Law and Race Commons^™

Racial Preferences In Higher Education: Political Responsibility And The Judicial Role, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

Controversy continues unabated over the question left unresolved by DeFunis v. Odegaard: whether in its admissions process a state law school may accord preferential treatment to certain racial and ethnic minorities. In the pages of two journals published by the University of Chicago, Professors John Hart Ely and Richard Posner have established diametrically opposed positions in the debate. Their contributions are of special interest because each undertakes to answer the question within the framework of a theory concerning the proper distribution of authority between the judiciary and the other institutions of government. Neither position, in my judgment, adequately confronts the …

Employer Racial Discrimination: Reviewing The Role Of The Nlrb, Lawrence F. Doppelt

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The NLRB and various commentators rely upon three basic legal arguments in rejecting this interpretation: first, the EEOC, and not the NLRB, is the sole and proper agency for litigating racial issues; second, employer racial discrimination does not interfere with the protected rights of employees under the Act, and third, it is not, and never was, Congress' intent in passing the Act to bring racial discrimination within its purview. Unquestionably, each of these legal arguments has, or at some time had, surface appeal, and, at one time, considerable force. The great mass of legal commentary supports at least one of …

The Protection Of Respect And Human Rights: Freedom Of Choice And World Public Order, Myers Mcdougal, Harold Lasswell, Lung-Chu Chen

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Judicial Scrutiny Of "Benign" Racial Preference In Law School Admissions, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Racial preferences for blacks generate ambivalence in those who care about racial equality and also believe that individuals should be judged "on their own merits." This ambivalence is reflected in divergent "equal protection" values, the value of eliminating barriers to equality imposed on minority groups and that of distributing the burdens and benefits of social life without reference to arbitrary distinctions. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that after Marco DeFunis, Jr. challenged the constitutionality of racial preferences for admission to a state law school, the Supreme Court's resolution of the issue was awaited with intense interest and some trepidation. For …

Negro Demonstrations And The Law: Danville As A Test Case, James W. Ely, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

In at least some measure, the Negro demonstrations of the 1960's were an attempt to create tensions and intimidate the white public into taking actions favored by the black minority, or, that failing, to provoke such a savage reaction from the whites as to arouse national public opinion. Violence and threats of violence were an integral part of this strategy. It is to the credit of Virginia leaders at all levels that they recognized this overt threat and refused to yield to extra-legal tactics. One of the most unhappy legacies of the 1960's was the wide-spread notion that questions of …

America And Reconsruction, Thomas B. Grier

IUSTITIA

Reconstruction has variously been termed "repressive. . . uncivilized" and "a sordid time" as well as "a noble experiment." Reflected in those judgments of the era is the dispute over the effects of Reconstruction. To be more correct, one might say that there has been much conjecture in determining what, in fact, Reconstruction was. Questioned also has been the role of the black man during the period; much of what he did, or was responsible for, has, like Reconstruction itself, been subject to many and varied accounts and evaluations. The intent of this paper is to examine several volumes concerned …

Higher Education: The Black Professional, Donald H. Godbold, Andrew Goodrich, William Moore, Jr.,

IUSTITIA

The black professional in the community college is a catalog of contradictions. His or her condition can only be described as tragic; and his or her plight is a travesty on the philosophy of the two-year college. The preliminary findings of one study in progress note that nearly half (409 or 47 per cent) of the 865 two-year institutions included in the sample do not have a single black faculty member or administrator. Eighty-nine of the remaining 456 colleges have only one black staff member. Similarly, there are a number of community colleges located in areas heavily populated by blacks …

Affirmative Action: Quotas And Traditional University Standards With Particular Emphasis On The Role Of The Department Chairman, William D. Wheeler

IUSTITIA

The higher educational institution is often an exclusive citadel. Students are selected after close scrutiny of past achievements. Teachers as merchants of ideas, virtues, and cosmic thoughts are invited to membership only after certain academic passports have been acquired. These eligibility criteria are established by the faculty who, presumably, are the only ones capable of assessing reasonable standards for those seeking admission. Colleges and universities are closed sub-communities. They practice discrimination while giving lip service to liberal thought, knowledge, and enlightenment. It comes, therefore, as little surprise to clear thinkers that the house of intellect leads the parade of culprits …

An End, And Perhaps A Beginning, Tom C. Clark

Vanderbilt Law Review

As one who has devoted his professional lifetime, now in its fifty-first year, to the development of procedures and techniques for the improvement of the administration of justice, I say that there is no substitute for the original research furnished by the Race Relations Law Survey in the race relations field. It has made the most practical contribution to the improvement of race relations of any publication. One might compare this contribution to that of our law clerks here on the Court, who research and report on state and federal decisions previously made on a given topic. However, the Survey …

Roe V. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

Research in Virgil Hawkins' World of Print--Historical Print Research Project No. 1: Abortion

A pregnant single woman brought a class action suit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which proscribed procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life. The Court held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Constitutional Approaches To Metropolitan Planning, John W. Ragsdale Jr

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Strangers In Paradise: Griggs V. Duke Power Co. And The Concept Of Employment Discrimination, Alfred W. Blumrosen

Michigan Law Review

In March 1966, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) negotiated an extensive agreement with the Newport News Shipyard to eliminate employment discrimination. The outcome of these negotiations-which were conducted by the Office of Conciliations which I then headed-was the first major achievement for the EEOC under title Vll of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following that episode, Ken Holbert, Deputy Chief of Conciliations, and I decided to try to negotiate a model conciliation agreement on the subject of discriminatory employment testing. We knew that many companies had introduced tests in the 1950's and early 1960's when they could no …

Equal Protection, Economic Legislation,And Racial Discrimination, William Silverman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The drive to end racial discrimination now extends beyond blatant racial distinctions to less obvious and less intentional forms of unequal treatment; nonetheless, there still exist laws and governmental programs that are racially neutral on their face but that may have a racially discriminatory impact in practice. Such discrimination can take place when economic and social welfare legislation, lacking a sound economic grounding, attacks symptoms rather than causes and thereby unintentionally compounds the problems facing black people. At the same time, laws that are at the root of unequal treatment seem to go unchallenged. From the point of view of …

Blacks, Due Process And Efficiency In The Clash Of Values As The Supreme Court Moves To The Right, Henry Mcgee

Faculty Articles

Professor McGee examines the move by the Supreme Court to limit rights for minority defendants. Led by its law enforcement-oriented Chief Justice, an emerging majority of the Court has managed to reverse or seriously abridge precedents - both recent and time-honored - which ensured some fairness for minority defendants. Professor McGee addresses the implications of these decisions, and how they have affected due process for Black defendants.

Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Zoning--Snob Zoning: Must A Man's Home Be A Castle?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note will analyze and evaluate the legal theories that may be employed to attack snob zoning in the courts. First, the feasibility of attacking snob zoning via the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment will be examined. The second part of this Note will delineate alternative judicial responses to snob zoning that are couched in more conventional zoning-law terms.

Effective Representation And Multimember Districts, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Supreme Court has not decided a case involving an assertion of the claim that a multimember district denies the right of effective representation since Fortson and Burns. However, there have been several subsequent challenges in lower courts to the validity of such districts, and these challenges have generally failed because the factual evidence did not demonstrate conclusively that the voting strength of a legally cognizable racial or political element had been minimized or cancelled. In Chavis v. Whitcomb, however, a three-judge federal district court in Indiana found that the plaintiff had presented sufficient factual evidence to sustain …

Civil Rights--Segregation--Federal Income Tax: Exemptions And Deductions--The Validity Of Tax Benefits To Private Segregated Schools, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In granting the preliminary injunction, the district court found that plaintiffs were asserting a substantial constitutional claim and had a reasonable possibility of success. Balancing the equities of the parties, the court decided that the possibility of significant adverse effect on the Commissioner and schools awaiting tax benefits was not great and was in any event far outweighed by the harm which could result from a denial of the requested relief pendente lite. Thus, the court found that the threat of irreparable injury justified the issuance of a preliminary injunction. The propriety of the court's decision to grant a preliminary …

Evans V. Abney: Reverting To Segregation, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Urban Renewal In The Crucible Of Judicial Review, Henry Mcgee

Faculty Articles

An agency is not an island entire of itself. It is one of the many rooms in the magnificent mansion of the law. The very subordination of the agency to judicial jurisdiction is intended to proclaim the premise that each agency is to be brought into harmony with the totality of the law; the law as it is found in the statute at hand, the statute book at large, the principles and conceptions of the "common law," and the ultimate guarantees associated with the Constitution.

Racial Equality In Jobs And Unions, Collective Bargaining, And The Burger Court, William B. Gould

Michigan Law Review

In dealing with the problems of employment discrimination, the Burger Court will have to face several new and major issues. This Article is concerned with two of the most important of those issues. The first is whether the present requirement that workers seek redress of their grievances through the exclusive representation of the union is applicable to victims of racial discrimination; and if not, what other remedies should be available to those workers. The second is whether quotas and ratios based on race are permissible; and if so, whether it is required that they be used to integrate union leadership …

Jones V. Alfred H. Mayer Co.: An Historic Step Forward, Arthur Kinoy

Vanderbilt Law Review

The historic decision last June by the Supreme Court in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.,' reasserting for the first time in almost 100 years the constitutional mandate in the thirteenth amendment to abolish the badges and indicia of human slavery from all aspects of American society, has begun to meet with sharp criticism. This is, of course, no surprise. One might expect outcries from quarters of the country in which the far less abrasive vocabulary of Brown v. Board of Education still evokes memories of "Black Monday," "massive resistance" and "interposition.' What is perhaps more surprising is that the …

Systematic Exclusion Of Negroes From Selective Service Boards: Some Proposals For Reform, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The concept of the local draft board is based on the theory that selection of persons for compulsory military service can be accomplished most fairly by small groups of neighbors of those who are to serve. As the National Office of the Selective Service recently stated: "Because of its comparatively long association with a registrant and knowledge of what he has done, the local board is relatively well qualified to evaluate his ability to perform," A corollary to this basic theory is that a more flexible selection process evincing greater sensitivity to the problems of individual registrants can be achieved …

Citizens, Police, And Polarization: Are Perceptions More Important Than Facts?, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The School Desegregation Cases In Retrospect—Some Reflections On Causes And Effects, Yale Kamisar

Book Chapters

Recently, when asked to give a lecture on appellate advocacy, Justice Thurgood Marshall reminded his audience what Judge Benjamin Cardozo had once said: "The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass judges by." An outstanding example, he might have added, is Brown v. Board of Education.

In a sense, the significant changes which have occurred in the Black man's status in the last two decades had their beginnings in the rise of numerically, and hence politically, important Black communities in the North. For the importance of civil rights …

The New Law Of Race Relations, Arthur Larson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Comment On Powell V. Mccormack, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

The rapid pace of constitutional change during the past decade has blunted our capacity for surprise at Supreme Court decisions. Nevertheless, Powell v. McCormack is a surprising decision. Avoidance of politically explosive controversies was not one of the most notable characteristics of the Warren Court. And yet, it is one thing for the Court to do battle with the Congress in the service of important practical ends or when the necessity of doing so is thrust upon it by the need to discharge its traditional responsibilities. It is quite another to tilt at windmills, especially at a time when the …

Federal Removal And Injunction To Protect Political Expression And Racial Equality: A Proposed Change, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

No abstract provided.

Civil Disobedience: Is It Justified?, W. T. Blackstone

Georgia Law Review

THE question, "Is civil disobedience justified?", raises profound problems of ethics and legal and political philosophy. Perhaps a precise and general answer to this question is impossible, but in this Article I wish to elucidate the various components and aspects of this question so that, to whatever extent possible, it can be intelligibly formulated and answered. It seems plain that we first must have a clear-cut definition of what constitutes civil disobedience, and it is plainly the case that many discussions of the question of civil disobedience have been both confusing and unfruitful because the participants did not have an …

Black, White, Brown And Green: Color Consciousness In Public School Desegregation, Fh. Von U.

Georgia Law Review

Since 1954 and Brown v. Board of Education it has been against the law to educate white and black children separately. Separate schools, separate classrooms within a single school, or separate seating arrangements within the same classroom are inherently discriminatory. The law which separate education violates is not an HEW Rule, Regulation or Guideline; nor is it a federal statute. Where a public school system includes children of more than one color or national origin, education of any group of children within that system in a school which is identifiable as "belonging" to one race or another violates the United …

The Warren Court And Desegregation, Robert L. Carter

Michigan Law Review

When Chief Justice ·warren assumed his post in October 1953, the underpinnings of the "separate but equal" concept had become unmoored beyond restoration. Full-scale argument on the validity of apartheid in public education was only weeks away, and the portent of change in the constitutional doctrine governing American race relations was unmistakable. Although the groundwork had been carefully prepared for the Chief Justice's announcement in Brown v. Board of Education that fundamental principles forbade racial segregation in the nation's public schools, the decision, when it was delivered on :May 17, 1954, was more than a break with the past. In …