Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

The Accidental Crit Ii: Culture And The Looking Glass Of Exile, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

The current "Latin Music Craze" in United States mass media demands critical analysis from the LatCrit community. LatCrit scholars have engaged in the serious discussion of cultural production—of culture generally and popular culture in particular. LatCrit theory has analyzed cultural production mostly by "others," that is, cultural production internal to outsider communities. LatCritters also have studied how United States mass media portrays Latinas/os, African-Americans and Filipinas/os. This article will examine the competing narratives of Puerto Rican cultures in Puerto Rico and in the United States that are illuminated by the current Latin Music Craze. It will then explore how LatCritical …

Property, Wealth, Inequality And Human Rights: A Formula For Reform, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Shelbi D. Day

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay scrutinizes the persistence of inequality in the United States through a human rights lens and grapples with the troubling disparities unearthed by two works: American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass and Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. These two highly enlightening and, simultaneously, deeply troubling and depressing books elucidate the myriad locations at which inequalities persist and the historical, social, psychological, and legal foundations of, and explications for, such disparities in the African American community.

This work proposes a human rights paradigm that provides a methodology to analyze, deconstruct and unravel …

Holding-Up More Than Half The Sky: Marketization And The Status Of Women In China, Anna M. Han

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to examine generally how Chinese women fared under communism and more specifically, delve into how marketization has adversely impacted the status of women in China. It is this author's contention that despite the overall improvements in the standard of living, Chinese women are increasingly being marginalized economically. The long-term effects of subjugating the advancement of women for the immediate benefits of China's experimentation with a market economy hold vast implications for the future of the country. As China progresses economically, politically and socially, it cannot afford to leave half of its population behind as …

Constitutional Law—Commerce Clause—Violence Against Women Act's Civil Rights Remedy Exceeds Congress's Powers To Regulate Interstate Commerce. United States V. Morrison, 120 S. Ct. 1740 (2000)., Jennifer L. Wethington

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Administrative Pitfalls Of Litigating Under The Florida Civil Rights Act, Kenneth M. Curtin

St. Thomas Law Review

Under the common law in Florida, an employee hired for an indefinite period of time was considered an employee-at-will and either party could terminate the employment at any time and for any reason without incurring liability. The Florida Civil Rights Act of 19922 ("FCRA") modified the common law in that, the FCRA created a cause of action for unlawful termination. The FCRA was patterned after Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1991, as well as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.' Nevertheless, differences abound between federal legislation and the FCRA, especially in regards to administrative …

Racial Profiling: A Status Report Of The Legal, Legislative, And Empirical Literature, Katheryn Russell-Brown

UF Law Faculty Publications

In recent years, there have been several widely-publicized cases in which racial profiling became police brutality. As well, there have been scores of famous Black men who have offered their personal accounts as victims of racial profiling. All of these have helped to propel the issue onto the nation's front burner. The varied responses to racial profiling indicate the range of groups affected by and concerned about the practice. Notably, this includes former President Bill Clinton, who shared his belief that racial profiling is a national problem. The issue of racial profiling has evoked a wide range of policy responses, …

Schwenk And The Ambiguity In Federal "Sex" Discrimination Jurisprudence: Defining Sex Discrimination Dynamically Under Title Vii, Masako Kanazawa

Seattle University Law Review

This Note examines a new development in federal Title VII sex discrimination jurisprudence specifically in the context of transsexual and homosexual plaintiffs, describing the courts' gradual shift away from formalism towards a more realistic approach in this area. Part II begins by examining the anatomical sex rule established by the three major pre-Schwenk decisions categorically rejecting transsexuals' Title VII claims. This section then considers the two subsequent Supreme Court decisions, Price Waterhouse and Oncale, and the Ninth Circuit's Schwenk opinion. Part II concludes that the Schwenk court correctly read Price Waterhouse and Oncale as mandating a departure from …

A Paradigm For Equality: The Honorable Damon J. Keith, Blanche Bong Cook

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

From Reconstruction To Deconstruction: Undermining Black Landownership, Political Independence, And Community Through Partition Sales Of Tenancies In Common, Thomas W. Mitchell

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers one of the primary ways in which African Americans have lost millions of acres of land that they were able to acquire in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the beginning part of the twentieth century and the sociopolitical implications of this land loss. Specifically, this article highlights the fact that forced partition sales of tenancy in common property, referred to more commonly as heirs' property, have been a major source of black land loss within the African American community. The article argues that involuntary black land loss has had a significant negative impact upon …

Restricting Hate Speech Against Private Figures: Lessons In Power-Based Censorship From Defamation Law, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the debate between those who favor greater protection for minorities vulnerable to hate speech and First Amendment absolutists who are skeptical of any burdens on pure speech. The author also provides another perspective on the debate by highlighting the "public/private figure" distinction as an area within First Amendment law that acknowledges differences in power, a construct anti-hate speech advocates should use to further their cause. Specifically, the author places the "public/private figure" division in a theoretical and historical context and then provides empirical support for the thesis that whites enjoy a more prominent societal role and greater …

Racial Profiling: Driving While Mexican And Affirmative Action, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay will focus on "racial profiling" not just in the way people think about the term - that is, with respect to stopping motorists for traffic violations based solely on their race, so-called "Driving While Mexican" or "Driving While Black" - but also in the context of "affirmative action - namely, using race as a factor in employment and educational decisions. More broadly, then, I want us to think of "racial profiling" as simply "the use of race to develop an understanding of an individual" which moves us slightly away from more pejorative notions of the phrase that have …

Federalism, Preclearance, And The Rehnquist Court, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

Lopez v. Monterey County is an odd decision. Justice O'Connor's majority opinion easily upholds the constitutionality of a broad construction of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in language reminiscent of the Warren Court. Acknowledging the "substantial 'federalism costs" resulting from the VRA's "federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking," Lopez recognizes that the Reconstruction Amendments "contemplate" this encroachment into realms "traditionally reserved to the States." Justice O'Connor affirms as constitutionally permissible the infringement that the section 5 preclearance process "by its nature" effects on state sovereignty, and applies section 5 broadly, holding the statute …

'Appropriate' Means-Ends Constraints On Section 5 Powers, Evan H. Caminker

Articles

With the narrowing of Congress' Article I power to regulate interstate commerce and to authorize private suits against states, Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment provides Congress with an increasingly important alternative source of power to regulate and police state conduct. However, in City of Boerne v. Flores and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court has tightened the doctrinal test for prophylactic legislation based on Section Five. The Court has clarified Section Five's legitimate ends by holding that Congress may enforce Fourteenth Amendment rights only as they are defined by the federal judiciary, and the Court has constrained Section Five's permissible …

Asian American Voting Rights And Representation: A Perspective From The Northeast, Glenn D. Magpantay

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article presents a strategy for advancing Asian American voting rights and for ensuring that Asian Americans have a full and fair opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice, as guaranteed by the Voting Rights Act, through an exploration of legal issues in the census, redistricting, and alternative voting systems. First, it discusses the importance of an accurate count of Asian Americans in the decennial census. Second, it explores legal strategies to achieve meaningful representation of Asian Americans through the redrawing of federal, state, and local voting district boundaries. Third, it reviews the merits and limitations of alternative voting …

"Closet Case": Boy Scouts Of America V. Dale And The Reinforcement Of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, And Transgender Invisibility, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

This Article argues that the Supreme Courts decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale misapplies and ignores controlling First Amendment precedent and incorrectly dermes "sexual identity" as a clinical or biological imposition that exists apart from expression or speech. This Article provides a doctrinal alternative to Dale that would protect vital interests in both equality and liberty and that would not condition, as does Dale, sexual "equality" upon the silencing of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

Identity Crisis: "Intersectionality," "Multidimensionality," And The Development Of An Adequate Theory Of Subordination, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

This Article arises out of the intersectionality and post-intersectionality literature and makes a case against the essentialist considerations that informed HRC's endorsement of D'Amato. Part I discusses the pitfalls that occur when scholars and activists engage in essentialist politics and treat identities and forms of subordination as conflicting forces. Part II examines how essentialism negatively affects legal theory in the equality context. Part III considers the historical motivation for and the efficacy of the "intersectionality" response to the problem of essentialism. Part III also extensively analyzes the "multidimensional" critiques of essentialism offered by the most recent school of thought in …

Discrimination, Plain And Simple, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

Over the last decade, the Supreme Court has attempted to simplify Title VII and, with it, discrimination. This process began with the Court's decision in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, and continued in Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. v. Oncale. In Hicks, the Court emphasized that the inquiry in a Title VII disparate treatment race-based case should be aimed solely at whether intentional discrimination occurred. In the process, the Court minimized the import of the three-part test for proving discrimination that had been announced twenty years earlier in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. In Oncale, the Court noted that any …

Discrimination, Plain And Simple, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

This short essay is a brief examination of the Court's relatively recent attempts to simplify Title VII and employment discrimination; it is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the Court's discrimination jurisprudence. Rather, it seeks to identify a few concerns with and implications of the Court's apparent desire to simplify Title VII jurisprudence. Part I briefly examines how the Court has simplified employment discrimination through Hicks and Oncale. Part II examines how the Court's simplifications have been used. Part III suggests concerns that should accompany the Court's simplification.

The Ideology Of Judging And The First Amendment In Judicial Election Campaigns, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Stopping A Moving Target, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Tax Expenditures, Social Justice And Civil Rights: Expanding The Scope Of Civil Rights Laws To Apply To Tax-Exempt Charities, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In recent years, courts have decided a number of cases in which private organizations discriminated against people based solely on their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other immutable traits. For example, in 2000, the Boy Scouts of America revoked a New Jersey man's membership in the Boy Scouts because he was gay. New Jersey's supreme court held that the Boy Scouts' action violated New Jersey's anti-discrimination law. Notwithstanding the state court's holding, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the First Amendment prevented any court from forcing the Boy Scouts to keep a gay man as a member of its …

A General Theory Of Cultural Diversity, Steven A. Ramirez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Environmental Justice, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Environmental justice is a very hot topic. Yesterday's New York Times on the front page of the Metropolitan section had a story stating: Mid-Sized Plants Headed to Poor Areas. The story stated, "The Pataki administration acknowledges in its own study that the electric generators that it wants to install around New York City would go into poor heavily minority communities, a finding that supports some of the arguments of the project's opponents. This is quoting an unreleased environmental justice analysis that may or may not be valid, but it certainly shows how hot a topic it is. This morning …

Second Generation Employment Discrimination: A Structural Approach, Susan Sturm

Faculty Scholarship

The judiciary's traditional rule-based approach has been successful in reducing overt discrimination against women and people of color. It has been less effective in addressing more subtle and complex forms of workplace inequity. These second generation forms of bias result from patterns of interaction, informal norms, networking, mentoring, and evaluation. Drawing on the potential of recent Supreme Court decisions, Professor Sturm proposes a structural regulatory solution to this problem of second generation employment discrimination. Her approach links the efforts of courts, workplaces, employees, lawyers, and mediating organizations to construct a regime that encourages employers to engage in effective problem solving. …

Introduction: Employment Discrimination And The Problems Of Proof, John Valery White, Gregory Vincent

Scholarly Works

This is an introduction to articles presented at a symposium on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods. Co. sponsored by the Louisiana Law Review. Presenting papers were five of the leading scholars on employment discrimination law: Professor Catherine J. Lanctot of the Villanova University Law School, Professor Michael Selmi of the George Washington Law School, Professor Linda Hamilton Krieger, University of California at Berkely School of Law, Professor Rebecca Hanner White of the University of Georgia Law School, and Professor Michael Zimmer of the Seton Hall University School of Law. Respondents were the authors and …

Politics, Gay Rights, And The Light At The End Of The Rainbow, Mary Lafrance

Scholarly Works

Legal scholars and practitioners concerned about the future of the law rather than merely its present know that successful strategies for advancing the law require not only a facility with the nuts and bolts of legal analysis but a sense of history and an awareness of the ways in which law is shaped by politics, public opinion, cultural norms, and moral and political philosophy.

Challenging those laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation offers one of the most active and exciting undertakings for modern civil rights advocates. The losses are frustrating but the victories are exhilarating. The long-term …

The Shattered Mirror: Identity, Authority, And Law, Lawrence M. Friedman

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Genealogy Of A State-Engineered “Model Minority”: “Not Quite/Not White” South Asian Americans, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

This is review essay based on Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folk (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2000). It engages the saga of immigration of South Asian to the United States. A primary focus is on the matrix of identity formation within the grammar of imperialism. It explores how modern regimes of power/knowledge constitute racialized subjects. The deployment of the "model minority" discourse is examined as it relates to South Asian Americans. Structures of power and strategies of resistance among South Asian Americans are highlighted and it is argued that building solidarities among all subordinated is the only viable …

Secrecy, Guilt By Association, And The Terrorist Profile, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I will argue that the use of secret procedures and guilt by association in immigration trials is not only unconstitutional but counterproductive. I will begin with a case study, then discuss in turn the practices of secret evidence and guilt by association, and finally conclude with a consideration of how these two tactics perpetuate invidious stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims.

The Equal Pay Act As Appropriate Legislation Under Section 5 Of The Fourteenth Amendment: Can State Employers Be Sued?, Thane Somerville

Washington Law Review

Congress may constitutionally abrogate state sovereign immunity only through legislation enacted pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, the U.S. Supreme Court held the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to be inappropriate Section 5 legislation. Kimel was the first time the Court held an anti-discrimination statute enacted to protect civil rights inapplicable to the states. Based on the Kimel decision, other civil rights statutes, such as the Equal Pay Act (EPA), may face similar challenges. This Comment argues that the EPA is appropriate Section 5 legislation. Unlike …