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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
The Effect Of Criminal Records On Access To Employment, Amanda Agan, Sonja B. Starr
The Effect Of Criminal Records On Access To Employment, Amanda Agan, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
This paper adds to the empirical evidence that criminal records are a barrier to employment. Using data from 2,655 online applications sent on behalf of fictitious male applicants, we show that employers are 60 percent more likely to call applicants that do not have a felony conviction. We further investigate whether this effect varies based on applicant race (black versus white), crime type (drug versus property crime), industry (restaurants versus retail), jurisdiction (New Jersey versus New York City), local crime rate, and local racial composition. Although magnitudes vary somewhat, in every subsample the conviction effect is large, significant, and negative.
Racial Disparity In Federal Criminal Sentences, M. Marit Rehavi, Sonja B. Starr
Racial Disparity In Federal Criminal Sentences, M. Marit Rehavi, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
Using rich data linking federal cases from arrest through to sentencing, we find that initial case and defendant characteristics, including arrest offense and criminal history, can explain most of the large raw racial disparity in federal sentences, but significant gaps remain. Across the distribution, blacks receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites arrested for the same crimes. Most of this disparity can be explained by prosecutors’ initial charging decisions, particularly the filing of charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Ceteris paribus, the odds of black arrestees facing such a charge are 1.75 times higher than …
Credit Where It Counts: The Community Reinvestment Act And Its Critics, Michael S. Barr
Credit Where It Counts: The Community Reinvestment Act And Its Critics, Michael S. Barr
Articles
Despite the depth and breadth of U.S. credit markets, low- and moderate-income communities and minority borrowers have not historically enjoyed full access to credit. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was enacted in 1977 to help overcome barriers to credit that these groups faced. Scholars have long leveled numerous critiques against CRA as unnecessary, ineffectual, costly, and lawless. Many have argued that CRA should be eliminated. By contrast, I contend that market failures and discrimination justify governmental intervention and that CRA is a reasonable policy response to these problems. Using recent empirical evidence, I demonstrate that over the last decade CRA …
Strangers And Brothers: A Homily On Transracial Adoption, Carl E. Schneider
Strangers And Brothers: A Homily On Transracial Adoption, Carl E. Schneider
Articles
The common law speaks to us in parables. Ours is Drummond v. Fulton County Department of Family and Children's Services. Just before Christmas 1973, a boy named Timmy was born to a white mother and a black father. A month later, his mother was declared unfit, and the Department of Family and Children Services placed Timmy with white foster parents - Robert and Mildred Drummond. The Drummonds were "excellent" and "loving" parents, and Timmy grew into "an extremely bright, highly verbal, outgoing 15-month baby boy." Then the Drummonds asked to adopt Timmy. The Department's reviews of the Drummonds' devotion …
Rejoinder (Response To Article By William G. Bowen And Derek Bok), Terrance Sandalow
Rejoinder (Response To Article By William G. Bowen And Derek Bok), Terrance Sandalow
Articles
In The Shape of the River, presidents Bowen and Bok pronounce the race-sensitive admission policies adopted by selective undergraduate schools a resounding success. The evidence they adduce in support of that conclusion primarily concerns the performance of African-American students in and after college. But not all African-American students in those institutions were admitted in consequence of minority preference policies. Some, perhaps many, would have been admitted under race-neutral policies. I argued at several points in my review that since these students might be expected to be academically more successful than those admitted because of their race, the evidence on which …
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 …
Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow
Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow
Articles
In United States v. Carolene Products Co., Justice Stone suggested by indirection that there "may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality" when courts are called upon to determine the validity "of statutes directed at particular religious . . . or national . . . or racial minorities."' In such cases, he explained, "prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry."' Forty years later, …
Bakke: A Compelling Need To Discriminate, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Bakke: A Compelling Need To Discriminate, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Two of America's most cherished values collided head-on a few months ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court began to come to grips with the most significant civil rights suit since the school desegregation cases of 1954. Arrayed on one side is the principle of governmental "color-blindness," the appealing notion that the color of a person's skin should have nothing to do with the distribution of benefits or burdens by the state. Set against it is the goal of a truly integrated society, and the tragic realization that this objective cannot be achieved within the foreseeable future unless race and color …