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The Torch (February 2019), Crtp

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

Civic and Community Engagement | Civil Rights and Discrimination | Education | Gender and Sexuality | Inequality and Stratification | Politics and Social Change | Public Policy | Race and Ethnicity

Recommended Citation

Baldwin, Brandon and Civil Rights Team Project, "Torch (August 2013)" (2013). Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter. 58. http://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/torch/58

Safe Streets, Inc. : The 'Hustle' To End Black Gang Violence In Philadelphia, 1969-1976, Menika Dirkson

Arlen Specter Center Research Fellowship

From 1962 to 1968, gang stabbings and murders in Philadelphia drastically increased, inspiring Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter (from 1965-1973) to establish Safe Streets, Inc. in August 1969 as a non-profit, anti-gang program designed to reduce gang violence, end turf wars between rival gangs, and provide social services like job training and academic tutoring to juveniles. Since the program came into existence amidst the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968), numerous cases of police brutality, and over 200 race riots in post-industrial cities, the yearly Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) grant from the federal government offered to cities under the Omnibus Crime …

Shared Deliberations: Learning From The Voices Of Social Justice Lawyers On Their Aspirations, Challenges And Roles, Ian Head

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lawyers in the U.S. who attempt to advocate for social justice issues, often on behalf of those communities most targeted by government institutions and oppressive legal systems, have unique perspectives into the challenges of using the law to create transformative change. This thesis examines the voices of over a dozen attorneys fighting not only on behalf of their clients, but also wrestling with how to best use a set of legal tools not meant for dismantling systems of power. Listening to how these legal advocates navigate their roles inside a system of laws created to consolidate rather than distribute power …

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

Standing Rock Defendants Move To Dismiss On Basis Of Factual Disputes, Columbia Center For Contemporary Critical Thought

Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought

New York, February 15, 2019. Today, state and county defendants in Thunderhawk v. County of Morton et al. filed motions to dismiss plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint. In their court filings, defendants attach 160 exhibits contesting the peaceful nature of the NoDAPL movement, arguing that their discriminatory closure of Highway 1806 was factually justified. Defendants ask the United States District Court to accept their factual account of the NoDAPL movement over the plaintiffs’.

Standing Rock Plaintiffs File First Amended Complaint, Columbia Center For Contemporary Critical Thought

Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought

New York, February 1, 2019—Today, Cissy Thunderhawk, Wašté Win Young, the Reverend John Floberg, and José Zhagñay filed their First Amended Complaint in response to state and local defendants’ motions to dismiss. The amended complaint clarifies the civil rights violations caused when defendants closed, to the Tribe and its supporters, the primary road connecting the Standing Rock Reservation to both Bismarck and to numerous public sites of great expressive and religious significance. The plaintiffs are represented by Columbia Law School Lecturer in Law Noah Smith-Drelich and Professor Bernard E. Harcourt through the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought.

Advancing Racial Justice And Human Rights: Rights-Based Strategies For The Current Era, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

On June 1, 2018, the Human Rights Institute convened its 15th annual CLE Symposium on Human Rights in the United States, a signature event of the Human Rights Institute’s Bringing Human Rights Lawyers’ Network. The day-long event brought together more than 150 leading U.S. lawyers, activists, and academics, along with federal and local government representatives to share strategies to advance racial justice within a domestic and global context increasingly hostile to human rights.

This report highlights key takeaways and themes from the Symposium, drawing from speakers’ remarks and their advocacy. It also serves as a basic human rights primer, describing …

Law Library Blog (February 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Cities, Fair Housing, And Gentrification: A Proposal In Progressive Federalism, David D. Troutt

Cardozo Law Review

This Essay divides in two Parts. In Part I, I will situate the three fair housing interests in the familiar AFFH planning environment, offering arguments to shape context. The harder task is implementation. What constitutes the specific laws and policies that indicate a city's commitment to fair housing? In Part II, I will draw upon some of the work that the center I direct at Rutgers Law School (the Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity) has done in Newark, New Jersey, a working-class city experiencing an affordable housing crisis amid increasing economic development activity in the middle of one …

A Study Of Factors Influencing Hiring Decisions In The Context Of Ban The Box Policies, Ronald F. Day

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates whether NYC employers adhered to Ban the Box by removing the question about criminal history from employment forms, by refraining from inquiring about an applicant’s criminal record during the interview process, and by complying with other aspects of the policy. The study also documents employer perspectives on Ban the Box and on the hiring of individuals with criminal convictions, and examines whether more individuals with a criminal record were hired after the policy was implemented.

Using a mixed-methods approach, surveys were administered to companies in the nonprofit and private sectors, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with a …

Rigor And Relationships: The Positive Case For Integration In Schools And Neighborhoods, Rachel D. Godsil

Cardozo Law Review

This Essay first explores the current conditions of schools and neighborhoods and the impediments to achieving successful integration in schools- implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat. Second, the Essay then identifies the strategies that are being employed in some schools to overcome these impediments and create quality schools that educate all students in a just and effective manner. Finally, the Essay explains how integrated neighborhoods would be the most effective long-term solution to the stereotyping and biases that underlie racial injustices across the board.

The Fair Housing Act After Fifty Years: Opening Remarks, Julián Castro

Cardozo Law Review

Fifty years ago, on this day in late March, the United States was about to go through one of the darkest stretches in modern American history. At the end of March 1968, President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection. Just a few days later, of course, on April 4th, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. A couple of months after that, on June 6th, Robert Kennedy died as he campaigned for President of the United States. Cities across our country were in a state of total unrest. It was, as many have described it, a year …

The Fair Housing Act: Enacted Despite The Mainstream Media, Neutered By The Federal Government's Unwillingness To Enforce It, Craig Flournoy

Cardozo Law Review

This Article examines the 1968 Fair Housing Act from two perspectives. The first Part discusses the urban riots of the mid-1960s; the failure of the white press to examine the connection between the riots and systemic social problems, particularly segregation; and the Kerner Commission's devastating indictment of mainstream media coverage of the riots, the Black ghetto, and African Americans. I argue the mainstream media's poor coverage of the problems caused by inner-city ghettos made it more difficult to win popular and political support for the Fair Housing Act. The second Part examines the creation of a separate and unequal system …

Finding A Home In America: Cardozo Law Screening Of Refuge “Hombres Nuevos”, Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic, Cardozo Outlaw

2018–2019 Flyers

Promotional flyer for a Cardozo School of Law screening of Hombres Nuevos, episode six of the AT&T original series REFUGE. The episode tells the story of Luis Mancheno, a former Cardozo Law instructor and immigration attorney, who fled persecution in Ecuador and now advocates for the rights of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in the U.S. The event included a screening and a Q&A moderated by Professor Kate Shaw, and was co-hosted by the Immigration Justice Clinic and OUTLaw.

Fool Me Once... The Need For Federal Legislation To Remedy Fraud And Misrepresentation In Ballot Initiatives That Negatively Affect Minority Communities, Jessica George

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

This Note proposes new federal legislation to provide relief for voters who might be negatively affected by fraud and deception at any phase of a ballot initiative, including the signature-gathering process. Ballot initiatives are a significant part of the democratic process. They must be protected from fraud, especially when those practices result in initiatives that harm specific minority group interests. This legislation will give deceived voters a cause of action to stop the effect of a ballot initiative before it negatively impacts them. Voters can bring a civil action in federal court for preventive relief, including a permanent or …

Misogyny And Lawlessness In Afghanistan: The Women's Fight For Equal Rights, Susan Farooqi, Esq

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

This Note examines some important areas where Afghan women face discrimination and explores how legislation, such as a Civil Rights Act, could ensure the protection of women’s rights. Part II.A of this Note provides a historical perspective on Afghan women before the Taliban regime. Part II.B provides a brief history of the power struggle in Afghanistan that lead to the rise of the Taliban, a group solely responsible for creating the misogynistic culture in Afghan society today. Part II.C discusses five basic fundamental rights that Afghan women have been deprived of under the Taliban regime and explains that the …

Law School News: A Mandate For Change 01-24-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Migrant Women's Rights Project Discussion Paper #1: An Iterative Learning Journey To Deconstruct “Trafficking”, Fay Faraday

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

In 2016, the Barbra Schlifer Clinic convened a consortium of organizations, front-line service providers, agencies and researchers who separately work with women and gender diverse people with precarious immigration status who are vulnerable to trafficking.

Migrant Women’s Rights Project serves women and gender diverse people whose difficulties intersect with labour migration, experience gender-based violence, and become vulnerable to trafficking. In part because of their precarious status, and fears of deportation or reprisals by former (domestic) employers, they experience extreme isolation from access to supports.

Through a combination of research, street-level outreach activities, and education/information awareness, practical supports such as counselling, …

Economic Empowerment In The Alabama Black Belt: A Transactional Law Clinic Theory And Model, Casey E. Faucon

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

This essay argues that transactional legal clinics that serve university, urban, and rural communities with cultures and ecosystems shaped by the long-term impacts of racial segregation, Civil Rights, and socioeconomic disenfranchisement can play both a powerful symbolic role and a practical material role in regional economic development by providing direct client representation to historically and economically significant organizations and by training lawyers in transactional methods to use the law to impact the industrial identity and economic vitality of their communities. This essay concludes with a design for a transactional law clinic model.

Growing The Resistance: A Call To Action For Transactional Lawyers In The Era Of Trump, Gowri Krishna

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

New Yorkers woke to a dreary, drizzly day on November 9, 2016. The weather matched the mood of many of the city’s inhabitants. Tears streamed down my face as I sat in the subway waiting for my stop. One by one, as my colleagues in the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center came into the office that morning, we shared expressions of shock, anger, fear, and sadness. We feared for what Trump’s election meant for our clients, for ourselves and our families, for our country, and for our world. In the days and weeks that followed, we coalesced …

The Legacy Of Civil Rights And The Opportunity For Transactional Law Clinics, Lynnise Pantin

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

At the end of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously paraphrased abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker stating, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” The implication of the phrase is that the social justice goals of the Civil Rights Movement would eventually be achieved. His prayer was that servants of justice would be rewarded in due time. In other words, that the goals of the Civil Rights Movement would be achievable at some point in the future. President Obama resurrected the phrase throughout …

Slogans Appropriate To The Legacy Of Martin Luther King Jr., Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

For printing signs, banners, posters, tee shirts, and bumper stickers (and for preaching sermons) that are appropriate to the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., please consider the following slogans: ABOLISH WAR, ABOLISH POVERTY, AMEND THE CONSTITUTION, SUPPORT AN ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS, JOBS FOR ALL, GUARANTEED INCOME FOR ALL, SUPPORT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME, and GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR - Luke 4:14-19.

The Politics Of Richard Wright, Jane Anna Gordon, Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh

Civil Rights

A pillar of African American literature, Richard Wright is one of the most celebrated and controversial authors in American history. His work championed intellectual freedom amid social and political chaos. Despite the popular and critical success of books such as Uncle Tom's Children (1938), Black Boy (1945), and Native Son (1941), Wright faced staunch criticism and even censorship throughout his career for the graphic sexuality, intense violence, and communist themes in his work. Yet, many political theorists have ignored his radical ideas.

In The Politics of Richard Wright, an interdisciplinary group of scholars embraces the controversies surrounding Wright as …

Law School News: Boston's New Da Will Deliver Mlk Address 01-10-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Southern History On Screen, Bryan M. Jack

Civil Rights

Hollywood films have been influential in the portrayal and representation of race relations in the South and how African Americans are cinematically depicted in history, from The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939) to The Help (2011) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). With an ability to reach mass audiences, films represent the power to influence and shape the public's understanding of our country's past, creating lasting images—both real and imagined—in American culture.

In Southern History on Screen: Race and Rights, 1976–2016, editor Bryan Jack brings together essays from an international roster of scholars …

The Virgil Darnell Hawkins Collection: A Special Collection At The Heart Of An Hbcu Law School, Yolanda P. Jones

Library Faculty Publications

The Florida A&M University College of Law has several special collections, but the most significant of those special collections is one that is on the fourth floor of the law library. When you look at it you will see several ranges of books that are outdated. They include case reporters, statutes, secondary sources and other legal materials that are no older than the 1960s. This collection, frozen in time, is named in honor of Virgil Darnell Hawkins, an African-American who, while little known, was critical to the creation of the Florida A&M University College of Law and had an impact …

Disparities In The Use Of Prophylactic Treatments In Reproductive Health Between The Sexes: A Recommendation For The Use Of Hpv Vaccination Schemes Rather Than Surgical Interventions To Reduce Inequities And Threats To The Public's Health, Paul J. Mclaughlin

Library Faculty Publications

On the issue of prophylactic treatment of reproductive diseases, the sexes have historically been treated differently under medical ethics guidelines and the laws of the United States. Women have drawn the focus of medical and legal scrutiny on issues of prophylactic reproductive health. Women were often required to undergo quarantine and forced to recieve treatment for reproductive diseases considered dangerous to public health. Women are now afforded protections against involuntary prophylactic procedures to prevent diseases in reproductive organs. Specifically, women are provided access to vaccinations against the human papillomavirus at a higher rate than males despite the disease's ability to …

Remixing Riverside: Environmental Racism And Hip Hop As A Mirror Of Society, Charles E. Murphy

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do Public Confederate Monuments Constitute Racist Government Speech Violating The Equal Protection Clause?, Scott Holmes

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Age, Time, And Discrimination (Forthcoming), Alexander Boni-Saenz

All Faculty Scholarship

Discrimination scholars have traditionally justified antidiscrimination laws by appealing to the value of equality. Egalitarian theories locate the moral wrong of discrimination in the unfavorable treatment one individual receives as compared to another. However, discrimination theory has neglected to engage seriously with the socio-legal category of age, which poses a challenge to this egalitarian consensus due to its unique temporal character. Unlike other identity categories, an individual’s age inevitably changes over time. Consequently, any age-based legal rule or private discrimination will ultimately yield equal treatment over the lifecourse. This explains the weak constitutional protection for age and the fact that …