Law and Race Commons^™

Brief Of Amici Curiae Thirteenth Amendment Scholars In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellee And Affirmance, William M. Carter Jr., Dawinder S. Sidhu, Alexander Tsesis, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Amici Briefs

In the case of United States v. Hatch, the defendant in a hate crimes prosecution brought the first major challenge to the constitutionality of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. This amicus brief argues that the Act is constitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment.

A Saving Grace - The Impact Of The Fostering Connections To Success And Increasing Adoptions Act On America's Older Foster Youth, May Shin

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

This note examines the struggles of youths who must leave state foster care systems (called "aging out" of foster care) upon turning eighteen years old. Thousands of young people age out of foster care systems each year. Foster care systems have traditionally abandoned children upon their eighteenth birthday, without providing aged-out youth real assistance in obtaining employment, health services, or basic shelter. Most commonly, these young adults do not have sufficient resources or support to allow them to transition into safe and stable lives. The majority of these older youths either get incarcerated, become homeless, or are forced to depend …

Foreword: Doing The Hard Work, Jose R. "Beto" Juarez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Displaced Mothers, Absent And Unnatural Fathers: Lgbt Transracial Adoption, Kim H. Pearson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

While some might believe that Black versus gay discourse only surfaces in highly politicized settings like the military and marriage, it holds sway in the area of LGBT transracial adoption. LGBT transracial adoptions are a relatively small percentage of all adoptions, which include private adoptions, LGBT second-parent adoptions, and step-parent adoptions, but they are an important site for interrogating the Black versus gay discourse because adoption and custody decisions often address parent-child transmission. When claims intersect, as they do in a case where a White LGBT foster parent and a Black maternal grandmother dispute the adoption of a Black child, …

Preface, Paul A. Lombardo

Paul A. Lombardo

Introduction to a volume chronicling the 20th Century North Carolina eugenic sterilization program and the investigative journalism that prompted the state to apologize for it

History Of De Jure Segregation In Public Higher Education In America And The State Of Maryland Prior To 1954 And The Equalization Strategy, John K. Pierre

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Don't Get It Twisted: Why Employer Hairstyle Prohibitions Are Racially Discriminatory, Devin D. Collier

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Appearance and grooming policies in the workplace that prohibit hairstyles worn predominately by African- American employees, including dreads, cornrows, braids, and afros, constrain African-American cultural identity and are racially discriminatory. These policies exhort African- Americans "to cover" their race and modify their hair to assimilate their looks with Anglo-American beauty ideals. These policies found in the private workplace serve no legitimate "business necessity" and are merely a proxy for unlawful race discrimination.

Plaintiffs who challenge these policies as race discrimination, however, are unable to prove a violation of Title VII because of an inability to demonstrate that African- American hairstyle …

The Impact Of Berguis V. Thompkins On The Eroding Miranda Warnings And Limited-English Proficient Individuals: You Must Speak Up To Remain Silent, Brenda L. Rosales

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Miranda v. Arizona requires law enforcement to warn defendants of their right to remain silent and give defendants an explanation that anything said can and will be used against the defendant in court. However, Berghuis v. Thompkins turned Miranda upside down by requiring defendants to unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent or be legally presumed to have waived their rights. Meaning that a defendant's yes or no answer to any question, including questions unrelated to the case, may be interpreted as a knowingly and intelligent waiver of the defendant's Miranda rights.

This note will address how the lower standard …

Out For Blood: Employment Discrimination, Sickle Cell Trait, And The Nfl, Chika Duru

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Recently, numerous athletes, particularly football players, have fallen ill and some have even died from exercise related health complications linked to the sickle cell trait they carry. Not surprisingly, the affected athletes' families or estates have received large court judgments in connection with their injuries, and after a few such judgments at the collegiate athletic level, the National Collegiate Athletic Association recently instituted mandatory sickle cell trait testing for every incoming division I student-athlete.

Though the mandatory sickle cell trait testing appears permissible at the collegiate level, this article examines the potential consequences of a similar policy at the professional …

A Deregulatory Framework For Alleviating Concentrated African-American Poverty, Benjamin Zimmer

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

America's urban poor have become more geographically concentrated and isolated, of which, African Americans comprise the majority. Governmental efforts to combat concentrated poverty have consisted primarily of new government interventions in the housing market: subsidies, mandates, and other programs and regulations designed to compel socio-economic or racial integration. All the while, a separate set of government interventions in the form of tax expenditures, education financing, and land-use controls are largely responsible for the perpetuation of concentrated African-American poverty in the first place.

It is time to consider that a successful approach to poverty de-concentration and residential integration must begin by …

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.

The Politics Of Hate, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This is a special issue dedicated to the topic of hate and political discourse. Collectively, the peer-reviewed articles in this volume are concerned with the political aspects of hatred, i.e., psychology, motivations, organization, tactics, and ends. The articles approach the problem from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, history, law, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. Among the subjects analyzed: group hatred as a heritable trait; hate as an irrational system of thought; Italian fascism's construction of the Communist other; the rise of the English Defence League and its anti-Islam activities; the persistent myth of blood libel; judicial handling …

Post-Racialism And Searches Incident To Arrest, Frank Rudy Cooper

Scholarly Works

For 28 years the Court held that an officer's search incident to arrest powers automatically extended to the entire passenger compartment of a vehicle. In 2009, however, the Arizona v. Gant decision held that officers do not get to search a vehicle incident to arrest unless they satisfy (1) the Chimel v. California Court's requirement that the suspect has access to weapons or evanescent evidence therein or (2) the United States v. Rabinowitz Court's requirement that the officer reasonably believe evidence of the crime of arrest will be found therein. While many scholars read Gant as a triumph for civil …

An Essay On Slavery's Hidden Legacy: Social Hysteria And Structural Condonation Of Incest, Zanita E. Fenton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Coming Up: New Foundations In Latcrit Theory, Community, And Praxis, Francisco Valdes

Articles

No abstract provided.

State Control Of Black Mothers, Donna Coker

Articles

No abstract provided.

A Fresh Cut In An Old Wound–A Critical Analysis Of The Trayvon Martin Killing: The Public Outcry, The Prosecutors’ Discretion, And The Stand Your Ground Law, Tamara F. Lawson

Articles

If the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case is to have value beyond its immediate facts, it is important to consider the case through a broad lens that encompasses law, politics, and culture and the relevant intersectionality of each. This essay gives a contextualized historical perspective with which to view the Black community’s reaction to the initial lack of criminal charges in the case. It explains why the circumstances surrounding Trayvon’s death were experienced as a fresh cut in an old, but deep, collective wound, for many Blacks. It addresses the exacerbation African Americans felt regarding law enforcement’s perceived indifference towards Trayvon, …

Rebellious State Crimmigration Enforcement And The Foreign Affairs Power, Mary Fan

Articles

The propriety of a new breed of state laws interfering in immigration enforcement is pending before the Supreme Court and the lower courts. These laws typically incorporate federal standards related to the criminalization of immigration ("crimmigration'), but diverge aggressively from federal enforcement policy. Enacting states argue that the legislation is merely a species of "cooperative federalism" that does not trespass upon the federal power over foreign affairs, foreign commerce, and nationality rules since the laws mirror federal standards. This Article challenges the formalist mirror theory assumptions behind the new laws and argues that inconsistent state crimmigration enforcement policy and resulting …

"Other Spaces" In Legal Pedagogy, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

There is an increasing focus upon the material and metaphoric spatial dimensions of various academic disciplines, including law. This essay considers the spatial dimensions of legal pedagogy, focusing on Critical Race Theory (CRT). The essay first explains the "critical program" in law and how CRT grows out of it. The essay then suggests that the critical program, and especially CRT, is as much a human geographic or spatial construct as it is a social, political or historic one, and briefly describes the nature of human geography and legal geography. It next considers how metaphors for understanding CRT's position in legal …

Remarks, James Anaya

Publications

These remarks were delivered at the Closing Plenary--Indigenous Peoples and International Law: A Conversation with UN Special Rapporteur James Anaya and Inter-American Commission Rapporteur Dinah Shelton.

The Realism Of Race In Judicial Decision Making: An Empirical Analysis Of Plaintiffs' Race And Judges' Race, Pat K. Chew, Robert E. Kelley

Articles

American society is becoming increasingly diverse. At the same time, the federal judiciary continues to be predominantly White. What difference does this make? This article offers an empirical answer to that question through an extensive study of workplace racial harassment cases. It finds that judges of different races reach different conclusions, with non-African American judges less likely to hold for the plaintiffs. It also finds that plaintiffs of different races fare differently, with African Americans the most likely to lose and Hispanics the most likely to be successful. Finally, countering the formalism model’s tenet that judges are color-blind, the results …

The Thirteenth Amendment And Pro-Equality Speech, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment’s Framers envisioned the Amendment as providing federal authority to eliminate the “badges and incidents of slavery.” The freemen and their descendants are the most likely to be burdened with the effects of stigma, stereotypes, and structural discrimination arising from the slave system. Because African Americans are therefore the most obvious beneficiaries of the Amendment’s promise to eliminate the legacy of slavery, it is often mistakenly assumed that federal power to eradicate the badges and incidents of slavery only permits remedies aimed at redressing the subordination of African Americans. While African Americans were the primary victims of slavery …

Bridging The Great Divide--A Response To Linda Greenhouse And Reva B. Siegel's Before (And After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions About Backlash, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

This essay discusses the history of Roe v. Wade as recently addressed by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel. Going beyond their assertions, I suggest that an additional, more encompassing inquiry focuses on what factors are implicated in the politics of abortion and how these factors relate to larger social, political, and cultural conflicts both before and after Roe. By naming party politics and the Catholic Church, Greenhouse and Siegel posit two crucial elements that shaped the abortion debate. I assert, however, that what is not discussed in their Article is the way numerous other factors have figured into …

On Overreaching, Or Why Rick Perry May Save The Voting Rights Act But Destroy Affirmative Action, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

The State of Texas is presently staking out two positions that are not typically pursued by a single litigant. On the one hand, Texas is seeking the invalidation of the Voting Rights Act, and, on the other, the State is now defending the validity of the expansive race-based affirmative action policy it uses at its flagship university. This Essay presses the claim that Texas has increased the chance it will lose in bothTexas v. Holder andFisher v. University of Texas because it has opted to stake out markedly extreme positions in each. I argue that Texas would be more likely …

Defusing Implicit Bias, Jonathan Feingold, Karen Lorang

Faculty Scholarship

The February 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin has slowly reignited the national conversation about race and violence. Despite the sheer volume of debate arising from this tragedy, insufficient attention has been paid to the potentially deadly mix of guns and implicit bias. Evidence of implicit bias, and its power to alter real-world behavior, is stronger now than ever. A growing body of research on “shooter bias” reveals that, as a result of implicit bias, White and Black Americans are more likely to shoot unarmed Black men than unarmed White men. The problem has been diagnosed. What remains to be determined …

Confronting Race In The Criminal Justice System: The Aba's Racial Justice Improvement Project, Cynthia E. Jones

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Legal Education, Social Justice And The Law School Dean: Latinas At The Center, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

The opening of LatCrit XVI in San Diego, CA, on October 9, 2011, coincided with the events that are identified as the start of the global expression of the Occupy Movement. The Occupy Movement began to gain media attention on September 17, 2011, in Zuccotti Park in New York City. By October 9, protests had taken place or were ongoing in eighty-two countries and over 600 communities in the United States. The broad theme for LatCrit XVI was "Global Justice" and the conference was billed as "an opportunity to explore theories, histories, and futures of global justice. Of particular importance …

Beyond Best Practices For Legal Education: Reflections On Cultural Awareness - Exploring The Issues In Creating A Law School And Classroom Culture, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

If law schools are to prepare students for the reality of practice, it is useful to help students become aware of cultural issues that can affect client representation by examining the culture that the law school creates. The culture created by faculty, students, administration, and staff will affect the law student's acculturation as a legal professional as well as the law student's psychological well-being. This issue was addressed briefly in Best Practices for Legal Education (Best Practices), but not developed. This essay explores some of the challenges and opportunities of bringing cross-cultural issues into a law school classroom and some …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Legal Recourse: Interpreting And Revising Title Vii To Prohibit Workplace Segregation Premised On Religion, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this article is to argue that the federal courts’ prevailing interpretation of Title VII with respect to religious attire in the workplace is inconsistent with the law. I maintain that Title VII prohibits employers from either placing employees in the back or refusing to hire individuals with conspicuous articles of faith due to any actual or perceived social discomfort with the employee’s religion-based appearance. I am persuaded of this for two independent reasons. First, placing an employee out of public view does not constitute a “reasonable accommodation” under Title VII because the statute’s general anti-discrimination provision expressly …

Brief For Thirteenth Amendment Scholars, United States V. Hatch As Amicus Curiae, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

Like the district court, we conclude that Congress has power under the Thirteenth Amendment to enact § 249(a)(1). Although the Thirteenth Amendment by its terms applies to slavery and involuntary servitude, Supreme Court precedent confirms Congress’s authority to legislate against slavery’s “badges and incidents” as well. In particular, the Supreme Court held in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968)—a case permitting a federal private right of action against private individuals for housing discrimination—that Congress itself has power to determine those badges and incidents.