Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

What Lurks Below Beckles, Leah Litman, Shakeer Rahman

Articles

This Essay argues that if the Supreme Court grants habeas relief in Beckles v. United States, then it should spell out certain details about where a Beckles claim comes from and who such a claim benefits. Those details are not essential to the main question raised in the case, but the federal habeas statute takes away the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to hear just about any case that would raise those questions. For that reason, this Essay concludes that failing to address those questions now could arbitrarily condemn hundreds of prisoners to illegal sentences and lead to a situation where the …

Unconventional Methods For A Traditional Setting: The Use Of Virtual Reality To Reduce Implicit Racial Bias In The Courtroom, Natalie Salmanowitz

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial lie at the core of the United States justice system. While existing rules and practices serve to uphold these principles, the administration of justice is significantly compromised by a covert but influential factor: namely, implicit racial biases. These biases can lead to automatic associations between race and guilt, as well as impact the way in which judges and jurors interpret information throughout a trial. Despite the well-documented presence of implicit racial biases, few steps have been taken to ameliorate the problem in the courtroom setting. This Article discusses the …

Pregnancy, Thomas Simmons

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Recording A New Frontier In Evidence-Gathering: Police Body-Worn Cameras And Privacy Doctrines In Washington State, Katie Farden

Seattle University Law Review

This Note contributes to a growing body of work that weighs the gains that communities stand to make from police body-worn cameras against the tangle of concerns about how cameras may infringe on individual liberties and tread on existing privacy laws. While police departments have quickly implemented cameras over the past few years, laws governing the use of the footage body-worn cameras capture still trail behind. Notably, admissibility rules for footage from an officer’s camera, and evidence obtained with the help of that footage, remain on the horizon. This Note focuses exclusively on Washington State’s laws. It takes a clinical …

"Hands Up, Don't Shoot": Police Misconduct And The Need For Body Cameras, Iesha S. Nunes

Florida Law Review

The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri is probably the most notable of the many recent cases in the media involving police officers' use of excessive force. After Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown, varying accounts of what transpired between the two men surfaced. Officer Wilson claimed he was defending himself against Brown when he fired the fatal shots; however, other witnesses claimed Brown had his hands raised above his head in a position of surrender when Officer Wilson killed him. This case highlights the need for police officers to wear body cameras because the extremely different …

The Preclusion Of § 1983 Claims By The Age Discrimination In Employment Act Following Hildebrand V. Allegheny County, Erin L. Donnelly

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note maintains that the Supreme Court should resolve the circuit split by affirming the Hildebrand court’s decision. Part I of this Note discusses the background of the ADEA and § 1983, including each legislation’s purpose, legislative history, and provisions. Part I concludes with a discussion of the doctrine of implied preclusion. Part II presents the circuit split by discussing the way the courts have analyzed this issue prior to Fitzgerald and how subsequent courts have decided the issue in light of Fitzgerald. Part III asserts that the ADEA precludes equal protection claims through § 1983 because of …

Brief For Amici Curiae Fred T. Korematsu Center For Law And Equality, Anti-Defamation League, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Asian American Bar Association Of New York, Asian American Legal Defense And Education Fund, Hispanic National Bar Association, Latinojustice Prldef Inc., Metropolitan Black Bar Association, Naacp Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc., National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, National Bar Association, National Native American Bar Association, Society Of American Law Teachers, Inc., South Asian Bar Association Of New York, South Asian Bar Association Of North America, And Law Professors In Support Of Defendant-Apellant, Fred T. Korematsu Center For Law And Equality, Attorneys For Amicus Curiae

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality

People v. Joseph Bridgeforth

Treatment As An Individual And The Priority Of Persons Over Groups In Antidiscrimination Law, Patrick S. Shin

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

The Supreme Court has said that the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination require that all persons be treated as individuals and that the laws operate primarily to protect “persons, not groups.” This article shows that the legal requirement of individual treatment has two distinct components: a rule invalidating inferences about persons based on their membership in protected groups and a rule prohibiting disparate treatment for the sake of group interests or intergroup equality. The first rule is rooted in moral principles of respect for individual autonomy. The second rule is a principle that …

Attempted Elimination Of School Segregation Through Zoning Held Invalid

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Lawyer And Civil Rights, Joseph T. Tinnelly, C.M.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari. Lavigne V. Cajun Deep Foundations, L.L.C., 137 S.Ct. 1328 (2017) (No. 16-464), 2016 Wl 5929996, Eric Schnapper, J. Arthur Smith, Iii, Justin M. Delaune

Court Briefs

QUESTIONS PRESENTED (1) To establish a prima facie case of discriminatory termination, is a plaintiff required to show that he was replaced by someone outside his or her protected group? (2) Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a plaintiff prior to:bringing a civil action must first file a charge with the EEOC, usually within 300 days of the action complained of. The Question Presented is: Where a claimant files a timely Title VII charge asserting that employer conduct was the result of a particular unlawful motive, may the claimant after the end of the charge-filing period …

A Nurse's Face: The Burqa In The Hospital, Lucas Newbill

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Relationship Status? It's Complicated: Redefining Sexuality In The Workplace In Light Of Obergefell And The Eeoc, Patrick Bailey

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Free Speech Response To The Gay Rights/Religious Liberty Conflict, Andrew Koppelman

Northwestern University Law Review

The most sensible reconciliation of the tension between religious liberty and public accommodations law, in the recent cases involving merchants with religious objections to same-sex marriage, would permit business owners to present their views to the world, but forbid them either to threaten to discriminate or to treat any individual customer worse than others. Even if such businesses have no statutory right to refuse to facilitate ceremonies they regard as immoral, they are unlikely to be asked to participate in those ceremonies. This solution may, however, be forbidden by the law of hostile environment harassment. That raises a severe free …

The Lawfulness Of The Same-Sex Marriage Decisions: Charles Black On Obergefell, Toni M. Massaro

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Perspectives On The Meaning Of "Disability", Leslie Francis, Anita Silvers

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The meaning of “disability” has shifted with changes in public policy. Half a century ago, Congress was convinced that narrow determinations of disability are easy for physicians to make. But with the advent of universal civil rights protection against disability discrimination in the US, deciding whether particular individuals are disabled became increasingly contentious, until Congress intervened. What should now be addressed in each case is not whether the functionally compromised person is severely disabled enough to exercise a right, but whether mitigating interventions and reasonable accommodations can together achieve equitable access for that person.

Tightening The Ooda Loop: Police Militarization, Race, And Algorithmic Surveillance, Jeffrey L. Vagle

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article examines how military automated surveillance and intelligence systems and techniques, when used by civilian police departments to enhance predictive policing programs, have reinforced racial bias in policing. I will focus on two facets of this problem. First, I investigate the role played by advanced military technologies and methods within civilian police departments. These approaches have enabled a new focus on deterrence and crime prevention by creating a system of structural surveillance where decision support relies increasingly upon algorithms and automated data analysis tools and automates de facto penalization and containment based on race. Second, I will explore these …

The First Amendment And The Police In The Digital Age, Kermit V. Lipez

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

What’S Wrong With Sentencing Equality?, Richard A. Bierschbach, Stephanos Bibas

Articles

Equality in criminal sentencing often translates into equalizing outcomes and stamping out variations, whether race-based, geographic, or random. This approach conflates the concept of equality with one contestable conception focused on outputs and numbers, not inputs and processes. Racial equality is crucial, but a concern with eliminating racism has hypertrophied well beyond race. Equalizing outcomes seems appealing as a neutral way to dodge contentious substantive policy debates about the purposes of punishment. But it actually privileges deterrence and incapacitation over rehabilitation, subjective elements of retribution, and procedural justice, and it provides little normative guidance for punishment. It also has unintended …

Why Feminist Legal Theory Still Needs Mary Joe Frug: Thoughts On Conflicts In Feminism, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rfra And The Affordable Care Act: Does The Contraception Mandate Discriminate Against Religious Employers?, Alisa Lalana

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can You Hear Me Now?: Interpreters For California Civil Cases, Jena Maccabe

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

War By Legislation: The Constitutionality Of Congressional Regulation Of Detentions In Armed Conflicts, Christopher M. Ford

Northwestern University Law Review

In this essay, Ford considers provisions of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which place restrictions on the disposition of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay. These provisions raise substantial separation of powers issues regarding the ability of Congress to restrict detention operations of the Executive. These restrictions, and similar restrictions found in earlier NDAAs, specifically implicate the Executive's powers in foreign affairs and as Commander in Chief. Ford concludes that, with the exception of a similar provision found in the 2013 NDAA, the restrictions are constitutional.

The Death Knell For The Death Penalty And The Significance Of Global Realism To Its Abolition From Glossip V. Gross To Brumfield V. Cain, Linda A. Malone

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding the death penalty, whether or not cruel, has most certainly been unusual in the annals of criminal punishment. In the short span of four years, the Court foreclosed and then reopened this form of punishment in Furman v. Georgia and Gregg v. Georgia. One year later the Court would categorically exclude the punishment for the rape of an adult. Five years later the Court would again preclude the punishment, for any defendant convicted of felony-murder who did not participate or share in the homicidal act or intent. In 1986 the Court would struggle with …

Apple Watch-Ing You: Why Wearable Technology Should Be Federally Regulated, Grant Arnow

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bullying And The Individuals With Disabililities Education Act (Idea): A Framework For Provising Relief To Students With Disabilities, Sarah H. Ganley

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Note: Anti-Discrimination Legislation In Housing

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Fred T. Korematsu Center For Law And Equality In Support Of Petitioners, Robert Chang, Jessica Levin, Fred T. Korematsu Center For Law And Equality, Attorneys For Amicus Curiae

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality

State v. Houston-Sconiers et al.

State & Federal Religious Accommodation Bills: Overview Of The 2015-2016 Legislative Session, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

Since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples were unconstitutional, opponents of marriage equality and LGBT rights have largely turned their attention to the enactment of religious exemption laws. These exemptions allow individuals and organizations to violate certain federal, state, and local laws and regulations that conflict with their religious faith. While some proposed bills are state-level variations on the extremely broad and general federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), passed in 1993, a new variety of legislation provides narrower accommodations specifically relating to religious views about sex, …

Racial Profiling In The Era Of Black De-Constitutionalism, Donald F. Tibbs

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.