Law and Race Commons^™

Dei In The Legal Profession: Identifying Foundational Factors For Meaningful Change, Robert Razzante, Breanta Boss

Utah Law Review

In this Essay, we offer a critical communication pedagogy as one particular framework for using dialogue “a process of sensitive and thorough inquiry . . . to (de)construct ideologies, identities, and cultures.”70 Such an educational space can serve as an outlet for students to process their cognitive dissonance regarding difference at the intrapersonal level—our fourth factor. Intrapersonal factors, such as cognitive dissonance, if not affirmed and processed, can lead to the continual questioning of one’s place within law school and the legal profession—a continual feeling of imposter syndrome.

Filing While Black: The Casual Racism Of The Tax Law, Steven A. Dean

Utah Law Review

The tax law’s race-blind approach produces bad tax policy. This essay uses three very different examples to show how failing to openly and honestly address race generates bias, and how devasting the results can be. Ignoring race does not solve problems; it creates them. ProPublica has shown, for example, that because of the perils of filing income taxes while Black, the five most heavily audited counties in the United States are Black and poor.

The racial bias long tolerated—and sometimes exploited—by tax scholars and policymakers affects all aspects of the tax law. In 1986, Sam Gilliam was denied tax deductions …

Teaching Cultural Competence In Law School Curricula: An Essential Step To Facilitate Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion In The Legal Profession, Phyllis Taite, Nicola "Nicky" Boothe

Utah Law Review

Law schools must recognize and seek to remove the barriers to teaching cultural competence and DEI and provide appropriate training and workshops for law professors. Providing law professors with the tools to integrate cultural competency into existing curricula is a first and crucial step to ensure that law professors are well-versed in both their own cultural competency, and in the ability to provide cultural competency training to their students. The culturally competent student will become a culturally competent lawyer with the skillset to make impactful contributions towards DEI in and beyond the practice of law.

Bristol And Newport And The Transatlantic Slave Trade 09-01-2022, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Brian Flores's Employment Discrimination Lawsuit Against The Nfl: A Game Changer Or Business As Usual?, Michael Conklin, Jennifer Barger-Johnson, Marty Ludlum

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Hidden Figures: Wage Inequity And Economic Insecurity For Black Women And Other Women Of Color, Cassandra Jones Havard

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

One hundred years after women secured the right to vote, wage inequality remains prevalent in the United States. The gender wage gap, or pay inequity based solely on sex, arguably, is a measure of the current failure of full and equal participation by women in American society. The gender wage gap exists despite federal legislation designed to further wage equality. In fact, a difference as small as two cents over a lifetime costs a woman approximately $80,000. Currently, it is predicted that for a majority of white women, the pay parity will be attained between 2059–2069. However, Black women …

The Power Of Vulnerability In Promoting A Sense Of Belonging: The Perspective Of A First-Generation American, Karin Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

It is my intention that students teach each other through really getting to know one another and finding commonality in each other’s experiences. Most of us live in a social bubble, partially because we feel vulnerable in worlds where we perceive that we do not belong. By sharing vulnerabilities, we are able to expand our world to not only understand our commonalities, but to get a new view of what we thought was inalterable. By sharing my own experience as an out-sider, I am better able to encourage students to consider more deeply the opinions of others and to learn …

The White Supremacist Constitution, Ruth Colker

Utah Law Review

The United States Constitution is a document that, during every era, has helped further white supremacy. White supremacy constitutes a “political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings.”1 Rather than understand the Constitution as a force for progressive structural change, we should understand it as a barrier to change.

From its inception, the Constitution enshrined slavery and the degradation of Black people by …

Comments On ‘Whiteness As Contract’, Marissa Jackson Sow

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Thank you so much, Jay, and thank you everyone for being here this morning. It’s an honor to be able to join you [now] even before I join you formally and it’s an equal honor to share this morning with professors Huq and Whitlow. I have looked up to and been in conversation with professor Huq specifically; to find out that we are co-panelists and also will be teaching contracts together is very inspiring indeed.

So, what I will try to do in the brief time that we have is talk a little bit about Whiteness as Contract, …

Pov: As A Nation, Where Are We Now On Gun Policy?, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

Last month, the federal government passed the first gun safety legislation in decades, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, while at the same time, the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to carry guns in public. It is important then to assess where this country finds itself with regard to gun policy after these two seemingly contrasting and momentous events.

Contract Law & Racial Inequality: A Primer, Danielle Kie Hart

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

America was founded on institutionally recognized and supported oppression, namely, slavery and conquest. So, the fact that the inequality spawned by this oppression continues to exist today should surprise absolutely no one. That said, the extent of the racialized social and economic inequality that pervades American society today is being exposed in horrifying and glaring detail, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

African Americans, the Latinx community, indigenous communities, and immigrants are at much greater risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19 because of now widely-acknowledged systemic health and social inequality and inequity. More specifically, in July …

Death By A Thousand Cuts? Green Tech, Traditional Knowledge, And Genocide, Regina Menachery Paulose

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Traditional Knowledge is a system of knowledge that is passed down through generations of Indigenous and Ethnic Minority Peoples throughout the world. A subset of Traditional Knowledge is Traditional Ecological Knowledge. These knowledge systems are incorporated throughout various international instruments and are considered vital to ways of life for Indigenous and Ethnic Minority Peoples. The author examines the elimination of Traditional Knowledge as a result of green technology. With discussions surrounding ways to obtain “net zero” in response to climate change, the author (re)introduces the notion that the irresponsible push for carbon zero technologies has a horrendous impact on the …

Ethno-Nationalism And Asylum Law, Anna R. Welch, Emily L. Gorrivan

Maine Law Review

The myth that asylum laws were once more equitable and humanitarian is belied by the reality of the system’s racist origins. This Essay explains that the U.S. asylum system, like much of the U.S. immigration system, was designed to disadvantage people of color. Indeed, although former President Trump’s reference to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole countries” while advocating for immigration from “countries like Norway” exacerbated systemic challenges, racism has been deeply ingrained in the U.S. asylum system since its inception. Not only do U.S. laws and policies have a disparate impact on black asylum seekers but, when …

Eli-Tpitahatomek Tpaskuwakonol Waponahkik (How We, Native People, Reflect On The Law In The Dawnland), Michael-Corey F. Hinton, Erick J. Giles

Maine Law Review

Multiple nations within the Wabanaki Confederacy, including the Maliseet Nation, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Penobscot Nation, were signatories to the July 19, 1776 Treaty of Watertown, which was the first ever treaty entered into by the United States of America following the Declaration of Independence. Following the Treaty of Watertown, Wabanaki warriors served directly under General George Washington and made critical contributions in support of the Americans’ Revolutionary War. Such contributions were made based on the Americans’ promise that the Wabanaki Nations’ lands, natural resources, and traditional ways of life would be forever protected by the fledgling United States. …

Existence As A Threat, Alena M. Allen

Connecticut Law Review

There is an ongoing debate in the legal academy about how and whether to integrate race into curricula. For people of color, race impacts their day-to-day lives in ways large and small. In the law school setting, the experience of students of color is often a fraught one. For many students of color, navigating law school is akin to walking a tight rope. This Essay attempts to highlight the myriad challenges facing students of color, and it offers some thoughts about how to create a more inclusive environment

Firearms And Protest: Lessons From The Black Tradition Of Arms, Nicholas J. Johnson

Connecticut Law Review

Kenosha was no aberration. Our history is filled with episodes of righteous protest boiling over into violence. Where violence is imminent, our traditions and laws allow innocents to use corresponding violence in self-defense. This arrangement is imperfect and demands hard thinking about how to refine and possibly improve it. One source of lessons toward this end is the experience of Black freedom fighters who navigated turmoil that dwarfs our current troubles. The principles that guided their struggle help frame a sphere of legitimate gun use during periods of civil unrest. These principles emerge from a considered philosophy and practice of …

The Long Shadow: The Tulsa Race Massacre A Century Later, An Interview With Scott Ellsworth, Scott Ellsworth, Abby Booth, Joan Bosma

Connecticut Law Review

Connecticut Law Review’s 2021 Symposium, titled “History and the Tulsa Race Massacre: What’s (the Law) Got to Do With It?” explored the legal and historical relevance of the Massacre. Following the Symposium, Connecticut Law Review Symposium Editors, Abby Booth and Joan Bosma, interviewed Professor Scott Ellsworth, a historian and leading scholar on the Massacre and a panelist at the Symposium. Professor Ellsworth provides a summary of the Massacre—including the events before and after the Massacre—and discusses the overwhelming lack of recognition that the Massacre has received in the last century.

What’S (Race In) The Law Got To Do With It: Incorporating Race In Legal Curriculum, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin

Connecticut Law Review

Gen Z is defined as including persons born after 1996 and, in 2018, the first Gen Z would have been twenty-two years old, the historically traditional age that many complete undergraduate studies and enter law school. With Gen Z entering law schools, the legal academy has been wholeheartedly preparing for the arrival of the first truly digital native generation in a myriad of ways. However, law training has been slow to progress in addressing the unspoken complexities of context and unconscious bias in the classroom with this population. Today’s Gen Z students were predominately raised in de facto segregated schools …

Asian And Muslim Americans Intersections, Solidarity And Striving Ahead, Khaled A. Beydoun

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

The Political Urgency Of Black Manhood: Frederick Douglass On Constitutional Theory, John M. Kang

New Mexico Law Review

How did Frederick Douglass—one who was born a slave, one who had been denied all formal education, one who had been sundered from his family, one who had been starved, tortured, and, on occasion, nearly killed—manage to muster the courage to do something as bold as challenge the United States Supreme Court? This Article suggests that Douglass, in order to assert his right as an American citizen, first had to assert his right as a man in an explicitly gendered sense. That is, Douglass had to muster a powerful sense of manliness that could elevate him psychologically to assert his …

The Watts Gang Treaty: Hidden History And The Power Of Social Movements, William J. Aceves

Faculty Scholarship

On the eve of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, a small group of gang leaders and community activists drafted an agreement to curtail violence in south Los Angeles. Several gangs in Watts accepted the truce and established a cease-fire agreement. By most accounts, the 1992 Watts Gang Treaty succeeded in reducing gang violence in Los Angeles. Local activists attributed the reduction in shootings to the Treaty. Even law enforcement officials grudgingly recognized the Treaty’s contribution to reducing gang violence and a corresponding decrease in homicides.

The origins of the Watts Gang Treaty can be traced to gang leaders recognizing that …

Blame The Victim: How Mistreatment By The State Is Used To Legitimize Police Violence, Tamara Rice Lave

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Tulsa Race Massacre Of 1921: A Lesson In The Law Of Trespass, Kara W. Swanson

Connecticut Law Review

The Connecticut Law Review Symposium poses the question: “History and the Tulsa Race Massacre: What’s the Law Got to Do With It?” In one sense, the answer to the question is easy. Since 1921, Black Tulsans have been looking to law and lawyers to address the harms inflicted during the Tulsa Race Massacre, albeit with little success. I was asked to consider, however, the startling lack of recognition of the Massacre—that is, the seemingly impossible feat of forgetting the racially motivated wholesale destruction of a community. In this Essay, I focus on one space of non-recognition, law schools, and on …

A Stitch In Time Saves Nine: How The State Of Ohio Can Save Money And Distress Through Legal Training For Pre-Service Teachers, Karin Mika, Christine Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

For simplicity, this Note will focus on the educational requirements for high school teachers rather than elementary or middle school teachers. Here, the requirements include core content instruction, literacy instruction, and a 12-week student teaching experience. Additionally, ODHE issues a vague requirement of preparation in six different Ohio school-related standards. Only one of those standards, the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession, even mentions correctly applying the law.

There is clearly a need for some form of legal preparation for teachers in Ohio that must take place before an individual becomes a teacher. Not only is there an ethical obligation …

Comment: Understanding Xenophobia As Intersectional Discrimination, Shreya Atrey

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Comment examines the nature of xenophobia and why it seems to fall through the cracks of international human rights law, especially as a form of racial discrimination under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It considers an understanding of xenophobia as a sui generis case of intersectional discrimination because it has to do with racial grounds but also perhaps other grounds (such as nationality, religion, language, culture, and class), which makes it difficult to disentangle the basis of xenophobic discrimination as based on strictly racial grounds alone.

(G)Local Intersectionality, Martha F. Davis

Washington and Lee Law Review

Intersectionality theory has been slow to take root as a legal norm at the national level, even as scholars embrace it as a potent analytical tool. Yet, in recent years, intersectionality has entered law and policy practices through an unexpected portal: namely, local governments’ adoption of international norms. A growing number of local governments around the world explicitly incorporate intersectionality into their law and practice as part of implementing international antidiscrimination norms from human rights instruments like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of …

Sexual Violence, Intangible Harm, And The Promise Of Transformative Remedies, Jill C. Engle

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article describes alternative remedies that survivors of sexual violence can access inside and outside the legal system. It describes the leading restorative justice approaches and recommends one of the newest and most innovative of those—“transformative justice”—to heal the intangible harms of sexual violence. The Article also discusses the intersectional effects of sexual violence on women of color and their communities. It explains the importance of transformative justice’s intersectional approach to redress sexual violence. Transformative justice offers community-based, victim-centric methods that cultivate deep, lasting healing for sexual violence survivors and their communities, with genuine accountability for those who have caused …

The Crt Of Black Lives Matter, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

Critical Race Theory ("CR T"), or at least its principles, stands at the core of most prominent social movements of today-from the resurgence of the #MeToo Movement, which was founded by a Black woman, Tarana Burke, to the Black Lives Matter Movement, which was founded by three Black women: Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Cullors. In fact, Critical Race Theorists have long defined CRT itself as a movement, one that has not only provided theoretical interventions regarding the relationship between race, racism, power, and the law, but that has also encouraged and, in fact, inspired and guided social movements. …

Foreword: Centering Intersectionality In Human Rights Discourse, Johanna Bond

Washington and Lee Law Review

In the last decade, intersectionality theory has gained traction as a lens through which to analyze international human rights issues. Intersectionality theory is the notion that multiple systems of oppression intersect in peoples’ lives and are mutually constitutive, meaning that when, for example, race and gender intersect, the experience of discrimination goes beyond the formulaic addition of race discrimination and gender discrimination to produce a unique, intersectional experience of discrimination. The understanding that intersecting systems of oppression affect different groups differently is central to intersectionality theory. As such, the theory invites us to think about inter-group differences (i.e., differences between …

The Black-White Paradigm’S Continuing Erasure Of Latinas: See Women Law Deans Of Color, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

The Black-white paradigm persists with unintended consequences. For example, there have been only six Latina law deans to date with only four presently serving. This Article provides data about women law deans of color, the dearth of Latina law deans, and explanations for the data. It focuses on the enduring Black-white paradigm, as well as other external and internal forces. This Article suggests how to increase the number of Latina law deans and emphasizes why it matters.