Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Closing The Gap Between What Is Lawful And What Is Right In Police Use Of Force Jurisprudence By Making Police Departments More Democratic Institutions, Jonathan M. Smith

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was shot to death in Ferguson, Missouri, by police officer Darren Wilson. Members of the Ferguson community rose up in response. Protests demanding that police violence against African Americans cease and that accountability for police misconduct be addressed erupted across the country, and they have not subsided since. Incidents in Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; WallerCounty, Texas; and elsewhere have kept the movement alive. The mass media, the political elite, and the White middle class woke up to a reality that had been long known to communities of color – force is used disproportionately against …

Justice In The Deep South: Learning From History, Charting Our Future: An Introduction, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Mercer Law Review

Opinions differ on the principal role of academic institutions. Should Universities be primarily concerned with scholarship and research? With classroom instruction? With producing well-rounded citizens? Mercer University has long been committed to each of these three priorities. Decades before I joined the faculty at Mercer Law School, schools within the University were already working to make public service a priority, in addition to teaching and scholarship.

Following suit, this year's Mercer Law Review Symposium boldly moved to address controversial social justice issues.' The Symposium, "Justice in the Deep South: Learning From History, Charting Our Future," featured a powerful and varied …

Keynote Address, Stephen B. Bright

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Session Three: Learning From Innovators

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Binary Imprisonment: Transgender Inmates Ensnared Within The System And Confined To Assigned Gender, Danielle Matricardi

Mercer Law Review

It is June 26, 2015. The sun is shining, and the grass is wet with morning dew. Those unaware sip their coffee on the way to work, perplexed why so many rainbow flags clutter their morning commute. Celebrations are breaking out across the Nation. The United States Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage. Finally, the day has come when people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBTQ) are given the same rights as their heterosexual brothers and sisters. If only there was any truth to such idealism. To the contrary, there are still debilitating injustices against members of …

Protecting The Compromised Worker: A Challenge For Employment Discrimination Law, Peter Siegelman

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Symposium Transcript: Justice In The Deep South: Learning From History, Charting Our Future

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Search Of The Beloved Community, Robert L. Rhodes Jr., Tremaine Reese

Mercer Law Review

This Article describes the process by which the Georgia Appleseed Center for Law & Justice (Georgia Appleseed) has engaged Georgians in crucial conversations about critical issues concerning the relationship among law enforcement officers and the community members they serve. We also discuss how Georgia Appleseed is working to have the content of these conversations foster change to law and policy designed to enhance police community relations.

This is a story half told. As of the date of publication of this Article, the fact-gathering and legal research described below will have been completed and public advocacy for change will have commenced. …

How The Narrative About Louisiana's Non-Unanimous Criminal Jury System Became A Person Of Interest In The Case Against Justice In The Deep South, Angela A. Allen-Bell

Mercer Law Review

Stories are central to what lawyers do; yet, to the average member of the legal community, they exist only inconspicuously. In actuality, all cases start with a story. As lawyers do their work, that initial story grows and evolves. When judges enter the picture, the story is revised and, ultimately, the final chapter is written; then, the process begins again with an entirely different cast of characters. This Article advocates against impersonal, mechanized systems of justice that are built upon defendants, dockets, cases, quotas, formulas, and rapidity. This Article calls for the justice community to see cases in a highly …

Session One: Learning From Souther History And Culture

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Session Two: Learning From Struggles

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

#Sayhername #Blackwomenslivesmatter: State Violence In Policing The Black Female Body, Teri A. Mcmurtry-Chubb

Mercer Law Review

On June 30, 1974, Alberta Williams King was shot and killed in the sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia as she played the organ for Sunday morning service. Mrs. King, seventy years old, was the mother of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. News of her death was overshadowed by four Black men: her son, killed six years previously; the shooting of a "young Black man" in Atlanta on June 26, 1974, who was out on parole; Maynard Jackson, then newly elected as Atlanta's first Black mayor; and her assailant, a Black man, a Vietnam War veteran …

Access Versus Success: An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of The Summer Developmental Program In Mississippi Higher Education, Amanda Susanne King

Dissertations

Historical racial segregation within Mississippi’s public universities and colleges has led to litigation that spanned 25 years and eventually led to sweeping changes in policies and practices. Among these changes were the standardization of admission criteria and the creation of the Summer Developmental Program (SDP). This study sought to better understand the intentions and motives behind the creation and implementation of the SDP at all of the four-year public institutions in Mississippi stemming from the United States v. Fordice (1992) higher education desegregation case. This study compared retention and graduation rates of SDP participants to non-SDP participants from the first …

The Price Of Carceral Citizenship: Punishment, Surveillance, And Social Welfare Policy In An Age Of Carceral Expansion, Reuben Jonathan Miller, Amanda Alexander

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The unprecedented rise in the number of people held in U.S. jails and prisons has garnered considerable attention from policy makers, activists, and academics alike. Signaled in part by Michelle Alexander’s New York Times bestseller, The New Jim Crow, and the unlikely coalition of activists, policy makers, celebrities, and business leaders on both sides of the political aisle who have pledged to end mass incarceration in our lifetime, the prison system has returned to public policy discourse in a way that was unforeseen less than a decade ago. On any given day in 2014, just over 2.3 million people were …

Legal Aid's Once And Future Role For Impacting The Criminalization Of Poverty And The War On The Poor, Aneel L. Chablani

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Recent media coverage and advocacy efforts on behalf of individuals subjected to criminal sanctions as a result of their poverty status has resulted in increased attention on this nation’s troubled history of oppression and control of the poor and people of color. At the federal, state, and local levels, a growing number of policies create criminal sanctions for poverty-related circumstances. These, in turn, result in collateral consequences that unfairly affect those who lack the means to afford their criminal justice experience (i.e., processing costs, fees, and fines), or affect their ability to access employment, housing, or other basic services. These …

The Ohio Model For Combatting Debtors' Prisons, Jocelyn Rosnick, Mike Brickner

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In 2013, the ACLU of Ohio released a report titled The Outskirts of Hope: How Ohio’s Debtors’ Prisons Are Ruining Lives and Costing Communities. The report exposed the blatantly unconstitutional practice in courts across Ohio of jailing people who were too poor to pay their court fines and fees, and along with our ongoing advocacy efforts, resulted in sweeping change across the state. This Essay looks at the destruction modern debtors’ prisons have on individuals, families, and communities and overviews the research, advocacy, and communications tools the ACLU of Ohio has used to successfully combat debtors’ prisons. The goal is …

Online Case Resolution Systems: Enhancing Access, Fairness, Accuracy, And Efficiency, Maximilian A. Bulinski, J.J. Prescott

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Online case resolution (OCR) systems have the potential to dramatically increase access to our justice system. Part I introduces the concept of an OCR system, how it might work in practice, and its likely impact on courts and citizens. Part II argues that OCR systems can lower many of the barriers to going to court by reducing the need for face-to-face resolution of disputes; cutting the amount of time needed for hearings; mitigating litigant confusion and fear; allowing asynchronous scheduling that can accommodate work and child-care schedules; and offering a more reliable and easier-to-use means for litigants to voice their …

How The Ada Regulates And Restricts Solitary Confinement For People With Mental Disabilities, Margo Schlanger

Other Publications

In a landmark decision two decades ago, United States District Judge Thelton Henderson emphasized the toxic effects of solitary confinement for inmates with mental illness. In Madrid v. Gomez, a case about California’s Pelican Bay prison, Judge Henderson wrote that isolated conditions in the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, while not amounting to cruel and unusual punishment for all prisoners, were unconstitutional for those “at a particularly high risk for suffering very serious or severe injury to their mental health . . . .” Vulnerable prisoners included those with pre-existing mental illness, intellectual disabilities, and brain damage. Henderson concluded that …

Race And The Jury: How The Law Is Keeping Minorities Off The Jury, Stephanie Adamakos

Washington University Undergraduate Law Review

The modern jury focuses on three main ideas: impartiality, as laid out in the Sixth Amendment, jury of one’s peers, stemming from the Magna Carta, and a jury that represents a fair cross-section of the community. The cross-section idea has been developed by case law, but originates from the Sixth Amendment, under the belief that jury selection that does not systematically discriminate against members of the community and has a jury pool represents a cross-section of the community is likely to be impartial. Jurors are likely to draw upon their own experiences when deliberating, so having a variety of experiences …

Prostitution Policy: Legalization, Decriminalization And The Nordic Model, Ane Mathieson, Easton Branam, Anya Noble

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Don’T Risk It; Wait Until She’S Sober, Patrick John White

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Let’S Talk About Sex: A Call For Guardianship Reform In Washington State, Sage Graves

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Living Under The Boot: Militarization And Peaceful Protest, Charlotte Guerra

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Let’S Invest In People, Not Prisons: How Washington State Should Address Its Ex-Offender Unemployment Rate, Sara Taboada

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

His Feminist Facade: The Neoliberal Co-Option Of The Feminist Movement, Anjilee Dodge, Myani Gilbert

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

In Her Words: Recognizing And Preventing Abusive Litigation Against Domestic Violence Survivors, David Ward

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Persistence And Resistance: Women’S Leadership And Ending Gender-Based Violence In Guatemala, Serena Cosgrove, Kristi Lee

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Gavish V. Knesset, Miriam Naor, Yoram Danziger, Elyakim Rubinstein, Uzi Vogelman, Daphne Barak-Erez, Esther Hayut, Neal Hendel

Translated Opinions

Section 4 of the Retirement Age Law, 5764-2004 (hereinafter: the Law) provides that "the age at which an employee can be required to retire because of age is 67 for a man and for a woman". The petitioners challenged the validity of section 4 of the Law, and the hearin focused on the question of whether that statutory provision is constitutional.

The High Court of Justice (per President Naor, Deputy President Rubinstein and Justices Danziger, Vogelman, Barak-Erez, Hayut and Hendel concurring) dismissed the petition, holding:

The Court applies judicial review of the Knesset's primary legislation with restraint and caution. …

The Strange Career Of Title Vii's § 703(M): An Essay On The Unfulfilled Promise Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1991, Jeffrey A. Van Detta

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The 1991 CRA, then, held great promise when it responded to the provocation of Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins to address a larger problem—the problem that Francis Vaas identified in 1966. However, the often-invoked canon of statutory construction—start and stop with the text unless it is necessary to go to the legislative history to figure out what an ambiguous text means—has been tossed to the side, and the contextual history of overruling Price Waterhouse has been invoked by normally textualist judges who refuse to believe that Congress actually meant what it wrote. It is upon that sobering reality that we …

It Is Political: Using The Models Of Judicial Decision Making To Explain The Ideological History Of Title Vii, Kate Webber

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In Part I, this Article details the key features of Title VII’s history, explaining the statute, the significant role the Supreme Court has played in its interpretation, and the history of congressional intervention to override Supreme Court decisions on key issues. Part II reviews the existing evidence for and against an ideological interpretation of Title VII’s case law. Part III introduces the political science models of judicial decision making and applies the models to Title VII. Part III also details the models’ evidence of ideological voting by the Supreme Court and matches this evidence with voting patterns in Title …