Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Enforcement Procedure Of Oberlin, Ohio, Fair Housing Ordinance Held Unconstitutional--Porter V. City Of Oberlin, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a citizen of Oberlin, Ohio, brought an action for declaratory and injunctive relief to review the constitutionality of the city's fair housing ordinance, which makes it a misdemeanor to discriminate because of race, creed, or color in the sale or rental of housing. Under the procedure established by the ordinance, the Housing Renewal Commission is directed to make investigations of complaints filed with it. If violations are discovered, the commission must attempt to eliminate the discriminatory practices by conciliation and persuasion. If these efforts fail, the entire record of the matter must be forwarded to the city council, accompanied …

Order And Civil Liberties: A Complex Role For The Police, George Edwards

Michigan Law Review

The Honorable Edward J. Jeffries was Mayor of the City of Detroit at the time. He was a great mayor; but he had not known that this terror was imminent or that it was even possible. This attitude was shared by most of the city's residents, and to say that Detroit was not ready for this outburst of racial strife would be to put it mildly. In this respect, every mayor in America would find it useful to read a recent journalistic account of the events of that twenty-four-hour period. The authors of this commentary were not very kind in …

Predicting Court Cases Quantitatively, Stuart Nagel

Michigan Law Review

This article illustrates and systematically compares three methods for quantitatively predicting case outcomes. The three methods are correlation, regression, and discriminant analysis, all of which involve standard social science research techniques. Two prior articles have generated requests for a study dealing with the problems involved in handling a larger number of cases and predictive variables. The present article is also designed to provide such a study. It does not presuppose that the reader has read the earlier articles, although such a reading might help to clarify further some of the points made here. The cases used to illustrate the methods …

The Line Between Federal And State Court Jurisdiction, Leslie A. Anderson

Michigan Law Review

From the beginning of this nation, there have been controversies involving the division of jurisdiction between federal and state courts. Often, these controversies have centered on the diversity of citizenship provision of the federal constitution. Today, however, the more poignant question is whether any division of jurisdiction between the federal and state systems retains logical bases.

Although myriad developments have relevancy with respect to this question, I have here focused upon two of the more important ones: the increasing overlap of subject matter being litigated in federal and state courts and the growing uniformity of standards to be applied in …

Unfair Representation As An Unfair Labor Practice, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In its 1962 Miranda Fuel Co. decision, the National Labor Relations Board formulated a novel doctrine whereby it acquired jurisdiction over unfair representation complaints filed by union members in good standing on the theory that a union which fails to represent all of its members fairly commits unfair labor practices in violation of sections 8(b)(1)(A) and 8(b)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act. Formerly, unfair representation complaints filed by union members had been cognizable only by the courts, since unfair representation was not considered an unfair labor practice and, consequently, was outside the jurisdiction of the NLRB.

Unconstitutional Racial Classification And De Facto Segregation, Joseph A. Milchen

Michigan Law Review

Classification along racial lines, when involving state action, is unconstitutional. Such classification may violate the due process or equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment or the fifteenth amendment, and it has been held invalid in the fields of education, transportation, voting, recreational facilities, ownership and use of real property, and jury selection.

Freezing Voter Qualifications To Aid Negro Registration, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The literacy test, used by many states in determining the qualifications of voters, has proved to be a major obstacle to the elimination of voter discrimination based on racial characteristics. Under recently enacted statutory provisions, citizens who attempt to register to vote in certain states are faced with test questions of such difficulty that it is virtually impossible to answer them satisfactorily. Where there is permanent voter registration, the effect is to secure a position of political dominance for those registered prior to the institution of the tests. In those states in which individuals had been denied registration by prior …

Fifth Circuit Relies On Administrative Standards In School Desegregation Cases--Singleton V. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

On June 22, 1965, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit entered an order requiring the Jackson, Mississippi, Municipal Separate School District to submit a plan for the total desegregation of the district, and specifically requiring that at least four grades be desegregated in the school year 1965-1966. In reaching its decision, the court gave "great weight" to the standards used by the Office of Education of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to determine whether schools qualify for federal financial assistance. The court reasoned that since the objectives of both the judiciary and the …

Some Comments On The Reapportionment Cases, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

Any appraisal of the Supreme Court's decisions in the legislative reapportionment cases must necessarily distinguish between the basic policy ingredients and social consequences of the decisions on the one hand, and the question whether the results were reached by a proper exercise of judicial power on the other. Respecting the first of these considerations, I have no difficulty identifying the social advantages accruing from these decisions. Because of the stress on the population principle, the decisions will afford a greater voice to urban interests, will make the legislative process more responsive to current needs of particular concern to urban dwellers, …

Congressional Apportionment: The Unproductive Search For Standards And Remedies, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The increasingly complex problems of elucidating congressional apportionment standards and granting appropriate relief when voting rights have been materially diluted were again brought to the fore in the recent districting decision of Calkins v. Hare. This federal district court decision is illustrative of the uncertainty caused by the Supreme Court's opinion in the landmark case of Wesberry v. Sanders. Although Wesberry resolved two previously contested issues by ruling that congressional apportionment disputes are susceptible of judicial determination and by setting a standard of population equality in delimiting districts, two associated questions were left unanswered. First, even though Wesberry …

Reapportionment In The Supreme Court And Congress: Constitutional Struggle For Fair Representation, Robert G. Dixon Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Fair representation is the ultimate goal. At the time of the Reapportionment Decisions, much change was overdue in some states, and at least some change was overdue in most states. We are a democratic people and our institutions presuppose according population a dominant role in formulas of representation. However, by its exclusive focus on bare numbers, the Court may have transformed one of the most intricate, fascinating, and elusive problems of democracy into a simple exercise of applying elementary arithmetic to census data. In so doing, the Court may have disabled itself from effectively considering the more subtle issues …

The Powers Of The Michigan Civil Rights Commission, Roger C. Cramton

Michigan Law Review

The thesis of this article is that the Attorney General has misread the language and actions of the constitution-makers. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission is an important and powerful agency of government which has substantial tasks to perform. But it does not possess the exclusive powers envisioned by the Attorney General. Other governmental units-the legislature, the executive, the courts, and the local governments-may continue to play a creative and positive role in fashioning a legal order that accords to every human being in society a reasonable opportunity to realize his potentialities.

Hyneman: The Supreme Court On Trial, William W. Van Alstyne

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Supreme Court on Trial. By Charles S. Hyneman

Public Control Of Private Sectarian Institutions Receiving Public Funds, Richard B. Rogers

Michigan Law Review

This comment will examine the recent judicial and legislative developments which could result in federal controls limiting religious practices in private sectarian educational and welfare institutions.

State Action, State Law, And The Private Hospital, Mary Mandana Long

Michigan Law Review

On March 2, 1964, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition to review by certiorari the decision in Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hosp. By declining to review the case the Supreme Court left unaffected the holding of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that two private hospitals which had participated in the Hill-Burton program of federal hospital assistance were sufficiently involved with governmental action, both state and federal, to bring their conduct within the fifth and fourteenth amendment prohibitions against racial discrimination. This decision will probably affect all of the 3,346 private, non-profit hospitals in …

Rights Of Persons Compelled To Appear In Federal Agency Investigational Hearings, David C. Murchison

Michigan Law Review

By statutes designed to protect the public interest, many federal administrative agencies-such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Civil Aeronautics Board-are granted authority to conduct investigations dealing with substantive matters committed to their respective jurisdictions. In an increasing number of instances, these agencies are empowered to utilize compulsory process; persons may be ordered to appear and give testimony or to produce documents in so-called investigational hearings, subject to criminal sanctions for noncompliance. The use of investigational hearings by these agencies as an ancillary law enforcement tool …

Some Current Thinking On Voting Rights, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This issue of the Review is devoted to a consideration of certain selected problems of present interest in the area of voting rights.

Political Thickets And Crazy Quilts: Reapportionment And Equal Protection, Robert B. Mckay

Michigan Law Review

If asked to identify the two most important cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in the twentieth century, informed observers would be likely to name, in whichever order, Brown v. Board of Education and Baker v. Carr.

Legislative Apportionment And Representative Government: The Meaning Of Baker V. Carr, Jo Desha Lucas

Michigan Law Review

In three recent cases the Supreme Court has reopened the question of the extent to which federal courts will review the general fairness of state schemes of legislative apportionment. It is a question on which the Court has had nothing to say for over a decade, leaving the bar to patch together the current state of the law from the outcome of cases disposed of without opinion considered against a backdrop of language used in earlier decisions.

Residency Requirements For Voting And The Tensions Of A Mobile Society, John R. Schmidhauser

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this article to determine the extent to which persons otherwise qualified to vote are disenfranchised by the complex of state residency requirements and to assess the practical and constitutional aspects of any statutory prospects for change.

The Administraton's Anti-Literacy Test Bill: Wholly Constitutional But Wholly Inadequate, William W. Van Alstyne

Michigan Law Review

The nature of American national government has undergone a profound metamorphosis, moving from the near oligarchy which characterized the system as established in 1789 to the imperfectly representative government which it is today. At the time the Constitution was ratified, all restrictions then imposed by the several states on the right to vote for state and federal electors were preserved. These various limitations on the franchise restricted the active body politic to approximately four percent of the total population. Disfranchisement applied then, as now, to those under twenty-one, to those lacking sufficient residence in a given community, to the insane, …

Constitutional Law-Civil Rights-Threat Of Mob Violence As Justification For Restraint On Exercise Of Right To Travel In Interstate Commerce, Chester A. Skinner

Michigan Law Review

Pursuant to a plan to test for racial segregation in interstate commerce facilities, white and Negro students traveled through Alabama on an interstate bus journey. In Birmingham and Anniston, the students were assaulted by members of the Ku Klux Klan and other conspirators; at or near Anniston one of the buses was destroyed. On arrival at Montgomery, the students were again assaulted and intimidated by members of the Ku Klux Klan and various other individuals. The Montgomery police, with full knowledge of the impending violence, did nothing to protect the personal safety of the interstate travelers. The plaintiff, United States, …

Constitutional Law-Civil Rights-Solitary Confinement Of Prisoner's Based On Religious Belief, Harvey Friedman

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff prisoner brought an action in a federal district court under the Civil Rights Act to enjoin the defendant, a New York state prison warden, from further subjecting him to solitary confinement because of his religious beliefs. The district court refused to take jurisdiction on the ground that solitary confinement involved state prison discipline which was reviewable only in state courts. On appeal, held, reversed, one judge dissenting. A complaint by a prisoner against a state prison official which charges violation of a "preferred freedom" by religious persecution states a claim under the Civil Rights Act which the district …

Constitutional Law - Due Process - Expulsion Of Student Fro M State-Operated College Without Notice Or Hearing, James A. Mcdermott

Michigan Law Review

A substantial number of students at the Alabama State College for Negroes had been participating in peaceful demonstrations protesting racial segregation. The president of the college advised the students to return to their studies which were disrupted by these demonstrations, and personally warned three of the plaintiffs to discontinue their participation in the demonstrations. Nonetheless, further demonstrations ensued in which the plaintiffs took part. The State Board of Education then voted to expel the plaintiffs who were allegedly the leaders of the organization responsible for the demonstrations. The notices of expulsion mailed to the plaintiffs stated no reason for the …

Constitutional Law - Equal Protection - Racial Segregation Of Spectator Seating In Courtroom, Thomas W. Van Dyke

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, judge of a municipal court in Virginia, assigned seating on the basis of race in that part of his courtroom reserved for spectators and for those awaiting the call of their business before the court. The same number of seats were provided for Negroes as for whites. There was no separation of the races in the area immediately before the bench nor was there any complaint of discrimination in the administration of justice. Plaintiffs are Negroes who have been required on more than one occasion to occupy seats in the spectator section on a racially-segregated basis. In a suit …

Constitutional Law - Equal Protection - Racial Discrimination And The Role Of The State, William C. Griffith S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Constitutional history from the 1857 Dred Scott decision to the 1954 Brown decision records "a movement from status to contract" for the American Negro. Although uncertainty clouds the definition of "state action," the civil rights of the Negro under the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment have been clearly established. The Negro citizen has arrived; the Negro minority group remains one of the gravest social problems of twentieth century America. De facto school segregation, limited economic opportunity, and inadequate housing are problems not solved by invocation of the fourteenth amendment or incantation of the Declaration of Independence. Solution, …

Color Blindess But Not Myopia: A New Look At State Action, Equal Protection, And "Private" Racial Discrimination, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Michigan Law Review

Mr. Justice Frankfurter has remarked: "In law also the right answer usually depends on putting the right question." For nearly one hundred years now the courts have been putting certain key questions whenever confronted by the claim that a person was being deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution. From the time the "separate-but-equal" doctrine was enunciated in Plessy v. Ferguson until it was repudiated in the School Segregation Cases two principal questions were likely to be asked about any classification based on racial grounds: (I) Did the classification result, …

The Supreme Court-October 1959 Term, Bernard Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

A country's constitutional law is but a reflection of its political, economic, and social life. Not unnaturally, the external conditions of any particular period are bound to have their effects in the legal sphere as well-especially in the field of public law. This is as true of the United States as it is of other countries. From this point of view, the constitutional jurisprudence of the American Supreme Court is only the juristic mirror of the different stages through which American history has passed. 'Our jurisprudence is distinctive,' said Justice Jackson on the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court, 'in …

Constitutional Law- State Action And The Equal Protection Clause - Status Of Lessee Of Public Property, Stephen Bard

Michigan Law Review

Defendant Wilmington Parking Authority was a tax-exempt state agency organized under the Delaware Parking Authority Act to build and operate a public off-street parking facility. Financing of the project was accomplished primarily by the issuance of self-liquidating bonds, but fifteen percent of the necessary capital was advanced by the City of Wilmington from its public funds. The state agency had statutory authority to lease space in the facility for private commercial uses, but only to the extent that the rentals thereby obtained were needed to meet the state requirement that the facility be self-supporting. In accordance with this authority space …

Constitutional Law - Civil Rights - Restrictions On The Use Of Legal Materials By Prisoner, Russell A. Mcnair Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff prisoners brought separate actions against the warden of the Oregon State Penitentiary, alleging that the enforcement by prison officials of restrictions on the availability, use and purchase of law books resulted in a denial of full access to the courts. It was further alleged that each of them must do by himself all or part of the legal preparation necessary to contest his detention or to defend criminal charges pending against him in a state or federal court. In proceedings brought in the federal district court under the Civil Rights Act to enjoin further enforcement of these restrictions, held …