Law and Race Commons^™

Conditions Of Participation: Incorporating The History Of Hospital Desegregation, Sallie Sanford

Articles

Our students ought to know about the history of formal hospital segregation and desegregation. To that end, this article urges those who teach foundational health law and policy courses to do three things. First, to teach the Simkins case. Second, to swap out the usual Medicare signing ceremony picture for one that includes W. Montague Cobb, M.D., Ph.D. Third, to highlight how the implementation of that program for the elderly led, in a matter of months, to the desegregation of hospitals throughout the country.

Let Us Not Be Intimidated: Past And Present Applications Of Section 11(B) Of The Voting Rights Act, Carly E. Zipper

Washington Law Review

As John Lewis said, “[the] vote is precious. Almost sacred. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have to create a more perfect union.” The Voting Rights Act (VRA), likewise, is a powerful tool. This Comment seeks to empower voters and embolden their advocates to better use that tool with an improved understanding of its little-known protection against voter intimidation, section 11(b).

Although the term “voter intimidation” may connote armed confrontations at polling places, some forms of intimidation are much more subtle and insidious—dissuading voters from heading to the polls on election day rather than confronting them outright when …

Race And Washington’S Criminal Justice System: 2021 Report To The Washington Supreme Court, Task Force 2.0

Washington Law Review

RACE & WASHINGTON’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:

EDITOR’S NOTE

As Editors-in-Chief of the Washington Law Review, Gonzaga Law Review, and Seattle University Law Review, we represent the flagship legal academic publications of each law school in Washington State. Our publications last joined together to publish the findings of the first Task Force on Race and the Criminal Justice System in 2011/12. A decade later, we are honored to join once again to present the findings of Task Force 2.0. Law journals have enabled generations of legal professionals to introduce, vet, and distribute new ideas, critiques of existing legal structures, and reflections …

Violence Everywhere: How The Current Spectacle Of Black Suffering, Police Violence, And The Violence Of Judicial Interpretation Undermine The Rule Of Law, David B. Owens

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Euclid Proviso, Ezra Rosser

Washington Law Review

This Article argues that the Euclid Proviso, which allows regional concerns to trump local zoning when required by the general welfare, should play a larger role in zoning’s second century. Traditional zoning operates to severely limit the construction of additional housing. This locks in the advantages of homeowners but at tremendous cost, primarily in the form of unaffordable housing, to those who would like to join the community. State preemption of local zoning defies traditional categorization; it is at once both radically destabilizing and market responsive. But, given the ways in which zoning is a foundational part of the racial …

"Send Freedom House!": A Study In Police Abolition, Tiffany Yang

Washington Law Review

Sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the 2020 uprisings accelerated a momentum of abolitionist organizing that demands the defunding and dismantling of policing infrastructures. Although a growing body of legal scholarship recognizes abolitionist frameworks when examining conventional proposals for reform, critics mistakenly continue to disregard police abolition as an unrealistic solution. This Essay helps dispel this myth of “impracticality” and illustrates the pragmatism of abolition by identifying a community-driven effort that achieved a meaningful reduction in policing we now take for granted. I detail the history of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, a Black civilian …

How The Gun Control Act Disarms Black Firearm Owners, Maya Itah

Washington Law Review

Through 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), the Gun Control Act (GCA) outlaws the possession of a firearm “in furtherance of” a drug trafficking crime. The statute’s language is broad, and federal courts have interpreted it expansively. By giving prosecutors wide discretion in charging individuals with § 924(c) violations, the language enables the disproportionate incarceration of Black firearm owners.

This Comment addresses this issue in three parts. Part I discusses the ways early gun control laws overtly disarmed Black firearm owners. Additionally, Part I provides context for the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which coincided with the backlash to …

Commercial Sex And Exploitation, Judge Barbara Mack, Dana Raigrodski

Chapters in Books

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), including sex trafficking, mainly targets women, children, young adults (up to age 24), and individuals identifying as LGBTQ+, primarily in communities in poverty, Indigenous communities, and communities of color. Economic and social marginalization drives people into the commercial sex industry and exploitation, which in turn perpetuates that economic and social marginalization. The most targeted and marginalized populations have been doubly harmed by exploitation and by poor treatment within the legal system.

While data is limited, CSE is widespread in the sex industry in Washington State and nationally. State and national data show significant disparities based on …

Let Indians Decide: How Restricting Border Passage By Blood Quantum Infringes On Tribal Sovereignty, Rebekah Ross

Washington Law Review

American immigration laws have been explicitly racial throughout most of the country’s history. For decades, only White foreign nationals could become naturalized citizens. All racial criteria have since vanished from the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)—all but one. Section 289 of the INA allows “American Indians born in Canada” to freely cross into the United States if they possess at least 50% blood “of the American Indian race.” Such American Indians cannot be prohibited from entering the United States and can obtain lawful permanent residence status—if they meet the blood quantum requirement. Such racialized immigration controls arbitrarily restrict cross-border Indigenous …

2021: How Gender And Race Affect Justice Now - Final Report, Justice Sheryl Gordon Mccloud, Dana Raigrodski, Sierra Rotakhina, Kelley Amburgey-Richardson

Books

In 1989, the Washington Supreme Court’s Task Force on Gender and Justice in the Courts produced a groundbreaking report on the impact of gender on selected areas of the law. It concluded that gender did affect the availability of justice. We – the Washington State Supreme Court Gender and Justice Commission – are a product of that report and its recommendations. Now, in 2021, we have completed our follow-up study.

Our legal and social science research, our data collection, and our independent pilot projects all led us to the same frustrating conclusion about the effect of gender in Washington State …

Atoning For Dred Scott And Plessy While Substantially Abolishing The Death Penalty, Scott W. Howe

Washington Law Review

Has the Supreme Court adequately atoned for Dred Scott and Plessy? A Court majority has never confessed and apologized for the horrors associated with those decisions. And the horrors are so great that Dred Scott and Plessy have become the anti-canon of constitutional law. Given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Court’s historical complicity in the brutal campaign against African Americans, this Article contends that the Court could appropriately do more to atone.

The Article asserts that the Court could profitably pursue atonement while abolishing capital punishment for aggravated murder. The Article shows why substantial abolition of the capital sanction would …

"The More Things Change . . .": New Moves For Legitimizing Racial Discrimination In A "Post-Race" World, Mario L. Barnes

Articles

No abstract provided.

By Any Other Name?: On Being "Regarded As" Black, And Why Title Vii Should Apply Even If Lakisha And Jamal Are White, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Mario L. Barnes

Articles

Applying theories concerning the social construction of race, this Article borrows from the definition of disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the courts' analyses of disability discrimination cases under the "regarded as" disabled provision of the ADA, which allows a plaintiff to bring a claim against an employer who regards the plaintiff as having an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. Using the "regarded as" provision as a model, this Article proposes a new method for recognizing discrimination claims based on the use of proxies for race-even when those proxies have been used …

In Quest Of Brown's Promise: Social Research And Social Values In School Desegregation, Wallace D. Loh

Washington Law Review

There is perhaps no better setting in which to discuss the role of social research in the courts than that of school desegregation. From its early, rural, southern beginnings in Brown to its present, urban, northern manifestation in the Detroit case of Milliken v. Bradley, empirical evidence has been used in the litigation. In 1954, the Supreme Court declared that "[s]eparate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and ruled that the separate-but-equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson—which for half a century had legitimated Jim Crow legislation—had "no place" in the public schools. Eleanor Wolf, Professor of Sociology at Wayne State University, …