Law and Race Commons^™

The Intersection Of Intellectual Property And Race In The Twenty-First Century: An Examination Of The Interpretation Of Racial Categories In Patent Law, Tiffany Cruz Gonzalez

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The political and jurisprudential treatment of racespecific patents, patents on inventions that are aimed at certain racially or ethnically defined groups, in the United States has the potential to legitimize the reification of race and severely impact society's understanding of racial disparities. Accordingly, with the increase in race-specific patents, and race-based technology in general, the way that the courts will construe racial categories in claim terms will determine the pattern and practice of future race relations in the United States. This note examines the role of a judge and an inventor in the potential litigation of a racespecific patent both …

A Civil Right To Counsel Through The States Using California's Efficiency Project As A Model Toward A Civil Gideon, Brian Brophy

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

While the United States Supreme Court's decision in Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteed the right to counsel in criminal trials, the poor are often left without representation in civil cases. These cases can have devastating impacts on the poor's access to housing, welfare benefits, children, and more. In 2009, California passed the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, which created pilot projects that guarantee access to counsel in civil cases for indigent Californians. This note examines how state legislatures can use California's act as a model to expand access to counsel into the civil context. If state officials are shown the dire …

You Don't Have To Reinvent The Wheel: A Comparison Of Wage And Hour Laws, Their Effects On The Latino Family, And What We Can Learn From Them, Brenda Valle

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Latinos have become the fastest growing minority population in the United States. As a result, the United States has seen a surfacing of issues that have had a unique impact on the Latino population. One issue that has specifically affected Latinos is the weakness in wage and hour laws, both at the federal and state level. Because Latinos as a group are primarily concentrated in low-wage sectors, wage and hour laws have a greater impact on Latinos than any other group. Furthermore, the negative impact wage and hour laws have does not stop with the low-wage worker but extends to …

Sentencing, Drugs, And Prisons: A Lesson From Ohio, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Prison overcrowding has become a familiar story. Current data shows that more than 1 in 100 adults in America—over 2 million people—are incarcerated, earning the United States the distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that state and federal prisons are reaching and exceeding capacity. Nor should it be a shock that drug offenders take up many of the beds in those overcapacity prisons. Relative to other crimes, drug sentencing in the United States has been increasingly harsh since the 1970s, and the prison population is feeling the effects …

Unsex Cedaw, Or What’S Wrong With Women’S Rights, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

CEDAW, signed on July 17, 1980 by sixty-four countries, has as its principal goals the protection and promotion of women's rights and the elimination of discrimination against women. As of March 7, 2011, 186 countries—more than ninety­ percent of the United Nations' member states—are parties to the Convention. The most notable non-party to the Convention is the United States. In addition, as of May 15, 2010, there are seventy-nine Signatories and ninety-nine Parties to the Optional Protocol, a supplement io CEDAW designed to remedy some of the treaty's shortcomings. Although challenges have hobbled implementation of CEDAW, it remains the …

The “Asian” Category In Mcas Achievement Gap Tracking: Time For A Change, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Data gathered on Asian American students in public school by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is aggregated into one general “Asian” category, which may skew the results, both perpetuating an enduring myth and masking any true gaps that may exist for certain Asian American subgroups. As explored in this article, achievement gap tracking for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) is an apt example.

Teaching Gender As A Core Value In Business Organizations Class, Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

I teach a business organizations course that is typically a large class with up to ninety students. At some point in the first week of each semester, I talk about public companies and the men who lead them. I point out to my students that while it is appropriate in most contexts to use gender-neutral language, it would be inaccurate to do so when talking about big business. Only fifteen percent of the board seats at Fortune 500 companies are held by women, and only sixteen percent of Fortune 500 corporate officers are women. I let my students know …

The Brains Behind Mediation: Reflections On Neuroscience, Conflict Resolution And Decision-Making, Daniel Weitz

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

On September 13, 1848, an explosives charge sent a three-foot tamping iron about an inch in diameter through the head of Phineas Gage. Although Gage survived, the tamping iron, which entered just under the left eye and exited through the frontal portion of his head, destroyed his prefrontal cortex. Prior to the accident, Gage was a popular foreman of a railroad construction crew. After the accident, he was a tactless, profane, and impulsive man with a dramatically altered personality.

Red Card Racism: Using The Court Of Arbitration For Sport (Cas) To Prevent And Punish Racist Conduct Perpetrated By Fans Attending European Soccer Games, Alexander Wynn

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Note proceeds in three sections. Part I describes the extent to which racism infects European soccer, the processes by which Uefa addresses violations of the Uefa Statutes and CAS' contributions to sports mediation and arbitration. Part II contextualizes Uefa's governing authority within statutory and case law from the E.U. and the United Kingdom [hereinafter "U.K."] as legal frameworks through which to explore possible reasons why Uefa rarely imposes substantial sanctions on member associations or teams whose fans perpetrate racist acts. Finally, Part III explores the reasons why CAS is better able to address and punish racism in European soccer …

Structural Racism And The Law In America Today: An Introduction, William M. Wiecek

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

African-American Grandmothers: Does The Gender-Entrapment Theory Apply? Essay Response To Professor Beth Richie, Jessica Dixon Weaver

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Many African-American grandmothers are entrapped by the cycle of incarceration in poor black communities. This Essay explores whether the social and economic conditions that compel battered women to commit crimes also impact their mothers - who end up raising the children they leave behind. Professor Beth Richie's theory of gender entrapment as described in her book, “Compelled to Crime,” is not limited to incarcerated women who have been victims of domestic violence. African-American grandmothers who take on the role of kinship caregivers for their grandchildren are also entrapped by a complex interplay of race, gender, and class, making them vulnerable …

Slavery And The Law In Atlantic Perspective: Jurisdiction, Jurisprudence, And Justice, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

The four articles in this special issue experiment with an innovative set of questions and a variety of methods in order to push the analysis of slavery and the law into new territory. Their scope is broadly Atlantic, encompassing Suriname and Saint-Domingue/Haiti, New York and New Orleans, port cities and coffee plantations. Each essay deals with named individuals in complex circumstances, conveying their predicaments as fine-grained microhistories rather than as shocking anecdotes. Each author, moreover, demonstrates that the moments when law engaged slavery not only reflected but also influenced larger dynamics of sovereignty and jurisprudence.

Paper Thin: Freedom And Re-Enslavement In The Diaspora Of The Haitian Revolution, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

In the summer of 1809 a flotilla of boats arrived in New Orleans carrying more than 9,000 Saint-Domingue refugees recently expelled from the Spanish colony of Cuba. These migrants nearly doubled the population of New Orleans, renewing its Francophone character and populating the neighborhoods of the Vieux Carre and Faubourg Marigny. At the heart of the story of their disembarkation, however, is a legal puzzle. Historians generally tell us that the arriving refugees numbered 2,731 whites, 3,102 free people of color, and 3,226 slaves. But slavery had been abolished in Saint-Domingue by decree in 1793, and abolition had been ratified …

A Crisis Of Confidence And Legal Theory: Why The Economic Downturn Should Help Signal The End Of The Doctrine Of Efficient Breach, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

To understand subprime behavior and efficient breaches, it is imperative to first examine the necessary social predicate for economic transactions. Accordingly, Part I will offer an overview of society and the market, highlighting the importance of reciprocity and trust to both. Part II will define the economic transactions implicated by this Article: basic contracting, efficient breach of contract, and the subprime behavior of the current economic crisis. Part III will make explicit the nexus between subprime behavior and efficient breaches by explaining that subprime behavior and efficient breaches are linked by shared elements; they are opportunistic in nature, are interested …

Shall We Overcome? "Post-Racialism" And Inclusion In The 21st Century, Sheryll Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The subject of "post-racialism" has been rather topical since Barack Obama was elected President. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to reflect on the extent to which Americans have, or have not, transcended race. The topic interests me tremendously because for many years I have been an advocate for race and class integration, which I addressed at length in my book The Failures of Integration. In The Failures, my main argument for pursuing meaningful integration is that a nation premised on race and class separation renders the "American Dream" of residential choice leading to upward mobility impossibly expensive and …

Clearing Civil Procedure Hurdles In The Quest For Justice, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Excluding Unemployed Workers From Job Opportunities: Why Disparate Impact Protections Still Matter, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

From Wards Cove To Ricci: Struggling Against The Built-In Headwinds Of A Skeptical Court, Melissa Hart

Publications

When the Supreme Court in 1971 first recognized disparate impact as a legal theory under Title VII, the Court explained that the "absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as ‘built-in headwinds’ for minority groups and are unrelated to measuring job capability." Forty years later, it is the built-in headwinds of a Supreme Court skeptical of - perhaps even hostile to - the goals of disparate impact theory that pose the greatest challenge to continued movement toward workplace equality. The essay examines the troubled trajectory that disparate impact law has taken in the …

Bias In The Classroom, One Degree Removed: The Story Of Turner V. Stime And Amicus Participation, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

This article summarizes a recent amicus brief written by the Korematsu Center. It describes a Spokane, Washington medical malpractice case where juror racial bias toward a party’s attorney was used as direct evidence. It describes the momentum and mobilization of the amicus brief, and the success in the appellate courts. It is offered as a model for how law school clinics can engage in effective advocacy to help democratize the courts.

Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger

Michigan Law Review

Williams v. Lee (1959) created a bridge between century-old affirmations of the immunity of Indian territories from state jurisdiction and the tribal self-determination policy of the twentieth century. It has been called the first case in the modern era of federal Indian law. Although no one has written a history of the case, it is generally assumed to be the product of a timeless and unquestioning struggle of Indian peoples for sovereignty. This Article, based on interviews with the still-living participants in the case and on examination of the congressional records, Navajo council minutes, and Supreme Court transcripts, records, and …

The Once And Future Equal Protection Doctrine?, Mario L. Barnes, Erwin Chemerinsky

Articles

This Essay is the third in a series of pieces assessing Equal Protection Doctrine and jurisprudence. Here, we endeavor to do two things: (1) to utilize constitutional structure, text, and history to interrogate the concept of equality protected under the Fourteenth Amendment; and (2) to critique the Supreme Court's present approach to adjudicating constitutional discrimination claims. With regard to the meaning of equality, we assert that if the text of the Reconstruction Amendments and the stated goals of Reconstruction are used to inform constitutional analysis, then equality should be understood as a substantive rather than formalist concept. Reconstruction, however, was …

American Muslim Minorities: The New Human Rights Struggle, Ashley Moore

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The ramifications of the attacks of September 11, 2001 are felt throughout the United States. However, no minority community is as deeply affected as the American-Muslim minority. Since the attacks on the World Trade Center, Muslims residing in the United States have experienced violations of economic and political liberties, as well as ongoing social discrimination. Media stereotypes and government legislation continually exacerbate these human rights abuses and entrench institutional, social, and economic discrimination deeper in American society. At the heart of this discrimination are clear misunderstandings about Islam and those who practice the faith. In an effort to combat these …

Combating Discrimination Against The Roma In Europe: Why Current Strategies Aren’T Working And What Can Be Done, Erica Rosenfield

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the summer of 2010, the forced expulsion of many Roma from Western to Eastern Europe captured headlines and world attention, yet this practice simply represented the latest manifestation of anti-Roma sentiment in Europe. Indeed, the Roma—numbering over ten million across Europe, making them the continent’s largest minority—face discrimination in housing, education, healthcare, employment, and law enforcement; widespread prejudice against this group shows no evidence of receding. There is, however, certainly no shortage of national and supranational policies aiming to promote inclusion and equality for the Roma.

Ho-Chunk Nation Tribal Law Profile, Daniel B. Snyder

Tribal Law Journal

In this tribal profile provides an excellent point of reference for practitioners dealing with any legal matter within the Ho-Chunk Nation. Starting with an overview of the legal history of the tribe, including modern government and law, the author examines the traditional legal practices and responsibilities of the Ho-Chunk. Mr. Snyder then explores the modern judicial and legislative branches, and their work to preserve the tribe's traditional laws and customs.

Foreword: Latcrit Theory, Narrative Tradition And Listening Intently For A "Still Small Voice", Mario L. Barnes

Articles

No abstract provided.

Pot As Pretext: Marijuana, Race, And The New Disorder In New York City Street Policing, Amanda Geller, Jeffrey Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

Although possession of small quantities of marijuana has been decriminalized in New York State since the late 1970s, arrests for marijuana possession in New York City have increased more than tenfold since the mid-1990s, and remain high more than 10 years later. This rise has been a notable component of the city’s “Order Maintenance Policing” strategy, designed to aggressively target low-level offenses, usually through street interdictions known as “stop, question, and frisk” activity. We analyze data on 2.2 million stops and arrests carried out from 2004 to 2008, and identify significant racial disparities in the implementation of marijuana enforcement. These …

Incarceration And The Economic Fortunes Of Urban Neighborhoods, Jeffrey Fagan, Valerie West

Faculty Scholarship

New research has identified the consequences of high rates of incarceration on neighborhood crime rates, but few studies have looked beyond crime to examine the collateral effects of incarceration on the social and economic well being of the neighborhoods themselves and their residents. We assess two specific indicia of neighborhood economic well-being, household income and human capital, dimensions that are robust predictors of elevated crime, enforcement and incarceration rates. We decompose incarceration effects by neighborhood racial composition and socio-economic conditions to account for structural disadvantages in labor force and access to wealth that flow from persistent patterns of residential segregation. …

Class, Classes, And Classic Race Baiting: What’S In A Definition?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Amber Fricke

Faculty Scholarship

Overall, in this Article, we briefly lay out each of our challenges to Sander's arguments in Class in American Legal Education. In Part I, we first address the very problems that Sander's article highlights about the difficulties of defining class and SES, problems that may make classbased affirmative action programs less feasible and effective than Sander suggests. In so doing, we identify what we consider to be defects in Sander's class/SES groupings. We also highlight the complexities around class and race that already exist within law student populations, answering in part the important questions about to whom black law students …

Originalism's Race Problem, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

For all its proponents' claims of its necessity as a means of constraining judges, originalism is remarkably unpopular outside the United States. Recommended responses to judicial activism in other countries more typically take the form of minimalism or textualism. This Article considers why. Ifocus particular attention on the political and constitutional histories of Canada and Australia, nations that, like the United States, have well-established traditions of judicial enforcement of a written constitution, and that share with the United States a common law adjudicative norm, but whose political and legal cultures less readily assimilate judicial restraint to constitutional historicism. I offer …

Introduction To The Symposium: Access To Justice: Mass Incarceration And Masculinity Through A Black Feminist Lens, Adrienne D. Davis, Annette R. Appell

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Introduction to the Symposium, Race to Justice: Mass Incarceration and Masculinity through a Black Feminist Lens, rehearses the animating forces that led to a colloquium and a series of papers that explore the question of mass incarceration and the negative state engagement surrounding it through gendered and feminist lenses. The Introduction explains how an analysis of mass incarceration through the lens of gender complicates what is often conceived as a story about race. Instead mass incarceration can be more deeply understood through its gendered effects on men and the women and children connected to those men. These connections include …