Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

A Comment On Grutter And Gratz V. Bollinger, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Now that the Supreme Court has definitively resolved (at least for a generation) the issue of the constitutionality of affirmative action in American higher education, thereby continuing without major adjustment what has been the practice in our selective colleges and universities for more or less the last thirty years, it is easy to forget how different the United States would have looked in the years ahead if only one vote had shifted to the dissenting side. Just how precipitous and long-lasting the decline in racial and ethnic diversity would have been is a complicated matter, but that it would have …

Women's Rights: Reframing The Issues For The Future, Ariana Dubler, Anika Rahman, Kathy Rodgers, Jane M. Spinak

Faculty Scholarship

Good morning and welcome, everyone, to our panel on Women's Rights: Refraining the Issues for the Future. I am Kathy Rodgers. I'm from the class of 1973 of Columbia Law School, and I'm looking around this room – this is not what room A and B looked like back then! Everybody has a microphone, which is great, because we hope to have some good interactive discussion with all of you this morning.

I am also, in addition to being a Columbia Law alum, the president of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund here in New York. For over thirty-two years, …

Puppy Love: Bioterrorism, Civil Rights, And Public Health, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Florida has been the state humorists most like to make fun of since the 2000 presidential election, especially when it comes to politics. And humorists are almost the only commentators who can be counted on to tell us the truth about the state of American politics today. When Californians decided to recall their Governor, for example, Conan O'Brien observed: "Yesterday Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would run for governor of California. The announcement was good news for Florida residents, who now live in the second-flakiest state in the country."' And when more than 200 people filed to run for Governor, Jay …

Looking Ahead: The Future Of Affirmative Action, Susan Low Bloch

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, race is still a serious issue in this country. Fortunately, we no longer debate whether it is legal for the government to operate segregated schools or to treat blacks as second-class citizens. We finally answered that question correctly—it is unconstitutional for the law to segregate and to treat blacks worse than whites.

Today, we face the more difficult question of ascertaining the constitutionality of “affirmative action” or “benign discrimination” programs. The Supreme Court first addressed this issue in 1978 in the landmark case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke …

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

Articles

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" …

Protections For Transgender Employees, Jennifer Levi

Faculty Scholarship

This Article discusses protections for transgender employee rights and how many transgender employees routinely face demotions, unfavorable conditions of employment, and even discriminatory terminations--due not to job-related problems but to employers' discomfort with and animus against transgender people. The Author points out that although courts historically have found transgender people excluded from coverage under certain laws, developing case law supports the arguments of transgender employees who face workplace discrimination.

Racial And Ethnic Profiling: Statutory Discretion, Constitutional Remedies, And Democratic Accountability, Sujit Choudhry, Kent Roach

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Given the prominence of the issue of racial, ethnic, and religious profiling in the public debate about terrorism, it is significant that Canada's two legislative responses to September 11 - the Anti-terrorism Act and the proposed Public Safety Act - are silent on the issue, neither explicitly authorizing profiling nor expressly banning it. In this article, we focus on the constitutional remedies available for profiling in the face of these statutory silences, and the implication that the choice of remedies holds for both remedial efficacy and democratic accountability. Contrary to the position held by the majority of the Supreme Court …