seattle University Law Review

For this Report, the Research Working Group reviewed evidence on disproportionality in Washington’s criminal justice system and considered whether crime commission rates accounted for this disproportionality. We found that crime commission rates by race and ethnicity are largely unknown and perhaps unknowable, but that some researchers simply take arrest rates as good proxies for underlying commission rates for all crimes.We found that use of arrest rates likely overstates black crime commission rates for several reasons.68 But even if arrest rates are used as a proxy for underlying crime commission rates, the extent of racial disproportionality is not explained by commission …

Analyzing Stops, Citations, And Searches In Washington And Beyond, Mario L. Barnes, Robert S. Chang

Seattle University Law Review

Racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system is a fact. But the fact of racial disproportionality is the beginning and not the end of the conversation. The fact that blacks are overrepresented in stop, arrest, charge, pretrial detention, conviction, and incarceration statistics demonstrates only correlation and not causation. A number of commentators caution that disproportionality and the overrepresentation of blacks, Native-Americans, and Hispanics in Washington State’s prisons do not prove racial discrimination. Further, the fact of disproportionality at each stage of criminal justice processing does not prove that racial discrimination occurs at each particular stage. For example, the observed disproportionality …

Race Bias And The Importance Of Consciousness For Criminal Defense Attorneys, Andrea D. Lyon

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will begin with a discussion of race bias and will examine who in the criminal justice system has such biases. These concepts will provide a backdrop to the next Part, where I will turn to an analysis about the need for criminal defense lawyers to be conscious of race bias. I focus on two specific circumstances in which awareness of one’s own racial bias is imperative: interacting with clients and voir dire. But first, we must come to an understanding about the nature of race bias itself.

“If Justice Is Not Equal For All, It Is Not Justice”: Racial Bias, Prosecutorial Misconduct, And The Right To A Fair Trial In State V. Monday, Michael Callahan

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues that of the three opinions from Monday, Washington state courts should follow Chief Justice Madsen’s concurring opinion. The Monday decision also raises three questions that none of the opinions adequately answer: who does Monday apply to, what conduct does Monday forbid, and what is the legal source of the rules from Monday? The court will have to answer these questions in the future to determine the scope of its new rules. Part II of this Note discusses how Washington courts previously addressed the issue of prosecutorial misconduct and appeals to racial bias in trials. Part …

Disgust And The Problematic Politics Of Similarity, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Disgust And The Problematic Politics Of Similarity, Courtney Megan Cahill

Michigan Law Review

Martha Nussbaum's latest book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation & Constitutional Law, could not have come at a more opportune time in the history of gay rights in the United States. All signs point to progress toward "humanity," from same-sex couples' successful bids for marriage equality in a handful of states to the public's increasing acceptance of the prospect of gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. Even if recent cognitive science research indicates that same-sex relationships provoke more than a little disgust in some people, landmark marriage-equality victories in a few states suggest that the law is …

Lochner, Lawrence, And Liberty, Joseph F. Morrissey

Georgia State University Law Review

Many of the states of the United States have statutes, constitutional provisions, and court decisions that deny individuals the right to have a family, specifically a spouse and children, based on sexual orientation.

Advocates have made a wide variety of arguments attacking such restrictions. Scholars and litigants frequently argue that such acts violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection or invade a constitutional right to privacy. However, such arguments are often defeated by counter arguments presented with religious, moral, and even emotional fervor.

This article presents and defends a new analytical framework based on liberty of contract to advance gay rights. …

Echoes From The Past: What We Can Learn About Unity, Belonging And Respecting Differences From The Flag Salute Cases, Brett G. Scharffs

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The New American Civil Religion: Lesson For Italy, Andrew Koppelman

Faculty Working Papers

American civil religion has been changing, responding to increasing religious plurality by becoming more abstract. The problem of increasing plurality is not only an American one. It is also presented in Italy, where civic identity has been centered around a Catholicism that is no longer universal. Perhaps Italy has, in this respect, an American future.

International Adoption: A Way Forward, Elizabeth Bartholet

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Finding Home In The World: A Deontological Theory Of The Right To Be Adopted, Paulo Barrozo

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decent Work, Older Workers, And Vulnerability In The Economic Recession: A Comparative Study Of Australia, The United Kingdom, And The United States, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Andrew Frazer, Malcolm Sargeant

Faculty Scholarship

In countries with aging populations, the global recession presents unique challenges for older workers, and compels an assessment of how they are faring. To this end, the International Labour Organization's concept of decent work provides a useful metric or yardstick. Decent work, a multifaceted conception, assists in revealing the interdependence of measures needed to secure human dignity across the course of working lives. With this in mind, in three English-speaking, common law countries (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), this Article considers several decent work principles applicable to older workers and provides evaluations in light of them. Relevant …

Understanding Discrimination In A "Post-Racial" World, Michael Selmi

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Biological Metaphors For Whiteness: Beyond Merit And Malice, Brant T. Lee

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The problem of persistent racial inequality is grounded in a failure of imagination. The general mainstream conception is that unfair racial inequality occurs only when there is intentional racism. Absent conscious racial malice, no racism is seen to exist. The only generally available alternative explanation for racial inequality is the meritocratic system. Viewing the distribution of resources as a product of a generally fair meritocratic system provides a defense against any charge of racism, and justifies the status quo.

But in economics, business, computer science, and even biology, observers of complexity are coming to understand how dominant systems can prevail …

A Furious Kinship: Critical Race Theory And The Hip Hop Nation, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Law Faculty Scholarship

Two explosive movements were born in the United States in the 1970s. While the founding of both movements was humble and lightly noticed, both grew to become global phenomena that have profoundly changed the world. Founded by prescient agitators, these two movements were borne of disaffect, disappointment, and near desperation - a desperate need to give voice to oppressed and dispossessed peoples. America in the 1970s bore witness to the founding of two furious movements: Critical Race Theory and Hip Hop.

Critical Race Theory was founded as a response to what had been deemed a sputtering civil rights agenda in …

Racial Cartels, Daria Roithmayr

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article argues that we can better understand the dynamic of historical racial exclusion if we describe it as the anti-competitive work of "racial cartels." We can define racial cartels to include a range of all-White groups - homeowners' associations, school districts, trade unions, real estate boards and political parties - who gained signficant social, economic and political profit from excluding on the basis of race. Far from operating on the basis of irrational animus, racial cartels actually derived significant profit from racial exclusion. By creating racially segmented housing markets, for example, exclusive White homeowners' associations enjoyed higher property values …

The Cross-Dressing Case For Bathroom Equality, Jennifer Levi, Daniel Redman

Seattle University Law Review

While transgender rights advocates have won many battles in the fight for equality, bathroom discrimination remains a significant obstacle to transgender people’s full participation in society. This Article discusses the reasoning behind the cases that have rejected transgender people’s discrimination claims based on bathroom exclusion. The Article then demonstrates how these arguments mirror the rationales offered by supporters of long-dead, unconstitutional cross-dressing laws. Synthesizing the two bodies of case law, Levi and Redman offer a new way forward for transgender advocates seeking bathroom equality.

Wide Right: Why The Ncaa's Policy On The American Indian Mascot Issue Misses The Mark, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Law Faculty Scholarship

Of the many civil rights and social justice issues that continue to cloud United States race relations, one persists in dividing parties: the use of American Indian mascots and imagery by collegiate and professional athletic teams. Scholars and academics weigh in annually on this divisive issue, while certain university administration officials vigorously defend continued use of Native American mascots and monikers at their institutions. Across the United States, various university officials and alumni debate the continued use of mascots such as the “Fighting Sioux,” the “Running Utes” and “Chief Illiniwek.”

In a broader context, the mistreatment and abuse of American …

Program: Ucf Book Festival

Textual material from the Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Papers

University of Central Florida Book Festival on April 17, 2010 at the Morgridge International Reading Center. Author Rodney Hurst is featured on page 27.

Postcard: Fifty Years Later, Revisiting Ax Handle Saturday In Jacksonville, Florida

Textual material from the Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Papers

Invitation to a reception honoring Mr. Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010. At the Lufrano Intercultural Gallery. University of North Florida Student Union. Folder 3

Program: Jacksonville District Celebrates Black History Month

Textual material from the Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. Papers

Program in celebration of Black History Month and Black Economic Empowerment. February 4, 2010

Clear As Mud: How The Uncertain Precedential Status Of Unpublished Opinions Muddles Qualified Immunity Determinations, David R. Cleveland

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

“Equal Citizenship Stature”: Justice Ginsburg’S Constitutional Vision, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, Professor Siegel examines the nature and function of constitutional visions in the American constitutional order. He argues that Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg possesses such a vision and that her vision is defined by her oft-stated commitment to “full human stature,” to “equal citizenship stature.” He then defends Justice Ginsburg’s characteristically incremental and moderate approach to realizing her vision. He does so in part by establishing that President Barack Obama articulated a similar vision and approach in his Philadelphia speech on American race relations and illustrated its capacity to succeed during the 2008 presidential election.

In God We Trust: The Judicial Establishment Of American Civil Religion, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 869 (2010), James J. Knicely, John W. Whitehead

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Second-Class Citizenship: The Tension Between The Supremacy Of The People And Minority Rights, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 963 (2010), Adam H. Morse

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Laws Of Race/Laws Of Representation: The Construction Of Race And Law In Contemporary American Film, 11 Tex. Rev. Ent. & Sports L. 219 (2010), Cynthia D. Bond

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

Popular film has a lot to teach us about social narratives of law. Both law and film are story-telling, narrative systems. Accordingly, films about law are "overdetermined" in terms of narrative: they are stories about stories. Race is also a narrative system in which visual representation is key. The significance of the visual apprehension of race is deeply relevant to the legal construction of race as well. For example, in early citizenship cases and racial "passing" cases which persisted through the latter part of the 2 0th century. Since society constructs racial categories in large part by visual identification and …

The Time Has Come For The United States To Ratify The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, 9 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev. 195 (2010), Michael G. Heyman

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Reconstruction To Obama: Understanding Black Invisibility, Racism In Appalachia, And The Legal Community's Responsibility To Promote A Dialogue On Race At The Wvu College Of Law, Brandon Stump

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Note focuses on legal education in the United States and West Virginia in particular. Discussions on race, racism, and American law should take place in every legal classroom where race is relevant to the subject being discussed as a way to bridge gaps between communities. This is especially true for the West Virginia University College of Law ("College of Law"), which sits in the third whitest state in the country. The College of Law is the only law school in the state, and a majority of students at the College of Law are white and West Virginian. Thus, at …