Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Schools Without Borders: Ending The Containment, Jade A. Craig

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North. By Michelle Adams.

Exploring The Limits Of Qualified Immunity Under Harlow’S Discretionary Function Test, James E. Pfander, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

No abstract provided.

How The Dod Discourages Military Families From Seeking Mental Health Counseling, Christina Welch

Seattle University Law Review

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) administration of the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) presents significant barriers to mental health care access for military spouses and children. This paper explores how the EFMP, though designed to support military families with special needs, inadvertently creates barriers to mental health treatment. Military family members often do not seek mental health treatment to avoid the program's mandatory enrollment requirements. Military family members often view enrollment in the program undesirable because enrollment can restrict the pool of potential future duty assignment locations that are available to service members.

The lack of comprehensive data collection by …

2025, Richard Delgado

Seattle University Law Review

"In a cutting and provocative social critique in one of the more extended Rodrigo Chronicles, Richard Delgado in 2025 employs skillful narrative—one of CRT’s many contributions to legal scholarship —to tell a gripping story of just how far the nation has descended into darkness with President Trump’s re-election. In Delgado’s vision, law professors—along with other political opponents of the President: immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, the underserved—have targets on their backs."

-excerpt from Kevin Johnson's review of 2025

The Preventative Care Gap: Completing The Aca’S Vision For Health, Abby Nagaich

Seattle University Law Review

This Note examines the preventive care mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the legal, political, and practical challenges that threaten its effectiveness. While the ACA significantly expanded access to no-cost preventive services, gaps remain—particularly in behavioral health, obesity management, and equitable service delivery. Ongoing litigation, potential administrative rollbacks, and shifting political leadership further destabilize this critical component of public health policy.

This Note argues that for the ACA to fulfill its original promise—and for any health framework to succeed—preventive care must be redefined as a comprehensive, early intervention approach grounded in both systemic access and patient education. It …

The Colonial Borders Within: Racial Profiling, Language, And Civil Juries, Jasmine Gonzales Rose

Faculty Scholarship

This Article builds on the scholarship of Kevin R. Johnson, whose work has long illuminated how immigration law and constitutional doctrine have enabled the subordination of Latines through racial profiling,2 language discrimination,3 and exclusion from civic institutions, like juries.4 His analyses of juror exclusion and the importance of a diverse judiciary underscore how the composition of civil and criminal factfinders shapes both recognition of harm and the remedies afforded.5 Long before the current period of intensified, abusive immigration enforcement, his scholarship traced the historical roots of these practices, examined their contemporary manifestations, and revealed the ways in which the law …

Making Noise Through Law: Indigenous Legal Mobilisation Against A Power Plant In “French” Guiana, Pierre Auzerau

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In so-called “French” Guiana, or Guyane, the Kali’na village of Atopo Wipi has fought for years against a hydrogen power plant being built on their land. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2024 in Guyane and Western Europe, where I collaborated with various stakeholders to support Atopo Wipi’s resistance to the power plant, my research focuses on the legal dimensions of the Kali’na’s struggle to protect their land. Specifically, this article examines how the Kali’na navigated different normative frameworks, including international human rights standards and French law, to fight the project. Through this analysis, I show how the …

Violent White Exclusionary Destruction Of Black Property Is A Public Nuisance: The Tulsa Race Massacre And Beyond, Eric Miller

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Shadow Corroboration Doctrine In Sexual Violence Cases, Chris Cox

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lessons Learned, Philip Lee

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Good morning students, faculty, and staff—and greetings to the equity warriors, optimists, and Dreamers. I see you.

I have been a law professor for thirteen years. In celebration of faculty scholarship, I share with you three lessons that I have learned on my academic journey.

My first article was titled “The Griswold 9 and Student Activism for Faculty Diversity at Harvard Law School in the Early 1990s,” and it was published in the Harvard Journal for Racial and Ethnic Justice. It was about how students could make a substantive difference at the institutions in which they sit.

Table Of Contents, Journal For Social Justice Editorial Board

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

This document contains the Table of Contents and editorial masthead for the current issue of the Journal for Social Justice at DePaul University College of Law. It includes the articles, essays, and other scholarly works selected for publication, as well as recognition of the Editorial Board, staff editors, faculty advisors, and contributing editors who participated in the editorial and publication process for this Volume.

A Proposed Uniform System For Title Ix-Compliant Revenue Sharing In A New Era Of Intercollegiate Athletics, Jackson Schneider

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

Revenue sharing between colleges and universities and their student-athletes marks one of the most significant developments in the NCAA’s nearly 120-year history. House v. NCAA and its subsequent settlement enabled many Division I colleges and universities to begin sharing revenue directly with student-athletes in 2025. However, the House Settlement leaves a critical question unanswered: whether revenue sharing must comply with Title IX requirements. In the absence of judicial, legislative, or executive guidance, colleges and universities possess nearly complete discretion as to the amount of revenue to share, how to share it, and with whom to share it. This discretion creates …

Avoiding Pandora’S Box: Why Federal Nondiscrimination Statutes Do Not Prohibit Health Insurance Coverage Exclusions Of Sex-Rejecting Procedures, Rachel N. Morrison

Catholic University Law Review

There is increasing litigation over whether employer-provided health insurance and state Medicaid plans can exclude coverage of procedures for “gender transitions.” Plaintiffs claim that gender-transition coverage exclusions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and federal nondiscrimination statutes. While Fourteenth Amendment claims should be foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s holding in Geduldig v. Aiello, nondiscrimination claims require a separate analysis.

This article shows the proper analysis for whether coverage exclusions of transition procedures violate federal nondiscrimination statutes. Looking to the history of coverage exclusion claims, Part I traces sex and pregnancy discrimination claims challenging coverage exclusions of …

Fixing Our Borders Of Injustice: The Fall Of Chevron Brings New Hope For Gender-Based Violence Asylum, Lara Mcleod

Catholic University Law Review

The Immigration & Nationality Act (INA) governs U.S. immigration law and was enacted to assist and protect international refugees from persecution and threats to life or freedom. The primary legislative purpose of the INA was to conform U.S. asylum law to international standards established in the 1967 Refugee Protocol. This Comment will critically examine the former Biden Administration’s June 2024 Proclamation on Securing the Border, illustrating how the Proclamation’s deterrence-based policies failed to meet the United States’ protective obligations under both international and federal law standards and underscored the inherent flaws of the Executive Branch’s enforcement of U.S. asylum law, …

Take Fair Housing All The Way Up: Navigating The Intersection Of Decentralization, Innovation, And Preemption, Melvin J. Kelley Iv

Texas A&M Law Review

Cities are the temporospatial embodiment of local economies, constructed on the scaffold of racial capitalism. Pursuant to decades of public-private ventures to entrench segregation, some cities have been given a treasure trove of resources while others have been—and continue to be—deprived. Community organizers and local governments in urban areas have attempted to disrupt enduring spatial inequities through policies advancing civil rights, economic justice, and sustainable development. But far too often these efforts have been brushed aside by sweeping state laws that intentionally, exhaustively, and punitively remove topics from the purview of local action. This Article responds to calls issued by …

Antidiscrimination, Not Anti-Dei: The Real Story Of The Supreme Court’S Recent Title Vii Precedent, Madeline Meth

BYU Law Review

For several years, my colleague and I had been litigating employment discrimination cases with facts that shocked our friends and family. For example, we fought Dallas County over a women-work-the-weekend policy that required women detention officers to work weekends while male colleagues took the weekends off. Likewise, we challenged the City of Cleveland when it moved our client, an emergency medical services supervisor, from the day shift to the night shift explicitly because he is Black. Then, in April 2024, in one of our client’s cases, Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overruled the decades …

Public Use On The Loose: Clarifying The Takings Clause’S Public Use Requirement, Megan Hoefs

Pepperdine Law Review

The Fifth Amendment permits the taking of private property for “public use,” but modern courts refuse to question legislative determinations of that use. Although the Supreme Court has implicitly reserved a prohibition on takings done under a “mere pretext of public purpose,” lower courts are unsure of how to identify or evaluate such pretext. This Comment argues that the Public Use Clause requires a showing of good faith to be constitutionally sufficient. By reframing public use around good faith, this Comment offers a modest but necessary clarification that preserves the structure of existing doctrine while restoring the Clause’s function as …

Corporate Employment And The First Amendment Shield Against Anti-Dei Legislation, W. Mary Blee

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

No one would have thought that a Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action in higher education would affect private employment. However, the ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard did exactly that. Corporate employers’ efforts to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) were immediately pushed to the forefront of the political battlefield. In the eyes of Republican lawmakers and politicians, DEI efforts were akin to affirmative action, and therefore unconstitutional in the wake of Harvard. Their solution to this problem involved passing anti-DEI legislation and policies which restricted or eliminated employer’s DEI efforts under the guise of upholding …

Dealing With The Wrongs And The Rights: Lessons On Lethal Self-Defense From Durham, North Carolina, Emily Bass

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

The tragic loss of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin and the lack of accountability that George Zimmerman faced for fatally shooting him in their Florida neighborhood inspired countless calls for politicians to reexamine self-defense laws. Still, long before stand-your-ground laws, the same racist undertones that plagued Zimmerman’s trial prevented other state courts from holding accountable those who use excessive force in proclaimed “self-defense” and killed Black teenagers.

In 1993, then fifteen-year-old Jamal Elliott and several of his friends broke into the garage of Durham, North Carolina resident Michael Seagroves, hoping to steal a motorcycle. As Jamal ran from the garage, Seagroves shot …

Legal Academia And Permanent Democracy: The Fault In Our Law Schools, Sara Dillon

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

It is widely recognized that the American Constitution is failing as the foundational document of a modern democracy. Although many basic principles of constitutionalism have faded into irrelevance, with rising authoritarianism eclipsing such core ideals as judicial independence, separation of powers and restraints on arbitrary use of power, America’s nearly 200 institutions of legal teaching and scholarship have provided little in the way of proposals for urgently needed law reform. It is striking that even with so many high-powered academic institutions, so few meaningful proposals for constitutional change have been presented to the public as a way out of our …

Incorporating Principles And Wisdom From Hospital Chaplaincy And Pastoral Ministry To Create A Ministry Model To Address Social Isolation And Loneliness In Black Churches, Albert A. Kemp

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

To address the growing and widespread epidemic of social isolation and loneliness, with special focus on Black churches, this dissertation developed a program with the following areas of application: 1) how healthcare trained chaplains can coordinate with churches to positively impact individuals identified as lonely and socially isolated with better social and physical health, 2) how principles of chaplaincy and pastoral care can mitigate and intervene competently when such people are identified, and 3) how the project’s model can be organized, taught, and incorporated into existing arenas of church ministry.

The purpose of the project was to create a ministry …

“Justice” By Deception: The Immigration Regime’S Longstanding Reliance On Fraud And Coercion, Lori A. Nessel

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The End Of Amateurism: Title Ix Challenges In The New Ere Of College Athletics, Georgia G. Kemmett

Honors Theses

This thesis examines whether emerging revenue-sharing models in intercollegiate athletics following the House v. NCAA settlement can be reconciled with Title IX’s mandate of sex-based equity. While antitrust law has accelerated the collapse of NCAA amateurism by dismantling restrictions on athlete compensation, the resulting revenue-sharing framework risks concentrating financial benefits in male-dominated sports, particularly football and men’s basketball, thereby raising significant legal and policy concerns under federal civil rights law.

Through analysis of Title IX doctrine, antitrust jurisprudence, OCR guidance, NIL regulation, congressional reform proposals, and emerging litigation involving gender identity and athlete eligibility, this thesis argues that commercialization and …

"For Their Effectual Exclusion": Oregon, Racial Exclusion, And Citizenship In The Mid-Nineteenth Century, Riley M. Littleton

Honors Theses

In light of Oregon’s admission to the Union as the only state to receive congressional approval with a racial exclusion clause in its constitution, this project seeks to examine the constitutional and cultural thought that ultimately led to the stamp of approval on the thirty-third state. In the past, Missouri had attempted a similar maneuver, seeking to bar free Black Americans from entry; Congress had not allowed it, believing that the provision violated the U.S. Constitution’s Privileges and Immunities Clause. This project investigates what changed congressional opinion between Missouri and Oregon’s respective times.

In researching contemporary literature to understand local …

Real, Not Rhetorical: Children’S Rights As The Strongest Constitutional Defense Of Obergefell Against Religious-Liberty Challenges, Tanya Washington

Mercer Law Review

Justice Kennedy’s decision to center adults’ rights in the Obergefell majority opinion—despite his awareness of children’s legal vulnerabilities—created space for Justice Thomas, in his Davis statement, to ignore children altogether and to reframe the constitutional question as a clash between adults’ rights: the right to marry and to be free from discrimination versus the right to exercise one’s religious beliefs and to refuse to engage in conduct that abrogate those beliefs. This distorted constitutional framing eclipses entirely the rights of children in same-sex families and the concrete harms they will face if their parents are barred from marrying—harms that provide …

Title Ix Without Tenure: The Eleventh Circuit Bars Sex Discrimination Suits By Educational Employees In Joseph V. Board Of Regents, Lily Kachmar

Mercer Law Review

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” In just thirty-seven words, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ushered in a transformative era of protections for gender equality in higher education. Yet, courts remain split on the overall scope of those protections.

In Joseph v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (“Joseph II”), the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit became the latest …

Cardozo Law Announces Three New Faculty Appointments, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

Cardozo School of Law announced the appointments of three new faculty members: Assistant Professor of Law Mridula Raman, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Civil Rights Clinic Stefen R. Short, and Harold A. Stevens Visiting Assistant Professor of Law Fregine Sheehy. Their expertise spans criminal law, civil rights, disability justice, critical race theory, evidence, and human rights law.

“Supreme Court, Tear Down This Wall!”: Kennedy V. Bremerton School District And The Erosion Of The Barrier Between Church And State, Ari Allon

NSU Undergraduate Law Journal

This Article conducts a critical examination of Kennedy v. Bremerton’s ruling, which replaced the Lemon test with the historical practices and understandings test. Following a brief background on the Religion Clauses’ jurisprudence, the author contests that the historical practices and understandings test fails to adhere to long-held Supreme Court reasoning behind the creation of the Religion Clauses. This new test is likewise an insufficient framework for determining Establishment Clause violations.

The Article continues with an analysis on the conflicting fact patterns between the majority and dissenting opinions of Kennedy v. Bremerton. The author then discusses the precedential impact …

High-Caliber Tensions: Implications Of Florida’S Medical Marijuana Program On The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, George Bell, Kate E. Altman

University of Miami Law Review

What is more valuable—the right to protect yourself, or the right to seek medical treatment? Presently, law abiding Floridians must choose between the two. Because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (“ATF”) classifies medical marijuana patients as “unlawful drug users,” Floridians enrolled in the State’s medical marijuana scheme are prohibited from lawfully owning firearms. A lawsuit currently pending before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals seeks to address this constitutional conflict. This Article discusses that lawsuit, the legal framework in which it’s proceeding, and how courts may decide the appropriate balance between such fundamental questions.

First Amendment Forum Classification: Special Use Permits, Limited Public Forums, And The “Heckler’S Veto”, Elizabeth Price Foley

University of Miami Law Review

Pride Month is an important event in many communities because it celebrates and enhances the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community. Pridefest events occurring during Pride Month are well-attended but often mired by threats of violence. Such threats are often targeted at Pridefest drag shows, which exhibit gender-bending performances by drag queens and drag kings of one biological sex, who wear extravagant costumes that exaggerate gender stereotypes of the opposite biological sex. In Naples Pride, Inc. v. City of Naples, the Eleventh Circuit addressed whether a government may impose conditions on such drag shows when threats have been levied against …