Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

From Justice To Injustice: Lowering The Threshold Of European Consensus In Oliari And Others Versus Italy, Nazim Ziyadov

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Oliari and Others v. Italy, decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2015, changed its case law. The ECHR changed its position stated in Schalk and Kopf v. Austria (2010) when evaluating an alleged violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It concluded that Italy has a positive obligation under the convention to guarantee alternative legal recognition for same-sex couples. The same conclusion was not reached in Schalk. In Oliari and Others, the ECHR heavily relied on the European consensus doctrine and eventually deepened formalization of two different institutions (marriage and civil unions). …

Marriage Equality And A Lawyer's Role In The Emergence Of "New" Rights, Daniel J. Canon

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

The last few decades have seen a dramatic change in the way in which Americans view LGBT rights, and the right to same-sex marriage in particular. In 1972, the Supreme Court issued its first opinion on same-sex marriage. In sharp contrast with Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the constitutional right to marriage equality in 2015, the case of Baker v. Nelson held in one sentence that the idea that such a right might exist was not even worth discussing. What happened in the intervening forty years to change the outcome so profoundly? And how can attorneys seek to replicate …

Opioid Policing, Barbara Fedders

Indiana Law Journal

This Article identifies and explores a new, local law enforcement approach to alleged drug offenders. Initially limited to a few police departments, but now expanding rapidly across the country, this innovation takes one of two primary forms. The first is a diversion program through which officers refer alleged offenders to community-based social services rather than initiate criminal proceedings. The second form offers legal amnesty as well as priority access to drug detoxification programs to users who voluntarily relinquish illicit drugs. Because the upsurge in addiction to —and death from—opioids has spurred this innovation, I refer to it as “opioid policing.” …

The Resistance & The Stubborn But Unsurprising Persistence Of Hate And Extremism In The United States, Jeannine Bell

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Though the far right has a long history in the United States, the presidential campaign and then election of Donald Trump brought the movement out of the shadows. This article will analyze the rise in White supremacist activity in the United States-from well-publicized mass actions like the White supremacist march in Charlottesville in August 2017 to individual acts of violence happening since November 2016. This article focuses on contextualizing such incidents within this contemporary period and argues that overt expressions of racism and racist violence are nothing new. The article closes with a call to strengthen the current legal remedies …

Rethinking The 1948 Genocide Convention For North Korean Political Camps, Hyunmok Lee

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

The term genocide implies attacks on only four groups – national, racial, ethnic and religious – enumerated in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In terms of protection of political group, severe political persecutions targeting a certain political group would not establish a successful genocide charge in courts and international courts have rendered judgements applying crimes against humanity to such atrocities. However, it is important to consider the possibility of protecting political groups regarding the victims in the North Korean political camps were selected on political grounds and their groupness is …

Lead Us Not Into Temptation: A Response To Barbara Fedders’S “Opioid Policing”, Anna Roberts

Indiana Law Journal

In “Opioid Policing,”1 Barbara Fedders contributes to the law review literature the first joint scholarly analysis of two drug policing innovations: Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program and the Angel Initiative, which originated in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Even while welcoming the innovation and inspiration of these programs, she remains clear-eyed about the need to scrutinize their potential downsides. Her work is crucially timed. While still just a few years old, LEAD has been replicated many times2 and appears likely to be replicated still further—and to be written about much more. Inspired by Fedders’s call for a balanced take, this Response …

Beyond The Numbers: Substantive Gender Diversity In Boardrooms, Yaron G. Nili

Indiana Law Journal

The push for gender diversity on public companies’ boards has been gaining traction. Advocacy groups, institutional investors, regulators, and companies themselves have all recognized the need for more diverse boards. However, gender parity is still absent from most public companies’ boards, and a significant number of companies still have no women on their boards.

Current public and academic discourse has focused on the number of women serving on the board and their percentage compared to men as the litmus test for gender diversity. However, academic studies and the public push for more diversity have mostly failed to account for another …

The Compliance Process, Veronica Root

Indiana Law Journal

Even as regulators and prosecutors proclaim the importance of effective compliance programs, failures persist. Organizations fail to ensure that they and their agents comply with legal and regulatory requirements, industry practices, and their own internal policies and norms. From the companies that provide our news, to the financial institutions that serve as our bankers, to the corporations that make our cars, compliance programs fail to prevent misconduct each and every day. The causes of these compliance failures are multifaceted and include general enforcement deficiencies, difficulties associated with overseeing compliance programs within complex organizations, and failures to establish a culture of …

The Hidden Fences Shaping Resegregation, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article offers a window into the experiences that inform the neighborhood choices of middle-class and upper-middle-class Blacks. As I suggest below, there are many hidden fences, walling off white neighborhoods and restricting Blacks’ housing choices in de facto ways. These hidden fences exist in the form of the many challenges Blacks face when moving to white neighborhoods. The obstacles to easy, contented lives range from police harassment to anti-integrationist violence that push Blacks into less affluent neighborhoods. Ultimately, this Article demonstrates how race can circumscribe housing choice and social mobility, even in the absence of legal barriers restricting where …

Brown At 65: How Does The Changing Racial And Ethnic Ancestry Of Blacks Impact The Interpretation Of School Desegregation, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................2

I.RISE AND FALL OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION.........................................7

A.The Rise of School Desegregation ............................................................... 7

B.The Fall of School Desegregation................................................................ 11

II. CHANGING RACIAL ANCESTRY OF BLACKS IN THE UNITED STATES AND WHY IT MATTERS IN TERMS OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION...................16

A. Increases in Interracial Marriage Rates ...................................................... 18

B. Demise of the One-Drop Rule and the Recognition of Black Multiracials .. 21

C. Impact of Increasing Numbers of Black Multiracials ................................... 24

III. CHANGING ETHNIC ANCESTRY OF BLACKS ........................................ 28

CONCLUSION: IMPACT OF THE CHANGING RACIAL AND ETHNIC ANCESTRY OF BLACKS ON HOW TO THINK ABOUT SCHOOL DESEGREGATION ..........31

Slouching Toward Universality: A Brief History Of Race, Voting, And Political Participation, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel Charles

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this brief history of race and voting in the United States, we look at five distinctive yet interrelated moments. The first is the founding period, a moment when the framers put our constitutional structure in place and set the initial federalist calculus in favor of the existing states. This is perhaps the most important moment in the story. The framers chose to allow the states to define the criteria for voting qualifications for federal elections. Instead of uniformity and centralization, they opted for diversity and decentralization. This is a choice that reverberates to this day. The second moment is …

Dignity And Social Meaning: Obergefell, Windsor, And Lawrence As Constitutional Dialogue, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The U.S. Supreme Court’s three most important gay and lesbian rights decisions—Obergefell v. Hodges, United States v. Windsor, and Lawrence v. Texas—are united by the principle that gays and lesbians are entitled to dignity. Beyond their tangible consequences, the common constitutional evil of state bans on same-sex marriage, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and sodomy laws was that they imposed dignitary harm. This Article explores how the gay and lesbian dignity cases exemplify the process by which constitutional law emerges from a social and cultural dialogue in which the Supreme Court actively participates. In doing …

Animus And Its Alternatives: Constitutional Principle And Judicial Prudence, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In a series of cases addressing sexual orientation and other issues, the Supreme Court has ruled that animus-based lawmaking is constitutionally impermissible. The Court treats animus as an independent and sufficient basis for invalidation. Moreover, it appears to regard animus as a doctrine of first resort, to be utilized even when an alternative constitutional rationale, such as declaring a challenged classification suspect or quasi-suspect, would readily justify the same result. Responding especially to Professor William D. Araiza’s elaboration and defense of the Court’s animus doctrine, I agree that this doctrine is sound, indeed compelling, as a matter of constitutional principle. …

We Are All Farkhunda: An Examination Of The Treatment Of Women Within Afghanistan's Formal Legal System, Ashley Lenderman

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

In this paper, I will examine three cases of violence against women that went through the Afghan formal legal system: the case of Farkhunda, the Paghman district gang rape case, and the case of Sahar Gul. In the first Part, I will discuss the formal legal system framework on which the cases are based. In the second Part, I will discuss the cases in detail. In the third Part, I will describe neo-liberal, reformist, and neo-fundamentalist approaches to interpretation of Islamic law, and I will then draw out pieces of the decisions from the three cases that closely match these …

Legitimacy And Protection Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination Under Title Vii, Matt Snodgrass

Indiana Law Journal

Until relatively recently federal courts have held that claims of discrimination based in sexual orientation fall beyond the purview of Title VII protection. Even after the landmark holding in Price Waterhouse that recognized discrimination based in sex stereotypes and subsequent amendment to Title VII, courts resisted “bootstrapping” sexual orientation claims with sex discrimination claims. The result has been a number of puzzling outcomes—for example, extending Title VII protection to gay men who received adverse employment treatment due to stereotypically “effeminate” mannerism but not to gay men who meet cultural standards of masculinity— rigidly applying the structure of protected categories in …

Reflections On The Future Of Global Legal Studies, Mark Fathi Massoud

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This Article proposes a set of theoretical ideas and practical innovations for the future of global legal studies in the three areas that make up the academic profession: research, teaching, and service. The future directions of global legal studies will involve building intellectual bridges that connect law with global politics, society, history, religion, and human behavior. Constructing these bridges preserves global legal studies as both an interdisciplinary enterprise and a movement for justice. This twin commitment to rigorous inquiry and social justice involves sustaining a welcoming community for graduate students and early career scholars, and prioritizing the experiences of those …

Conflicting Approaches To Addressing Ex-Offender Unemployment: The Work Opportunity Tax Credit And Ban The Box, Katherine English

Indiana Law Journal

Each year, roughly 700,000 prisoners are released from their six-by-eight-foot cells and back into society. Sadly, though, many of these ex-prisoners are not truly free. Upon returning to society, they often encounter several challenges that prevent them from resuming a normal, reintegrated lifestyle. For many, the difficulties associated with reentry prove to be too much, and within a short three years of their release, two-thirds of ex-offenders are rearrested, reconvicted, and thrown back into the familiar six-by-eight-foot cell. Recidivism might appear to be entirely the exoffenders’ fault, but ex-offenders are not solely responsible for these recidivism rates or the solution …

Race And Representation Revisited: The New Racial Gerrymandering Cases And Section 2 Of The Vra, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel E. Charles

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article explores the Supreme Court's new racial gerrymandering cases and argue that those cases are on a collision course with Section 2 of the VRA. We revisit the Shaw line of cases and explain that the Shaw cases were more sympathetic to the representational rights of voters of color than are the new racial gerrymandering cases. This is primarily because the Shaw cases made room within the doctrine for the state to pursue descriptive representation for voters of color. We argue that new racial gerrymandering cases are inimical to descriptive representation. To the extent that voting rights scholars and …

Ordinariness As Equality, Elise C. Boddie

Indiana Law Journal

This Essay argues for an equality norm of racial ordinariness. Ordinariness here refers to the state of being treated as a full, complex person and a rightful recipient of human concern. As a norm, its purpose is to focus constitutional attention on common, everyday interactions as sources of racial indignity. It also seeks to sensitize courts and other constitutional actors to the infinite varieties and grittier dimensions of discrimination through the “understandings of everyday folk.”

Part I explains why ordinariness matters and the importance of everyday interactions to achieving ordinariness. It discusses these points through the lens of a true …

Evolution Of The Racial Identity Of Children Of Loving: Has Our Thinking About Race And Racial Issues Become Obsolete?, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

"A Few Bad Apples": How The Narrative Of Isolated Misconduct Distorts Civil Rights Doctrine, Chiraag Bains

Indiana Law Journal

In Parts I and II, I examine precedents involving the two broad topics with which this Essay began: policing and race, respectively. The narrative is perhaps more familiar in the policing context. Attorney General Jeff Sessions articulated it succinctly in a March 2017 memo ordering the reevaluation of all consent decrees the Justice Department had entered with police departments because “[t]he misdeeds of individual bad actors should not impugn or undermine the legitimate and honorable work that law enforcement officers and agencies perform in keeping American communities safe.”4 The narrative applies with respect to race, as well, although it comes …

Dead Canaries In The Coal Mines: The Symbolic Assailant Revisited, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The well-publicized deaths of several African-Americans—Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and Alton Sterling among others—at the hands of police stem from tragic interactions predicated upon well-understood practices analyzed by police scholars since the 1950s. The symbolic assailant, a construct created by police scholar Jerome Skolnick in the mid-1960s to identify persons whose behavior and characteristics the police view as threatening, is especially relevant to contemporary policing. This Article explores the societal roots of the creation of a Black symbolic assailant in contemporary American policing.

The construction of African-American men as symbolic assailants is one of the most important factors characterizing police …

Gender Equality Menace Under Liberia Domestic Relations Law, Yah-Yeplah Dolo-Barbu

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Like most Africa countries, Liberia has a dual legal system, that is, the customary and statutory. Cultural and traditional practices influence some of the laws. Laws in both legal systems discriminate against women in overt ways, especially laws that deal with the private sphere, such as marriage, divorce, custody, domestic violence, property, legitimacy, and inheritance. This dissertation seeks to identify inequality in the Liberian Domestic Relation laws that arise from facially discriminatory laws, facially neutral laws and omissions in the law. It also posits that the court’s role in interpreting these issues has been inadequate, and the legislature is reluctant …

Dissenting From History: The False Narratives Of The Obergefell Dissents, Christopher R. Leslie

Indiana Law Journal

According to a quote attributed to numerous philosophers and political leaders, “History is written by victors.”1 In the legal battle over same-sex marriage, those opposed to marriage equality have attempted to disprove this age-old adage. In response to the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges—which held that state laws banning same-sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment—each of the four dissenting Justices issued his own dissenting opinion. Every one of these dissents misrepresented the circumstances and precedent leading up to the Obergefell decision. Collectively, the Obergefell dissenters have valiantly tried to rewrite America’s legal, constitutional, and social history, all in an …

Beyond "Best Practices": Employment-Discrimination Law In The Neoliberal Era, Deborah Dinner

Indiana Law Journal

Why does U.S. legal culture tolerate unprecedented economic inequality even as it valorizes social equality along identity lines? This Article takes a significant step toward answering this question by examining the relationship between U.S. employment-discrimination law and neoliberalism. It shows that the rise of anti-discrimination ideals in the late twentieth century was intertwined with the de-regulation of labor and with cutbacks in the welfare state. The Article argues that even “best practices” to prevent employment discrimination are insufficient to realize a labor market responsive to the needs of low-income workers for adequate wages, safe work conditions, and work hours and …

The Enduring Integration School Desegregation Helped To Produce, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Interaction Of The Pregnancy Discrimination Act And The Americans With Disabilities Act After Young V. Ups, Deborah A. Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Pregnant women sometimes ask employers for accommodations – such as being able to sit on a stool or avoid heavy lifting – to permit them to work safely and productively. In 2015, in Young v. United Parcel Service, the Supreme Court held that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) requires courts to scrutinize carefully denial of such requests. The facts in Young arose prior to the effective date of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA); accordingly, the Court did not address how the ADAAA, which expanded the range of health conditions that qualify as disabilities, affects claims for accommodations under …

Lender Discrimination, Black Churches And Bankruptcy, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Based on my original empirical research, in this Article, I expose a disparity between the demographics of the roughly 650 religious congregations that have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy during part of the last decade and congregations nationwide. Churches with predominately black membership — Black Churches — appeared in chapter 11 more than three times as often as they appear among churches across the country. A conservative estimate of the percentage of Black Churches among religious congregation chapter 11 debtors is 60%. The likely percentage is upward of 75%. Black Churches account for 21% of congregations nationwide.

Why are Black …

Benefiting From Breaking The Color Barrier: Tribute To Professor Richardson For Being The Pioneer At Indiana University Maurer School Of Law, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Intimate Liberties And Antidiscrimination Law, Deborah A. Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In assessing laws that regulate marriage, procreation, and sexual intimacy, the Supreme Court has recognized a “synergy” between guaranteeing personal liberties and advancing equality. Courts interpreting the antidiscrimination laws that govern the private sector, however, often draw artificial and untenable lines between “conduct” and “status” to preclude protections for individuals or couples who face censure because of their intimate choices. This Article exposes how these arguments have been used to justify not only discrimination against the lesbian and gay community, but also discrimination against heterosexual couples who engage in non-marital intimacy or non-marital childrearing.

During the 1980s and 1990s, several …