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Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Race And Wrongful Convictions In The United States, Samuel R. Gross, Maurice Possley, Klara Stephens
Race And Wrongful Convictions In The United States, Samuel R. Gross, Maurice Possley, Klara Stephens
Other Publications
African Americans are only 13% of the American population but a majority of innocent defendants wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated. They constitute 47% of the 1,900 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations (as of October 2016), and the great majority of more than 1,800 additional innocent defendants who were framed and convicted of crimes in 15 large-scale police scandals and later cleared in “group exonerations.” We see this racial disparity for all major crime categories, but we examine it in this report in the context of the three types of crime that produce the largest numbers …
Postracial Remedies, Derrick Darby, Richard E. Levy
Postracial Remedies, Derrick Darby, Richard E. Levy
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence is decidedly postracial. The Court has restricted the Equal Protection Clause to intentional discrimination by the government, concluding that the Constitution does not prohibit private acts of discrimination and rejecting challenges based on disparate impact, even when rigorous statistical analysis indicates that race is likely a factor. It has held that remedying the effects of past societal discrimination is an insufficient basis for race-specific remedies such as affirmative action. It has also ended remedies of this sort designed to combat previous state-sponsored racial discrimination, such as court-ordered desegregation measures in the schools and the …
Justice And Law Journals, Gabriel "Jack" Chin, Adam B. Wolf
Justice And Law Journals, Gabriel "Jack" Chin, Adam B. Wolf
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
What is the role for a law journal in advancing justice? What is the role of a justice-minded practitioner in furthering legal scholarship? And what is the intersection—practically and normatively—for law journals, legal scholars, practitioners, and justice? This brief Article attempts to lay a foundation for answering these important, but oft-neglected, questions. In the following conversation, a frequent contributor to the Michigan Journal of Race & Law (MJRL) and a former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal posit some ideas on how legal scholarship engages with justice, and how race-conscious practitioners can interact with race-conscious legal scholars.
Universalism And Civil Rights (With Notes On Voting Rights After Shelby), Samuel R. Bagenstos
Universalism And Civil Rights (With Notes On Voting Rights After Shelby), Samuel R. Bagenstos
Articles
After the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, voting rights activists proposed a variety of legislative responses. Some proposals sought to move beyond measures that targeted voting discrimination based on race or ethnicity. They instead sought to eliminate certain problematic practices that place too great a burden on voting generally. Responses like these are universalist, because rather than seeking to protect any particular group against discrimination, they formally provide uniform protections to everyone. As Bruce Ackerman shows, voting rights activists confronted a similar set of questions—and at least some of them opted for a universalist approach—during the campaign …
Our Broken Misdemeanor Justice System: Its Problems And Some Potential Solutions, Eve Brensike Primus
Our Broken Misdemeanor Justice System: Its Problems And Some Potential Solutions, Eve Brensike Primus
Reviews
Although misdemeanors comprise an overwhelming majority of state criminal court cases, little judicial and scholarly attention has been focused on how misdemeanor courts actually operate. In her article, Misdemeanors, Alexandra Natapoff rights this wrong and explains how the low-visibility, highly discretionary decisions made by actors at the misdemeanor level often result in rampant discrimination, incredible inefficiency, and vast miscarriages of justice. Misdemeanors makes a significant contribution to the literature by refocusing attention on the importance of misdemeanor offenses and beginning an important dialogue about what steps should be taken going forward to fix our broken misdemeanor justice system.
Slavery And The Law In Atlantic Perspective: Jurisdiction, Jurisprudence, And Justice, Rebecca J. Scott
Slavery And The Law In Atlantic Perspective: Jurisdiction, Jurisprudence, And Justice, Rebecca J. Scott
Articles
The four articles in this special issue experiment with an innovative set of questions and a variety of methods in order to push the analysis of slavery and the law into new territory. Their scope is broadly Atlantic, encompassing Suriname and Saint-Domingue/Haiti, New York and New Orleans, port cities and coffee plantations. Each essay deals with named individuals in complex circumstances, conveying their predicaments as fine-grained microhistories rather than as shocking anecdotes. Each author, moreover, demonstrates that the moments when law engaged slavery not only reflected but also influenced larger dynamics of sovereignty and jurisprudence.
Rawls And Reparations, Martin D. Carcieri
Rawls And Reparations, Martin D. Carcieri
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
In the past two years, four related events have sharpened debates on race in the U.S.: President Obama's election, the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, that Court's ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano, and the arrest of Obama's friend, Harvard professor Henry Gates. The President has spoken of a "teaching moment" arising from these events. Moreover, his writings, speeches and lawmaking efforts illustrate the contractual nature of Obama's thinking. The President (and all concerned citizens) should thus find useful an analysis of racial policy and justice in light of the work of John Rauls. Rawls may …
The Riddle Of Hiram Revels, Richard A. Primus
The Riddle Of Hiram Revels, Richard A. Primus
Articles
In 1870, a black man named Hiram Revels was named to represent Mississippi in the Senate. Senate Democrats objected to seating him and pointed out that the Constitution specifies that no person may be a senator who has not been a citizen of the United States for at least nine years. Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the Democrats argued, Revels had not been a citizen on account of the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Thus, even if Revels were a citizen in 1870, he had held that status for only two years. …
On Justitia, Race, Gender, And Blindness, I. Bennett Capers
On Justitia, Race, Gender, And Blindness, I. Bennett Capers
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Essay focuses on Justitia's more problematic attributes. Like Justitia's blindfold, which has been described as "the most enigmatic" of her traits. Is the blindfold merely emblematic of Justitia's purported impartiality, her claim to algorithmic justice? As law professor Costas Douzinas and art historian Lynda Nead have asked, does the blindfold enable Justitia "to avoid the temptation to see the face that comes to the law and put the unique characteristics of the concrete person before the abstract logic of the institution"? Or does the blindfold signify something more, a second sight of sorts? Maybe that Justitia, unable to see, …
Engaging The Spirit Of Racial Healing Within Critical Race Theory: An Exercise In Transformativethought, Rebecca Tsosie
Engaging The Spirit Of Racial Healing Within Critical Race Theory: An Exercise In Transformativethought, Rebecca Tsosie
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This essay posits that Critical Race Theory (CRT) must operate at both the "idealist" and "materialist" levels. Although the emphasis may be in one direction or another at particular times, both domains are continually engaged. This essay links the debate between the "materialist" and "idealist" views to another central theme within CRT, which is the need for "justice" and how the law relates to justice. This essay focuses on the contemporary debate surrounding the status of Native Hawaiians to show how "race" is being used to construct the civil and political rights of Native Hawaiian people. CRT is a jurisprudence …
The Sacred Way Of Tibetan Crt Kung Fu: Can Race Crits Teach The Shadow's Mystical Insight And Help Law Students "Know" White Structural Oppression In The Heart Of The First-Year Curriculum? A Critical Rejoinder To Dorothy A. Brown, Reginald Leamon Robinson
The Sacred Way Of Tibetan Crt Kung Fu: Can Race Crits Teach The Shadow's Mystical Insight And Help Law Students "Know" White Structural Oppression In The Heart Of The First-Year Curriculum? A Critical Rejoinder To Dorothy A. Brown, Reginald Leamon Robinson
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Part I of this Article uses a quasi-parable, in which Dorothy Brown is a Tibetan Master who teaches law students CRT Kung Fu, the monastic fighting skills by which they will acquire the Shadow's mystical insight to "know" the heart of the first-year curriculum. Part II challenges the organizing principles and content on which Brown's Critical Race Theory purports to critically interrogate traditional legal doctrine, applying a New Age Philosophical critique as well as agency theory to crack dealing in Spanish Harlem. I use this case study to argue that crack dealers deliberately and purposefully choose extra-legal economic opportunities, even …
Brennan Center For Justice Symposium Introduction: Diversity, Impartiality, And Representation On The Bench, Kele Williams
Brennan Center For Justice Symposium Introduction: Diversity, Impartiality, And Representation On The Bench, Kele Williams
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
As is evident from these articles, the question of judicial diversity is far more complex and nuanced than the current debate suggests. Many unanswered questions remain. The scholars in this issue and the others who presented their work at our convening have begun to reframe the debate and identify the hardest questions. We hope that this symposium issue will provoke further thought and provide a context for additional scholarship that will help us to answer those questions.
Facing History, Facing Ourselves: Eric Yamamoto And The Quest For Justice, Robert S. Change
Facing History, Facing Ourselves: Eric Yamamoto And The Quest For Justice, Robert S. Change
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Review of Interracial Justice: Conflict and Reconciliation in Post-Civil Rights America by Eric Yamamoto
Benign Neglect* Of Racism In The Criminal Justice System, Angela J. Davis
Benign Neglect* Of Racism In The Criminal Justice System, Angela J. Davis
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Michael Tonry, Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America
The Rooster's Egg: On The Persistence Of Prejudice, Elise M. Bruhl
The Rooster's Egg: On The Persistence Of Prejudice, Elise M. Bruhl
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Patricia J. Williams, The Roosters' Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice
State Responses To Task Force Reports On Race And Ethnic Bias In The Courts, Suellyn Scarnecchia
State Responses To Task Force Reports On Race And Ethnic Bias In The Courts, Suellyn Scarnecchia
Articles
While several states have embarked on studies of race and ethnic bias in their courts, Minnesota is only the sixth to publish its report to date. As Minnesota joins the ranks of states with published reports, it is worthwhile to assess the impact of the five earlier published reports from other states. Final reports have been published in Michigan (1989), Washington (1990), New York (1991), Florida (1991) and New Jersey (1992). The published reports make findings and provide several specific recommendations for change. This article will review the published findings and recommendations of the task forces and will discuss the …
And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest For Racial Justice, Kevin Edward Kennedy
And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest For Racial Justice, Kevin Edward Kennedy
Michigan Law Review
A Review of And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice by Derrick A. Bell
Racial Preferences In Higher Education: Political Responsibility And The Judicial Role, Terrance Sandalow
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 …