Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Reclaiming Equality: How Regressive Laws Can Advance Progressive Ends, Jonathan P. Feingold

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crime And Unequal Punishment: Proving Discriminatory Intent In Felony Disenfranchisement, Abel Huskinson, Kaitlyn Long

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Felony disenfranchisement, or barring convicted felons from voting, is a punishment used in almost every state. Although states differ in their severity of felony disenfranchisement, these laws resulted in 5.1 million Americans being unable to participate in the 2020 national election. The Supreme Court found in Hunter v. Underwood that felony disenfranchisement laws would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if they contained “both [an] impermissible racial motivation and racially discriminatory impact.” Recent scholarship has found felony disenfranchisement to disproportionately affect marginalized racial groups. As such, it becomes the burden of felony disenfranchisement constitutional challenges to prove …

The Constitutionality Of The Title Ix Religious Exemption, Madelyn Jacobsen, Rebecca Batty, Editor

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Petitioners in Hunter v. Department of Education questioned the constitutionality of the Title IX religious exemption as the basis of their 2021 class-action lawsuit. They claimed that more than 30 religious schools maintained discriminatory policies against LGBTQ students under the exemption. The religious exemption, often painted as unconstitutional discrimination, permits religious schools' adherence to sincerely held religious beliefs—and promotes a distinctive religious education that secular schools lack. This paper examines legal precedents relevant to religious freedom, higher education, and discrimination that demand the Title IX religious exemption remains in effect.

The "Divisive Concepts" Laws And Americans Of Asian Descent, Ilhyung Lee

SMU Law Review Forum

In the past year, a number of states have enacted laws that prohibit public schools from teaching certain lessons about race. The main target of these laws appears to be “critical race theory,” once a theory advanced in legal academia that has now become a “catchall term” for discussions of race and racism. The states mean business and seek to enforce their new or proposed laws by prohibiting state funding for teaching the banned content, withholding funding to local educational agencies or schools in violation, subjecting offending teachers to disciplinary action, and allowing those aggrieved to bring an action at …

Diversity's Distractions Revisited: The Case Of Latinx In Higher Education, Rachel F. Moran

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Close The Sores Of War": Why Georgia Needs New Legislation To Address Its Confederate Monuments, Abigail Coker

Georgia State University Law Review

Confederate monuments have been a point of contention in America for decades, but a series of events since 2015 have stoked the most recent movement calling for their removal. In 2015, Dylann Roof murdered Black churchgoers at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Because Roof was seemingly motivated and emboldened by Confederate ideology, many focused their attention on removing the more than 700 Confederate monuments throughout the country. Then, in August 2017, a large white nationalist rally assembled in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park. The demonstrations …

Transgender Rural Communities And Legal Rights To Gender-Affirming Health Care, Nathan R. Hamons, Valarie K. Blake

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Delayed Synergy: Challenging Housing Discrimination In Chicago In The Streets And In The Courts, Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Michelle Shaw

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Montgomery Improvement Association combined a boycott with a successful constitutional challenge to bus segregation laws, producing more progress to desegregate the buses than either strategy could have brought about on its own. The Montgomery Improvement Association’s approach was a paradigm of the synergy between a social movement and social change litigation.

This Article argues for opportunities for synergy between social movements and social change litigation in three ways: 1) extending the time frame; 2) joining the forces of two separate organizations to produce change, unlike the single organization in Montgomery; and 3) creating an …

From Bostock To Adams: Following The Expansion Of Rights For Transgender Students In Public School Settings, William A. White, M. Chase Collum

Mercer Law Review

Since before the turn of the twenty-first century, it is undeniable that classrooms across the country have undergone a multitude of changes. In 2020, schooling continued through a global pandemic—forcing teachers and students alike to improvise, adapt, and overcome challenges both in the classroom and in their own homes. Now that teachers and students are attempting to return to “normal,” federal courts across the country have passed down a number of decisions that will impact students’ return to the classroom. Specifically, the Supreme Court of the United States’ landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, (Bostock) …

Truth And Reconciliation: The Ku Klux Klan Hearings Of 1871 And The Genesis Of Section 1983, Tiffany R. Wright, Ciarra N. Carr, Jade W.P. Gasek

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Over the course of seven months in 1871, Congress did something extraordinary for the time: It listened to Black people. At hearings in Washington, D.C. and throughout the former Confederate states, Black women and men—who just six years earlier were enslaved and barred from testifying in Southern courts—appeared before Congress to tell their stories. The stories were heartbreaking. After experiencing the joy of Emancipation and the initial hope of Reconstruction, they had been subjected to unspeakable horror at the hands of white terrorists. They had been raped and sexually humiliated. Their children and spouses murdered. They had been savagely beaten …

How In The World Could They Reach That Conclusion?, Hon. Carlton Reeves

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Unqualified Immunity And The Betrayal Of Butz V. Economou: How The Supreme Court Quietly Granted Federal Officials Absolute Immunity For Constitutional Violations, Patrick Jaicomo, Anya Bidwell

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Qualified immunity has been the subject of well-deserved scorn in recent years as a legal mechanism that shields government officials from constitutional accountability. But its shadow has hidden another mechanism that provides an unqualified immunity from constitutional accountability. That de facto absolute immunity extends to federal officials in all but a vanishingly few contexts where claims are still permitted under the 1971 Supreme Court decision Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. But it was not always that way. In its 1978 decision Butz v. Economou, the Supreme Court permitted Bivens claims to proceed against …

The Neuroscience Of Qualified Immunity, Gary S. Gildin

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Qualified immunity not only absolves public officials from accountability for the damages caused when they deprive a citizen of their constitutional rights; by virtue of companion doctrines shielding governmental entities from liability, conferral of immunity leaves the victim to bear the loss. Therefore, it is essential that the contours of immunity be carefully calibrated to align with its intended purposes.

The United States Supreme Court has continuously expanded immunity to protect the exercise of discretion where, albeit acting in violation of constitutional norms, the official could have reasonably believed their conduct was constitutional. This Article exposes the implicit assumptions as …

Bringing History Home: Strategies For The International Repatriation Of Native American Cultural Property, Alec Johnson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The theft of Native American cultural items has been ongoing since Europeans began to colonize the Americas. As a result, millions of Native American artifacts are now located outside the borders of the United States. Native American tribes have long sought international repatriation—the return of these cultural objects to their tribal owners. Unfortunately, many countries have been unsupportive of repatriation attempts and Native Americans seeking the return of their cultural items face nearly insurmountable barriers in foreign courts. The U.S. government has a moral imperative to assist Native American tribes in these repatriation efforts. The debate over repatriation is defined …

The New State Of Surveillance: Societies Of Subjugation, Khaled Ali Beydoun

Washington and Lee Law Review

Foundational surveillance studies theory has largely been shaped in line with the experiences of white subjects in western capitalist societies. Formative scholars, most notably Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, theorized that the advancement of surveillance technology tempers the State’s reliance on mass discipline and corporal punishment. Legal scholarship examining modern surveillance perpetuates this view, and popular interventions, such as the blockbuster docudrama The Social Dilemma and Shoshana Zuboff’s bestseller The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, mainstream the myth of colorblind surveillance. However, the experiences of nonwhite subjects of surveillance—pushed to or beyond the margins of these formative discourses—reflect otherwise. …

The Computer Got It Wrong: Facial Recognition Technology And Establishing Probable Cause To Arrest, T.J. Benedict

Washington and Lee Law Review

Facial recognition technology (FRT) is a popular tool among police, who use it to identify suspects using photographs or still-images from videos. The technology is far from perfect. Recent studies highlight that many FRT systems are less effective at identifying people of color, women, older people, and children. These race, gender, and age biases arise because FRT is often “trained” using non-diverse faces. As a result, police have wrongfully arrested Black men based on mistaken FRT identifications. This Note explores the intersection of facial recognition technology and probable cause to arrest.

Courts rarely, if ever, examine FRT’s role in establishing …

Introduction To Symposium Issue: Military Veterans And The Law, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Upon discharge from the military, veterans must transition from living and working in the military to fully integrating into the civilian world. At a minimum, this means veterans must heal their physical and psychological wounds, find adequate housing, maintain healthy familial relationships, access necessary healthcare, and secure stable civilian employment. Although these needs are often wrought with legal complexities, veterans are often miscategorized and misunderstood by the legal community. This Symposium seeks to understand and address some of these legal issues, and the UMKC Law Review is proud to be publishing several pieces from prominent legal scholars with expertise in …

A Pill's Ransom: Healthcare Liability Litigation For Unnecessary Pelvic Examinations For Birth Control Pills, Bailey D. Barnes

Faculty Publications

Despite some of the modest advances made in reproductive rights and reproductive justice in the twentieth and early-twenty-first century in the United States, many vestiges of paternalism and overregulation of female bodies remain. This Article tackles the issue of the requirement of pelvic exams and Pap smear tests for the prescription of oral contraceptives, otherwise known as the birth control pill ("the Pill"). Though state legislators are somewhat to blame for this exercise of control over female bodies for women to receive access to contraceptives, it is the medical profession itself that is at the core of this ill. Owing …

Pembangunan Model Perlindungan Hak-Hak Warga Emas Dari Pengabaian Menurut Perundangan Islam Di Malaysia, Hasiah Mat Salleh

Student Works (2020-2029)

Situasi pengurangan kadar kelahiran dan peningkatan tahap kesihatan penduduk merupakan antara faktor utama yang menjadikan Malaysia bakal menuju ke arah sebuah negara menua menjelang tahun 2035. Walau bagaimanapun, pelbagai isu berkaitan pengabaian dan penderaan warga emas kerap dihebahkan di media massa dan media cetak. Bagi mengatasi cabaran ini, kajian ini dijalankan untuk membina Model Perlindungan Hak-Hak Warga Emas dari Pengabaian Menurut Perundangan Islam di Malaysia (Model ERIsP). Pendekatan kajian reka bentuk dan pembangunan diterapkan dalam kajian ini. Berdasarkan pendekatan yang digunakan, kajian ini dikelaskan kepada tiga [3] fasa utama. Fasa pertama kajian ini merupakan analisis keperluan dengan melaksanakan pendekatan kajian …

Duty To Rescue In The Digital Age: A Comparative Analysis, Cameron Kellett

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The article advocates for the enactment of state legislation establishing a duty-to-rescue doctrine, arguing that the absence of such a legal duty leads to preventable harm and undermines societal solidarity. It critiques the arbitrary nature of the special relationship exception under current law and proposes Minnesota's duty-to-rescue statute as a model for reform. The analysis emphasizes that requiring bystanders to provide reasonable assistance, without endangering themselves, is both feasible and morally justifiable, as it aligns with human tendencies to help others in distress.

Esports And Title Ix: Addressing Scholarship Distribution Across Gender Lines In Collegiate Esports Programs, Adam Martin

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Since its implementation in 1972, Title IX protects people in the United States from discrimination on the basis of sex under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Currently, women do not receive scholarship funds from universities with esports programs proportionate to their overall participation in esports. The Department of Education’s Office of Civil rights, which oversees Title IX implementation, currently does not have a concrete definition for “sport.” Instead, they evaluate any given activity as a “sport” under Title IX on a case-by- case basis using the following three criteria: whether or not the activity has a …

Abortion, Sterilization, And The Universe Of Reproductive Rights, Melissa Murray

William & Mary Law Review

In recent years, a new narrative associating reproductive rights with the eugenics movement of the 1920s has taken root. As this narrative maintains, in the 1920s, Margaret Sanger, a pioneer of the modern birth control movement, joined forces with the eugenics movement to market family planning measures to marginalized minority communities.

Although the history undergirding this narrative is incomplete and misleading, the narrative itself has flourished as the debate over the continued vitality of reproductive rights has unfolded in the United States. Indeed, in just the last three years, a member of the United States Supreme Court and a number …

No Child Left Behind Bars: Applying The Principles Of Strict Scrutiny When Sentencing Juveniles Tried As Adults, Max Chu

William & Mary Law Review

The Commonwealth of Virginia was the first in the nation to pass legislation that provides judges with the discretion to veer away from the mandatory minimum sentence and to impose trauma-informed and age-appropriate sentences for juvenile offenders convicted of felonies and tried as adults. Although Virginia’s new law, House Bill 744 (HB 744), is a pioneering step in the right direction, this Note argues that the law may now provide judges with too much discretion. In other words, HB 744 alone, without more guidance, does not go far enough to protect the rights of juvenile offenders.

Therefore, this Note proposes …

Fourth Amendment Infringement Is Afoot: Revitalizing Particularized Reasonable Suspicion For Terry Stops Based On Vague Or Discrepant Suspect Descriptions, Caroline E. Lewis

William & Mary Law Review

In Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court granted law enforcement broad power to perform a limited stop and search of someone when an officer has reasonable suspicion that the person is engaged in criminal activity. The resulting “Terry stop” created a way for police officers to investigate a suspicious person without requiring full probable cause for an arrest. The officer need only have “reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts” based on the circumstances and the officer’s policing “experience that criminal activity may be afoot.” Reasonable suspicion is—by design—a broad standard, deferential to police officers’ judgment. Law enforcement officers …

Bigotry, Civil Rights, And Lgbtq Child Welfare, Jordan Blair Woods

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Who’s the Bigot? Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law. By Linda C. McClain.

Hostile Shores: Racial Exclusion Laws And The West Coast, Brendan Williams

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the historical and ongoing racial exclusion laws on the West Coast, focusing on California, Oregon, and Washington. It argues that despite their progressive reputation, these states have a legacy of discriminatory laws targeting Chinese, Black, and Japanese populations, which has led to enduring racial inequities that persist today.

Why Do You Care About My Hair? A Proposal For Remedying Hair Discrimination In The Workplace On A Federal Level, Grayson Moronta

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sheriffs, State Troopers, And The Spillover Effects Of Immigration Policing, Huyen Pham, Pham Hoang Van

Faculty Scholarship

As the Biden Administration decides whether to continue the 287(g) program (the controversial program deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws), our research shows that the program has broader negative effects on policing behavior than previously identified. To date, debate about the 287(g) program has focused exclusively on the policing behavior of law enforcement agencies like sheriff’s offices that sign the agreements, and on concerns that these signatory local enforcement agencies (“LEAs”) engage in racial profiling. Our research shows that the agreements also negatively affect the behavior of nearby, nonsignatory law enforcement agencies. Using 18 million traffic …

Reclaiming Equality: How Regressive Laws Can Advance Progressive Ends, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

Since the fall of 2020, right-wing forces have targeted Critical Race Theory ("CR T') through a sustained disinformation campaign. This offensive has deployed anti-CRT rhetoric to justify a host of "Backlash Bills" designed to chill conversations about race and racism in the classroom. Concerned stakeholders have assailed these laws as morally bankrupt and legally suspect. These responses are natural and appropriate. But challenging a bill's moral or legal mooring is insufficient to counter a primary purpose of this legislative onslaught: to further erode, within our public discourse and collective consciousness, the ability to distinguish between racism and antiracism. To meet …

Proving Racism: Gibson Bros. Inc. V. Oberlin College And The Implications On Defamation Law, Liam H. Mcmillin

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.