Constitutional Law Commons^™

The Devil In Us. V. Jones: Church Burnings, Federalism, And A New Look At The Hobbs Act, Thomas Heyward Carter, Iii

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Irreparability Resurrected?: Does A Recalibrated Irreparable Injury Rule Threaten The Warren Court's Establishment Clause Legacy?, Doug Rendleman

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

How The Supreme Court Delivers Fire And Ice To State Criminal Justice, Ronald F. Wright

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Indianapolis V. Edmond: Roadblock To Fourth Amendment Erosion Of Individual Security, Samuel Bateman

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Of Orphans And Vouchers: Nevada's "Little Blaine Amendment" And The Future Of Religious Participation In Public Programs, Jay S. Bybee, David W. Newton

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Law Of The Case In Nevada: Confusing Relatives, Scott Doney

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Insubstantial Questions And Federal Jurisdiction: A Footnote To The Term-Limits Debate, Jonathan L. Entin

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Equal Protection Incorporation, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In order to preserve a broad field of play for legislative and administrative action, courts do not subject most state action to exacting scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. For half a century, the principal exception has consisted of so-called suspect and semi-suspect classifications. Although the Supreme Court has articulated criteria for identifying such classifications, standing alone, none of these criteria is satisfactory, nor has the Court found any principled means of combining them. This Article proposes a judicial reading of the Equal Protection Clause, "equal protection incorporation", that roots the process of identifying suspect and semi-suspect classifications in constitutional …

Pay Equity: A Fundamental Human Right, Margot Young

All Faculty Publications

This paper undertakes the limited task of determining what interpretive consequences, if any, might flow from the removal of federal pay equity provisions from their current location in the Canadian Human Rights Act and placement of such provisions in their own stand-alone legislation. Part of the interpretive stance courts currently bring to their consideration of the federal pay equity provisions reflects the placement of these provisions within federal human rights legislation. Courts have held that human rights legislation has a special nature or quasi-constitutional status. This status results from the fundamental character of the values the legislation expresses and the …

The Rehnquist Court, Structural Due Process, And Semisubstantive Constitutional Review, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

Semisubstantive review, as I use that label, entails four key features. First, the subject matter of judicial inquiry is not the process applied in adjudicating a discrete dispute; rather, the matter at hand is the constitutionality of a statute or other generalized expression of legal policy. Second, some procedural omission by the lawmaker -- rather than an incurably substantive flaw in the end product of its work -- lays the groundwork for a judicial intervention that invalidates the challenged rule or negates how that rule otherwise would operate. It may be, for example, that a federal statute read as a …

Yated V. Ministry Of Education, Dalia Dorner, Edmond E. Levy, Theodor Or

Translated Opinions

Facts: The Special Education Law, 1998, provides that the State must provide special education, as per the definition of that term in the statute. Petitioners are the parents of children with special needs who are integrated into the regular educational system. They claim that that State does not provide financial aid to aid them with the expense of educating their children. Petitioners assert that this infringes their children’s fundamental rights, discriminates against them, and violates the provisions of the Special Education law.

Held: The Court held that the right to education is a fundamental right. This right is recognized by …

Forfeiting "Enduring Freedom" For "Homeland Security": A Constitutional Analysis Of The Usa Patriot Act And The Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Initiatives , John W. Whitehead, Steven H. Aden

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Rational Basis For Affirmative Action: A Shaky But Classical Liberal Defense, Richard A. Epstein

Michigan Law Review

I am honored to participate in a symposium on the occasion of the lOOth anniversary of one of America's preeminent law reviews. I am saddened, however, to write, at what should be a moment of celebration, with the knowledge that both the Law School and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts are enmeshed in extensive litigation over the critical and explosive issue of affirmative action. To find striking evidence of the deep split of learned judicial views on this issue, it is necessary to look no further than the sequence of opinions in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter …

The Rhetoric Of Constitutional Law, Erwin Chemerinsky

Michigan Law Review

I spend much of my time dealing with Supreme Court opinions. Usually, I download and read them the day that they are announced by the Court. I edit them for my casebook and teach them to my students. I write about them, lecture about them, and litigate about them. My focus, like I am sure most everyone's, is functional: I try to discern the holding, appraise the reasoning, ascertain the implications, and evaluate the decision's desirability. Increasingly, though, I have begun to think that this functional approach is overlooking a crucial aspect of Supreme Court decisions: their rhetoric. I use …

Some Effects Of Identity-Based Social Movements On Constitutional Law In The Twentieth Century, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

What motivated big changes in constitutional law doctrine during the twentieth century? Rarely did important constitutional doctrine or theory change because of formal amendments to the document's text, and rarer still because scholars or judges "discovered" new information about the Constitution's original meaning. Precedent and common law reasoning were the mechanisms by which changes occurred rather than their driving force. My thesis is that most twentieth century changes in the constitutional protection of individual rights were driven by or in response to the great identity-based social movements ("IBSMs") of the twentieth century. Race, sex, and sexual orientation were markers of …

Productive Silence On Carl Schmitt: Constrained Ignorance Or Concluded Reappraisal? A Reply To Detlev F. Vagts, Carl Schmitt In Context: Reflections On A Symposium, Emanuel Richter

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adalah -- The Legal Center For Arab Minority Rights In Israel V. City Of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Aharon Barak, Dalia Dorner, Mishael Cheshin

Translated Opinions

[This abstract is not part of the Court's opinion and is provided for the reader's convenience. It has been translated from a Hebrew version prepared by Nevo Press Ltd. and is used with its kind permission.]

The subject of the Petition is whether city councils within whose jurisdiction resides an Arab minority have a duty to use the Arabic language – alongside the Hebrew language – in all city signage. The Petitioners maintain that in cities where there is an Arab minority all city signs must include writing in Arabic as well. On the other hand, the Respondents believe that …

Street Legal: The Court Affords Police Constitutional Carte Blanche To Arrest, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

This article discusses the Supreme Court's landmark 2001 decision Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, upholding the authority of police to execute warrantless arrests for menial offenses (there, failure to wear a seatbelt) so long as police have probable cause to support such arrests.

U.S. Supreme Court Hands Two Big Wins To Municipal Governments In 2001-2002 Term, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Freedom's Associations, Jason Mazzone

Washington Law Review

This Article offers a new approach to the protection of associations under the Constitution. Although the modem Supreme Court's doctrine of freedom of association is based on expression, in the early Republic associations were understood not in terms of free speech, but in terms of freedom of assembly and popular sovereignty. On this account, associations are constitutionally significant because they allow for self-government. Popular sovereignty also offers a more useful basis for understanding freedom of association today. This Article therefore provides tools for assessing the proper scope of constitutional protections for associations once they are understood in terms of popular …

Street Legal: The Court Affords Police Constitutional Carte Blanche, Wayne A. Logan

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court Takes On The First Amendment Privacy Conflict And Stumbles: Bartnicki V. Vopper, The Wiretapping Act, And The Notion Of Unlawfully Obtained Information, James M. Hilmert

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Lesbians, Gay Men, And The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms, Brenda Cossman

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The legacy of the first twenty years of the Charter for lesbians and gay men is a contradictory one of victories and defeats. At the level of doctrine, strategy, and politics, both the victories and defeats have been precarious and contradictory. While gaining formal equality rights, lesbians and gay men have not been able to secure rights to sexual freedom. And while formal equality has displaced the heteronormativity that denied legal recognition and subjectivity to lesbians and gay men, this formal equality has come at a cost. Lesbians and gay men are being reconstituted in law: some are being newly …

Justified Limits On Free Expression: The Collapse Of The General Approach To Limits On Charter Rights, Richard Moon

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The author argues that the apparent collapse or erosion of the Oakes test reflects the problem of fitting a right such as freedom of expression, which is social and relational in character, into a structure of constitutional adjudication, which is built on an individualist conception of rights. In the leading Canadian freedom of expression cases, the task for the courts under section I is not simply to strike the proper balance between competing interests, but rather to resolve the single but complex question of whether the expression contributes to, or undermines, human agency or autonomous judgment. In these cases, the …

Exchanging Constitutions: Constitutional Bricolage In Canada, David Schneiderman

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Judicial recourse to constitutional law sources from abroad has been likened to the process of bricolage--coined by anthropologist Claude Lévi- Strauss, this refers to the "borrowing from materials readily at hand." Building on the idea of constitutional borrowing, this paper aims to take account of the role dominant political culture plays in constitutional interpretation, in particular, the values associated with economic globalization. If resort to comparative constitutional sources is on the rise, dominant political culture will likely have the effect of limiting the stock of tools available to judges. The author argues that, in an age of economic globalization, the …

Twenty Years Of Labour Law And The Charter, Dianne Pothier

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article critically reviews the Charter jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada relating to labour law. The rejection of the right to strike and to bargain collectively as part of freedom of association reflect substantial judicial deference to legislative policy choices. Recently, however, a constitutional right of unfair labour protection for particularly vulnerable workers shows some judicial willingness to intervene. While freedom of expression provides significant scope to union supporters, picketing and leafleting are still subject to wide restraint, the exact parameters of which remain unclear. The Charter has had only a modest effect on labour law. Even successful …

The Ideal Victim, The Hysterical Complainant, And The Disclosure Of Confidential Records: The Implications Of The Charter For Sexual Assault Law, Lise Gotell

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article explores the current state of Canadian law on the production and disclosure of complainants' records to reflect upon the implications of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for Canadian sexual assault law and jurisprudence. Some scholars assert that the Supreme Court's decision in R. v. Mills, upholding section 278 of the Criminal Code governing access to complainants' records, constitutes an erosion of accuseds' rights and an unjustified compromise of constitutional standards. By contrast, this article demonstrates that R. v. Mills is a highly contradictory decision that can be read as creating an interpretation of section 278 that …

The Charter, Equality Rights, And Women: Equivocation And Celebration, Diana Majury

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In this article, the author examines some of the critiques made and some of the aspirations raised in the early days of the Charter by left/feminist/marginalized groups about the Charter, the equality guarantee, and the judicial decision makers. The author explores how these fears and hopes have played out with respect to Charter equality rights for women by looking at some of the sex equality decisions that have been made by the Supreme Court of Canada. The cases are discussed under the headings of reproduction, violence against women, family, employment, and socio-economic claims to explore how the sex equality analysis …

The Courts, Educational Policy, And Unintended Consequences, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent school finance litigation illustrates yet again how law can generate unintended policy consequences. Seeking to improve student achievement and school accountability, more states now turn to educational standards and assessments. At the same time, a multi-decade school finance litigation effort develops and changes its theoretical base. Recently, educational standards and school finance litigation converged in a way that enables school districts to gain financially from their inability to meet desired achievement levels. Specifically, courts increasingly allow litigants and lawsuits to transform standards and assessments into constitutional entitlements to additional resources. As a consequence, increased legal and financial exposure for …

The First Amendment And The Socialization Of Children: Compulsory Public Education And Vouchers, Steven H. Shiffrin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Criticism of American public schools has been a cottage industry since the Nineteenth Century. In recent years the criticism has gone to the roots. Critics charge that to leave children imprisoned in the public school monopoly is to risk the standardization of our children; it is to socialize them in the preferred views of the State. They argue that it would be better to adopt a system of vouchers or private scholarships to support a multiplicity of private schools. A multiplicity of such schools, it is said, would enhance parental choice, would foster competition, and would promote a diversity of …