Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Incitement In The Mosques: Testing The Limits Of Free Speech And Religious Liberty, Kenneth Lasson

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In times of terror and tension, civil liberties are at their greatest peril. Nowadays, no individual rights are more in jeopardy than the freedoms of speech and religion. This is true particularly for followers of Islam, whose leaders have become increasingly radical in both their preaching and practice. "Kill the Jews!" and "Kill the Americans!" are chants heard regularly in many Middle Eastern mosques, as frightful echoes of the fatwa are issued by today's quintessential terrorist, Osama bin Laden. The incitement continues unabated to this day. In April of 2004, for example, a Muslim preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in …

Equity Measures And Systems Reform As Tools For Reducing Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Health Care, Sidney D. Watson

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Many health care quality regulators, including officials of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other agencies, have embraced systems reform—largely through mandates that require health care providers to implement Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement (QAPI) initiatives. Currently, however, no QAPI requirements stipulate that individual plans or providers measure racial and ethnic disparities. Performance measurements that do not track data by race and ethnicity, the author says, not only miss inequities but are likely to overlook promising techniques for reaching patients of particular racial and ethnic backgrounds. Incorporating equity measures into existing QAPI requirements, the report finds, would not …

To Lend Or Not To Lend: What The Cra Ought To Say About Sub-Prime And Predatory Lending, Cassandra Jones Havard

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Policies that support the expansion of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income persons must be reconciled with those policies that undercut the sustainability of home ownership. The sub-prime market represents a much needed expansion of credit markets to those who have been denied access to credit though they are creditworthy. The high failure rate of the sub-prime market indicates that market forces are ineffective in halting this economic abuse. This article argues that the public policy choices and justifications for certain practices have marginalized the concerns of particular consumer classes. It challenges the premise that the free market can and …

An Experiment In Integrating Critical Theory And Clinical Education, Margaret E. Johnson

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Critical theory is important in live-client clinical teaching as a means to achieve the pedagogical goals of clinical education. Feminist legal theory, critical race theory, and poverty law theory serve as useful frameworks to enable students to deconstruct assumptions they, persons within institutions, and broader society make about the students' clients and their lives. Critical theory highlights the importance of looking for both the "obvious and non-obvious relationships of domination." Thus, critical theory informs students of the presence and importance of alternative voices that challenge the dominant discourse. When student attorneys ignore or are unaware of such voices, other voices …

Constitutional Dialogue And The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Joel K. Goldstein

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 [1] represented a seminal legislative accomplishment of the twentieth century. Its eleven titles addressed racial discrimination in voting (Title I), public accommodations (Title II), public facilities (Title III), public education (Title IV), publicly financed programs (Title VI) and employment (Title VII).[2] It sought to remedy legislatively the Jim Crow laws and practices that had long contributed to making blacks second-class citizens in America and it provided the Executive Branch tools, especially in Title III and VI, to help implement Brown v. Board of Education.[3] In view of the bill’s focus on racial discrimination, one …

Coverage Of Reproductive Technologies Under Employer-Sponsored Health Care Plans, Elizabeth Pendo

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Proceedings of the 2004 Annual Meeting, Association of American Law Schools, Sections on Employee Benefits and Employment Discrimination. Panel includes: Professor Colleen E. Medill; Professor Helen Norton; Eve Gartner, Esq.; and Professor Elizabeth Pendo.

The Allure And Danger Of Practicing Law As Taxonomy, Marcia L. Mccormick

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In this article, I hope to contribute to the ongoing debate on how our society treats the problem of discrimination. Many scholars have criticized the types of antidiscrimination statutes we have enacted as well as the ways in which the courts have interpreted those laws. While I agree with many of these critiques, rather than tackle those very large issues at the outset, I focus on the test the courts currently use to evaluate the evidence to determine whether an inference can be made that discrimination has occurred. I argue that lawyers and courts have become so caught up in …

Is It Too Late For Title Vi Enforcement? - Seeking Redemption Of The Unequal United States' Long Term Care System Through International Means, Ruqaiijah A. Yearby

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Permeating every facet of life including health care, racial segregation has been a part of the history of the United States since its creation. In fact, the history of African-Americans has been one of tragedy, laced with the hope of equality. This tragedy is a result of three hundred years of slavery, one hundred years of the limited freedom of segregation, three years of the promise of equality granted from the civil rights struggle, and thirty-seven years of resegregation through white flight and institutional racism. Hence, African-Americans have been fighting for the right to freedom, equality, and human dignity for …

The Effects Of Jury Ignorance About Damage Caps: The Case Of The 1991 Civil Rights Act, Rebecca E. Hollander-Blumoff, Matthew T. Bodie

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The 1991 Civil Rights Act revolutionized employment discrimination litigation by allowing for compensatory and punitive damages. At the same time, however, the Act capped those damages and forbade courts from informing jurors about the cap. This Article explores the effects of this imposed secrecy on the jury deliberation process and on the jury system itself. First, our article delves into the wealth of psychological literature about jury decision-making to determine how disclosing or hiding the caps might affect the jury's damage calculations. We explore decision-making biases and heuristics that might systematically affect the jurors' judgment about damage awards, and discuss …

Approaches To Brown V. Board Of Education: Some Notes On Teaching A Seminal Case, Joel K. Goldstein

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During the past year, dozens of American law schools commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.¹ The attention was appropriate because Brown is one of the Supreme Court’s seminal decisions. By all appearances, the fiftieth anniversary of Brown attracted much more attention than did, say, the 200th anniversary of Marbury v. Madison² in 2003 or the centennial of Lochner v. New York³ this year. Brown’s unique significance resides in part in the fact that it changed America’s constitutional norm regarding race, our most embarrassing and vexing problem. In effectively overturning the doctrine of Plessy …

Is It Too Late For Title Vi Enforcement?: Seeking Redemption Of The Unequal Long Term Care System In The United States Through International Means, Ruqaiijah Yearby

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Legal and medical experts have noted continued racism in the health care system that prevents the equal distribution of quality care. Initially most racism was intentional and expressed through de jure segregation, as evidenced by federal funding of the construction of racial segregated health care facilities. Now most racism, expressed through de facto segregation, is subtly incorporated into the daily practices of institutions causing an adverse disparate impact on African-Americans. This institutional racism establishes separate and independent barriers through the neutral denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups that results from the normal operations of the institutions …

Ending The Exploitation Of The Vulnerable: The Promise Of The Intersection Of American Bioethics, Human Rights, And Health Law, Ruqaiijah Yearby

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Traditionally, American bioethics has served as a safety net for the rich and powerful, for they are not forced to act as research subjects to obtain access to general health care for themselves or their children. However, American bioethics has failed to protect the vulnerable, i.e. indigent minorities. The vulnerable are not treated the same as the rich. They do not have access to health care. They are exploited in clinical trials that promise monetary gain or access to health care and their autonomy rights are often ignored. Some of the vulnerable most affected by these disparities are African-Americans. African-Americans …

The Politics Of Infertility: Recognizing Coverage Exclusions As Discrimination, Elizabeth Pendo

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Infertility affects approximately ten percent of the reproductive-age population in the United States, and strikes people of every race, ethnicity and socio-economic level. It is recognized by the medical community as a disease, one with devastating physical, psychological, and financial effects.

In 1998, the Supreme Court held in Bragdon v. Abbott that reproduction is a major life activity within the meaning of the ADA. Many lawyers, activists and scholars thought that coverage for infertility treatment would follow soon after. In fact, in 2003 in the first major case applying Bragdon to health benefits, Saks v. Franklin Covey, the Second Circuit …

The Other Sullivan Case, Garrett Epps, Garrett Epps

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The standard triumphalist narrative of NEW YORK TIMES V. SULLIVAN celebrates the Supreme Court's defense of free speech and press in the case's vindication of powerful journalistic institution. Ignored in this story is the story of the local defendants, civil rights leaders in Alabama who had their solvency threatened by the state courts' vindictive action against them. These defendants challenged the segregated proceedings used in court to affix liability to them—but the Supreme Court ignored their arguments and ignored the racial-equality and individual-rights aspects of the case. From their point of view, SULLIVAN might be so unalloyed a triumph.

Legal Title To Land As An Intervention Against Urban Poverty In Developing Nations, Bernadette Atuahene

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One intervention intended to ameliorate poverty and its subsidiary effects is the distribution of legal title to land to poor urban dwellers, otherwise known as land titling. Given the billions of dollars that the World Bank, country-based development agencies, regional development banks, and developing countries themselves have spent on land titling programs, it has become one of the most important property law issues confronting the developing world. Several countries have undertaken comprehensive urban land titling programs to transform the dwellings of those who live in the squalor of squatter settlements into assets recognized by the formal sector. This Article accepts …

The Emerging Section 1983 Private Party Defense, Sheldon Nahmod

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No abstract provided.

Beyond Bakke: Grutter-Gratz And The Promise Of Brown, Joel K. Goldstein

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The Supreme Court’s long-awaited decisions this past summer in the Michigan affirmative action cases provided yet another landmark in the continuing controversy regarding race and education. A quarter century, almost to the day, after the Court handed down its badly splintered decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,[1] the Court again concluded that universities may sometimes, but not always, give some preference to racial and ethnic minorities in deciding whom to admit. The Court, in a 5-4 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, upheld the constitutionality of the University of Michigan Law School’s admission policy that considered race …

Introduction, Joel K. Goldstein

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Brown v. Board of Education [1] is the seminal case of the Twentieth Century. Mere mention of the case can start discussion on any number of topics, all important and all that relate to, or were importantly affected by, Brown. Some of those discussions relate to the immediate subject of Brown: Was state-imposed racially segregated public education a violation of the Equal Protection Clause? What is the nature of race relations in America? How close are we to achieving a racially just society? How fair is our system of public education? Others might focus on Brown for its impact on …

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Cases): Gender Stereotypes And Sexual Harassment Since The Passage Of Title Vii, Miriam A. Cherry

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This Article, which is part of a symposium on the 40th Anniversary of Title VII appearing in the Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal, evaluates the progress of women in the workforce by critically analyzing the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Written in the early 1960s and made into a 1967 movie, How to Succeed follows the adventures of J. Pierrepont Finch, a window washer who, with the aid of a sarcastic self-help book, schemes his way up the corporate ladder. It also includes the sexual exploits of the exclusively male executive corps among the female …

Federalism Re-Constructed: The Eleventh Amendment's Illogical Impact On Congress' Power, Marcia L. Mccormick

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The Constitution is designed to protect individual liberty and equality by diffusing power among the three branches of the federal government and between the federal and state governments, and by providing a minimum level of protection for individual rights. Yet, the Supreme Court seems to think that federalism is about protecting states as states rather than balancing governmental power to protect individuals. In the name of federalism, the Supreme Court has been paring away at Congress' power to enact civil rights legislation. In doing so, it has transformed the Fourteenth Amendment into a vehicle for protecting states rights rather than …

The Antebellum Political Background Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Garrett Epps

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Understanding the Fourteenth Amendment is the key question of Constitutional law, both as it pertains to individual rights and, in many areas, as it relates to questions of Congressional power as opposed to the reserved powers of the states. The Amendment is often disaggregated and read clause by clause - but the intellectual and political background of its framers suggests that the Amendment in fact forms a coherent whole and that reading it as a whole might be a fertile source of new meanings. The Amendment was written by politicians who had spent their careers deeply involved in anti-slavery politics. …

Injustice Casts Shadow On History Of State Executions, John Bessler

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This article, published in the StarTribune of Minneapolis, discusses the history of lynchings and executions in the State of Minnesota. It specifically discusses miscarriages of justice that have taken place in Minnesota, along with highlighting other problems associated with capital punishment.

Ub Viewpoint – The Silence Of The Muslims, Kenneth Lasson

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This article, written in the wake of the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, questions the failure of Muslims strongly to condemn acts of violence and murder committed by Islamic extremists, and argues that such silence encourages neutral parties to wonder if moderate Muslims may indeed sympathize with "the killers of 'infidels'" - which in turn can lead to fear, bias, and group defamation.

Substantially Limited Justice?: The Possibilities And Limits Of A New Rawlsian Analysis Of Disability-Based Discrimination, Elizabeth Pendo

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In its recent terms, the Supreme Court has increasingly turned its attention toward the Americans with Disabilities Act, and specifically the questions of who should be protected under the ADA, and what such protection requires. In the wake of the Court's decisions, workers have found it increasingly difficult to assert and protect their right to be free of disability-based discrimination in the workplace. Given the widespread influence of John Rawls in contemporary discussions of social, political and economic justice, his recent and final formulation of his theory of distributive justice presents a significant and promising philosophical foundation for evaluation of …

Reforming Civil Rights With Systems Reform: Health Care Disparities, Translation Services, & Safe Harbors, Sidney D. Watson

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Looking gaunt but determined, 59 year-old Robert Tools was introduced on August 21, 2001, as a medical miracle-the first surviving recipient of a fully implantable artificial heart. At a news conference, Tools spoke with emotion about his second chance at life and the quality of his care. His physician looked on with obvious affection, grateful and honored to have extended Tools's life. Mr. Tools has since lost his battle for life, but will be remembered as a hero for undergoing an experimental technology and paving the way for other patients to undergo the procedure. Moreover, the fact that Tools was …

Brown V. Board Of Education: 50 Years Later, Dana M. Malkus

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In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously concluded that the doctrine of “separate but equal” had no place in public education. That decision on May 17, 1954 initiated educational reform throughout the country and was a catalyst in launching the modern Civil Rights movement. Though Brown signaled the beginning of the end of de jure segregation in the United States, events since reveal that – one-half century later – the work is far from complete. On Friday, October 10, 2003, scholars, students, and practitioners joined together at Saint Louis University School of Law for a full-day …

Entrance, Voice And Exit: The Constitutional Bounds Of The Right Of Association, Evelyn Brody

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Despite the central role of organized groups as intermediary bodies in American society, the constitutional right of association is surprisingly recent and limited. As the Supreme Court struggles to define the bounds of 'the' freedom of association, it is time to take a critical look at a difficult set of questions. First, many private organizations engage in various types of selection criteria, but what subjects the Jaycees to State anti-discrimination laws but insulates the Boy Scouts of America? Second, the typical American nonprofit organization is a corporation that lacks both shareholders and members, so are there any 'associates' whose rights …

From The Courtroom To The Street: Court Orders And Section 1983, Sheldon Nahmod

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No abstract provided.

International Red Cross Must Include Israel, Kenneth Lasson

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Israel's corresponding relief agency, the Mogen David Adom, has provided emergency services to countries all over the world since 1939, and it meets or surpasses every other standard for IFRC membership. Yet Israel remains the only nation left out of the 178- country federation. Why?

An IFRC spokesman says that it is "governments, not the federation, that give emblems the protective force of international law," and that "governments" are preparing to adopt an additional emblem, with no religious or national connotations, to stand alongside the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, one that Israel could adopt as its own.

The …

Invisible Markets Netting Visible Results: When Sub-Prime Lending Becomes Predatory, Cassandra Jones Havard

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In this article, I argue that Ellison's metaphor of social invisibility—the societal undervaluing of minorities—is analogous to economic invisibility—the denial of fair access to credit to minorities. I then use the metaphor of invisibility as a basis for understanding the contemporary legal problem of predatory lending, or making credit available to borrowers at unreasonably high interest rates. Disguised as credit access to high-risk, underserved borrowers, predatory lending helps to create risk by offering borrowers products that do not adequately measure risk and that are not fairly priced.