Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

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

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John Rawls has been called the most significant and influential moral philosopher of the twentieth century, and his ideas have deeply influenced discussions of social, political, and economic justice across disciplines including law, philosophy, and political science. Given his preeminence, does Rawls's theory of justice as fairness fail in either of the two ways described above or is it a promising analysis for achieving justice for people with disabilities?

In its most recent terms, the Supreme Court has increasingly turned its attention toward the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the ADA). In several significant decisions, it has grappled with …

Reinforcing Representation: Enforcing The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments In The Rehnquist And Waite Courts, Ellen D. Katz

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A large body of academic scholarship accuses the Rehnquist Court of "undoing the Second Reconstruction," just as the Waite Court has long been blamed for facilitating the end of the First. This critique captures much of what is meant by those generally charging the Rehnquist Court with "conservative judicial activism." It posits that the present Court wants to dismantle decades' worth of federal antidiscrimination measures that are aimed at the "reconstruction" of public and private relationships at the local level. It sees the Waite Court as having similarly nullified the civil-rights initiatives enacted by Congress following the Civil War to …

Equal Protection And Disparate Impact: Round Three, Richard A. Primus

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Prior inquiries into the relationship between equal protection and disparate impact have focused on whether equal protection entails a disparate impact standard and whether laws prohibiting disparate impacts can qualify as legislation enforcing equal rotection. In this Article, Professor Primus focuses on a third question: whether equal protection affirmatively forbids the use of statutory disparate impact standards. Like affirmative action, a statute restricting racially disparate impacts is a race-conscious mechanism designed to reallocate opportunities from some racial groups to others. Accordingly, the same individualist view of equal protection that has constrained the operation of affirmative action might also raise questions …

Se Battre Our Ses Droits Écritures, Litiges Et Discrimination Raciale En Louisiane (1888-1899), Rebecca J. Scott

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Title in English: Fighting for public rights: writing, lawsuits and racial segregation in Louisiana (1888-1889).

This article explores the links between the fight against compulsory racial segregation and the day–to–day operation of the law in nineteenth century Louisiana. Using the figure of Louis A. Martinet, one of the organizers of the test case that yielded the U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, the essay argues that Martinet’s role as notary reflects the central importance to the community of color of questions of public standing and written records. The article also identifies the concepts of "public rights" and "public liberties" …

Labor And Employment In The Academy - A Critical Look At The Ivory Tower: Proceedings Of The 2002 Annual Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools, Joint Program Of The Section On Labor Relations And Employment Law And Section On Minority Groups, Elizabeth M. Iglesias, Jo Anne Durako, Devon Wayne Carbado, Margaret E. Montoya, Michael A. Olivas, Rex R. Perschbacher, Douglas D. Scherer, Vicki Schultz

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No abstract provided.

Looking Back On Planned Parenthood V. Casey, Christina B. Whitman

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Scholarship that tells us what is really at stake in the lives of people affected makes the law honest and responsive. Whether or not it directly shapes doctrine, this type of scholarship can capture imagination and influence judgment. The Michigan Law Review has published some of the best of this work: Yale Kamisar's articles on coerced confessions, Terry Sandalow's essay on affirmative action, Joe Sax and Phillip Hiestand's description of the emotional impact of living in a slum, Martha Chamallas and Linda Kerber's demonstration of how injuries that uniquely befall women have been dismissed as merely emotional wrongs, and, most …

Racial Profiling Under Attack, Samuel R. Gross, D. Livingston

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The events of September 11, 2001, have sparked a fierce debate over racial profiling. Many who readily condemned the practice a year ago have had second thoughts. In the wake of September 11, the Department ofJustice initiated a program of interviewing thousands of men who arrived in this country in the past two years from countries with an al Qaeda presence-a program that some attack as racial profiling, and others defend as proper law enforcement. In this Essay, Professors Gross and Livingston use that program as the focus of a discussion of the meaning of racial profiling, its use in …

Evaluating The Sex Discrimination Argument For Lesbian And Gay Rights, Edward D. Stein

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The sex discrimination argument for lesbian and gay rights analyzes laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in terms of sex discrimination. For example, sodomy laws that prohibit only same-sex sexual activities are analyzed as discriminating on the basis of sex because they prohibit women from doing something men are permitted to do, that is, have sex with women. This argument has been championed by some scholars and litigators, and it has persuaded some judges. Edward Stein shows that there are sociological, theoretical, moral, and practical problems facing the sex discrimination argument. He suggests that there are better …

Property In Writing, Property On The Ground: Pigs, Horses, Land, And Citizenship In The Aftermath Of Slavery, Cuba, 1880-1909, Rebecca J. Scott, Michael Zeuske

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In the most literal sense, the abolition of slavery marks the moment when one human being cannot be held as property by another human being, for it ends the juridical conceit of a "person with a price." At the same time, the aftermath of emancipation forcibly reminds us that property as a concept rests on relations among human beings, not just between people and things. The end of slavery finds former masters losing possession of persons, and former slaves acquiring it. But it also finds other resources being claimed and contested, including land, tools, and animals-resources that have shaped former …

Road Work: Racial Profiling And Drug Interdiction On The Highway, Samuel R. Gross, Katherine Y. Bames

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Hypocrisy about race is hardly new in America, but the content changes. Recently the spotlight has been on racial profiling. The story of Colonel Carl Williams of the New Jersey State Police is a wellknown example. On Sunday, February 28, 1999, the Newark Star Ledger published a lengthy interview with Williams in which he talked about race and drugs: "Today... the drug problem is cocaine or marijuana. It is most likely a minority group that's involved with that."4 Williams condemned racial profiling - "As far as racial profiling is concerned, that is absolutely not right. It never has been con-doned …

Evaluating The Sex Discrimination Argument For Lesbian And Gay Rights, Edward D. Stein

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The sex discrimination argument for lesbian and gay rights analyzes laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in terms of sex discrimination. For example, sodomy laws that prohibit only same-sex sexual activities are analyzed as discriminating on the basis of sex because they prohibit women from doing something men are permitted to do, that is, have sex with women. This argument has been championed by some scholars and litigators, and it has persuaded some judges. Edward Stein shows that there are sociological, theoretical, moral, and practical problems facing the sex discrimination argument. He suggests that there are better …

Is Cross-Testing A Mistake: Cash Balance Plans, New Comparability Formulas, And The Incoherence Of The Nondiscrimination Norm, Edward A. Zelinsky

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The increasing tendency of large employers to convert their traditional defined benefit pension plans to the cash balance format has engendered substantial controversy, both within the qualified plan community and among the general public. The rise of "new comparability" plans has yet to generate the same level of popular or political concern, perhaps because such plans have largely been embraced by smaller employers. However, among pension mavens, new comparability has occasioned strong supporters and equally firm detractors.

The Cash Balance Controversy Revisited: Age Discrimination And Fidelity To Statutory Text, Edward A. Zelinsky

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No abstract provided.

Cross-Testing, Nondiscrimination, And New Comparability: A Rejoinder To Mr. Orszag And Professor Stein, Edward A. Zelinsky

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In their response to my article in this symposium issue of the Buffalo Law Review, Peter Orszag and Norman Stein advance their analysis of cross-testing, new comparability and the nondiscrimination norm. I write this brief rejoinder both to clarify the areas of our disagreement and to complete our dialogue.

Rights Of Sexual Minorities In Ireland And Europe: Rhetoric Versus Reality, Bruce Carolan

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Superficially, Irish and European Community law proclaim the rights of sexual minorities - particularly in web sites and printed information designed for public consumption. The reality is different. This article identifies a gap between the public pronouncements on the rights of sexual minorities under Irish and EC law. It employs a hypothetical fact situation to suggest that existing legal protections are anemic, and argues that the potential failure of affected groups to identify these deficiencies (due to contradictory claims in public information campaigns) could endanger efforts to effect progressive change.

Foreword: Politics, Pragmatism And The Courts, Anthony E. Varona

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No abstract provided.

Anchoring Justice: The Constitutionality Of The Local Law Enforcement Act In United States V. Morrison'S Shifting Seas, Anthony E. Varona, Kevin Layton

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No abstract provided.

A Better Analogy: "Jews," "Homosexuals," And The Inclusion Of Sexual Orientation As A Forbidden Characteristic In Antidiscrimination Laws, Marc A. Fajer

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No abstract provided.

Federalism, Preclearance, And The Rehnquist Court, Ellen D. Katz

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Lopez v. Monterey County is an odd decision. Justice O'Connor's majority opinion easily upholds the constitutionality of a broad construction of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in language reminiscent of the Warren Court. Acknowledging the "substantial 'federalism costs" resulting from the VRA's "federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking," Lopez recognizes that the Reconstruction Amendments "contemplate" this encroachment into realms "traditionally reserved to the States." Justice O'Connor affirms as constitutionally permissible the infringement that the section 5 preclearance process "by its nature" effects on state sovereignty, and applies section 5 broadly, holding the statute …

Victimized Twice -- The Intersection Of Domestic Violence And The Workplace: Legal Reform Through Curriculum Development, Lea B. Vaughn

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Domestic violence is at least a two-fold problem for American society. On the one hand, it is one of the leading causes of violence at the workplace against women. On the other, it prevents many women from attaining the economic security that would enable them to escape violence. After describing the background of this problem, this paper will canvass current legal remedies that are available to help battered women achieve economic security. This survey leads to the conclusion that the current pastiche of remedies is often ineffective because of their piecemeal approach to the problem, or because current doctrine does …

Race, Peremptories, And Capital Jury Deliberations, Samuel R. Gross

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In Lonnie Weeks's capital murder trial in Virginia in 1993, the jury was instructed: If you find from the evidence that the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt, either of the two alternative aggravating factors], and as to that alternative you are unanimous, then you may fix the punishment of the defendant at death or if you believe from all the evidence that the death penalty is not justified, then you shall fix the punishment of the defendant at life imprisonment ... This instruction is plainly ambiguous, at least to a lay audience. Does it mean that if the …

'Appropriate' Means-Ends Constraints On Section 5 Powers, Evan H. Caminker

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With the narrowing of Congress' Article I power to regulate interstate commerce and to authorize private suits against states, Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment provides Congress with an increasingly important alternative source of power to regulate and police state conduct. However, in City of Boerne v. Flores and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court has tightened the doctrinal test for prophylactic legislation based on Section Five. The Court has clarified Section Five's legitimate ends by holding that Congress may enforce Fourteenth Amendment rights only as they are defined by the federal judiciary, and the Court has constrained Section Five's permissible …

Reinventing Structural Reform Litigation: Deputizing Private Citizens In The Enforcement Of Civil Rights, Myriam E. Gilles

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The aim of this Article is to explore the possibility of constructing a model that harnesses the power of private citizens to reform unconstitutional practices, particularly in the critical area of police-related rights violations. I seek here to reintegrate private citizens into the enforcement of public laws; to tap the private experiential and financial resources that were a necessary condition of the great structural reform efforts of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The vehicle by which I propose to accomplish these ends is a simple, yet novel, amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 14141, the statute which …

The Cash Balance Controversy, Edward A. Zelinsky

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No abstract provided.

Breaking The Code Of Silence: Rediscovering "Custom" In Section 1983 Municipal Liability, Myriam E. Gilles

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No abstract provided.

En/Gendering Equality: Seeking Relief Under Title Vii Against Employment Discrimination Based On Sexual Orientation, Anthony E. Varona, Jeffrey M. Monks

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No abstract provided.

An Essay On Texas V. Lesage, Christina B. Whitman

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When I was invited to participate in this symposium, I was asked to discuss whether the causation defense developed in Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle applied to cases challenging state action under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As I argue below, it seems clear that Mt. Healthy does apply to equal protection cases. The Supreme Court explicitly so held last November in Texas v. Lesage. But the implications of Lesage go beyond questions of causation. The opinion suggests that the Court may be rethinking (or ignoring) its promise in Carey v. Piphus …

Private Remedies For Public Wrongs Under Section 5 (Symposium: New Directions In Federalism), Evan H. Caminker

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The Supreme Court has ushered in the new millennium with a renewed emphasis on federalism-based limits to Congress's regulatory authority in general, and Congress's Section 5 power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in particular. In a recent string of cases, the Court has refined and narrowed Section 5's enforcement power in two significant ways.1 First, the Court made clear that Congress lacks the authority to interpret the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment's substantive provisions themselves, and may only "enforce" the judiciary's definition of Fourteenth Amendment violations. 2 Second, the Court embraced a relatively stringent requirement concerning the relationship between means …

An Army Of Lovers?: Queering The Ministry Of Defense Report Of The Homosexual Policy Assessment Team, Bruce Carolan

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Certain queer theorists argue that gay men and lesbians are banned from military service in certain countries not due to a fear of otherness. Instead, they are prohibited from serving precisely because of a fear that the opposite might be true -- that introducing openly gay people into a 'homosocial' environment might destabilize accepted notions of sexuality among members of the service who presently constitute themselves as heterosexual. This article explores that idea in the context of the Report of the Homosexual Policy Assessment Team established to defend exclusion of openly gay people from military service in the United Kingdom. …

Compulsory Arbitration Of Discrimination Claims And The Civil Rights Act Of 1991: Encouraged Or Proscribed?, Mark Adams

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No abstract provided.