Law and Race Commons^™

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Blood On The Tracks, Thomas D. Russell

Seattle University Law Review

Streetcars were the greatest American tortfeasors of the early twentieth century, injuring approximately one in 331 urban Americans in 1907. This empirical study presents never-before-assembled data concerning litigation involving streetcar companies in California during the early twentieth century.

This Article demonstrates the methodological folly of relying upon appellate cases to describe the world of trial court litigation. Few cases went to trial. Plaintiffs lost about half their lawsuits. When plaintiffs did win, they won very little money. Regarding the bite taken out of the street railway company, the Superior Court was a flea.

Professor Gary Schwartz and Judge Richard Posner …

Eliminating Cash Bail In Washington State—Amending Criminal Rule 3.2, Simran Kaur

Seattle University Law Review

This Note discusses the following three parts. Part I provides an overview of the cash bail system, its history, and its contemporary use in Washington state. Part II presents the effects of bail on pretrial release, analyzing low-income and racial inequalities and the adverse impacts it can have on the accused. Part III focuses on solutions and alternatives to the cash bail system, using other states as case studies.

Promoting Corporate Diversity: The Uncertain Role Of Institutional Investors, Jill Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

Two developments are having an impact on corporate decisions. One is the increased engagement by institutional intermediaries and a shift in the focus of that engagement from corporate governance to environmental and social issues. The other is a heightened societal awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues, particularly the importance of diversity in corporate leadership. This Article considers the intersection between the two. It describes how institutional investors have focused their attention on increasing diversity in corporate leadership, the potential motivations for that focus, and the impact of that focus, to date. It highlights the tensions that result from …

America’S Hidden Citizens: The Untold Stories Of The Unconscionable Deportations Of Its International Adoptees, Halley Cody

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses how the U.S. should rectify the harms it has perpetrated on non-citizen adoptees by amending the current deportation statutes to prevent their deportation. Part I addresses the history of adoption in the U.S. and related effects on immigration law. Part II highlights the stories of Adam Crapser and Philip Clay, who were adopted by American families who failed to naturalize them as minors, and who were subsequently deported after they sustained criminal records. Part III examines the policy goals behind deportation as a consequence of criminal convictions, as well as remedies instituted to prevent unwarranted deportation and …

Inadequate Privacy: The Necessity Of Hipaa Reform In A Post-Dobbs World, Katherine Robertson

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Comment will provide an overview of HIPAA and the legal impacts of Dobbs. Part II will discuss the anticipatory response to the impacts of Dobbs on PHI by addressing the response from (1) the states, (2) the Biden Administration, and (3) the medical field. Part III will discuss the loopholes that exist in HIPAA and further address the potential impacts on individuals and the medical field if reform does not occur. Finally, Part IV will argue that the reform of HIPAA is the best avenue for protecting PHI related to reproductive healthcare.

White Supremacy From The Bench, Vida B. Johnson

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Judges make important decisions in millions of cases a year across the country. Unlike other institutional players and unlike parties and their attorneys, judges are the only players in our adversarial legal system that are by design ostensibly neutral, impartial, and without bias.

Unfortunately, that legal fiction is not fact. Some judges do hold racial biases. A judge in Texas used racial slurs to describe Mexicans in his state in 2020. Also in 2020, a white judge in Louisiana referred to a deputy and a court clerk by the N-word, and the same year, a white Colorado judge also used …

“The Cruelty Is The Point”: Using Buck V. Bell As A Tool For Diversifying Instruction In The Law School Classroom, Tiffany C. Graham

Scholarly Works

Instructors who are looking for opportunities to expose their students to the ways in which intersectional forms of bias impact policy and legal rules can use Buck v. Bell to explore, for instance, the impact of disability and class on the formation of doctrine. A different intersectional approach might use the discussion of the case as a gateway to a broader conversation about the ways in which race and gender bias structured the implementation of sterilization policies around the nation. Finally, those who wish to examine the global impact of American forms of bias can use this case and the …

The Afterlife Of Confederate Monuments, Jess Phelps, Jessica N. Owley

Indiana Law Journal

As communities increasingly remove Confederate monuments from public spaces, they must decide what to do with these troubled statues. Given the recent wave of monument removal, we consider how property law and other restrictions impact community decisions on the disposition of monuments removed from public spaces on two levels—by location and future owner. In considering the fate of removed monuments, we profile potential destinations including museums, battlefields, cemeteries, and even storage. Alongside these examples, we discuss how laws constrain (or fail to constrain) the options for new owners and the restrictions on where monuments can be relocated. Even where laws …

Policing The College Campus: History, Race, And Law, Vanessa Miller, Katheryn Russell-Brown

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The structure, impact, and historical roots of campus policing on the American college campus receives little academic attention. In fact, campus policing is often overlooked in legal analyses and research studies, including its relationship to race. Campus policing and race deserves a critical assessment from legal scholars because race is fixed to the ways the criminal-legal system presents itself on campus. The racialized implications of policing on campus are rooted in historical social and legal contexts that still exist today. However, the lack of research on campus policing is not surprising. American colleges and universities have successfully marketed themselves as …

High Anxiety: Racism, The Law, And Legal Education, Elayne E. Greenberg

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Conspicuously absent from the United States’ ongoing discourse about its racist history is a more honest discussion about the individual and personal stressors that are evoked in people when they talk about racism. What if they got it wrong? The fear of being cancelled -- the public shaming for remarks that are deemed racist -- has had a chilling effect on having meaningful conversations about racism. What lost opportunities!

This paper moves this discussion into the law school context. How might law schools rethink their law school curricula to more accurately represent the role systemic racism has played in shaping …

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …

How The “Black Criminal” Stereotype Shapes Black People’S Psychological Experience Of Policing: Evidence Of Stereotype Threat And Remaining Questions, Cynthia J. Najdowski

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Cultural stereotypes that link Black race to crime in the U.S. originated in and are perpetuated by policies that result in the disproportionate criminalization and punishment of Black people. The scientific record is replete with evidence that these stereotypes impact perceivers’ perceptions, information processing, and decision-making in ways that produce more negative criminal legal outcomes for Black people than White people. However, relatively scant attention has been paid to understanding how situations that present a risk of being evaluated through the lens of crime-related stereotypes also directly affect Black people. In this article, I consider one situation in particular: encounters …

First Amendment Protections For "Good Trouble", Dawn C. Nunziato

Emory Law Journal

In the classical era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, activists and protestors sought to march, demonstrate, stage sit-ins, speak up, and denounce the system of racial oppression in our country. This was met not just by counterspeech—the preferred response within our constitutional framework—but also by efforts by the dominant power structure to censor and shut down those forms of public rebuke of our nation’s racist practices. Fast forward seventy years, and the tactics of the dominant power structure have essentially remained the same in response to today’s civil rights activists who seek to protest …

How They Get Away With Murder: The Intersection Of Capital Punishment, Prosecutor Misconduct, And Systemic Injustice, Rushton Davis Pope

Emory Law Journal

Black defendants are executed at a disproportionately high rate, an injustice quietly persisting in the shadow of America’s dark history of slavery and Jim Crow. While a variety of intersectional factors have perpetuated this injustice, the role of prosecutors who commit misconduct to secure a conviction is significant. Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but when the prosecutors who carry the burden of proving that guilt choose not to play by the rules, they wantonly and recklessly embrace the risk of convicting—even killing—an innocent person.

This Comment focuses on two primary forms of prosecutor misconduct: Batson violations that occur …

Facilitating Race-Conscious Targeted Purchasing Programs In The Shadow Of The Trump Judiciary, Daniel Choma

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sheriffs, Shills, Or Just Paying The Bills?: Rethinking The Merits Of Compelling Merchant Cooperation With Third-Party Policing In The Aftermath Of George Floyd’S Death, Stephen Wilks

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article frames the killing of George Floyd as the result of flawed business regulation. More specifically, it captures the expansion of third-party policing paradigms throughout local nuisance abatement regulations over a period of time that coincided with the militarization of policing culture across the United States. Premised on the notion that law enforcement alone cannot succeed in reducing crime and disorder, such regulations transform grocery stores, pharmacies, bars, and other retail spaces into surveillance hubs by prescribing situations that obligate businesses to contact the police. This regulatory framework, however, sustains the larger historical project of rationalizing enhanced scrutiny of …

Taking The Knee No More: Police Accountability And The Structure Of Racism, David Dante Troutt

Washington and Lee Law Review

From before the birth of the republic to the present day, police brutality has represented a signature injustice of state authority, especially against African Americans. Defining that injustice is the lack of accountability for official misconduct. The rule of law has systematically failed to deter lawbreaking by its law enforcement departments. This Article explores the various legal and institutional means by which accountability should be imposed and demonstrates the design elements of structured immunity. Using Critical Race Theory and traditional civil rights law notions of how structural racism operates, this Article argues that transformative change can only come about through …

Higher Education Redress Statutes: A Critical Analysis Of States’ Reparations In Higher Education, Christopher L. Mathis

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article introduces a novel concept, higher education redress statutes (“HERS”), to illustrate efforts that acknowledge and amend past wrongs towards African Americans. More proximally, the Article shines a probing light on the escalation of HERS in southeastern states that serve as a site for state regulation and monitoring. The Author exposes how higher education redress statutes, designed to provide relief or remedy to Black people for states’ higher education’s harm, categorically ignore groups of Black people who rightfully should also be members of the statutorily protected class. This Article queries whether legislators can expand the scope of such statutes …

Nestlé V. Doe: A Death Knell To Corporate Human Rights Accountability?, Phillip Ayers

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court in Nestlé v. Doe held that foreign plaintiffs who claimed to be victims of overseas tortious conduct by corporate defendants had no jurisdiction to sue in federal courts using the Alien Tort Statute. This Comment looks at the history of the Alien Tort Statute, from its inspiration, long dormancy, and recent reinvigoration beginning in the 1980s. The Comment then explores the background of Nestlé and its issues with child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. From there, the Comment analyzes the Nestlé v. Doe decision, and posits an alternative outcome. Finally, this Comment looks for a new …

Beyond The Business Case: Moving From Transactional To Transformational Inclusion, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While workplace diversity is a hot topic, the extent to which the diversity management movement has effectively improved intergroup relations and reduced racial inequality remains unclear. Despite large investments in diversity and inclusion training and other company wide initiatives, historically excluded groups remain vastly underrepresented in leadership and the most lucrative careers, such as finance, law, and technology. This calls the efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts into question, particularly with respect to reducing racial inequality in the workplace.

This Article explains why it is time for organizational leaders to move beyond the transactional case for diversity and …

What To The Marginalized Person Is The American Dream

Florida A & M University Law Review

I will organize this Note around three themes Douglass articulated in his speech. These themes, which remain timely and relevant over 170 years later, are (1) the importance of attending to those most impacted by injustices; (2) the responsibility of each of us to address the injustices we see in the world around us; and (3) the practice of remaining hopeful in the face of what, at times, may feel like daunting circumstances. I will structure this Note around these three themes as I consider what the American Dream means for marginalized persons. Throughout, I will weave in examples of …

The Anti-Woke And The Black American (Waking) Dream

Florida A & M University Law Review

This essay, though not a direct transcript, is based largely upon the keynote address given by the author on February 24, 2023, at the “The American Dream Belongs to All of Us” Symposium sponsored by the Florida A&M University (FAMU) Law Review and the FAMU Hispanic American Law Student Association (HALSA) at FAMU College of Law. The author joyfully acknowledges that her remarks are likely impermissible under the so-called Stop-W.O.K.E. Act that is currently being challenged in court by members of the FAMU College of Law community.

Bridge Or Barrier: The Intersection Of Wealth, Housing, And The Disparate Impact Standard

Florida A & M University Law Review

This note asserts that exclusionary zoning and housing based on income or economic standing can have a disparate impact on race. The disparate impact standard of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, 42, U.S.C.S § 3601 et seq., used in the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities, does not do enough to aid plaintiffs in bringing claims where there is a racial disparity in housing. Part One of this paper will discuss the Federal policies that historically contributed to the wealth gap that exists on the basis of race, the legacy of these policies, and how …

School Curriculum: The Sigmatic Harm To Students And The Responsibility Of Congress To Act Again

Florida A & M University Law Review

When Brown was decided, the Supreme Court felt that it could not trust the States to encourage and facilitate equality on its own, which was proven true in the subsequent, decades-long resistance against integration following the Brown II mandate. Once again, the States cannot be trusted to move towards equality and away from backward community norms and bias without federal intervention. This is currently being exemplified by states like Florida—explicitly banning public schools from teaching Critical Race Theory. The Supreme Court does not seem willing to extend Brown any further, but the federal government may encourage and facilitate curriculum equality …

The American Dream Belongs To All Of Us: Latinos And Jamaican Americans Experience Cultural Genocide By American Assimilation

Florida A & M University Law Review

Racism in the United States has had a detrimental effect on the Latino and Jamaican experience in this country; affirmative action can be used to promote acculturation rather than assimilation. Part I of this article will explore the origins of the American Experiment as the creation of a country with freedom and democracy and how the benefit of those rights has never been given to racialized minorities without a struggle and fight. Part II explores Supreme Court cases that deal with discrimination issues in America and highlights how the solution to the forced assimilation of diverse cultures cannot be found …

The Roots Of The Problem: How The Crown Act Could Remedy The Inadequacies Of Title Vii Hair Discrimination Protections In The Entertainment Industry

Florida A & M University Law Review

This article will examine the inadequacies of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) as it relates to hair discrimination in the entertainment industry and how the “Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair” (“CROWN”) Act could help to alleviate those inadequacies. Title VII fails to acknowledge the connection between hair texture/ protective styles and race. The entertainment industry exploits the failures of Title VII when casting African American women for television and film roles. Industry executives have been known to ask actresses to mute or exaggerate their blackness through different requests for their …

Silencio: The Hispanic/Latino Reticent Approach To Racism

Florida A & M University Law Review

Many Latinos dream of coming to America in search for a better way of life but instead are faced with discrimination based on where they come from, the language they speak, and the pigmentation of their skin. Racial discrimination is one of the most ever-present issues in the United States of America today. Some look at discrimination and believe that it has been “fixed” through our political and judicial processes. However, others know that discrimination is still alive and prominent today. Today, discrimination has manifested itself differently –it is discreet and indirect but still prominent in the daily lives of …

Racism Pays: How Racial Exploitation Gets Innovation Off The Ground, Daria Roithmayr

Publications

Recent work on the history of capitalism documents the key role that racial exploitation played in the launch of the global cotton economy and the construction of the transcontinental railroad. But racial exploitation is not a thing of the past. Drawing on three case studies, this Paper argues that some of our most celebrated innovations in the digital economy have gotten off the ground by racially exploiting workers of color, paying them less than the marginal revenue product of their labor for their essential contributions. Innovators like Apple and Uber have been able to racially exploit workers of color because …