Law and Race Commons^™

Front Matter And Table Of Contents

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Challenging Florida’S Parental Rights In Education Act, Aka The “Don’T Say Gay” Law: Finding Equality Through Equal Protection Doctrine, Nelson Garcia

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

“How Dare You Vote!” The Enactment Of Racist And Undemocratic Voting Laws To Preserve White Supremacy, Maintain The Status Quo, And Prevent The Rise Of The Black Vote – Saying The Quiet Parts Out Loud, Patricia A. Broussard, Joi Cardwell

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Historically the United States has proudly described itself as a “melting pot,” declaring, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” However, if the truth is told, the United States of America has never been a melting pot. In a melting pot, the ingredients each contribute something to the pot that equalizes them into becoming a well-seasoned, indistinguishable meal. No one ingredient dominates the mixture, and each adds something that makes the pot richer. This country is more like a gumbo, a dish whose ingredients stand out, where some purportedly add more value to the …

Front Matter And Table Of Contents

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Masthead

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Restorative Justice Participants: The Implications Of Implementing Restorative Justice Practices Without Proper Safeguards For Participants, Abigail Young

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Drug Courts: The Risk Of An Increased Number Of Drug-Related Arrests And Long Jail Sentences, Wayne A. Comstock

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

In June 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs. As the War on Drugs continued throughout the 1980s, drug-related convictions increased, leading to overcrowding in prisons across the United States. Drug courts operate as an alternative to incarceration in which criminal defendants enter court mandated drug treatment programs. Judges monitor the progress of drug court participants through scheduled status hearings. However, contrary to their purpose, drug courts may contribute to incarceration by presenting the risk of an increased number of drug-related arrests in those jurisdictions that have implemented drug courts and long jail sentences imposed as sanctions for …

Deadly Decisions: Prosecutorial Misconduct And Prosecutorial Discretion In The Death Penalty System, Raegan Burke

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Police Brutality & Unions: Collective Bargaining Is The Problem, Not Law Enforcement, Falco Anthony Muscante Ii

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

When Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, and when Jason Van Dyke fired sixteen rounds at Laquan McDonald who was walking away from the responding officers, were Chauvin and Van Dyke acting exclusively of their own volition, or were their actions indicative of a deeper, systemic issue? Nearly 60% of law enforcement officers enjoy collective bargaining protections from their police unions, but these protections create a lack of accountability.

Police unions can bargain collectively with police departments because of state legislation, which typically allow for negotiation over matters affecting wages, hours, and terms and …

Race Ethics: Colorblind Formalism And Color-Coded Pragmatism In Lawyer Regulation, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

The recent, high-profile civil and criminal trials held in the aftermath of the George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery murders, the Kyle Rittenhouse killings, and the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally violence renew debate over race, representation, and ethics in the U.S. civil and criminal justice systems. For civil rights lawyers, prosecutors, and criminal defense attorneys, neither the progress of post-war civil rights movements and criminal justice reform campaigns nor the advance of Critical Race Theory and social movement scholarship have resolved the debate over the use of race in pretrial, trial, and appellate advocacy, and in the lawyering process more …

Proving Intra-Racial Discrimination In The U.S. And Canada: The Room For Making The Artificial Distinction Between Genealogical Relatedness And Race, Martin Kwan

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article takes the role of the Devil’s advocate in order to question the judicial willingness to distinguish “race” from comparable notions. It suggests that, depending on the exact circumstances, a defendant can make an arguable case that the alleged intra–racial discrimination is motivated by perceived genealogical relatedness, but not because of belonging to the same “race.” Factually, the defendant claims to believe in being remotely genealogically related to the plaintiff. This is not unworthy of credence, because it is academically recognized that modern genealogy and root tracing can be an imaginative, forged exercise. Legally, this argument is supportable because …

Are We Atoning For Our Past Or Creating More Problems: How Covid-19 Legislative Relief Laws Are Shaping The Identities Of Indigenous Populations In North America, Samuel Kramer

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This student’s note will attempt to answer three questions: 1) How Canadian and American legal precedent affects the modern identity of Indigenous Populations? 2) How COVID-19 legislative relief continues to shape indigenous identities? and 3) Can a comparative study teach legislators about enacting legislation that withstands shifts in political climates?

Blame The Victim: How Mistreatment By The State Is Used To Legitimize Police Violence, Tamara Rice Lave

Articles

No abstract provided.

Ramos Retroactivity And The False Promise Of Teague V. Lane, Tori Simkovic

University of Miami Law Review

When the Supreme Court changes course and announces a new rule of constitutional criminal law, the question remains: what happens to those imprisoned by the old practice now deemed unconstitutional? Since 1989, that question has been answered by Teague v. Lane, a restrictive holding that limits retroactivity by prioritizing judicial resources over the constitutional rights of incarcerated people. But should it matter if the old rule has explicitly racist origins?
Convictions by non-unanimous juries emerged in Louisiana and Oregon with the stated intention of rendering Black jurors' votes meaningless. In 2020, the Supreme Court in Ramos v. Louisiana held that …

Front Matter And Table Of Contents

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protective Styles, A Protected Class: Revisiting Eeoc V. Catastrophe Management Solutions, Staci Campbell

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

For years, Black people have been forced to place extra thought into their appearance, especially in the workplace. Extra thought and extra effort all to avoid being looked down upon as unkept or unprofessional. Finally, there is a wave of legislation being introduced and passed to rectify this problem. While strides are being made, there is still much work to be done. The amount of work left to be done is illustrated by a slew of unfavorable federal cases brought in the face of discrimination against Black hair and hairstyles. This paper explores one of those cases as well as …

How To Protect Special Education During Covid-19: From The Courts To The Capitol, Sarah Coleman

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced students around the country out of brick-and-mortar schools and into virtual classrooms. While the switch to remote learning has helped keep students and teachers safe from contracting the virus, students with disabilities have largely been deprived of a meaningful education and in person services mandated under federal law. This essay will explain how students have been denied a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), how litigation has been unsuccessful in creating systemic change for these students, and how public policy by U.S. legislators can offer a solution.

Mommy Dearest?: Postpartum Psychosis, The American Legal System, And The Criminalization Of Mental Illness, Allison Dopazo

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Children are often regarded as the most sacred beings in all of society—appealing to our collective sense of human dignity and protecting the most vulnerable. Mothers fiercely protecting their young children from perceived dangers is ostensibly a natural and moral response. This notion of the loving mother is in stark contrast to filicide, or the act of a parent murdering their child. It is a bedrock principle of the American criminal-justice system that a defendant is not responsible for their actions if the defendant was “laboring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, as not …

Fanon, Colonial Violence, And Racist Language In Federal American Indian Law, Joubin Khazaie

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

This Comment will argue that the racist language enshrined in foundational Supreme Court decisions involving Native tribes continuously enacts a form of colonial violence that seeks to preserve a white racial dictatorship. The paper will use Frantz Fanon’s scholarship on colonial violence and the dehumanization of Indigenous people as a framework to understand the history of legalized racism against Indigenous people in the United States. Fanon’s analysis allows us to understand how language is used to dehumanize Native people in order to establish a system of hierarchy that informs the societal roles of the colonizer and the colonized. The paper …

Closing The Gates To Racial Parity: Venture Philanthropy’S Perpetuation Of Racial Disparities In The Educational Sphere, Lauren Silk

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

In the decades-long rise of neoliberalism, venture philanthropy has emerged as a respected solution towards addressing reforms to public education. Private foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have led the charge for education development in the United States. However, the infusion of private donations and adoption of business models to a public good have not improved educational outcomes. This article addresses the role of venture philanthropy in reinforcing racial and economic disparities in educational resources and attainment through the lens of Gates Foundation initiatives. Specifically, the article dissects the role of neoliberalism in crafting education policies through …

Mutual Liberation: The Use And Abuse Of Non–Human Animals By The Carceral State And The Shared Roots Of Oppression, Michael Swistara

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The carceral state has used non–human animals as tools to oppress Black, Indigenous, and People of the Global Majority (BIPGM) for centuries. From bloodhounds violently trained by settlers to aid in their genocidal colonial project through the slave dogs that enforced a racial caste system to the modern deployment of police dogs, non–consenting non–human animals have been coopted into the role of agents of oppression. Yet, the same non– human animals are themselves routinely brutalized and oppressed by the carceral state. Police kill several thousands of family’s companion dogs every year in the United States. Law enforcement agencies train animals …

Front Matter And Table Of Contents

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

English Courts And Transnational Islamic Divorces: What Role For Personal Liberty Of Muslim Women?, Ilias Bantekas

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

English courts consider the validity of a talaq obtained abroad on the basis of the lex matrimonii, without examining whether the circumstance of the divorce, both factual and legal, offend English public policy. An anthropological inquiry into talaq obtained in most Muslim nations reveals that androcentric culture – as opposed to religious prescription as such – largely distorts the Quranic vision of this institution. This author suggests that English courts and the scholarly/religious community should entertain the notion of the contractual nature of nikah (marriage) in order to assess the consequences of the talaq. If a nikah is entered into …

Citizens For Strong Schools, Inc., Et Al. V. Florida State Board Of Education, Et Al.: How The Florida Supreme Court Decision Will Have Distressing Effects On Public Education For Vulnerable Children, Kristen Calzadilla

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Free public-school education is fundamental aspect to many citizens life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness in the United States. As states add constitutional provisions guaranteeing a public education, there are still great disproportionalities in the adequacy pf education provided to underrepresented students. Such are the issues at the heart of the recent Florida Supreme Court case, Citizens for Strong Schools, Inc., et al. v. Florida State Board of Education, et al. Citizens for Strong Schools throws its hat into the contentious debate over equitable educational standards. However, despite other state supreme courts’ rulings that similar provisions in the state constitutions …

“Officer-Involved Shootings”: How The Exonerative Tense Of Media Accounts Distorts Reality, Michael Conklin

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

In “Officer-Involved Shootings”: How the Exonerative Tense of Media Accounts Distorts Reality, the author examines how the use of passive language absolves officers from public and media accountability after a shooting. This Article reports the findings of a first-of-its-kind study designed to measure how the use of the phrase “officer-involved shooting” affects public perceptions of police behavior justifications.

Revengence Taken: Russian Active Measures And Our Entrenched Racial Divide, Erin Berhan

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Our racial divide has always been a national security threat. An early observer of our American project, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote about this threat to our future union in “Democracy in America,” learned by merely travelling the young nation thirty years before our Civil War.1 Despite generations of societal and legal evolution, our nation has not overcome the wounds and disabilities that our racial divide left behind — now ripe for modern security threats. In 2019, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released Volume II of their years long investigation into Russian Active Measures of interference with our …

Confrontation During Covid: A Fundamental Right, Virtually Guaranteed, Daniel Robinson

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The novel threats posed to our criminal justice system by the COVID-19 pandemic and attendant shutdowns of courts beg the question of whether our must fundamental pillars of law can withstand the ultimate test of time. And inherent in the ultimate test of time is the ultimate test of technology—this is, will there come a time that technology outgrows the confines of our legal landscape? Consider this: The United States Constitution guarantees every criminal defendant the right to confront their accuser in court; yet, for a substantial period of time in 2020, court, as we knew it, was nothing more …

The Dangers Of Racial Gerrymandering In The Frontline Fight For Free And Fair Elections, Laura Odujinrin

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Since its founding, the United States has counted democratic elections as a fundamental tenet of democracy. Redistricting ensures that elections are free, fair, and representative of the people. This process requires that every ten years, after the national census, congressional, state, and local districts are redrawn, if necessary, to reflect changes in population to ensure that district populations are equal. What should be a simple calculation, has become step one in a political party’s bid to maintain or gain power. This has led to countless legal battles and minority populations left without adequate representation. In turn, this lack of representation …

The Hidden Foster Care System: A Parallel System In Legal Limbo During A Deadly Pandemic, Megan Schmidt

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

In 2020, Josh Gupta-Kagan’s article on the American Hidden Foster System challenged the welfare system to face its coercive practices that effectuate in a child being removed from the home without formal state intervention and court oversight.1 Families find themselves struggling to stay together as child protection workers utilize threats and safety plans to force the removal of a child from the home and into the custody of a family member.2 The children’s, the parents’, and the kinship caregivers’ lives are forever impacted by the welfare state, yet they receive insufficient benefits or protections afforded to families, caregivers, and children …

Re-Envisioning Child Well-Being: Dismantling The Inequitable Intersections Among Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice, And Education, Kele Stewart

Articles

Twenty years after Shattered Bonds, Dorothy Roberts' indictment that the family regulation system polices, disrupts, and restructures Black families and communities remains urgent. Black families remain overrepresented in foster care with enshrined disparate treatment and outcomes. Black children are more likely to be removed from their homes, and their longer stays in foster care are characterized by placement instability, overly restrictive placements, the risk of abuse and exploitation, and inadequate mental health and other services. Black children also have worse educational outcomes than even other children in foster care, are over-referred to the juvenile justice system, and are more …