Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Torch (January/February 2013), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Empowering Women Through Recognition Of Rights To Land: Mechanisms To Strengthen Women's Rights In Vanuatu, Vijaya Nagarajan, Therese Macdermott

Theology & Religious Studies

Although the pluralist system of land tenure in Vanuatu does not directly discriminate against women, the operation of the system and contemporary interpretations of custom are increasingly marginalizing women from decision-making processes regarding land management and control. Commitment to the principles of gender equality through constitutional guarantees and the ratification of relevant international treaty obligations, while providing an appropriate legal framework for equality, have only had limited success in addressing discriminatory practices. This article analyzes alternative ways to overcome the barriers faced by women that are currently under consideration in many Pacific Island countries, including recording and registration, as well …

The Significance Of Skin Color In Asian And Asian-American Communities: Initial Reflections, Trina Jones

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Black Male Exceptionalism? The Problems And Potential Of Black Male-Focused Interventions, Paul D. Butler

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Black male exceptionalism” is the premise that African American men fare more poorly than any other group in the United States. The discourse of Black male exceptionalism presents African American men as an “endangered species.” Some government agencies, foundations, and activists have responded by creating “Black male achievement” programs. There are almost no corresponding “Black female achievement” programs. Yet empirical data does not support the claim that Black males are burdened more than Black females. Without attention to intersectionality, Black male achievement programs risk obscuring Black females and advancing patriarchal values. Black male achievement programs also risk reinforcing stereotypes that …

Intersectionality: Mapping The Movements Of A Theory, Devon Carbado, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Vicki M. Mays, Barbara Tomlinson

Faculty Scholarship

Very few theories have generated the kind of interdisciplinary and global engagement that marks the intellectual history of intersectionality. Yet, there has been very little effort to reflect upon precisely how intersectionality has moved across time, disciplines, issues, and geographic and national boundaries. Our failure to attend to intersectionality’s movement has limited our ability to see the theory in places in which it is already doing work and to imagine other places to which the theory might be taken. Addressing these questions, this special issue reflects upon the genesis of intersectionality, engages some of the debates about its scope and …

Slaves To Contradictions: 13 Myths That Sustained Slavery, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

People have a fundamental need to think of themselves as “good people.” To achieve this we tell each other stories – we create myths – about ourselves and our society. These myths may be true or they may be false. The more discordant a myth is with reality, the more difficult it is to convince people to embrace it. In such cases to sustain the illusion of truth it may be necessary to develop an entire mythology – an integrated web of mutually supporting stories. This paper explores the system of myths that sustained the institution of slavery in the …

Re-Evaluating Peacebuilding In The Democratic Republic Of Congo: A Case Study In Dongo, Wilita Sanguma

Master's Theses

Re-evaluating Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A case study in Dongo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo) is a country rich with natural resources centered in the heart of Africa. Since the colonial era, the country has seen more bloodshed than peace and development. From 1996 to 2003, Congo experienced the worst conflict since World War II, with over six million people dead. Despite having the largest United Nations peacekeeping troops present; Congo continues to be plagued by violence. This research thesis argues that the international community failed to promote a lasting peace in Congo because the international …

Torch (November/December 2012), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (September/October 2012), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (May/June 2012), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sexual Liberty And Same-Sex Marriage: An Argument From Bisexuality, Michael Boucai

Journal Articles

In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a right to choose homosexual relations and relationships. Same-sex marriage bans unconstitutionally burden this right because they have the purpose and effect of channeling individuals into heterosexual relations and relationships. Bisexuals are in the best position to raise this claim because they share homosexuals’ interest in the freedom to choose same-sex partners, yet are more easily steered toward different-sex partners by marriage’s enormous prestige and benefits.

An argument from bisexuality for same-sex marriage refutes on normative rather than empirical grounds what this article calls “the politics of containment,” a politics …

Applying Indices Post-Grutter To Monitor Progress Toward Attaining A Diverse Student Body, Roger W. Reinsch, Sonia Goltz, Hong Chen, Joel C. Tuoriniemi

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The Supreme Court decision in Grutter v. Bollinger provided more definitive guidance for institutions of higher education desiring to use racial preferences in an effort to achieve a diverse student body. This Article first examines Grutter and other relevant cases to set forth the parameters established by the Supreme Court concerning how university preferences, including but not limited to race, may be used in an admissions policy. This Article then provides a framework for creating and using diversity indices that can help institutions implement the guidelines found in these court decisions and monitor whether or not the goal of diversity …

Torch (March/April 2012), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (January/February 2012), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Soul Of A Woman: The Sex Stereotyping Prohibition At Work, Kimberly A. Yuracko

Faculty Working Papers

In 1989 the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins declared that sex stereotyping was a prohibited from of sex discrimination at work. This seemingly simple declaration has been the most important development in sex discrimination jurisprudence since the passage of Title VII. It has been used to extend the Act's coverage and protect groups that were previously excluded. Astonishingly, however, the contours, dimensions and requirements of the prohibition have never been clearly articulated by courts or scholars. In this paper I evaluate four interpretations of what the sex stereotyping prohibition might mean in order to determine what it actually …

Book Review, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Occupying America: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The American Dream, And The Challenge Of Socio-Economic Inequality, Trina Jones

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Slavery In The United States: Persons Or Property?, Paul Finkelman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fisher V. Grutter, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There is no reason for the Supreme Court to have granted certiorari in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Unless, of course, the Court plans to overrule Grutter v. Bollinger—the case on which the Texas affirmative action plan at issue in Fisher was based. If that is its plan, the Court can invalidate the Texas program on some narrow ground that masks the magnitude of what it is doing. Or it can explicitly overrule Grutter—a case that no longer commands majority support on a Supreme Court whose politics of affirmative action has now been refashioned by …

Community Economic Development And The Paradox Of Power, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article starts from the premise that poverty is a growing problem in the United States. Intergenerational poverty, the entrenchment of a class of very poor people, is a major sub set of that problem and is tied very closely to the issue of race. The author claims that missing in the fight by the poor and their allies against stratified poverty is the creation and utilization of power. This paper examines the disparate ways in which commentators have defined power. It suggests that those seeking to obtain power must understand the concept’s varying meanings and direct their activities to …

Minnie Liddell's Forty-Year Quest For Quality Public Education Remains A Dream Deferred, Kimberly Jade Norwood

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article is a historic account of the hopes and dreams that a mother had for her children and her efforts to make those hopes and dreams come true. The mother, Minnie Liddell, never imagined, when she first became a mom in 1959, or years later after the birth of her fifth child, or even after she filed a lawsuit against a city school district, that she would become a pioneer and icon in the school desegregation history of St. Louis, Missouri. She really only wanted a quality public education for her children, for black children, for all children. This …

Response: The Death Of The Bisexual Saboteur, Naomi Mezey

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Professor Glazer offers us, in Sexual Reorientation, an appealing and intuitive way to deal with the difficulty of bisexual identity, an identity that has always fit uneasily and sometimes quite unhappily in the LGBT rights movement. If the principal problem of bisexuality is its very temporal changeability, its tendency to dissolve into heterosexuality or homosexuality depending on the gender of one's sexual partner, then Glazer's solution is elegant. She proposes that we bifurcate (so to speak) sexual orientation into two subcategories and acknowledge for everyone both a general and a specific orientation. General orientation "is the sex toward which …

Whatever, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author cannot say that she disagrees with any of the analytical observations made by her co-contributors to this roundtable discussion of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. They all agree that the Supreme Court plans to use the case as an occasion to do something noteworthy to the constitutionality of affirmative action. And they all agree that the Court’s actions are likely to provide more comfort to opponents than to proponents of racial diversity. Their views diverge only with respect to doctrinal details about what the Court could or should do. But in translating the racial tensions …

The R-Word: A Tribute To Derrick Bell, Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Racism has become the “R-word,” an allegation that is so outrageous that it cannot even be spoken in public, let alone seriously addressed. In this brief exploration, I propose that it is exactly because racism continues to loom large in American society that talking about it has become taboo. In other words, banning the “R-word” serves a political function. It masks the failure of American society to confront the existence of racism and do something about its effects. Derrick Bell's path breaking work can be used to show why the focus of race discourse has moved from debating over what …

Torch (November/December 2011), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How To Sever The Legs Of An Octopus: Tunisia’S Ongoing Revolution, Matthew Hammel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Kasbah square is large and covered in barbwire. Military men stand on the inside of the fence cradling automatic rifles, joking, chatting, texting on their cell phones. Coming out from the bustle of the souks the square feels tranquil. It is September, seven months since the square became a temporary home to thousands of protestors who demanded the end of oppressive government in Tunisia. It was here that the Tunisian people solidified their revolution, refusing to be appeased by the flight of a figurehead while the tentacles of his regime remained.

Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for twenty-three years. During …

Assessment Of International Efforts To Protect The Rights Of Unaccompanied Minors, Kyla Gaines

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Children’s rights have been violated for centuries. These violations of children’s rights may include but are not limited to a child's access to education, adequate food or quality health care. Over the last few years there have been a rising number of prevalent issues that impact children, including trafficking, slave labor, and unaccompanied minors (UAM) migrating from their countries of origin to new host states in North America and Europe. The issue of unaccompanied minors migrating to Europe has been prevalent for years. "In most EU member states arrivals started during the 1990's. I'd say the issue became prevalent at …

Torch (September/October 2011), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (June 2011), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Director's Letter, Sarah Chinn

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

As I write this, the snow is slowly melting: the residue of the blizzard that brought 2010 to a close (and ground the East Coast to an almost complete halt). The stillness of the air outside fosters a kind of meditativeness, although it's hard to get a firm grasp on the events of the past few weeks. After what seemed like an endless parade of false starts, Congress finally overturned Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a policy that came into being at the same time as our newest crop of undergraduates. And at almost the same moment, the DREAM Act, legislation …