Law and Politics Commons^™

A New Proposal To Address Local Voting Discrimination, Cody Gray

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Australians' "Right" To Be Bigoted: Protecting Minorities' Rights From The Tyranny Of The Majority, Jillian Rudge

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) is a federal statute prohibiting behavior that offends, insults, humiliates, or intimidates people based on their race, nationality, ethnicity, or immigration status. It appropriately limits the right to freedom of expression where the exercise of that right encroaches on other, equally fundamental rights to equality and freedom from discrimination. The RDA is one of Australia’s few human rights laws focused on fighting racism. It is especially important for protecting the rights of minorities since Australia lacks a constitutional or federal bill of rights. Unfortunately, in 2014 and 2015, conservative politicians called for a repulsion of …

One Significant Step: How Reforms To Prison Districts Begin To Address Political Inequality, Erika L. Wood

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Skyrocketing rates of incarceration over the last three decades have had profound and lasting effects on the political power and engagement of local communities throughout the United States. Aggressive enforcement practices and mandatory sentencing laws have an impact beyond the individuals who are arrested, convicted, and incarcerated. These policies have wide-ranging and enduring ripple effects throughout the communities that are most heavily impacted by criminal laws, predominantly urban and minority neighborhoods. Criminal justice policies broadly impact everything from voter turnout and engagement, to serving on juries, participating in popular protests, census data, and the way officials draw legislative districts. The …

Lawyers Without Rights: Jewish Lawyers In Germany Under The Third Reich: An Exhibition At Roger Williams University School Of Law, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Courtroom To Classroom: Judicial Policymaking And Affirmative Action, Dylan Britton Saul

Political Science Honors Projects

The judicial branch, by exercising judicial review, can replace public policies with ones of their own creation. To test the hypothesis that judicial policymaking is desirable only when courts possess high capacity and necessity, I propose an original model incorporating six variables: generalism, bi-polarity, minimalism, legitimization, structural impediments, and public support. Applying the model to a comparative case study of court-sanctioned affirmative action policies in higher education and K-12 public schools, I find that a lack of structural impediments and bi-polarity limits the desirability of judicial race-based remedies in education. Courts must restrain themselves when engaging in such policymaking.

Evolving Standards Of Domination: Abandoning A Flawed Legal Standard And Approaching A New Era In Penal Reform, Spearit

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article critiques the evolving standards of decency doctrine as a form of Social Darwinism. It argues that evolving standards of decency provided a system of review that was tailor-made for Civil Rights opponents to scale back racial progress. Although as a doctrinal matter, evolving standards sought to tie punishment practices to social mores, prison sentencing became subject to political agendas that determined the course of punishment more than the benevolence of a matur-ing society. Indeed, rather than the fierce competition that is supposed to guide social development, the criminal justice system was consciously deployed as a means of social …

Tiered Personhood And The Excluded Voter, Atiba R. Ellis

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The modern discourse critiquing vote denial policies in the United States has taken two distinct paths. The first and more recent path has been to critique the effects of legislation like voter identification laws, narrowed early voting opportunities, and similar enactments to hyper-regulate the voting process, effecting, as some argue, the ability for the poor, the elderly, and minorities to vote. The second strain of this voter suppression discourse relates to the express exclusion of persons who have been convicted of felonies from the exercise of the franchise. While both vote denial by effect or by express disenfranchisement have raised …

Projecting Diversity: The Methods, Results, Assumptions And Limitations Fo The U.S. Census Bureau's Population Projections, Howard Hogan, Jennifer M. Ortman, Sandra L. Colby

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Pink Cadillac, An Iq Of 63, And A Fourteen-Year-Old From South Carolina: Why I Can No Longer Support The Death Penalty, Mark Earley Sr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Diversifying The Federal Bench: Is Universal Legitimacy For The U.S. Justice System Possible?, Nancy Scherer

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Legacy Of Salmon P. Chase, Carter B. Westmoreland

Freedom Center Journal

Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase used his legal training and political career to being the ongoing process of truly freeing African Americans.

President Lech Walesa And President Nelson Mandela: 2014 Recipients, Ariel Guggisberg

Freedom Center Journal

The activist and former Polish President Lech Walesa and civil rights activist and former South African President Nelson Mandela were chosen by the Freedom Center to receive the 2014 International Freedom Conductors Award. These two revolutionaries undoubtedly meet the criteria of "reflect[ing] the spirit and courageous actions of conductors on the historic Underground Railroad." Both recipients of the award have spear headed efforts to effect positive social change and dedicated much of their lives to the fight for freedom, and "exemplify the values of freedom and human rights worldwide.'

The Diversity Challenge: Exploring The 'Invisible College' Of International Arbitration, Susan Franck

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

As diversity can affect the perceived legitimacy of a state’s dispute resolution system and the quality of judicial decisions, diversity levels in the national bench and bar have been an area of transnational concern. By contrast, little is known about diversity of adjudicators and counsel in international arbitration. With a lack of accurate, complete, and publicly available data about international arbitrators and practitioners, speculation about membership in the “invisible college” of international arbitration abounds. Using data from a survey of attendees at the prestigious and elite biennial Congress of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration permitted one glimpse into the …

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

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Angela Harris: The Person, The Teacher, The Scholar, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

Angela Harris has written eloquently about the creative tensions that define her as a person, a teacher, and a scholar. She has explored the challenges of maintaining a private identity when called upon to share her life experience with a public audience, whether in the classroom, at a conference, or in an essay. She has reflected on the ways in which legal teaching privileges reason over emotion, wondering whether this dynamic impoverishes the exchange of ideas and undervalues the joy that can motivate a caring advocate. And, she has explored the dialectic between identity politics and the structural forces that …

The Art Of Racial Dissent: African American Political Discourse In The Age Of Obama, Kareem U. Crayton

Chicago-Kent Law Review

What does the art of dissent from a group look like in the context of race and politics? How does this element of political discourse resemble dissent in the more typical settings, such as the courts? And how might this brand of dissent be distinguished from the more common forms of the enterprise? In this piece, I develop a thesis of “racial dissent,” defined here as the act of speaking against a prevailing norm or principle within a given racial group. I outline a general argument for how racial dissent operates, including the review of structural pressures that racial dissenters …

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 …

The Breach Of The Common Law Trust Relationship Between The United States And African Americans – A Substantive Right To Reparations, Ayesha Bell Hardaway

Faculty Publications

Domination and elaborate control of Africans in colonial America, and later the United States, were exerted to provide the requisite framework for the economically profitable Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Proponents of slavery characterized the aims of slavery in pseudo-paternalistic terms to “train” and “civilize[e] the untutored savage.” Even after the formal end of slavery, the U.S. and local governments continued to exercise its domination and elaborate control by enforcing a national system of racial segregation and discrimination. That system of government-sanctioned laws was so pervasive and commonly accepted that it has been personified as “Jim Crow.” As a result, racial hierarchy …

Lining Up: Ensuring Equal Access To Vote, Gilda R. Daniels

All Faculty Scholarship

This booklet ( a joint project of the Advancement Project and the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law) provides an extensive overview of restrictive voting laws, especially concerning minority voters. Daniels begins with a summary of voter obstructions and intimidation in the 2012 election, and then places that within the context of the history of voting and race in America.

Most recently, the Section 5 protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were effectively removed by the Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision. Daniels then explains what this means practically and legally for minority voters and how …

Partisanship, Politics, And The Voting Rights Act: The Curious Case Of U.S. V. Ike Brown, Donald E. Campbell

Journal Articles

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been described as the "crown jewel" of the Civil Rights Movement. The success of the Act to remove official obstacles to voting is undeniable, and the influx of African American voters into the political system changed the nature of politics in the United States at all levels. The political and cultural context has changed so greatly that in 2006, it was politically possible for the President Bush's Justice Department to bring the first claim against an African American for violating the voting rights of white citizens. This article seeks to explain how this …

Untoward Consequences: The Ironic Legacy Of Keyes V. School District No. 1, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

The Keyes case began with high hopes that desegregation would lead to educational equity for black and Latino students in the Denver Public Schools. The lawsuit made history by successfully using circumstantial evidence to establish intentional discrimination and bring court-ordered busing to a school system outside the South. In the intervening years, that initial success became laden with irony. Because Denver was a tri-ethnic community of whites, blacks, and Latinos, the litigation revealed the complexities of pursuing reform in a school district not defined by a history of black-white relations.

The courts had to decide whether Latinos would count as …

The Folly - And Faith - Of Furman, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

The War On Women's Fundamental Rights: Connecting U.S. Supreme Court Originalism To Rightwing, Conservative Extremism In American Politics, Donna J. King

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, intended to protect fundamental rights for all citizens, including women, has been systematically undermined by the U.S. Supreme Court's originalist interpretations. This erosion, exemplified by cases like SlaughterHouse, has emboldened right-wing extremism and threatens women's rights, particularly in the context of unenumerated fundamental rights. The article contends that the Court's narrow constructions and disregard for legislative history have perpetuated inequality and stripped the Clause of its intended protective power.

Bridging The Great Divide--A Response To Linda Greenhouse And Reva B. Siegel's Before (And After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions About Backlash, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

This essay discusses the history of Roe v. Wade as recently addressed by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel. Going beyond their assertions, I suggest that an additional, more encompassing inquiry focuses on what factors are implicated in the politics of abortion and how these factors relate to larger social, political, and cultural conflicts both before and after Roe. By naming party politics and the Catholic Church, Greenhouse and Siegel posit two crucial elements that shaped the abortion debate. I assert, however, that what is not discussed in their Article is the way numerous other factors have figured into …

Inextricably Political: Race, Membership, And Tribal Sovereignty, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Courts address equal protection questions about the distinct legal treatment of American Indian tribes in the following dichotomous way: are classifications concerning American Indians "racial or political?" If the classification is political (i.e., based on federally recognized tribal status or membership in a federally recognized tribe) then courts will not subject it to heightened scrutiny. If the classification is racial rather than political, then courts may apply heightened scrutiny. This Article challenges the dichotomy itself. The legal categories "tribe" and "tribal member" are themselves political, and reflect the ways in which tribes and tribal members have been racialized by U.S. …

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word: The Fair Sentencing Act Of 2010, Crack, And Methamphetamine, Kyle Graham

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Aryans, Gender, And American Politics, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This short essay discusses some of the ways in which the Aryan movement in America activates gendered beliefs for the goal of legal, political, and cultural transformation. In recent years, the community has moved from common law theories of white sovereignty to more robust forms of racial constitutionalism. The piece is drawn from "America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions of Power and Community"

A Conversation With President Obama: A Dialogue About Poverty, Race, And Class In Black America, Joseph Karl Grant

Journal Publications

The date is November 13, 2012.1 Just mere days ago, I received the invitation of a lifetime. Last night, I arrived in Washington, D.C. I am staying in the Hay-Adams Hotel on the third floor. I still cannot believe the extent of my life's journey. I have just been summoned to the White House by second term President-elect Barack Obama, who defeated Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President on November 6, 2012. The 2012 Presidential Election was a hard-fought battle between Barack Obama on the Democratic side, and Mitt Romney on Republican side. The election was a like the …

Minority Practice, Majority's Burden: The Death Penalty Today, James S. Liebman, Peter Clarke

Faculty Scholarship

Although supported in principle by two-thirds of the public and even more of the States, capital punishment in the United States is a minority practice when the actual death-sentencing practices of the nation's 3000-plus counties and their populations are considered This feature of American capital punishment has been present for decades, has become more pronounced recently, and is especially clear when death sentences, which are merely infrequent, are distinguished from executions, which are exceedingly rare.

The first question this Article asks is what forces account for the death-proneness of a minority of American communities? The answer to that question – …

Revolutions In Local Democracy? Neighborhood Councils And Broadening Inclusion In The Local Political Process, Matthew J. Parlow

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Political marginalization of minorities and government corruption are two key factors that have led to the overwhelming decline and decay of America's major cities. Local governments must combat the historical entrenchment of these two evils in order to reverse the trend toward demise. Neighborhood councils may be the best structural changes to local government because they provide more meaningful opportunities for political engagement of minority groups, while also serving as an antidote to systemic corruption in local government. This Essay analyzes the problems plaguing local government in urban cities and explores how neighborhood councils may be able to help address …