Law and Race Commons^™

Charging The Poor: Criminal Justice Debt & Modern-Day Debtors' Prisons, Neil L. Sobol

Faculty Scholarship

Debtors’ prisons should no longer exist. While imprisonment for debt was common in colonial times in the United States, subsequent constitutional provisions, legislation, and court rulings all called for the abolition of incarcerating individuals to collect debt. Despite these prohibitions, individuals who are unable to pay debts are now regularly incarcerated, and the vast majority of them are indigent. In 2015, at least ten lawsuits were filed against municipalities for incarcerating individuals in modern-day debtors’ prisons. Criminal justice debt is the primary source for this imprisonment.

Criminal justice debt includes fines, restitution charges, court costs, and fees. Monetary charges exist …

Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Keynote Address: The Honorable Carlton W. Reeves, United States District Court For The Southern District Of Mississippi, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Recovering Forgotten Struggles Over The Constitutional Meaning Of Equality, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Race, Restructurings, And Equal Protection Doctrine Through The Lens Of Schuette V. Bamn, Steve Sanders

Brooklyn Law Review

In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that Michigan voters had violated principles of the fair lawmaking process when they amended their state constitution to prohibit race-conscious affirmative action in public university admissions, reasoning that the amendment, known as “Proposal 2,” constituted a political restructuring that had violated the Equal Protection Clause by disadvantaging African Americans from being able to equally access political change. However, the Sixth Circuit was careful to avoid saying that Proposal 2 created a racial classification or was motivated by a purpose of discriminating on the basis of race. Instead, consistent …

Class-Based Affirmative Action, Or The Lies That We Tell About The Insignificance Of Race, Khiara Bridges

Faculty Scholarship

This Article conducts a critique of class-based affirmative action, identifying and problematizing the narrative that it tells about racial progress. The Article argues that class-based affirmative action denies that race is a significant feature of American life. It denies that individuals - and groups - continue to be advantaged and disadvantaged on account of race. It denies that there is such a thing called race privilege that materially impacts people’s worlds. Moreover, this Article suggests that at least part of the reason why class-based affirmative action has been embraced by those who oppose race-based affirmative action is precisely because it …

Disparate Impact And The Role Of Classification And Motivation In Equal Protection Law After Inclusive Communities, Samuel Bagenstos

Articles

At least since the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, disparate-impact liability has faced a direct constitutional threat. This Article argues that the Court’s decision last Term in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., which held that disparate-impact liability is available under the Fair Housing Act, has resolved that threat, at least for the time being. In particular, this Article argues, Inclusive Communities is best read to adopt the understanding of equal protection that Justice Kennedy previously articulated in his pivotal concurrence in the 2007 Parents Involved case—which argued that …