Law and Race Commons^™

Challenging Presumed (Im)Morality: A Personal Narrative, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

This narrative essay is about presumptions of (im)morality in academic settings. Such biased presumptions affect our abilities, even as educators, to work together and foster a society built on principles of justice that could help us work, live, and play better together. Learning to understand, work with, live near, and care about others are goals to which many of us would say we aspire. As law professors, we consider collegiality to be one of the factors we use in evaluating candidates for hiring and promotion decisions. However, these evaluations may rest not on the worthiness or respected humanity of others, …

Reflections On Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections Of Race And Class For Women In Academia Symposium--The Plenary Panel, Maritza I. Reyes, Angela Mae Kupenda, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Stephanie M. Wildman, Adrien K. Wing

Journal Articles

Presumed Incompetent was produced thanks to the vision and commitment of its editors: Dr. Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Dr. Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González, and Angela P. Harris. This symposium came to fruition because the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice invited the two law professor editors, Professor Harris and Professor González, to convene a distinguished group of scholars from Canada and the United States to expand and deepen the conversation initiated by the book. The very successful day-long symposium and the publication of the resulting articles were made possible by the resources, time, and dedication provided by …

(Un)Reasonable Suspicion: Racial Profiling In Immigration Enforcement After Arizona V. United States, Kristina M. Campbell

Journal Articles

n June 25, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its landmark decision in Arizona v. United States, 1 striking down three of the four provisions of Arizona’s notorious Senate Bill (“S.B.”) 10702 challenged by the United States Department of Justice as preempted by federal immigration law. Despite agreeing with the government that the majority of Arizona’s attempt to regulate immigration at the state level through S.B. 1070 was impermissible, the Supreme Court let stand the most controversial section of the law, Section 2(B)—the socalled “show me your papers” provision.3 Under Section 2(B), state and local law enforcement …

'May It Please The Court?': A Short Story, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

This story tells a fictional account of a black woman lawyer who is about to try the biggest case of her life. While many black women lawyers seek to express their individuality and bring the best of themselves into their work and lives, conventions and norms about race and gender force them to give huge attention to things that likely matter little in the long run. In this story, we go on a journey of self-discovery with the protagonist, Angel, in hopes that she will be able to please the court in this—her trial of a lifetime.

Partisanship, Politics, And The Voting Rights Act: The Curious Case Of U.S. V. Ike Brown, Donald E. Campbell

Journal Articles

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been described as the "crown jewel" of the Civil Rights Movement. The success of the Act to remove official obstacles to voting is undeniable, and the influx of African American voters into the political system changed the nature of politics in the United States at all levels. The political and cultural context has changed so greatly that in 2006, it was politically possible for the President Bush's Justice Department to bring the first claim against an African American for violating the voting rights of white citizens. This article seeks to explain how this …

The "Asian" Category In Mcas Achievement Gap Tracking: Time For A Change, Philip Lee

Journal Articles

Data gathered on Asian American students in public school by the Massachusetts Department of Education are aggregated into one general “Asian” category, which may skew the results, both perpetuating an enduring myth and masking any true gaps that may exist for certain Asian American subgroups. As explored in this article, achievement gap tracking for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is an apt example.

In this article, I posit that this aggregation of many subgroups into one general “Asian” category perpetuates the myth of Asian Americans as a model minority, while downplaying any achievement gap that exists for certain Asian American …

(Re)Complexioning A Simple Tale: Race, Speech, And Colored Leadership, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Rather than acting as a whitening agent, the law should reflect the natural (re)complexioning of society and adapt to the melting pot that is America. The term "(re)complexioning" is used because the idea that the complexion of America was white at the beginning is false. Prior to the "discovery" of America, native citizens were indeed more deeply complexioned than Whites. Any (re)complexioning of the law since, to reflect the colors of America, then, is just to resort to the recognition of factual premises unjustly rejected when America was usurped from those of color and denied to others of color after …

Negotiating Social Mobility And Critical Citizenship: Institutions At A Crossroads, Michelle D. Deardorff, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

A Black law professor who teaches at a predominantly White law school and a White public law professor who teaches at a historically Black university in the same southern, urban community are co-authors of this Article. Here, in this piece, we explore the tension between the goals of our institutions and many other institutions to improve the socioeconomic status of our students with our personal goals of preparing students to challenge societal injustice and to be critical citizens who are willing to challenge a government that engages in abusive actions or is exploitative of its citizenry.

Academic War Strategies For Nonviolent Armies Of One, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

To engage the legal system in necessary critical action, critical actors are required. The law cannot be uprooted, re-sowed, and re-cultivated, unless future legal professionals engage in such action. And for future legal professionals to engage in such action, generally, they must first be engaged in critical thought during their legal educations. Moreover, for such thought to occur, the legal academy must include a diverse group of voices, minds, and experiences to engage with those seeking such a critical education. These critical voices may be in short supply in the academy for multiple reasons. One specific reason, though, is that …

The Struggling Class: Replacing An Insider White Female Middle Class Dream With A Struggling Black Female Reality, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

“What is the appropriate role of former outsiders who are now on the inside?” I propose that the appropriate role for an outsider who is now an insider, is not to sprawl out on plush, white, crushed velvet sofas, sipping vintage wines or imported teas and nibbling at aged cheese and delicate crackers while enjoying being one among a quota or token few that made it to the inside. Rather, the role of a former outsider is to go to work from the inside to dismantle the house, shrewdly using available tools to remove the nails from the walls, loosening …

The State As Batterer: Learning From Family Law To Address American's Family-Like Racial Dysfunction, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

The women's movement for equality bootstrapped to the movement for equality for Blacks. Now the reverse can happen. This Article uses family law and the plight of some battered women, as a lens to address analogous racial conflicts in the broader American family.

Simply Put: How Diversity Benefits Whites And How Whites Can Simply Benefit Diversity, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Although there are surmountable legal barriers to racial integration in education, fuller integration is possible. But first, whites must see how they benefit from diversity, and, second, whites must take simple steps toward integration that may, in turn, reveal to whites their desire to become more fully integrated. These two steps may help remove the limiting point to true integration.

Book Review, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

YOUR BLUES AIN’T LIKE MINE is an excellently written, fictionalized account of the lives of several people set in the fifties as a rural Mississippi community reacts to impending school racial desegregation and the killing of a fifteen year old black boy who had the misfortune of speaking French in the direction of a white woman. I’ve used this book to facilitate discussion on issues of race, gender, the law, class, and politics in several of my law school classes such as Race and the Law, Gender and the Law, and Civil Rights.

Naacp V. The Attorney General: Black Community Struggle Against Police Violence, 1959-68, Jay Stewart

Journal Articles

On March 30, 1959, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions which set the stage for a new era in police-community relations. In Abbate v. United States. I and Bartkus v. Illinois,2 the Court gave the U.S. Justice Department the power to prosecute police officers under federal civil rights laws for acts of racist violence - even when they were already under state or local investigation - without fear of violating states' rights. These decisions - had they been enforced - would have been welcome news at the New York headquarters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored …

Seeking Different Treatment, Or Seeking The Same Regard: Remarketing The Transracial Adoption Debate, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

The transracial adoption discourse mistakenly has been phrased as a request for black children awaiting adoption to be treated different from white children and to be placed with parents of like race only. This paper urges a remarketing of the transracial adoption debate to reflect a request based on sameness, not difference. The request presented here is not a request for different treatment for black children. Rather, it is for black children to be given the same regard that is given to white children. This request is illustrated with the story of a black couple seeking to adopt healthy, fat …

On Teaching Constitutional Law When My Race Is In Their Face, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Constitutional Law is one of my favorite subjects to teach. You see, I am a 45-year-old southern-born, black woman who not only studies constitutional law, I lived it. I attended separate and unequal schools, survived freedom of choice programs, suffered Jim Crow laws, and was a beneficiary of consent decrees and affirmative action programs. I love discussing and debating issues relating to race, gender, etc. I love constitutional law, but many of my students do not love the subject or, perhaps, care for hearing about my related experiences.

For White Women: Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, But We All Hide Our Faces And Cry--Literary Illumination For White And Black Sister/Friends, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Law, Life, And Literature: A Critical Reflection Of Life And Literature To Illuminate How Laws Of Domestic Violence, Race, And Class Bind Black Women Based On Alice Walker's Book The Third Life Of Grange Copeland, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Consider Law, Life and Literature. Which of the three is the most real, honest, and inclusive? Many would answer the law because it takes into consideration all of the facts and circumstances to formulate a clear and consistent rule, and literature is the most unreal, the most fictional of the three. However, that is not accurate. Of the three, literature is actually the most real, honest, and inclusive. It is real because, with brutal honesty, it deals with all of our realities. It is more honest than life, for often in our outer (and even inner) lives we are afraid …

Equal Rights Advocates: Addressing The Legal Issues Of Women Of Color, Judy Scales-Trent

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Two Parents Are Better Than None: Whether Two Single, African American Adults--Who Are Not In A Traditional Marriage Or A Romantic Or Sexual Relationship With Each Other--Should Be Allowed To Jointly Adopt And Co-Parent African American Children, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

This article proposes an additional adoption model to allow joint adoption and co-parenting by single African Americans who are not in a traditional marriage relationship with each other and not in a romantic or sexual relationship with each other. Under this model, for example, two friends, two sisters, two brothers, a sister and a brother, etc., could jointly adopt and co-parent a child. If some new model such as this one is not devised, many single blacks may hesitate to take on the entire adoption responsibility alone. As a result, many black children will continue to go without any parents. …