Law and Race Commons^™

Courtroom To Classroom: Judicial Policymaking And Affirmative Action, Dylan Britton Saul

Political Science Honors Projects

The judicial branch, by exercising judicial review, can replace public policies with ones of their own creation. To test the hypothesis that judicial policymaking is desirable only when courts possess high capacity and necessity, I propose an original model incorporating six variables: generalism, bi-polarity, minimalism, legitimization, structural impediments, and public support. Applying the model to a comparative case study of court-sanctioned affirmative action policies in higher education and K-12 public schools, I find that a lack of structural impediments and bi-polarity limits the desirability of judicial race-based remedies in education. Courts must restrain themselves when engaging in such policymaking.

Dedication To Freedom, Emily M.S. Houh

Freedom Center Journal

The articles in this issue of The Freedom Center Journal are timely challenges to the persistent efforts to undermine the American values enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution and the body of the Constitution itself with its three Civil War Amendments.

The student editors of this volume intended the selected contributions to offer readers a nuanced view of our nation’s current identity crisis. The collection is offered in the hope that it will encourage further thinking and discussion about what it means to be part of the American experiment with democratic self-governance in an age of resurgent white supremacy.

Shelby County V. Holder - Brief Contextualized, Mark W. Wolfe

Student Publications

This paper begins with three major factors that set the stage for Shelby: first, a history of the VRA; second, an overview of Northwest Austin with a focus on how it led directly to Shelby; and finally, Shelby County’s motivations for bringing the suit. An examination of racial demographics compared to statistics on voter registration and minority officeholders in Alabama and Louisiana—two states originally subject to preclearance—follows in light of the Court’s claims on the matter. A conclusion will take a brief look at laws passed since Shelby with an eye towards a future critique. [excerpt]

'Dred Scott V. Sandford' Analysis, Sarah E. Roessler

Student Publications

The Scott v. Sandford decision will forever be known as a dark moment in America's history. The Supreme Court chose to rule on a controversial issue, and they made the wrong decision. Scott v. Sandford is an example of what can happen when the Court chooses to side with personal opinion instead of what is right.

Mascaras Y Trenzas: Reflexiones. Un Proyecto De Identidad Y Analysis A Traves De Veinte Anos (Masks And Braids: Reflections, A Project On Identity And Analysis Over Twenty Years), Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

This article uses Critical Race Theory and LatCrit methodologies, vocabulary, categories, and pedagogical approaches. In this Section, titled 'On Mascaras,' I am grappling with race (and gender secondarily) in public space -- un/masking my professional persona. In using the word 'wrestle' in the subheading I am referring to this struggle over a re-allocation of the social power that inheres in racial hierarchies, namely, the back-and-forth exchanges involved in changing the racial ambiance by exposing and transforming the presumptions, especially regarding notions of inferiority, that cabin our thinking and restrain our relationships. My original paper was something of an outburst, challenging …

''Get Your Asphalt Off My Ancestors!'': Reclaiming Richmond's African Burial Ground, Mai-Linh Hong

Faculty Journal Articles

By treating spatial conflict as one way communities wrestle with the memory and legacy of slavery, this article unites critical landscape analysis, a tool of legal geography, with legal and cultural analysis and recent scholarship on African American reparations. A slave cemetery lay beneath a parking lot in Shockoe Bottom, a neighborhood of downtown Richmond that was once a major slave-trading hub. In recent years, controversy arose over the site’s use, generating racially charged local debate and two failed lawsuits seeking to preserve the site. This article examines the significance of the African Burial Ground controversy by analyzing its symbolic, …

Intersectionality: Mapping The Movements Of A Theory, Devon Carbado, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Vicki M. Mays, Barbara Tomlinson

Faculty Scholarship

Very few theories have generated the kind of interdisciplinary and global engagement that marks the intellectual history of intersectionality. Yet, there has been very little effort to reflect upon precisely how intersectionality has moved across time, disciplines, issues, and geographic and national boundaries. Our failure to attend to intersectionality’s movement has limited our ability to see the theory in places in which it is already doing work and to imagine other places to which the theory might be taken. Addressing these questions, this special issue reflects upon the genesis of intersectionality, engages some of the debates about its scope and …

Racial Profiling-Separate And Unequal Keeping The Minorities In Line - The Role Of Law Enforcement In America, April Walker

St. Thomas Law Review

This article will explore the history of modern policing and examine police brutality at the early stages of the implementation of law enforcements in this country. Also, this article will address whether race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity contributes to higher incidents of police brutality and review common misconceptions by the public about police brutality and retaliation against citizens who report police brutality. This article will define the term qualified immunity and highlight its application towards police officials and district attorneys, while also analyzing highly publicized cases and their dispositions. Lastly, this article will address possible solutions to combating …

The Process Is The Problem: Lessons Learned From United States Drug Sentencing Reform, Erik S. Siebert

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawson Edward Thomas And Miami's Negro Municipal Court, Ernesto Longa

St. Thomas Law Review

Lawson Edward Thomas, born in 1898 in Ocala, Florida, was both Miami's first black judge and the first black judge in the South since reconstruction. The municipal court Thomas presided over was located within Miami's Black Police Precinct and handled only cases involving black defendants arrested by black patrolmen. In other words, in 1950, Miami established a municipal court on purely racial lines. Amazingly, considerable research has not revealed a single scholarly article written about Miami's all-black court; Marvin Dunn's Black Miami in the Twentieth Century contains only four sentences on L.E. Thomas. Even Miami-Dade County's "local court historian" seems …

The Evolving Right Of Self-Determination Of Indigenous Peoples, Paul J. Magnarella

St. Thomas Law Review

The destruction of indigenous societies represents a major threat to the contemporary world's rich inventory of cultures. Throughout the centuries, indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed from their lands, dispossessed of their natural resources, discriminated against or simply decimated.! Most of the world's estimated 300 million indigenous peoples are less well off than are members of the dominant societies. Many live in extreme poverty. Indigenous peoples wish to maintain their own unique cultures and ethnic identities and to control their traditional lands of occupation or at least some portions of them. Indigenous peoples need protected enclaves if they are to …

Defending Indigenous Peoples' Heritage: An Introduction, Siegfried Wiessner

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

Independent Traditional Seminole Nation: Defending Our Heritage And Our Land, Bobby Billie

St. Thomas Law Review

Let me identify my people and myself. In Florida, there are the Seminole Tribe, Incorporated and the Miccosukee Tribe, Incorporated. We have kept the tradition of the Independent Traditional Seminole Nation of Florida. We have not given up our land, our way of life, and our traditions. We have never signed a peace treaty, we never accepted a government handout, we did not accept anything. We try to maintain the gift of the Creator's way of life. We believe it gives us continuously the way of life. Nobody has to recognize us as to who we are as long as …

Things Not Spoken: The Burial Of Native American History, Law And Culture, Rennard Strickland

St. Thomas Law Review

The theme of this conference, "Sacred Sites and Modem Lives," is important not only for Native Americans but for all Americans. Indeed, the relationship between indigenous peoples and their traditional homelands is an issue of global significance. Throughout the world we are hearing what Dr. Erica-Irene A. Daes called "the voice of loneliness and self-destruction." What D. H. Lawrence called the spirit of the ghost of aboriginal peoples. It is a ghost with an increasingly haunting and strident voice.

African-Americans, Latinos, And The Construction Of Race: Toward An Epistemic Coalition, George A. Martinez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Latinos will soon become the largest minority group in the United States. African-Americans may therefore be about to give up political clout to Latinos. This prospect has generated tension between African-Americans and Latinos. Given this background, it is important for Critical Race Theory and Latino Critical Theory to consider the matter of the African-American/Latino relationship. With this in mind, the author discusses two important questions posed by the organizers of this panel: (1) How is the relationship between African-Americans and Latinos affected by the construction of race? and (2) Can Critical Race Theory benefit by a consideration of the race …

Darkness Made Visible: Law, Metaphor, And The Racial Self, D. Marvin Jones

Articles

No abstract provided.

Capital Punishment And Equal Protection: Constitutional Problems, Race And The Death Penalty, Stan Robin Gregory

St. Thomas Law Review

This comment will (i) demonstrate that black defendants as well as black victims in death penalty cases, are not equally protected under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution and (ii) propose a solution to provide blacks equal protection, as contemplated by the framers of the United States Constitution, when they face execution. This comment is not intended to present the argument that a death row inmate should share the same equal protection with that of law abiding citizens. Rather, this comment stands for the proposition that as a group, all death row inmates should be equally protected regardless of race.

Back To The Future: Original Intent As A Means For Vitalizing The Fourteenth Amendment In The Context Of Race, Raneta J. Lawson

St. Thomas Law Review

Donald E. Lively's book The Constitution and Race exposes in a methodological way the historical origin of the conflict between symbolism and substance in the context of race. Lively chronicles two centuries of constitutional jurisprudence pertaining to race from the initial deferral of race-based issues at the nation's founding to the modem day catering to majoritarian interests that continues to subordinate racial concerns. Throughout this jurisprudential retrospective, Lively demonstrates how race-based considerations have permeated nearly every aspect of society and yet such considerations remain significantly unattended because of national policies that ultimately indulge competing priorities. Lively argues that a recognition …

The Jurisprudence Of Affirmative Action: Equality In Abstraction And Application, Alec Anthony Izzo

St. Thomas Law Review

Analyzing the results in affirmative action cases decided in the last fourteen years tends to invite specious observations. For example, it is true that only 50% of the affirmative action plans reviewed by the Supreme Court withstand constitutional attack, while 80% withstand federal statutory attack. Additionally, more than half of the Court's affirmative action opinions have been authored by Justice Brennan and in each case the challenged plan has been approved. Further, two cases evaluating the constitutional merits of affirmative action were written by Justice Powell, whose opinions resulted in findings of unconstitutionality, and whose language echoes long beyond his …

A Survey Of American Negro Slavery As Seen In Its Legal Aspects, Mona M. Webb

Graduate Student Research Papers

This paper presents a limited study of the legal basis for slavery in pre-civil war United States laws.