Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Clearing The Bar: Catharine Waugh Mcculloch And Illinois Legal Reform, Sandra L. Ryder

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Letter To Our Readers, Mecca Wilkinson, Elle Topacio, Jay Kasperbauer, Miranda Bolin, Sabrina O'Connor, Shaundranique Perkins

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Mecca Wilkinson

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Settler Colonialism And Ecosystem Change: How Ideology Has Shaped Minnesota’S Environments, Sarah E. Hobby

History Honors Projects

The formation of a uniquely American land ethic—defined by European political history and Christian biblical doctrine and forged through systems of dispossession—is central to the creation of environments within the United States today. Using Minnesota as a microcosm to understand how settler colonial interactions played out all across the United States, this paper analyzes connections between violent dispossession of Indigenous people and the degradation of environments. By understanding how Ojibwe and Dakota people think about and have shaped Minnesotan lands throughout their history and comparing Indigenous land-ethics to the Euro-American-settler land ethic, this paper evaluates the role that ideology and …

Law School News: 2024 Rbg Essay & Art Contest Winners Recognized At Women In Law Leadership Lecture 4-16-24, Roger Williams University School News

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Injunctions Prevail Through The Winter Of Buckhannon, Kaitlan Donahue

Northwestern University Law Review

The Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976 allows courts to award attorneys’ fees to the “prevailing party” in any “action or proceeding” enforcing several civil rights-related statutes. Yet, this statute fails to define the term “prevailing party,” leaving the courts to define it over time. The Supreme Court’s piecemeal, vague definitions of “prevailing party” have only complicated the legal landscape and caused more uncertainty for potential plaintiffs and their prospective attorneys. Without the relief offered by recovery of attorneys’ fees, private litigants may be dissuaded from pursuing meritorious litigation due to overwhelming costs of representation, and attorneys may …

Toward Accessing Hiv-Preventative Medication In Prisons, Scott Shimizu

Northwestern University Law Review

The Eighth Amendment is meant to protect incarcerated individuals against harm from the state, including state inaction in the face of a known risk of harm. While the Eighth Amendment’s protection prohibits certain prison disciplinary measures and conditions of confinement, the constitutional ambit should arguably encompass protection from the serious risk of harm of sexual assault, as well as a corollary to sexual violence: the likelihood of contracting a deadly sexually transmitted infection like HIV. Yet Eighth Amendment scholars frequently question the degree to which the constitutional provision actually protects incarcerated individuals.

This Note draws on previous scholarship on cruel …

Racial Targets, Atinuke O. Adediran

Northwestern University Law Review

It is common scholarly and popular wisdom that racial quotas are illegal. However, the reality is that since 2020’s racial reckoning, many of the largest companies have been touting specific, albeit voluntary, goals to hire or promote people of color, which this Article refers to as “racial targets.” The Article addresses this phenomenon and shows that companies can defend racial targets as distinct from racial quotas, which involve a rigid number or proportion of opportunities reserved exclusively for minority groups. The political implications of the legal defensibility of racial targets are significant in this moment in American history, where race …

Shots Fired, Shots Refused: Scientific, Ethical & Legal Challenges Surrounding The U.S. Military's Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate, Shawn Mckelvy, L. William Uhl, Armand Balboni

St. Mary's Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic provided uncertain and challenging circumstances under which to lead a nation and the military that protects it. Those in charge and in command faced unique challenges—scientific, ethical, and legal—at our various levels of government to both keep people safe while keeping government and society functioning. While there were many successes to celebrate, there are also many criticisms for how this “whole-of-government approach” may have degraded some of our most cherished liberties along the way. The authors focus on the U.S. military’s vaccine mandate and propose military leaders may have failed to fully consider the evolving science, weigh …

The Antidote Of Free Speech: Censorship During The Pandemic, Christopher Keleher

Catholic University Law Review

Free speech in America stands at a precipice. The nation must decide if the First Amendment protects controversial, unconventional, and unpopular speech, or only that which is mainstream, fashionable, and government-approved. This debate is one of many legal battles brought to the fore during Covid-19. But the fallout of the free speech question will transcend Covid-19.

During the pandemic, the federal government took unprecedented steps to pressure private entities to push messages it approved and squelch those it did not. The Supreme Court will soon grapple with the issue of censorship during the pandemic. This article examines this litigation, along …

Amdip Annual Meeting Of Law School Diversity Professionals: Hosted By Roger Williams University School Of Law: April 23-25, 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Rwu Law Alumni Newsletter April 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Rwu School Of Law Launches Institute For Race And The Law And Celebrates Champions For Justice 3-22-2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Worthless Checks? Clemency, Compassionate Release, And The Finality Of Life Without Parole, Daniel Pascoe

Northwestern University Law Review

Life without parole (LWOP) sentences are politically popular in the United States because, on their face, they claim to hold prisoners incarcerated until they die, with zero prospect of release via the regularized channel of parole. However, this view is procedurally shortsighted. After parole there is generally another remedial option for lessening or abrogating punishment: executive clemency via pardons and commutations. Increasingly, U.S. legal jurisdictions also provide for the possibility of compassionate release for lifers, usually granted by a parole board.

On paper, pardon, commutation, and compassionate release are thus direct challenges to the claim that an LWOP sentence will …

The Supreme Court And Children, Aaron Tang

Northwestern University Law Review

How do children fare at the Supreme Court? Empirical research on the question is sparse, but existing accounts suggest a disheartening answer. A 1996 study found that children lost more than half of their cases in the Court, and a pair of prominent scholars lamented twenty years later that “the losses in children’s rights cases” had “outpace[d] and overwhelm[ed] the victories.”

In this Article, I present evidence that complicates this understanding. Based on an original dataset comprising 262 Supreme Court decisions between 1953 and 2023, I find that children have prevailed in 62.6% of their cases. This win rate is …

A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley

Brooklyn Law Review

American law and American life are asymmetrical. Law divides neatly in two: public and private. But life is lived in three distinct spaces: pure public, pure private, and hybrid middle spaces that are neither state nor home. Which body of law governs the shops, gyms, and workplaces that are formally accessible to all, but functionally hostile to Black, female, poor, and other marginalized Americans? From the liberal midcentury onward, social justice advocates have treated these spaces as fundamentally public and fully remediable via public law equity commands. This article takes a broader view. It urges a tort law revival in …

Safeguarding Silence: The Weaponization Of Nondisclosure Agreements And The Need For More Regulation, Johanna Shinners

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

With the surge of the #MeToo movement, the weaponization of Nondisclosure agreements in cases of sexual assault and harassment has been brought to the forefront. This comment discusses the use and laws of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment, highlighting their role in silencing victims and shielding perpetrators from accountability and underscores the broader implications of NDAs in perpetuating a culture of silence. Emphasizing the prevalence of NDAs, this comment scrutinizes their misuse and explores the historical context, highlighting the intertwining of #MeToo movement and NDAs.

This comment compares State responses, exemplified by Washington, California, …

Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour

Fordham Law Review

This colloquium asks us to consider how social change is influencing the legal profession and the legal profession’s response. This Essay applies these questions to organizing around criminal injustice and the response from public defenders. This Essay surfaces the work of four innovative indigent defense organizations that are engaged with and duty-bound to the communities they represent. I call this “community responsive public defense,” which is a distinct model of indigent defense whereby public defenders look to their clients and their clients’ communities to help shape advocacy, strategy, and representation.

Methodologically, this Essay relies primarily on qualitative interviews with leaders …

Throwing Tomato Soup At A Van Gogh: How Climate Activists Leveraged Legal Theory, Criminal Law, And Moral Outrage To Conduct A Radical Protest Campaign In The World's Most Famous Museums, Joe Udell

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

P*Law 2024, Center For Public Service Law

2023–2024 Flyers

This document outlines the full schedule for P*LAW Week 2024 at Cardozo School of Law, hosted by the Center for Public Service Law. Held from January 29 to February 1, the week featured panels, workshops, and student-led presentations on critical public interest topics, including immigration, incarceration, housing justice, student debt, reproductive rights, and exoneration. With contributions from legal professionals, alumni, faculty, and students, the events provided education, mentorship, and career development opportunities for those pursuing paths in public interest law.

Tax Enforcement At The Intersection Of Social Welfare And Vulnerable Populations, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This Essay engages with Professor Bernadette Atuahene’s theory of stategraft in the context of tax administration and the role that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plays in implementing certain social welfare benefits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Specifically, it considers whether the IRS’s denials of the EITC to those who might otherwise be eligible and entitled to it constitutes a wrongful taking by the state or a violation of basic human rights. While this Essay concludes that denials of the EITC generally do not fit within Atuahene’s definition of stategraft, it highlights two particularly problematic concerns with modern …

The Automated Fourth Amendment, Maneka Sinha

Faculty Scholarship

Courts routinely defer to police officer judgments in reasonable suspicion and probable cause determinations. Increasingly, though, police officers outsource these threshold judgments to new forms of technology that purport to predict and detect crime and identify those responsible. These policing technologies automate core police determinations about whether crime is occurring and who is responsible. Criminal procedure doctrine has failed to insist on some level of scrutiny of—or skepticism about—the reliability of this technology. Through an original study analyzing numerous state and federal court opinions, this Article exposes the implications of law enforcement’s reliance on these practices given the weighty interests …

Teaching Critical Use Of Legal Research Technology, Jennifer E. Chapman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dystopian Dreams, Utopian Nightmares: Ai And The Permanence Of Racism, Chaz Arnett

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay draws connections between Octavia Butler’s Parable series (Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents), HBO’s Westworld, and Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism to highlight how the reconfiguration and transmutation of race through technological change is facilitated by corresponding shifts in legal doctrine, theory, policy, and practice. It takes the overlapping threads from these three sources, which struggle with the idea of change within larger systems of unavoidable, repetitive destruction, and ties them to the law’s role in helping to shield race through the storms of change …

Rpl, Crt, & Latcrit: "Finding The 'Me' In The Legal Academy", Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The idea of a colorblind society and constitution is a dream, not reality. Importantly, the idea of colorblindness has been used to hijack laws and constitutional provisions specifically created to right societal wrongs against minoritized persons, especially Black persons. Take for example, the recent controversy surrounding affirmative action in higher education.The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, both created to secure the rights of Black citizens, have been co-opted to instead deprive them of opportunities. The latest example of this is a Supreme Court case decided this past summer—Students …

Henderson And The Objective Observer Standard: The Future Of Race-Conscious Standards Post-Students For Fair Admissions, Gabriela Dionisio

Seattle University Law Review

On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which struck down race-conscious admissions policies. Within just a year after its ruling, Students for Fair Admissions has already had a sweeping impact, reaching beyond higher education. Although the Supreme Court did not indicate whether Students for Fair Admissions applies to sectors beyond higher education, law firms, and other employers have already modified their diversity policies and initiatives, erasing race and company diversity considerations. Given those dramatic changes, there is growing fear that Students for Fair Admissions …

Same Crime, Different Time: Sentencing Disparities In The Deep South & A Path Forward Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Hailey M. Donovan

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The American obsession with crime and punishment can be tracked over the last half-century, as the nation’s incarceration rate has risen astronomically. Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people in the United States has increased more than sevenfold to over 2.3 million, outpacing both crime and population growth considerably. While the rise itself is undoubtedly bleak, a more troubling truth lies just below the surface. Not all states contribute equally to American mass incarceration. Rather, states have vastly different incarceration rates. Unlike at the federal level, …

Public Primacy In Corporate Law, Dorothy S. Lund

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the malleability of agency theory by showing that it could be used to justify a “public primacy” standard for corporate law that would direct fiduciaries to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of the public. Employing agency theory to describe the relationship between corporate management and the broader public sheds light on aspects of firm behavior, as well as the nature of state contracting with corporations. It also provides a lodestar for a possible future evolution of corporate law and governance: minimize the agency costs created by the divergence of interests between management and …

Robo-Voting: Does Delegated Proxy Voting Pose A Challenge For Shareholder Democracy?, John Matsusaka, Chong Shu

Seattle University Law Review

Robo-voting is the practice by an investment fund of mechanically voting in corporate elections according to the advice of its proxy advisor— in effect fully delegating its voting decision to its advisor. We examined over 65 million votes cast during the period 2008–2021 by 14,582 mutual funds to describe and quantify the prevalence of robo-voting. Overall, 33% of mutual funds robo-voted in 2021: 22% with ISS, 4% with Glass Lewis, and six percent with the recommendations of the issuer’s management. The fraction of funds that robo-voted increased until around 2013 and then stabilized at the current level. Despite the sizable …

The Limits Of Corporate Governance, Cathy Hwang, Emily Winston

Seattle University Law Review

What is the purpose of the corporation? For decades, the answer was clear: to put shareholders’ interests first. In many cases, this theory of shareholder primacy also became synonymous with the imperative to maximize shareholder wealth. In the world where shareholder primacy was a north star, courts, scholars, and policymakers had relatively little to fight about: most debates were minor skirmishes about exactly how to maximize shareholder wealth.

Part I of this Essay discusses the shortcomings of shareholder primacy and stakeholder governance, arguing that neither of these modes of governance provides an adequate framework for incentivizing corporations to do good. …