Law and Race Commons^™

Opening Session, Annette Clark, Steven Bender

SITIE Symposiums

This year's conference focuses on the social good, highlighting three access barriers fundamental in law and society - access to legal services (and more generally, justice), access to health and health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, and access to financial services for the unbanked or underbanked.

Enjoyed By White Citizens, Nancy Leong

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Whiteness is largely invisible in American law. The United States Constitution never mentions white people. Indeed, the entirety of constitutional and statutory law, at both the federal and state level, includes only two antidiscrimination statutes that refer explicitly to white people. These Reconstruction-era statutes—42 U.S.C § 1981 and § 1982—declare that all people shall have the “same right” regarding contracts and property as “enjoyed by white citizens.”

This Article argues that the unique visibility of whiteness in § 1981 and § 1982 presents an opportunity. The plain language of these statutes exposes whiteness and requires explicit analysis of the contract …

Environmental Law Disrupted By Covid-19, Katrina Fischer Kuh, Lissa Griffin, Rebecca Bratspies, Vanessa Casado Perez, Robin Kundis Craig, Keith Hirokawa, Sarah Krakoff, Jessica Owley, Melissa Powers, Shannon Roesler, Jonathan Rosenbloom, J.B. Ruhl, Erin Ryan, David Takacs

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

For over a year, the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns about systemic racial injustice have highlighted the conflicts and opportunities currently faced by environmental law. Scientists uniformly predict that environmental degradation, notably climate change, will cause a rise in diseases, disproportionate suffering among communities already facing discrimination, and significant economic losses. In this Article, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative examine the legal system’s responses to these crises, with the goal of framing opportunities to reimagine environmental law. The Article is excerpted from their book Environmental Law, Disrupted, to be published by ELI Press later this year.

Remarks, Lisa Foster

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In both Greek and Roman mythology, a Hydra guards the entrance to the underworld. For those who don’t remember their mythology, a Hydra is a multi-headed serpent who exhales poisonous fumes. If you get close enough to the Hydra and are able to cut off one of its heads, two grow back in its place. Slaying the Hydra was number two on Hercules’ famous list of Labors. He was successful, but not without a fierce struggle.

As you’ve heard over the last four days, fines and fees are Hydralike. Fines are imposed for almost every minor offense — misdemeanors, infractions, …

Women Of Color In Immigration Enforcement, Kit Johnson

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Sovereignty Threat: Loreal Tsingine, Policing, And The Intersectionality Of Indigenous Death, Theresa Rocha Beardall

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Race And Gender And Policing, Stewart Chang, Frank Rudy Cooper, Addie C. Rolnick

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Enough! Eliminating Police Abuse Of Individuals Of Color With Disabilities, Ann C. Mcginley

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Web Of Incarceration: School-Based Probation, Jyoti Nanda

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Analysis Of The Racial/Ethnic And Sex Differences In Nypd Stop-And-Frisk Practices, Henry F. Fradella, Weston J. Morrow, Michael D. White

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

American Punishment And Pandemic, Danielle C. Jefferis

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Pathological Racism, Chronic Racism & Targeted Universalism, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel Charles

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Race and law scholars almost uniformly prefer antisubordination to anticlassification as the best way to understand and adjudicate racism. In this short Essay, we explore whether the antisubordination framework is sufficiently capacious to meet our present demands for racial justice. We argue that the antisubordination approach relies on a particular conception of racism, which we call pathological racism, that limits its capacity for addressing the fundamental restructuring that racial justice requires. We suggest, in a manner that might be viewed as counterintuitive, that targeted universalist remedies might be more effective to address long term racial inequality but might also be …

Turning The Tables On Rds: Racially Revealing Questions Asked By White Judges, Constance Backhouse

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the 1997 RDS case, the Supreme Court of Canada deliberated on the concept of judicial race bias. The decision subjected the oral ruling of a lower court trial judge in a busy Youth Court to close scrutiny. The majority of the nine-person, all-white bench reprimanded Canada’s first Black female judge, whose words about police officers who “overreact” in dealing with racialized youth they found “troubling” and “worrisome.” This article places the same close scrutiny on the words of the white judges who were most critical of the trial judge. It examines their informal interjections and comments at the Supreme …

Maximizing #Metoo: Intersectionality & The Movement, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Although women of color experience high rates of harassment and assault, the #MeToo movement has largely left them on the margins in terms of (1) the online conversation, (2) the traditional social movement activity occurring offline, and (3) the consequential legal activity. This Article analyzes how race shapes experiences of harassment and how seemingly positive legal strides continue to fail women of color thirty years beyond Kimberlé Crenshaw’s initial framing of intersectionality theory. I discuss the weaknesses of the reform efforts and argue for more tailored strategies that take into account the ineffectiveness of our current Title VII framework and, …

Legal Support For Victim Compensation Funds For Police Violence Victims, Valena E. Beety

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Elusiveness Of Self-Defense For The Black Transgender Community, Shawn E. Fields

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Patricia E. Roberts

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Foreword written by Patricia E. Roberts upon her first year as the 10th dean of St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas.

House Bill 3: An Iou Texas Public Schools And Communities Of Color Cannot Afford, Candace L. Castillo

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

A history of school finance litigation and legislation shows there are inherent and structural problems in Texas’s education finance system. Like many government and social structures, the Texas school finance system is built to benefit school districts that have greater access to wealth to begin with and creates inequalities between rich and poor populations as well as between people of color and Caucasians. House Bill 3 went into effect in 2019 and promises improvements to “recapture” calculations, increases in certain allotments, as well as salary increases for some Texas teachers. Some changes to education finance were sorely needed such as …

Undocumented Domestic Workers: A Penumbra In The Workforce, Abigail A. Roman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Bargaining Without Bias, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, to work towards decreasing bias in plea bargaining, I propose a structural fix and an individual fix to these core problems. The structural fix is that prosecutors' offices should adopt policies for blind assessment of cases when the first plea offer is made. All indicia of race or ethnicity (including names and neighborhoods) should be removed when prosecutors review a case and make the initial plea offer. This would help prosecutors focus on the facts and their evidence when making a plea offer and prevent bias in decision making. However, it is not realistic to expect that …

Mental Health Outcomes Of Various Types Of Fear Among University Students Who Have An Undocumented Legal Status During The Donald Trump Presidency, Liliana Campos

Doctoral Dissertations

Having an undocumented legal status is a risk factor for mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety among university students. Much of the literature on the experiences of university students who hold an undocumented legal status has primarily focused on better understanding the educational, social, financial, and legal challenges among undergraduate students. The literature has addressed how some of these difficulties impact components of their social and mental health wellness. Yet, there is still a dearth of research focused on further understanding the experiences of students who hold an undocumented legal status from a psychological perspective, and specifically, with …

Debt To Society: The Role Of Fines & Fees Reform In Dismantling The Carceral State, Wesley Dozier, Daniel Kiel

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Fines and fees that result from contact with the criminal legal system serve as a suffocating debt for those against whom they are assessed. Many states have countless laws that require taxes, fines, and fees to be assessed against individuals involved in the criminal legal system at various stages of the criminal legal process, and they have the effect of permanently trapping individuals within the system. In Tennessee, for example, these debts, which can accumulate to over $10,000 in a single criminal case, stand in the way of individuals getting their criminal records expunged, keeping valid driver’s licenses, and restoring …

#Blacklivesmatter—Getting From Contemporary Social Movements To Structural Change, Jamillah Bowman Williams, Naomi Mezey, Lisa O. Singh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

From the haters and hackers to propaganda and privacy concerns, social media often deserves its bad reputation. But the sustained activism that followed George Floyd’s death and the ongoing movement for racial justice also demonstrated how social media can be a crucial mechanism of social change. We saw how online and on-the-ground activism can fuel each other and build momentum in ways neither can achieve in isolation. We have seen in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and more specifically the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, a new and powerful approach to using social media that goes beyond symbolic “slacktivism” and performative allyship …

Anomalous Anatomies: How The Tsa Should Screen For Transgender People, Karissa J. Kang, John M. Kang

Faculty Scholarship

A transgender person faces obstacles trying to negotiate a gender-binary world. Going through a TSA checkpoint is no different. A substantial number of transgender persons have reported that they were detained and examined because they were transgender.1 Why this situation persists and what policy reforms should be implemented to alleviate it are the subjects of this Essay. This Essay is devoted mainly to the theme of transgender rights, rather than race, a central theme of the symposium in which this Essay appears. Given the relatively small pool of transgender individuals for whom data is available, this Essay is unable to …

How To Talk About Racism, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Assistant Professor of Law Benjamin Joshua Ong wrote that recent debates about race and race relations have reminded him that using a single word to describe something can lead to quibbles over the precise definition, while discussion of the thing itself is neglected. He believes that in addressing important questions related to race, we should not reduce the potentially rich discussion to a simplistic argument over whether the incidents are "racist" or not, but should keep an open mind when having difficult conversations.

Territorial Exceptionalism And The Americanwelfare State, Andrew Hammond

Michigan Law Review

Federal law excludes millions of American citizens from crucial public benefits simply because they live in the United States territories. If the Social Security Administration determines a low-income individual has a disability, that person can move to another state and continue to receive benefits. But if that person moves to, say, Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands, that person loses their right to federal aid. Similarly with SNAP (food stamps), federal spending rises with increased demand—whether because of a recession, a pandemic, or a climate disaster. But unlike the rest of the United States, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, …

Fee Simple Failures: Rural Landscapes And Race, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

Property law’s roots are rural. America pursued an early agrarian vision that understood real property rights as instrumental to achieving a country of free, engaged citizens who cared for their communities and stewarded their physical place in it. But we have drifted far from this ideal. Today, American agriculture is industrialized, and rural communities are in decline. The fee simple ownership form has failed every agrarian objective but one: the maintenance of white landownership. For it was also embedded in the original American experiment that land ownership would be racialized for the benefit of its white citizens, through acts of …

Remediating Racism For Rent: A Landlord’S Obligation Under The Fha, Mollie Krent

Michigan Law Review

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) is an expansive and powerful piece of legislation that furthers equal housing in the United States by ferreting out discrimination in the housing market. While the power of the Act is well recognized by courts, the full contours of the FHA are still to be refined. In particular, it remains unsettled whether and when a landlord can be liable for tenant-on-tenant harassment. This Note argues, first, that the FHA does recognize liability in such a circumstance and, second, that a landlord should be subject to liability for her negligence in such a circumstance. Part I …

The Ill-Treatment Of Their Countrywoman: Liberated African Women, Violence, And Power In Tortola, 1807–1834, Arianna Browne

Master's Theses

In 1807, Parliament passed an Act to abolish the slave trade, leading to the Royal Navy’s campaign of policing international waters and seizing ships suspected of illegal trading. As the Royal Navy captured slave ships as prizes of war and condemned enslaved Africans to Vice-Admiralty courts, formerly enslaved Africans became “captured negroes” or “liberated Africans,” making the subjects in the British colonies. This work, which takes a microhistorical approach to investigate the everyday experiences of liberated Africans in Tortola during the early nineteenth century, focuses on the violent conditions of liberated African women, demonstrating that abolition consisted of violent contradictions …

Modernizing Discrimination Law: The Adoption Of An Intersectional Lens, Marisa K. Sanchez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.