Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Social And Legal Repercussions Of Latinos' Colonized Mentality, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

This essay begins by defining internalized oppression and racism and exposing the harms they cause. It dissects the reasons we engage in internalized racism and explains how once exposed, it will be easier to engage in a conscious effort to eradicate internalized racism. It will then describe how the intersectionality of internalized oppression and racism is expressed in the Latino community. The essay will then re-imagine Latino identity without internalized oppression and racism. It will include ideas on how to overcome internalized oppression and racism generally, both at the corporate and individual levels. The essay concludes that exposing internalized oppression …

Synopsis Of The Report Of The Second Circuit Task Force On Gender, Racial And Ethnic Fairness In The Courts, Jay C. Carlisle

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The recent Report of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts (‘Taskforce‘) observes “some biased conduct toward parties and witnesses based on gender or race or ethnicity has occurred on the part of both judges and lawyers.” “Biased conduct toward lawyers based on gender or race or ethnicity, has occurred to a greater degree.” The Report concludes that such conduct is unacceptable and admonishes all participants in the Second Circuit courts to guard against it. The purpose of this Perspective is to review several sections of the Report. The Perspective is written from …

Rejoinder (Response To Article By William G. Bowen And Derek Bok), Terrance Sandalow

Articles

In The Shape of the River, presidents Bowen and Bok pronounce the race-sensitive admission policies adopted by selective undergraduate schools a resounding success. The evidence they adduce in support of that conclusion primarily concerns the performance of African-American students in and after college. But not all African-American students in those institutions were admitted in consequence of minority preference policies. Some, perhaps many, would have been admitted under race-neutral policies. I argued at several points in my review that since these students might be expected to be academically more successful than those admitted because of their race, the evidence on which …

Facing History, Facing Ourselves: Eric Yamamoto And The Quest For Justice, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

Professor Robert Chang reviews Professor Eric Yamamoto’s Interracial Justice: Conflict And Reconciliation In Post-Civil Rights America. Professor Chang illustrates the analytic framework in Interracial Justice that shows us some of the ingredients necessary for a successful resolution. This book is the culmination of several years of activist lawyering and academic writing. In his book, Professor Yamamoto shares the lessons he has learned as an advocate and law professor.

Agency, Equality, And Antidiscrimination Law , Tracy E. Higgins, Laura A. Rosenbury

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court increasingly has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause as a mandate for the state to treat citizens as if they were equal-as a limitation on the state's ability to draw distinctions on the basis of characteristics such as race and, to a lesser extent, gender. In the context of race, the Court has struck down not only race-specific policies designed to harm the historically oppressed, but race conscious policies designed to foster racial equality. Although in theory the Court has left open the possibility that benign uses of race may be constitutional under some set of facts, in …

Minority Preferences Reconsidered, Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

During the academic year 1965-66, at the height of the civil rights movement, the University of Michigan Law School faculty looked around and saw not a single African-American student. The absence of any black students was not, it should hardly need saying, attributable to a policy of purposeful exclusion. A black student graduated from the Law School as early as 1870, and in the intervening years a continuous flow of African-American students, though not a large number, had been admitted and graduated. Some went on to distinguished careers in the law.

Coming Out: Decision-Making In State And Federal Sodomy Cases, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

In 1791, American states were enacting laws against sodomy at the same time they ratified the Bill of Rights, the first ten constitutional amendments meant to safeguard fundamental rights of individuals in a free society. In a March 1789 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson asserted that a bill of rights was necessary to give the judiciary the power to protect such individual rights. Ironically, that which the judiciary gives, it may also take away, since "[t]he legislator is a writer. And the judge a reader."

This Article deconstructs recent sodomy cases in order to challenge judicial adoption or reinscription …

Against Common Sense: Why Title Vii Should. Protect Speakers Of Black English, Jill Gaulding

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The speech of many black Americans is marked by phrases such as 'we be writin"' or "we don't have no problems." Because most listeners consider such "Black English" speech patterns incorrect, these speakers face significant disadvantages in the job market. But common sense suggests that there is nothing discriminatory about employers' negative reactions to Black English because it makes sense to allow employers to insist that employees use correct grammar.

This article argues against this common sense understanding of Black English as bad grammar. The author first analyzes the extent of the job market disadvantages faced by Black English speakers …

Being Female Can Be Fatal: An Examination Of India's Ban On Pre-Natal Gender Testing, Andrea Krugman

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines India's 1996 Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, which aims to address the severe gender imbalance caused by prenatal sex selection and female feticide. Despite the Act's intentions, its effectiveness is hindered by deep-rooted cultural preferences for male children, economic pressures, and insufficient enforcement mechanisms. The analysis highlights the need for broader societal changes, including education and economic empowerment for women, to effectively combat gender discrimination.

The Hubris Of The Master Chefs Of Diversity Stew, Michael K. Jordan

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the dangers of pursuing diversity, be it in the workplace, in a student body, or in a society, in a manner that puts a high level of control in the hands of a few experts using a specifc "recipe". These masters of diversity may pose serious threats to some basic principles that most Americans hold to be essential componenets of what it means to be free, self-determining individuals.

Perspectives On Affirmative Action / Rethinking Racial Divides: Asian Pacific Americans And The Law, Michigan Journal Of Race & Law

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Statements on affirmative action followed by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association Symposium.

Regarding Rights: An Essay Honoring The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights Introduction: Locating Culture, Identity, And Human Rights Symposium In Celebration Of The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Tracy E. Higgins

Faculty Scholarship

The half-century since the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' has been famously heralded as the "Age of Rights" and the concept of human rights described as "the only political-moral idea that has gained universal acceptance." During the same period, however, both terms defining the subject-human and rights-have become increasingly contested. Informed by the emergence of identity-based political movements, critics have attacked the category human has as bearing the baggage of Western Enlightenment assumptions about personhood and community, inherently racist, sexist, and classist. Theorists across the political spectrum have criticized the concept of rights as indeterminate, destructive of …

State Common-Law Choice-Of-Law Doctrine And Same-Sex "Marriage": How Will States Enforce The Public Policy Exception?, L. Lynn Hogue

Faculty Publications By Year

Growth in the number of states legalizing same-sex marriages and civil unions that increasingly mirror the rights afforded married partners has brought renewed focus on the issue of extra-territorial recognition of those relationships. The public policy exception is a primary, state-law-based impediment to the recognition of foreign marriages that do not conform to the forum state's definition of marriage. This article discusses the role of the public policy exception in rejecting recognition of foreign marriages and argues that the public policy exception has constitutional underpinnings that are rooted in principles of federalism and the protection of state sovereignty which inheres …

Dreaming In Black And White: Racial-Sexual Policing In The Birth Of A Nation, The Cheat, And Who Killed Vincent Chin?, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

Professor Chang observes that Asians are often perceived as interlopers in the nativistic American "family." This conception of a nativist "family" is White in composition and therefore accords a sense of economic and sexual entitlement to Whites, ironically, even if particular beneficiaries are recent immigrants. Transgressions by those perceived to be "illegitimate," such as Asians and Blacks, are policed either by rule of law or the force of sanctioned vigilante violence. Chang illustrates his thesis by drawing upon the three films referenced.

Who's Afraid Of Tiger Woods?, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

Responding to media celebrations on the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier in Major League Baseball that portray America’s battle for racial justice having been won, this article posits putting racially diverse sport stars on a pedestal misleading. This goes on to ask and explain what sports represent in a democratic society and how Tiger Woods forces us to ask the ‘race’ question. Finally, the article discusses multiracialism and LatCrit scholarship.

The Limits Of Feminism, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Asian America's Greatest Hits: A Review Of Angelo Ancheta's Race, Rights, And The Asian American Experience, Kevin M. Pimentel, Ronnie H. Rhoe

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

A review of Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience by Angelo N. Ancheta.

Putting Sex To Work, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

When I was living in New Haven a number of years ago, a miracle happened that drew people by the thousands to witness evidence of the Divine. A crucifix had been found to appear in the body of an oak tree in the middle of Worchester Square. I went – after all, how often do you get to see that kind of thing? Not surprisingly, at first I couldn't see anything but the usual trunk and limbs of a tree. Yet a believer took the time to show me what was really there, something that my untrained eye could not …

Que, Ya No Hablan Ingles En Este Pais?: A Look At The Constitutionality Of English Only Provisions Under The Free Speech Clause Of The First Amendment, John J. Louizos

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Devil And The One Drop Rule: Racial Categories, African Americans, And The U.S. Census, Christine B. Hickman

Michigan Law Review

For generations, the boundaries of the African-American race have been formed by a rule, informally known as the "one drop rule," which, in its colloquial definition, provides that one drop of Black blood makes a person Black. In more formal, sociological circles, the rule is known as a form of "hypodescent" and its meaning remains basically the same: anyone with a known Black ancestor is considered Black. Over the generations, this rule has not only shaped countless lives, it has created the African-American race as we know it today, and it has defined not just the history of this race …

Naming The Grotesque Body In The "Nascent Jurisprudence Of Transsexualism", Richard F. Storrow

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

After a description of an analytical framework constructed of theories drawn from the writings of Mikhail Bahktin, Roland Barthes, and Sigmund Freud, this Article discusses the discrepancies in courts' use of medical authority in cases considering the rights of transsexuals and then analyzes courts' ultimate refusal to recognize transsexuals' psychological sex. The thrust of this Article is an examination of the forces compelling such inconsistencies. The result is an analysis which interweaves medical, juridical, psychological and mythic perspectives to disclose the underpinnings of courts' antipathy toward transsexuals.

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.

Toward Respectful Representation: Some Thoughts On Selling Same-Sex Marriage, Marc A. Fajer

Articles

No abstract provided.

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 …

In Sisterhood, Lisa C. Ikemoto

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

A review of Where Is Your Body? by Mari Matsuda

Language Of Lullabies: The Russification And De-Russification Of The Baltic States, Sonia Bychkov Green

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article argues that the laws for promotion of the national languages are a legitimate means for the Baltic states to establish their cultural independence from Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Ex Post Facto Laws: Supreme Court New York County People V. Griffin (Decided December 5, 1996

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Affirmative Action In Question: A Coherent Theory For Section 15(2), Mark A. Drumbl, John D.R. Craig

Scholarly Articles

Affirmative action programs are constitutionally protected in Canada under section 15(2) of the Charter. This section has received little judicial interpretation and, consequently, no coherent approach to the interpretation of section 15(2) has been developed. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to define the meaning of section 15(2), as affirmative action programs can be used to perpetuate stereotypes and discrimination while being given a blanket endorsement through section 15(2). The authors suggest that section 15(2) does not merely promote substantive equality, as this is the function of section 15(1), but embodies the social justice conception of equality, which allocates social …

Lawyering For Social Justice, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is an honor, albeit a sad one, to be invited to write this Essay in commemoration of Tom Stoddard and as commentary on his final publication.

I first met Tom in the late 1970s, when we both joined the Board of Directors of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Both of us were American Civil Liberties Union staff attorneys, Tom for the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and I for the Reproducfive Freedom Project in the national office. Later, for the last half of the 1980s, Tom was the Executive Director of Lambda during the same period …

Foreword: Toward A Radical And Plural Democracy, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

In this foreword, Professor Chang lays the foundation for a discussion on the systematic discrimination built in to the United States democracy. He points out how this foundation caters to the prototypical straight, white male. The foreword ends with how these issues are addressed specifically in the symposium.