Law and Race Commons^™

The Private Law Of Race And Sex: An Antebellum Perspective, Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

In this article, Professor Adrienne D. Davis traces the interaction of race, sex, and estate law in the antebellum and postbellum South. Through a close analysis of intestate succession and testamentary transfers involving the formerly enslaved, she unearths the role of private law in reconciling and preserving both property rights and racial hierarchy. The article centers on a series of historical case studies involving the rights of formerly enslaved women and their children to postmortem transfers of wealth. While the law of private property generally served to reinforce racial hierarchy, these cases involved the use of property rights -- specifically, …

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 …

Not-So-Arbitrary Arbitration: Using Title Vii Disparate Impact Analysis To Invalidate Employment Contracts That Discriminate, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On May 20, 1996, three women filed a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit against the Wall Street investment firm Smith Barney. Later joined by twenty additional women, the plaintiffs alleged that Smith Barney failed to hire and promote women, created a hostile work environment, and discriminated on the basis of pregnancy and marital status. The lawsuit quickly gained widespread publicity, most notably for its accusation that the former manager of the Garden City, New York, branch had established a fraternity-like "boom-boom room" in the office basement where female employees were either excluded or harassed if allowed to enter. On …

Borders (En)Gendered: Normativities, Latinas, And A Latcrit Paradigm, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay, developed in a prologue and three parts, adopts Latinas'/os' world traveling as a metaphor for Latina/o multidimensionality and as a springboard for LatCrit theorizing. The Prologue is a brief diary entry of unfin de semana viajando mundos - a weekend of actual traveling between New York and Miami; law and familia; profesora and learner; colleague and hija; español and English; norte y sur; normativa and other; indigenous and alien. This abbreviated record of a Latina's life reveals, exposes, and unveils Latinas'/os' daily crossdressing simply by virtue of their latinidad. This Prologue thus serves as a concrete backdrop for …

Representing Black Male Innocence, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

This Article is a case study of a California capital case. Drawing on cultural studies, the first part develops the social construction of Black male gang member, especially as that identity is understood within white imaginations. The powerful and frightening idea of a Black man who is a gang member, even gang leader, captured the imagination and moral passion of the decisionmakers in this case, recasting and reframing the evidence in furtherance of this idea. In fundamental ways, this idea or imposed identity is fundamentally inconsistent with any American concept of innocence.

The second part uses the case to investigate …

Introduction: O.J. Simpson And The Criminal Justice System On Trial, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

No abstract provided.

We Can't Go On Together With Suspicious Minds: Judicial Bias And Racialized Perspective In R. V. R.D.S., Richard F. Devlin

Dalhousie Law Journal

In recent years it has been recognized that the Canadian judiciary has been drawn from only a relatively small cross section of the community, specifically privileged white males. As a result there have been calls for, and some action in pursuit of, appointment processes that are designed to diversify the bench in order to render it more inclusive. Gender and race are the two primary categories that are invoked as the benchmarks of diversity. While it would appear that numerically there seems to be some very modest progress towards the goal of achieving a more inclusive judiciary, significant qualitative, institutional …

The Ties That Bind: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Gender, Ethnicity, And The Practice Of Law, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Over the past decade, fueled in part by Carol Gilligan's controversial book, In a Different Voice, both feminists and scholars of color have critically examined the law from the "outsiders'" perspective. Stretching methodological bounds, this interrelated body of scholarship has utilized narrative form to question the gender and racial implications of social practices and legal rules and to demonstrate the useful purpose that stories serve as a means of including marginalized groups in law's evolution and reform. Women scholars of color have carved out a particular role in this debate, criticizing feminism's categorical conceptualization of "woman." They have advanced …

Queer Intersectionality And The Failure Of Recent Lesbian And Gay "Victories", Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Amidst the juridical heterosexism of our legal system, the few successful lesbian and gay cases stand out as brilliant, hopeful harbingers of the future. With good cause, lesbian and gay people have hailed state cases that indicate Bowers v. Hardwick has not contaminated all American courts. Although termed "victories" for the lesbian and gay community, several recent New York cases exclude many queer legal needs. Four cases, Braschi v. Stahl Assoc., In the Matter of the Adoption of Evan, M.A.B. v. R.B. and Thomas S. v. Robin Y., embody the law's progress on lesbian and gay issues. This essay …

O'Connor: A Dual Role - An Introduction, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.