Law and Race Commons^™

Killing Two Achievements With One Stone: The Intersectional Impact Of Shelby County On The Rights To Vote And Access High Performing Schools, Steven L. Nelson

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The Civil Rights Movement sought to ensure access to the right to vote and to quality education. Although these two pursuits are historically inseparable, scholars have addressed education and voting rights as separate struggles within one movement. This Article addresses the intersection of educational equity and voting rights by assessing the role of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder on Black voters’ ability to participate in the politics of education and educational policy via school board selection processes. This Article argues that the Court’s decision in Shelby County restricted access to political participation for Black voters in …

The Fourth Sector: Creating A For-Profit Social Enterprise Sector To Directly Combat The Lack Of Social Mobility In Marginalized Communities, Carlos Jurado

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The United States is currently facing record high rates of income inequality and, as a result, there is a general lack of social mobility. This is troublesome for Americans because of the potential disastrous implications for the United States economy. The current state of the American market has enabled an environment where a few elite continue to hoard large amounts of the profits generated by the economy while the lower class has experienced a substantial growth in population with incomparable economic growth. In addition, the middle class has significantly diminished and can soon be rendered ineffective in its role as …

Fortitude In The Face Of Adversity: Delta Sigma Theta’S History Of Racial Uplift, Gregory S. Parks, Marcia Hernandez

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The common narrative about the African-American quest for social justice and civil rights during the 20th century consists, largely, of men and women working through

organizations to bring about change. The typical list of organizations includes, inter alia, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. African- American collegiate-based sororities are almost never included in this list. Nevertheless, at the turn of the 20th century, a small group of organizations founded on personal excellence sparked the development and sustaining of fictive-kinship ties and racial …

Niños, Niñas Y Adolescentes In Guatemala: Reflections On The Implementation Of The Ley Pina, Stacy Kowalski

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

This Note examines Guatemala’s Ley de Protección Integral de la Niñez y Adolescencia (Law for the Comprehensive Protection of Children and Adolescents, or Ley PINA) and analyzes why this law has not effectively protected the rights of children and adolescents, within the context of historical and structural violence, which contribute to a lack of prioritization of youth in Guatemala. In 2014, the United States experienced a large influx of unaccompanied minors fleeing primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. A delegate of attorneys and law students traveled to Guatemala to interview child advocates, including government officials, and representatives of non-governmental …

La Gran Lucha: Latina And Latino Lawyers, Breaking The Law On Principle, And Confronting The Risks Of Representation, Marc‐Tizoc González

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

In a time when people in the United States have been taking to the streets en masse to protest unjust socio‐legal conditions like police brutality and the draconian enforcement of immigration laws, the time is ripe to reconceptualize what it means to break the law on principle. Twenty five years ago, Harvard Law Dean Martha L. Minow conceptualized “the risks of representation” for lawyers whose clients “entertain breaking the law as one of their strategies for achieving social change.” Responding substantively to Minow’s ideas, Houston Law Professor Michael A. Olivas presented three case studies to illuminate the risks of nonrepresentation, …

The Obergefell Marriage Equality Decision, With Its Emphasis On Human Dignity, And A Fundamental Right To Food Security, Maxine D. Goodman

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Today, the welfare rights movement has faltered. However, the Supreme Court’s recent marriage equality decision, with its emphasis on human dignity, lends hope to the notion that the Court should also acknowledge a right to food security. This Article identifies the role human dignity has served in the Court’s constitutional analysis to acknowledge and protect, for example, rights to privacy, to travel, to be heard, to self‐representation, to marry, to speak freely, and to preserve bodily integrity. According to the Court, these rights are all a part of liberty. Arguably, and as FDR said, “[i]f, as our Constitution tells us, …

Integrate And Reactivate The 1968 Fair Housing Mandate, Courtney L. Anderson

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 (“FHA”) was created to eliminate discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing, and to mandate affirmative actions be taken to develop fair housing throughout the United States. Numerous scholars and practitioners have lamented both the failure of the FHA to enforce its sections calling for government entities to affirmatively further fair housing, and the narrow interpretation of the FHA. This narrow interpretation has effectively rendered the FHA useless when a plaintiff claims that environmental ills have reduced the value and livability of homes, because these “non‐housing” claims are too far removed from …

Police Terror And Officer Indemnification, Allyssa Villanueva

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Police accountability has quickly pressed to the forefront of national conversations and subsequently, the national political agenda. Increasing prevalence of excessive and lethal use of force by police officers induced this attention. President Obama convened a Task Force on 21st Century Policing, after the Department of Justice conducted several pattern and practice investigation of misconduct following the high‐profile deaths of unarmed Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Their deaths both resulted in no criminal charges against responsible officers. Civil suit was the only option left for officer accountability. This Note addresses the use of 42 U.S.C. §1983 as the common civil …