Constitutional Law Commons^™

From Fugitives To Ferguson: Repairing Historical And Structural Defects In Legally Sanctioned Use Of Deadly Force, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

The lawful use of lethal force to subdue suspected wrongdoers has a long tradition in our nation. There is certainly nothing wrong with securing, incapacitating, or even killing violent persons who pose a serious threat to the lives of innocent individuals. One of the important roles of government is to protect people from harm and keep the peace. Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, have highlighted the tension between the officers on the beat and citizens on the street. These tensions are not likely to subside unless there are major structural changes in the way the police do their job and …

Race, Federalism, And Voting Rights, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court struck down an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, section 4, on federalism grounds. The Court argued that Congress no longer had the power to enact section 4 because of the “federalism costs” imposed by the Act and because the Act violated "basic principles" of federalism. Unfortunately, the Court failed to articulate the costs to federalism imposed by the Act, much less conduct a cost-benefit analysis in order to determine whether the benefits of the Act outweighed its costs. Moreover, the Court failed to discuss whether the Reconstruction Amendments ought to matter …

Reynolds Reconsidered, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Enforcing The Fifteenth Amendment, Ellen D. Katz

Book Chapters

This chapter examines efforts to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment in the period from United States v. Reese through Shelby County v. Holder. Reese and Shelby County expose the most rigorous stance the Court has employed to review congressional efforts to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, while the years in-between show Congress and the Court working more in tandem, at times displaying remarkable indifference to blatant violations of the Fifteenth Amendment, and elsewhere working cooperatively to help vindicate the Amendment’s promise. Defying simple explanation, this vacillation between cooperation and resistance captures the complex and deeply consequential way concerns about federal power, …

On Class-Not-Race, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Book Chapters

Throughout the civil rights era, strong voices have argued that policy interventions should focus on class or socioeconomic status, not race. At times, this position-taking has seemed merely tactical, opportunistic, or in bad faith. Many who have opposed race-based civil rights interventions on this basis have not turned around to support robust efforts to reduce class-based or socioeconomic inequality. That sort of opportunism is interesting and important for understanding policy debates in civil rights, but it is not my focus here. I am more interested here in the people who clearly mean it. For example, President Lyndon Baines Johnson—who can …

A Nation Of Widening Opportunities: The Civil Rights Act At 50, Ellen D. Katz, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Books

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an extraordinary achievement of law, politics, and human rights. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Act's passage, it is appropriate to reflect on the successes and failures of the civil rights project reflected in the statute, as well as on its future directions. This volume represents an attempt to assess the Civil Rights Act's legacy.

On October 11, 2013, a diverse group of civil rights scholars met at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor to assess the interpretation, development, and administration of civil rights law in the five decades since …

Jurisprudential Ties That Blind: The Means To Ending Affirmative Action, Tanya M. Washington

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Preventing Balkanization Or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique Of The New Equal Protection, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court requires that equal protection plaintiffs prove defendants acted with discriminatory intent. The intent rule has insulated from judicial invalidation numerous policies that harmfully impact racial and ethnic minorities. Court doctrine also mandates that state actors generally remain colorblind. The colorblindness doctrine has led to the judicial invalidation of policies designed to ameliorate the conditions of racial inequality. Taken together, these two equality doctrines facilitate racial domination. The Court justifies this outcome on the ground that the Constitution does not protect "group rights. "

Constitutional law theorists have criticized these aspects of equal protection doctrine. Recently, however, some …

"Fuck Your Breath": Black Men And Youth, State Violence, And Human Rights In The 21st Century, Jeremy I. Levitt

Journal Publications

This polemical essay was written at the behest of Black men and youth, and it is dedicated to African American women who relentlessly fight to safeguard the rights and well-being of Black men, even when in the process their maltreatment and welfare are grossly overlooked and forgotten. Bree Newsome's courageous and necessary removal of the confederate flag in the South Carolina State House is a prime example of such fearless activism. Joanne Deborah Chesimard aka Assata Shakur's-a former leader of the revolutionary organization known as the Black Liberation Armyascendency to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list is another tragically intoxicating …

Litigating Against The Civil Rights Movement, Christopher W. Schmidt

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Welcome To The Village: An Analysis Of How St. Louis County Occupancy Permit Schemes Perpetuate Segregation And Violate The Constitution, Zachary Schmook, Lauren Verseman

Publications

No abstract provided.

Cherokee Freedmen And The Color Of Belonging, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

This article addresses the Cherokee tribe and their historic conflict with the descendants of their former black slaves, designated Cherokee Freedmen. This article specifically addresses how historic discussions of black, red and white skin colors, designating the African-ancestored, aboriginal (Native American) and European-ancestored people of the United States, have helped to shape the contours of color-based national belonging among the Cherokee. This article also suggests that Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of postcolonial mimicry offers a potent source for analyzing the Cherokee’s historic use of skin color as a marker of Cherokee membership. The Cherokee past practice of black slavery and …

Revoking Rights, Craig J. Konnoth

Publications

In important areas of law, such as the vested rights doctrine, and in several important cases--including those involving the continued validity of same-sex marriages and the Affordable Care Act--courts have scrutinized the revocation of rights once granted more closely than the failure to provide the rights in the first place. This project claims that in so doing, courts seek to preserve important constitutional interests. On the one hand, based on our understanding of rights possession, rights revocation implicates autonomy interests of the rights holder to a greater degree than a failure to afford rights at the outset. On the other …

Religiosity In Constitutions And The Status Of Minority Rights, Brandy G. Robinson

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Minority rights and religion have never been topics that are simultaneously considered. However, arguably, the two have relevance, especially when combined with the topic and theory of constitutionalism. Historically and traditionally, minorities have been granted certain rights and have been denied certain rights under various constitutions. These grants and denials relate to cultural differences and values, arguably relating to a culture’s understanding and interpretation of religion.

This article explores the relationship and status of minority rights as it relates to religiosity and constitutionalism. Essentially, there is a correlation between these topics and research shows where certain nations have used religion …

Closing The Doors To Justice: A Critique Of Pimentel V. Dreyfus And The Application Of Legal Formalism To The Elimination Of Food Assistance Benefits For Legal Immigrants, Hannah Zommick

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment contends that the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Pimentel v. Dreyfus employed a legal formalist approach and that by applying this framework, the court prevented legal immigrants, who were caught between the strict eligibility restrictions of welfare reform, from asserting their rights through the justice system. The legal formalist approach “treats the law as a set of scientific formulae or principles that are derived from the study of case law. These principles create an internal analytical framework which, when applied to a set of facts, leads the decision maker, through logical deduction, to the correct outcome in a case.” …

And Stay Out! The Dangers Of Using Anti-Immigrant Sentiment As A Basis For Social Policy: America Should Take Heed Of Disturbing Lessons From Great Britain's Past, Kevin C. Wilson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Equality And The European Union, Elizabeth F. Defeis

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Analysis Of Unconscious And Institutional Discrimination In The United States And Britain, Leland Ware

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Tales Of Color And Colonialism: Racial Realism And Settler Colonial Theory, Natsu Taylor Saito

Florida A & M University Law Review

More than a half-century after the civil rights era, people of color in the United States remain disproportionately impoverished and incarcerated, excluded and vulnerable. Legal remedies rooted in the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection remain elusive. This article argues that the "racial realism" advocated by the late Professor Derrick Bell compels us to look critically at the purposes served by racial hierarchy. By stepping outside the master narrative's depiction of the United States as a "nation of immigrants" with opportunity for all, we can recognize it as a settler state, much like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It could not …

Changing The Wind: Notes Toward A Demosprudence Of Law And Social Movements, Lani Guinier, Gerald Torres

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This essay was influenced by a class on Law and Social Movements that Professors Guinier and Torres taught at the Yale Law School in 2011. This essay was also informed by numerous conversations with Bruce Ackerman regarding his book that is under review in this Symposium. While we are in fundamental agreement with Professor Ackerman’s project, as well as the claims he makes as to the new constitutional canon, we supplement his analysis with the overlooked impact of the lawmaking potential of social movements. In particular, we focus on those social movements that were critical to the legal changes that …

Brief Of Public Law Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Islamic Influence In (Pre-)Colonial And Early America: A Historico-Legal Snapshot, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Special Administrative Measures And The War On Terror: When Do Extreme Pretrial Detention Measures Offend The Constitution?, Andrew Dalack

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Our criminal justice system is founded upon a belief that one is innocent until proven guilty. This belief is what foists the burden of proving a person’s guilt upon the government and belies a statutory presumption in favor of allowing a defendant to remain free pending trial at the federal level. Though there are certainly circumstances in which a federal magistrate judge may—and sometimes must—remand a defendant to jail pending trial, it is well-settled that pretrial detention itself inherently prejudices the quality of a person’s defense. In some cases, a defendant’s pretrial conditions become so onerous that they become punitive …

Will The South Rise Again And, If So, In What Form?: Lessons From Latcrit About Resisting The Fear Of Cultural Understanding, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Through lessons learned from LatCrit 2013, this essay is hoping to evoke the missing sentiment of understanding and equality by signifying that the south that will rise again will be a south that is transformed, as Dr. Martin Luther King said “into an oasis of freedom and justice,” by moving out of its fears of understanding and moving to a far greater level of cross-cultural understanding.

The Paradox Of Race-Conscious Labels, Leslie Y. Garfield

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Labeling affirmative action laws with integrity is a hopelessly paradoxical pursuit. This article illustrates the consequences of such a pursuit. Section I traces the origins of the Top Ten Percent Law, which arose as a legislative protest to the Fifth Circuit's rejection of the use of race in admissions decisions. This section provides an in-depth understanding of the Top Ten Percent Law and concludes with a detailed analysis of the Fisher decision. Section II supplies an explanation of the majority's conclusion to treat the Top Ten Percent Law as race-neutral and provides detailed support for Justice Ginsburg's affirmation that the …

Constitutional Concern, Membership, And Race, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

American Indian Tribes in the United States have a unique legal and political status shaped by fluctuating federal policies and the over-arching history of this country’s brand of settler-colonialism. One of the several legacies of this history is that federally recognized tribes have membership rules that diverge significantly from typical state or national citizenship criteria. These rules and their history are poorly understood by judges and members of the public, leading to misunderstandings about the “racial” status of tribes and Indian people, and on occasion to incoherent and damaging decisions on a range of Indian law issues. This article, which …

Ownership Without Citizenship: The Creation Of Noncitizen Property Rights, Allison Brownell Tirres

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

At the nation’s founding, the common law of property defined ownership as an incident of citizenship. Noncitizens were unable lawfully to hold, devise, or inherit property. This doctrine eroded during the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but few scholars have examined its demise or the concommittant rise of property rights for foreigners. This Article is the first sustained treatment of the creation of property rights for noncitizens in American law. It uncovers two key sources for the rights that emerged during the nineteenth century: federal territorial law, which allowed for alien property ownership and alien suffrage, and state …

'Dred Scott V. Sandford' Analysis, Sarah E. Roessler

Student Publications

The Scott v. Sandford decision will forever be known as a dark moment in America's history. The Supreme Court chose to rule on a controversial issue, and they made the wrong decision. Scott v. Sandford is an example of what can happen when the Court chooses to side with personal opinion instead of what is right.

Review Of Prigg V. Pennsylvania: Slavery, The Supreme Court, And The Ambivalent Constitution, Susan David Demaine

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In 1842, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, resolving a dispute about fugitive slave rendition that had raged between the states for decades. H. Robert Baker’s analysis of the decision and the events that led up to it is the first book-length work to investigate Prigg and its place in American history. Baker traces the development of fugitive slave laws and recounts the heart-wrenching story that lies behind Prigg to shed light on the Supreme Court’s decision and the gradual clarification of American federalism.

The "Nixon Sabotage": The Political Origins Of The Equal Protection Challenge To The Voting Rights Act, Danieli Evans

Articles

Critics of the Voting Rights Act argue that the anti-discrimination law requires states to engage in unconstitutional discrimination, as state decisionmakers must be conscious of race in order to ensure that voting policies do not weaken minority representation. This argument relies on the idea that subjective racial motivation is the essence of unconstitutional discrimination (even if benevolent, or to promote racial inclusion). The conventional understanding among constitutional scholars is that this “search for the bigoted decisionmaker” developed in employment and housing discrimination decisions between 1976 and 1979. Previous accounts have not recognized the role that the 1971 school desegregation decision …