Law and Race Commons^™

Superbias: The Collision Of Behavioral Economics And Implicit Social Cognition, Justin D. Levinson

Akron Law Review

This Article explores what happens when behavioral law and economics and implicit social cognition collide, and presents an empirical study designed to test the hypothesis that racial stereotypes overpower behavioral economic phenomena...Section II details behavioral law and economics as well as implicit social cognition. It examines the social science basis of each field and explores the similar cognitive mechanics underlying them. Section III investigates what happens when race is introduced into economic decision-making and considers how racial stereotypes may specifically affect economic decisions already at risk of irrationality. Research has documented that economic decision-making is often discriminatory; new evidence suggests …

Judging In A Vacuum, Or, Once More, Without Feeling: How Justice Scalia's Jurisprudential Approach Repeats Errors Made In Plessy V. Ferguson, Chris Edelson

Akron Law Review

James Fleming argues that “[Justice Clarence] Thomas’s concurrence in Adarand and dissent in Grutter reflect the Plessy worldview.” I argue in Part V of this article that Justice Antonin Scalia follows the Plessy approach in several of his dissenting opinions. One of this article’s goals is to explain these incongruencies—how can it be that each of these Justices believes he is true to the legacy of Brown, but is inadvertently adopting the reasoning used by the majority in Plessy? The key to resolving this paradox depends on identifying precisely how Plessy went wrong in its reasoning and how Brown corrected …

Trending@Rwu Law: Professor David Logan's Post: Diversity In The Rhode Island Judiciary, David A. Logan

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Richard Delgado And Ice Cube: Brothers In Arms, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Law Faculty Scholarship

Critical Race Theory as a movement is best understood through the lens of founding voice Richard Delgado. Delgado’s prolific and fearless writings have inspired thousands and launched theories that have literally changed the course of race law in the United States. In fact, two explosive movements were born in the United States in the 1970s. While the founding of both movements was humble and lightly noticed, both grew to become global phenomena that have profoundly changed the world. Founded by prescient agitators, these two movements were borne of disaffect, disappointment, and near desperation — a desperate need to give voice …

Colonialism And Constitutional Memory, Aziz Rana

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The United States shares a number of basic traits with various British settler societies in the nonwhite world. These include longstanding histories in which colonists and their descendants divided legal, political, and economic rights between insiders and subordinated outsiders, be they expropriated indigenous groups or racial minorities. But Americans rarely think of themselves as part of an imperial family of settler polities and instead generally conceive of the country as quintessentially anti-imperial and inclusive. What explains this fact and what are its political consequences?

This Article offers an initial response, arguing that a significant reason is the symbolic power of …

Heir Property In The African American Community: From Promised Lands To Problem Lands, Roy W. Copeland

Professional Agricultural Workers Journal

Abstract

African American landowners have been reluctant to take advantage of intergenerational succession laws which provide for an orderly transfer of property from one generation to the next. This reluctance has led to a prevalence of heir property. Heir property is created when a person dies intestate. Heir property has created an impediment to wealth accumulation and has contributed to African American land loss in America. Partition actions are a byproduct of heir property which has operated to accelerate the loss of real property in the African American community. The Uniform Partition of Heir Property Act provides for procedural safeguards …

Newsroom: Logan On Judicial Diversity, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Transformation: Turning Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act Into Something It Is Not, J. Christian Adams

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Institutionalized Racism And The Death Penalty, Ashleigh Ellis

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Overtime, support for capital punishment has evolved. Compared to previous decades, support has changed amongst different variables such as: age, race, gender, and political perspective; therefore, today, these variables have changed the amount of support for it. For example, as of today, 6 states have repealed the death penalty with New Jersey being the first in 2007 to do so in 40 years. As memories of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era have faded due to generational replacement, American society today still has this racial gap, however it is due to this racial resentment or symbolic resentment that the …

Newsroom: Yeluri '07 On Baltimore Protests, Swapna Yeluri

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Trending@Rwu Law: Swapna Yeluri's Post: Baltimore: Ignoring Problems No Longer An Option, Swapna Yeluri

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Voter Rights And Civil Rights Era Cold Cases: Section Five And The Five Cities Project, Paula C. Johnson

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Critical Race Theory And Empirical Methods Conference, Kimani Paul-Emile

Fordham Law Review

    Everyone seems to be talking about race. From the protests that erupted in cities across the country over the failure of grand juries in Missouri and New York to indict police officers in the killing of two unarmed black men, to the racially charged statements made by the owners of professional sports teams; and the college fraternity members captured on film singing a racist lynching song; race exploded into the nation’s collective consciousness. Even the Starbucks Coffee chain’s recent “Race Together” campaign, intended to promote discussion about race, sparked a controversy and was quickly withdrawn. These and other events have …

When Is Fear For One's Life Race-Gendered? An Intersectional Analysis Of The Bureau Of Immigration Appeals's In Re A-R-C-G- Decision, Ange-Marie Hancock

Fordham Law Review

    In August 2014, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) handed down a breakthrough decision, In re A-R-C-G-, permitting courts to consider domestic violence as a gendered form of persecution in a home country and thus grounds for asylum in the United States. Along with two other 2014 decisions, In re W-G-R- and In re M-E-V-G-, this case represented a marked shift from prior BIA decisions, which for fifteen years had interpreted sections 208(a) and 241(b)(3) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act more narrowly, thus excluding claims of home country abuse as reasonable grounds to grant asylum. Specifically, …

The Modern Day Scarlet Letter, Ifeoma Ajunwa

Fordham Law Review

    American society has come to presuppose the efficacy of the collateral legal consequences of criminal conviction. But little attention has been paid to their effects on the reintegration efforts of the formerly incarcerated and, in particular, formerly incarcerated women. An 1848 case, Sutton v. McIlhany, affirmed collateral legal consequences as constituting an important part of criminal punishment. More recent cases, such as Turner v. Glickman, in which a class of people convicted of drug crimes were subsequently denied food stamps and other government benefits, have upheld the constitutionality of imposing these legal penalties on an individual even after …

Faculty Insights On Educational Diversity, Meera E. Deo

Fordham Law Review

    Twice in the past two years, the U.S. Supreme Court has approved educational diversity as a compelling state interest that justifies the use of race in higher education admissions decisions. Nevertheless, it remains on somewhat shaky ground. Over the past decade, the Court has emphasized that its acceptance of diversity stems from the expectation that a diverse student body will enhance the classroom environment, with students drawing on their diverse backgrounds during classroom conversations that ultimately bring the law to life. Yet, the Court provides no support for its assumption that admitting and enrolling diverse students actually result in these …

"First Food" Justice: Racial Disparities In Infant Feeding As Food Oppression, Andrea Freeman

Fordham Law Review

    Tabitha Walrond gave birth to Tyler Isaac Walrond on June 27, 1997, when Tabitha, a black woman from the Bronx, was nineteen years old. Four months before the birth, Tabitha, who received New York public assistance, attempted to enroll Tyler in her health insurance plan (HIP), but encountered a mountain of bureaucratic red tape and errors. After several trips to three different offices in the city, Tabitha still could not get a Medicaid card for Tyler. Tabitha’s city caseworker informed her that she would have to wait until after Tyler’s social security card and birth certificate arrived to get the …

"I Do For My Kids": Negotiating Race And Racial Inequality In Family Court, Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate Jr., Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong

Fordham Law Review

    Socio-legal scholarship examining issues of access to justice is currently experiencing a renaissance. Renewed inquiry into this field is urgently needed. Studies confirm that only 20 percent of the legal needs of low- income communities are met and that the vast majority of unrepresented litigants are low income, creating what some call a “justice gap” that has become even more urgent in recent years. State tribunals that deal with high-stakes issues particularly relevant to low-income residents, such as family courts and housing courts, are seeing an increasing number of litigants, the majority of whom are unrepresented.

Native Title In Australia And South Africa: A Search For Something That Lasts, Justin Hunter

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Mirroring, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

“Racial mirroring” refers to efforts by one group to match the primary racial composition of another group. In contrast to racial balancing, which takes place when two groups are adjusted simultaneously to achieve a desired degree of racial equilibrium between them, racial mirroring occurs when the racial makeup of one group is adjusted so as to reflect the predominant racial identity of the second group. Employers and even federal courts engage in racial mirroring. For example, in order to generate trust among customers, employers have hired or promoted individuals of the same race as the employers’ primary customer base. Further, …

Police Racial Violence: Lessons From Social Psychology, L. Song Richardson

Fordham Law Review

    The recent rash of police killing unarmed black men has brought national attention to the persistent problem of policing and racial violence. These cases include the well-known and highly controversial death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the deaths of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio; Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York; John Crawford III in Beavercreek, Ohio; Ezell Ford in Los Angeles, California; Dante Parker in San Bernardino County, California; and Vonderrit D. Myers Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri. Data reported to the FBI indicate that white police officers killed black citizens almost twice a …

Race In The Life Sciences: An Empirical Assessment, 1950-2000, Osagie K. Obasogie, Julie N. Harris-Wai, Katherine Darling, Carolyn Keagy

Fordham Law Review

    The mainstream narrative regarding the evolution of race as an idea in the scientific community is that biological understandings of race dominated throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries up until World War II, after which a social constructionist approach is thought to have taken hold. Many believe that the horrific outcomes of the most notorious applications of biological race—eugenics and the Holocaust—moved scientists away from thinking that race reflects inherent differences and toward an understanding that race is a largely social, cultural, and political phenomenon. This understanding of the evolution of race as a scientific idea informed the way that …

Critical Race Science And Critical Race Philosophy Of Science, Paul Gowder

Fordham Law Review

    Over several decades, feminist philosophy of science has revealed the ways in which much of science has proceeded from “mainstream” assumptions that privilege men and other hierarchically superordinate groups and existing socially constructed conceptions of gender. In doing so, it has produced a research program that, while rooted in the post- Kuhnian philosophy and sociology of science that has been taken up by many students of scientific method more generally, has been used to critique great swathes of modern science and to reveal both the biases of the mainstream, and the transformative potential of a science that proceeds from the …

Taking A Stand?: An Initial Assessment Of The Social And Racial Effects Of Recent Innovation In Self-Defense Laws, Mario L. Barnes

Fordham Law Review

    Perhaps, not surprisingly, the controversy over the rise of self-defense reforms in the United States that have come to be known as ―Stand Your Ground‖ (SYG) laws, began with a story about colors. This Article principally applies an empirical method and critical race theory (eCRT) lens to explore whether these reformed statutes, which generally have authorized greater use of force within the context of self-defense, deter crime and differentially affect Whites, Blacks, and other racial groups.

When Theory Met Practice: Distributional Analysis In Critical Criminal Law Theorizing, Aya Gruber

Fordham Law Review

    Focusing on criminal law and procedure in particular, this Article seeks to expose various tensions in critical race theorizing and progressive theorizing more broadly, offer some suggestions for a unifying methodology of critical criminal law analysis, and discuss where empirical study might fit into this new program. Progressive (critical race and feminist) theorizing on criminal law is not only subject to the competing frames of critique and formalism, it also exists within an overarching American criminal law culture that can eclipse both concerns over rights violations and structural injustice. The U.S. penal system has become a “peculiar institution” and a …

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.

Cross-Racial Misidentification: A Call To Action In Washington State And Beyond, Taki V, Flevaris, Ellie F. Chapman

Seattle University Law Review

Research indicates eyewitness identifications are incorrect approximately one-third of the time in criminal investigations. For years, this phenomenon has significantly contributed to wrongful convictions all over the country, including in Washington State. But jurors, attorneys, and police remain unaware of the nature and extent of the problem and continue to give undue weight to eyewitness evidence. Experts have estimated that approximately 5,000–10,000 felony convictions in the United States each year are wrongful, and research suggests that approximately 75% of wrongful convictions involve eyewitness misidentification. The phenomenon of eyewitness misidentification is also amplified and most troublesome in the context of cross-racial …

A Presumption Of Disclosure: Towards Greater Transparency In Asylum Proceedings, Rose Linton

Seattle University Law Review

Every day, Asylum Officers (AOs) and Immigration Judges (IJs) hear cases to determine if the asylum seeker has a genuine claim to protection under the Refugee Act, which prohibits returning a refugee to a country where her life or freedom is threatened due to race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group. AOs and IJs are aware that their decision may mean life or death for an asylum seeker. They are also aware that false claims are “distressingly common,” that unscrupulous attorneys and unauthorized practitioners of immigration law have perpetrated fraudulent asylum schemes, and that granting …

An “Equal Sovereignty” Principle Born In Northwest Austin, Texas, Raised In Shelby County, Alabama, David Kow

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Path Forward From Shelby County V. Holder, Janet W. Steverson

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.