Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Non-Marital Families And (Or After?) Marriage Equality, Deborah A. Widniss

Florida State University Law Review

If, as is widely expected, the Supreme Court soon holds that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, it is almost certain that the decision will rely heavily on the Court’s reasoning in United States v. Windsor. I strongly support marriage equality. However, a decision that amplifies Windsor’s conception of the harm caused by exclusionary marriage rules could set back efforts to secure legal recognition of, and respect for, non-marital families. That is, Windsor rectified a deep inequality in the law—that same-sex marriages were categorically denied federal recognition—but in so doing it embraced a traditional understanding of marriage as superior to …

Environmental Justice As Civil Rights, Wyatt G. Sassman

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

Environmental justice litigation using the Equal Protection Clause and civil rights statutes has largely failed. This article explains that failure as a result of a general shift by federal courts to limit the scope of civil rights law rather than an improper characterization of environmental justice as a civil rights issue. This explanation is important to both encourage and caution environmental justice advocates and scholars as they approach claims under Title VIII. I suggest that Title VIII's ability to bridge property and dignity may still present a powerful and much-needed tool for bringing equality to environmental law, but that, based …

Narrow Networks, The Very Sick, And The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act: Recalling The Purpose Of Health Insurance And Reform, Valarie K. Blake

Scholarly Works

Consumers purchasing health insurance on both state and federally-run exchanges are finding that affordable premiums may come at the cost of restricted provider choice. So-called narrow networks are increasingly popular in individual, small group, and large group insurance markets as a means for insurers to curb premiums and compete for business. As PPACA regulations limit medical underwriting and homogenize insurance offerings, insurers are agreeing to nudge their patients to a narrow selection of providers in exchange for better reimbursement rates and lower premiums. This may mean wider availability of health insurance for the public, increased enrollment for insurers, and cost-savings …

Make Them Hear You: Participatory Defense And The Struggle For Criminal Justice Reform, Janet Moore, Marla Sandys, Raj Jayadev

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article introduces participatory defense as a powerful new model for improving public defense and challenging mass incarceration. This grassroots movement empowers the key stakeholders — people who face criminal charges, their families, and their communities — to become change agents who force greater transparency, accountability, and fairness from criminal justice systems. After introducing the model’s core principles and goals, the Article offers innovative analyses from doctrinal, theoretical and empirical perspectives. First, the Article connects participatory defense with the crisis-ridden history of the constitutional right to counsel, including that doctrine’s roots in the Due Process right to be heard. Second, …

The Long-Term Implications Of Gonzaga V. Doe, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

State and local governments are often responsible for disbursing federal medical, educational, and welfare benefits. What happens when they deny or revoke them unfairly? Some recipients have used 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as a way to enforce the underlying statutes. The Supreme Court decision in Gonzaga University v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273 (2002), made this more difficult. In doing so, the Court adopted stringent rules for the use of § 1983 to enforce any federal laws, including the nation’s civil rights laws.

Accidentally On Purpose: Intent In Disability Discrimination Law, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty

American disability discrimination laws contain few intent requirements. Yet courts frequently demand showings of intent in disability discrimination lawsuits. Intent requirements arose almost by accident: through a false statutory analogy; by repetition of obsolete judicial language; and by doctrine developed to avoid a nonexistent conflict with another law. Demanding that section 504 and Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) claimants show intent imposes a burden not found in those statutes or their interpretive regulations. This Article provides reasons not to impose intent requirements for liability or monetary relief in section 504 and ADA cases concerning reasonable accommodations. It demonstrates that no …

New York Times V. Sullivan And The Rhetorics Of Race: A Look At The Briefs, Oral Arguments, And Opinions, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

‘Please Be A Lady… You Are Not Going To Be Heard’: The Debate Over The Ratification Of The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Kasie Durkit

International ResearchScape Journal

Why did the United States fail to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women? This overarching question forms the basis of this paper and will be answered using an array of primary and secondary sources. This paper gleans most of its evidence from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings of 1994 and 2002, letters from both President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Congressional Research Service reports on CEDAW from 2013 and 2007, several Senators’ statements in the Congressional Record, Congressional testimony, and the text of the CEDAW treaty. This …

Difference Blindness Vs. Bias Awareness: Why Law Firms With The Best Of Intentions Have Failed To Create Diverse Partnerships, Russell G. Pearce, Eli Wald

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article uses the example of BigLaw firms to explore the challenges that many elite organizations face in providing equal opportunity to their workers. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, large law firms have been consistently unable to deliver diverse partnership structures - especially in more senior positions of power. Building on implicit and institutional bias scholarship and on successful approaches described in the organizational behavior literature, we argue that a significant barrier to systemic diversity at the law firm partnership level has been, paradoxically, the insistence on difference blindness standards that seek to evaluate each person …

The Keyes To Reclaiming The Racial History Of The Roberts Court, Tom Romero Ii

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article advocates for a fundamental re-understanding about the way that the history of race is understood by the current Supreme Court. Represented by the racial rights opinions of Justice John Roberts that celebrate racial progress, the Supreme Court has equivocated and rendered obsolete the historical experiences of people of color in the United States. This jurisprudence has in turn reified the notion of color-blindness, consigning racial discrimination to a distant and discredited past that has little bearing to how race and inequality is experienced today.

The racial history of the Roberts Court is centrally informed by the context and …

"A Perfect Storm": Minnesota's Sex Offender Program—More Than Twenty Years Without Successful Reintegration, Lucy Massopust, Raina Borrelli

William Mitchell Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Efficacy Of The Sexually Violent Predator Act In Florida, Daniel Montaldi

William Mitchell Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Maryland Access To Justice Story: Indigent Defendants’ Right To Counsel At First Appearance, Douglas L. Colbert

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Moral Panics And Body Cameras, Howard Wasserman

Faculty Publications

This Commentary uses the lens of "moral panics" to evaluate public support for equipping law enforcement with body cameras as a response and solution to events in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014. Body cameras are a generally good policy idea. But the rhetoric surrounding them erroneously treats them as the single guaranteed solution to the problem of excessive force and police-citizen conflicts, particularly by ignoring the limitations of video evidence and the difficult questions of implementing the body camera program. In overstating the case, the rhetoric of body cameras becomes indistinguishable from rhetoric surrounding responses to past moral panics.

Rosa Parks: 1998 Recipient, Jillian Rich

Freedom Center Journal

Rosa Parks embodies all that the International Conductor Freedom Award stands for. Stating once, that "[she] would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people," 1 it is only fitting that she became the first recipient of the International Freedom Conductor Award in 1998.

Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth And Nicholas Kristof: 2013 Recipients, Priya Walia

Freedom Center Journal

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center proudly presented the 2013 recipients the International Freedom Conductor Award to Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Nicholas Kristof. Rev. Shuttlesworth was known as the courageous, charismatic, blunt preacher who vowed to "kill segregation or be killed by it." After his successes with racial desegregation, Shuttlesworth spent the rest of his life fighting for equality for impoverished people. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Nicholas Kristof changed the course of social justice philanthropy through his work. Through individual personal narratives, Kristof compels the audience to delve further into seemingly remote global issues and inspires the American public …

Between Black And White: The Coloring Of Asian Americans, 14 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev. 637 (2015), Kim D. Chanbonpin

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

As in other ethnic and racial groups, colorism plays a significant role in the social interactions in and among Asian Americans. Investigating colorism in the Asian American community provides insights into how group members construct their own racial identities in relation to the broader race-stratified society. A colorism inquiry is a necessary intervention into the existing discourse of Asian American identity construction because it complicates common understandings of the Black/White binary in ways that shed new light on inter- and intra-racial relationships. This article addresses colorism in the Asian American community, and demonstrates both how Asian Americans have been racialized …

Toward A More Perfect Union?: The Dangers Of Conflating Progress And Equality, Leo P. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Health Justice: A Framework (And Calll To Action) For The Elimination Of Health Inequity And Social Injustice, Emily A. Benfer

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The 'New' Law Applicable To Lgbti International Civil Servants In The U.N. System, Daniele Gallo

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Looking For Love In The Online Age - Convicted Felons Need Not Apply: Why Bans On Felons Using Internet Dating Sites Are Problematic And Could Lead To Violations Of The Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, Amy Tenney

Criminal Law Practitioner

No abstract provided.

National Insecurity: The National Defense Authorization Act, The Indefinite Detention Of American Citizens, And A Call For Heightened Judicial Scrutiny, 49 J. Marshall L. Rev. 69 (2015), Harvey Gee

UIC Law Review

This essay outlines the problems posed by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (“NDAA”) and interprets the Act’s language to answer the question of: whether American citizens can be indefinitely detained under the NDAA?

Deboer V. Snyder: A Case Study In Litigation And Social Reform, Wyatt Fore

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

On April 28, 2015, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for four cases from the Sixth Circuit addressing the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage. This Note examines DeBoer v. Snyder, the Michigan marriage case, with the goal of providing litigators and scholars the proper context for our current historical moment in which (1) the legal status of LGBT people; and (2) the conventional wisdom about the role of impact litigation in social reform movements are rapidly evolving.

Liberating Sexual Harassment Law, Lua Kamál Yuille

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Sexual harassment law and the proposed solutions to that paradigm’s deficiencies teach a disheartening and peculiar lesson to women and gender performance minorities: “You may be disadvantaged at work because of your gender or your gender performance nonconformity. Discrimination against you is okay.” This albatross has inexplicably burdened sexual harassment law for the more than thirty-five years since it emerged as a redressable form of unlawful discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Article coherently explains the reason for it. It makes a simple claim: Sexual harassment law has failed to eradicate workplace gender discrimination, …

Does The Provision For Irish Prisoners To Keep In Contact With The Outside Environment Require Reform?, Adrian Berski

Reports

The law of the Republic of Ireland provides that prisoners’ maintain rights in order to conduct connections with the outside world. It is important to mention that currently they are 3,747 people in Irish prisons[1]. This population have rights before the law and they shouldn’t be unreasonable deprived of rights or liberties.

By maintaining a connection with the outside world means that normal elements of the reintegration process can be maintained. This has a significant impact for further prisoner reintegration. It includes rights to visits, correspondence, voting, etc.

The main sources of law, which regulates prisoners’ rights in …

The Constitution, Desegregation, And Public Opinion: Swan V. Charlotte-Mechlenburg Board Of Education, James L. Hunt

Articles

The first three words of the preamble to the Constitution are "We the People." Yet the vast majority of constitutional scholarship is limited to the opinions of judges, lawyers, law professors, and other political and economic elites. This article takes a different approach to constitutional understanding. It describes the legal thoughts of the citizens for whom the Constitution exists. It does so through an analysis of the public's reaction to the federal court decisions in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, a desegregation case. The lead attorney for the Swann plaintiffs was Julius LeVonne Chambers, an alumnus and future …

Jim Crow's Unwritten Code, Anders Walker

All Faculty Scholarship

In The Jim Crow Routine, historian Stephen Berrey brings fresh eyes to the intricate set of legal rules that maintained racial segregation in the American South. Building on works like Leon Litwack’s Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow and Neil R. McMillen’s Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow, Berrey focuses not on the rise or demise of Jim Crow so much as the manner in which it disciplined daily life. For average folks, argues Berrey, Jim Crow turned the South into a stage where whites and blacks learned to negotiate one …

Reading Amendments And Expansions Of Title Vii Narrowly, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

Throughout Title VII’s history, Congress has amended and expanded Title VII. Often, the Supreme Court has read such amendments and expansions narrowly, even as it generally reads Title VII broadly or narrowly depending on the case before it. The Court’s approach to Title VII expansions may merely indicate that the Court believes that such statutory alterations should be read only as broadly as necessary to effectuate their purposes. However, regardless of why the Court has interpreted these expansions narrowly, that the Court has done so suggests that Congress ought to consider carefully how it amends or expands Title VII in …

Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals — often poor people and people of color — to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods. Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts …

The Voting Rights In Winter: The Death Of A Superstatute, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

The Voting Rights Act (“VRA”), the most successful civil rights statute in American history, is dying. In the recent Shelby County decision, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled that the anti-discrimination model, long understood as the basis for the VRA as originally enacted, is no longer the best way to understand today’s voting rights questions. As a result, voting rights activists need to face up to the fact that voting rights law and policy are at a critical moment of transition. It is likely the case that the superstatute we once knew as the VRA is no more and is never …