Law and Race Commons^™

Surveillance And Identity Performance: Some Thoughts Inspired By Martin Luther King, Frank Rudy Cooper

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor Frank Cooper explores self-actualization, the process whereby people create their own identity by means of experimenting with different behaviors, in the context of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the FBI surveillance he was subjected to in the time leading up to his death. He argues that it is possible for people to live in an environment that is more or less alienating to the way in which they perform their identities. Performativity scholars such as Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati say that people can have an internal sense of self that is distinct from the identity …

Why Counting Votes Doesn't Add Up: A Response To Cox And Miles' Judging The Voting Rights Act, Ellen D. Katz, Anna Baldwin

Articles

In Judging the Voting Rights Act, Professors Adam B. Cox and Thomas J. Miles report that judges are more likely to find liability under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) when they are African American, appointed by a Democratic president, or sit on an appellate panel with a judge who is African American or a Democratic appointee. Cox and Miles posit that their findings “contrast” and “cast doubt” on much of the “conventional wisdom” about the Voting Rights Act, by which they mean the core findings we reported in Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 …

Business As Usual: The Roberts Court's Continued Neglect Of Adequacy And Equity Concerns In American Education, Osamudia R. James

Articles

No abstract provided.

What Happens In North Minneapolis Doesn’T Stay In North Minneapolis: Arguing Credibility In A Criminal Trial, Rebutting Implicit Jury Bias, And Taking A New Look At Why A Prosecutor Would Tell Jurors That Civilian Witnesses Are From A “Different World”, Joshua R. Larson

School of Law Student Projects

In several recent homicide cases from Minneapolis, Minnesota, prosecutors have used a particular rhetorical device in closing argument that suggests to jurors that certain civilian witnesses from North Minneapolis live in a different world than the jurors do and that, therefore, the jurors must consider the witnesses’ unique cultural characteristics when weighing the witnesses’ credibility. Defense attorneys have decried these “different world” arguments, and the Minnesota Supreme Court has expressed concern that such arguments could violate a defendant’s right to a fair trial by insinuating that the defendant is from a different world and by introducing unnecessary racial or socioeconomic …

Non-Education In America: Gateway To Subsistence Living, Cheryl Page

Journal Publications

Dropout rates are the proverbial canary-in-the-coal-mine. If ever there was a predictor of poverty, discrimination, abuse, neglect, inability to parent-in short the suffering of an entire generation-it is the lack of experience and education we are affording our minority students. This lack of education is invariably accompanied by lack of not only opportunity, but sustainability. We have a potential generation of students unable to make their way through life independent of government support. The worst crime in a capitalist society is to leave an entire group without the skill set to compete. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to objectively identifying schools …

Are Blue And Pink The New Brown? The Permissibility Of Sex-Segregated Education As Affirmative Action, Dawinder S. Sidhu

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines segregation and affirmative action in a different context-that of gender. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ("Title IX") l° prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. The regulations implementing Title IX, however, explicitly permit recipients of federal funding to offer single-sex schools, classes, and extracurricular activities. The regulations also permit recipients to "take affirmative action to overcome the effects of conditions which resulted in limited participation therein by persons of a particular sex.” This Article discusses whether and to what extent the affirmative action provision …

The Latino Lawful Permanent Resident Removal Cases: A Case Study Of Nicaragua And A Call For Fairness And Responsibility In The Administration Of U.S. Immigration Law, Maritza I. Reyes

Journal Publications

This Note aims to contribute to current dialogue by raising issues of fairness, responsibility, and human dignity that merit special consideration in any immigration reform proposal regarding the laws that apply to lawful permanent residents who have committed crimes. Part I analyzes the underlying motivation for the enactment of the immigration laws that were passed in 1996. Part II utilizes a case analysis of issues faced by deportees from Nicaragua to illustrate how the foreign policy of the United States affects the governments, economies, and migration trends of other countries. Parts III and IV borrow from the analysis in Part …

Racial Disparities In Subprime Home Mortgage Lending In New York City: Meaning And Implications, Richard Marsico, Jane Yoo

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Black, White, Brown, Green, And Fordice: The Flavor Of Higher Education In Louisiana And Mississippi, Alfreda A. Sellers Diamond

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Like many other states, Mississippi and Louisiana have struggled, and continue to struggle with the difficult problem of racial segregation in higher education. Through decades of litigation and negotiation, their higher education systems developed plans to equalize and unite the historically black and historically white institutions. The author's examination of Mississippi and Louisiana's strategies reveals that the states used several different approaches to achieve desegregation, but nevertheless their colleges and universities, like many aspects of society, remain largely racially distinct. The author concludes that many elements essential to effective desegregation were missing from the Mississippi and Louisiana plans. Hopefully, the …

Taking It To The Bank: Actualizing Health Care Equality For San Francisco's Transgender City And County Employees, J. Denise Diskin

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

This note tracks the decision of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Health Service System Board (HSSB) to provide transition related health care coverage to its transgender city and county employees. The author evaluates the intersection of gender identity, systemic racism, classism, and homophobia within the struggle of marginalized communities to overcome health inequities and discrimination that also often lead to chronic underemployment, lower paying jobs and insufficient medical benefits. The note uncovers the realities of access to legal rights and remedies in connection to medical care for the transgender community, whose vastly diverse needs and …

No Child Left Behind Act, Race, And Parents Involved, Joseph O. Oluwole, Preston C. Green Iii

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Professors Oluwole and Green consider how raceconscious implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act could affect the racial achievement gap in the United States. Their article addresses challenges states and school districts are confronted with in attempting to overcome racial achievement gaps while facing decreasing budgets and mandatory procedures. They evaluate the feasibility of race-conscious school funding in the context of the Act's purposes and past challenges to school financing schemes. Professors Oluwole and Green emphasize the necessity of raceconscious school funding, both as a social justice matter and a practical matter for the future of American education.

A Bulwark Against Anarchy: Affirmative Action, Emory Law School, And Southern Self-Help, William B. Turner

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

This article demonstrates that Pre-Start, Emory Law School's affirmative action program from 1966 to 1972, provides a useful case study for refraining the current debate around affirmative action in law school admissions. The author performs post-hoc strict scrutiny on Pre-Start, showing that it meets and exceeds the standard set in the leading affirmative action case, Grutter v. Bollinger. The historical context for Pre-Start demonstrates how similar the current arguments against affirmative action in law school admissions are to the arguments used against racial integration of public schools in the first half of the twentieth century. This analysis provides valuable historical …

Post Trauma: Cambodian Refugees And Social Security's Disability Fraud Investigations, Theodore Mccombs

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Since 2003, the Oakland, California unit of Social Security's Cooperative Disability Investigations program has targeted certain Cambodian refugee applicants with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression for fraud investigations. The practices of Social Security's anti-fraud program in Oakland reveal disturbing disadvantages to Cambodian refugee applicants in particular, including institutional prejudices in Social Security's rules and Cooperative Disability Investigative agents' gross insensitivity to claimants' impairments and cultural realities. This note examines these disadvantages under the legal norms of national origin discrimination, disability discrimination, and due process, and concludes with a policy proposal on how Social Security might better protect claimants' rights and …

The Legal Empowerment Of The Poor: Titling And Poverty Alleviation In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Karol C. Bourdreux

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The U.N. Development Program created the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor to explore the relationship between more formal property rights and reducing poverty. Additionally, some countries are adopting policies designed to strengthen the local property environment, such as titling real property. This article, based on fieldwork, examines the effects of property titling programs in Langa Township, South Africa. This article finds that formalization by way of titling does provide some benefits to titleholders. However, the findings also suggests that formalizing property rights in an institutional environment that has other systemic weaknesses will not transform dead capital into …

The Legal Status Of Hijab In The United States: A Look At The Sociopolitical Influences On The Legal Right To Wear The Muslim Headscarf, Aliah Abdo

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, however the current sociopolitical and legal climate has allowed for various restrictions on hijab, the headscarf worn by Muslim women. This note surveys recent restrictions and bans affecting the wearing of hijab in educational settings, employment, prison entry, state driver license photos, athletic competitions, airports, and in court, noting an alarming trend both internationally and domestically. The author suggests that the justifications associated with actions against hijab are merely pretextual and that these actions are often based on misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding hijab, the Muslim community, and the …

Reimagining Workers' Human Rights: Transformative Organizing For A Socially Aware Global Economy, Dean Hubbard

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

This article illustrates a strategy to reconceptualize workers' rights activism to achieve systematic transformation of the global political economy emphasizing the disproportionate toll of neo-liberal economics on women, poor people, and people of color. The first section demonstrates the way in which existing structures in international human rights law can work to provide a normative foundation to this goal. The second section emphasizes the essential next step toward reaching this transformation in what the author terms, Socially Aware Global Economy (SAGE) organizing. SAGE organizing first, reimagines the labor movement through grass roots, transnational organizing, second, revitalizes economic human rights law …

The Unmet Promises Of Care Not Cash, Teddy Ky-Nam Miller

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

In November of 2002 San Francisco voters approved Proposition N, titled Care Not Cash, with the intent that it would reduce homelessness and improve the health and welfare of homeless persons receiving General Assistance. This note examines the effectiveness of Care Not Cash in combating homelessness and in achieving its promise of services and aid with the curtailment of General Assistance. In evaluating Care Not Cash's effectiveness, the author reviews homeless assistance programs employed by cities and municipalities throughout the United States. Additionally, the author explores alternative homeless outreach programs currently existent in San Francisco which have been effective in …

Challenges Of Tough Love: Examining San Francisco's Community Justice Center And Evaluating Its Prospects For Success, Todd W. Daloz

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Decaying urban neighborhoods are a reality in cities across the United States. As various local governments work to improve the quality of life for the residents of such areas through increased law enforcement, many have come up against the limitations of the criminal justice system as a tool for change. This note examines the history and challenges of quality-of-life ordinances and the growth and development of community courts as a reaction to ineffective urban courts and as a structure for enabling change. The author focuses specifically on the new community justice center in San Francisco and offers an assessment of …

On Thin Ice: Cracking Down On The Racial Profiling Of Immigrants And Implementing A Compassionate Enforcement Policy, Abby Sullivan

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

This note explores racial profiling in the enforcement of federal immigration law. In consistently deferring to the judgment of immigration officers, the United States Supreme Court has vested Immigration and Customs Enforcement with broad and sweeping discretion to adopt racist law enforcement practices that would be impermissible outside of the immigration context. In doing so, the Court has taken the erroneous position that immigration proceedings are purely civil and therefore do not require the procedural protections that collectively form the pillar of the criminal justice system. A myriad of studies demonstrate that immigrants are significantly less likely than their American-born …

Loving Gender Balance: Reframing Identity-Based Inequality Remedies, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The egalitarian voice of the U.S. Supreme Court resonates forty years after it abolished antimiscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia. While Loving's vigor influences contemporary debates on sex-related marriage restrictions, its impact extends to the hopes and tensions that undergird and unite equality movements. Half a world away, Norway's Corporate Board Quota (CBQ), recently began enforcing a forty percent floor for both sexes on publicly traded companies' boards of directors.

At first glance, Loving's affirmation of an interracial marriage in the face of the state's opprobrium seems impossibly divergent from the CBQ. Loving concerned de jure …

Taking Denial Seriously: Genocide Denial And Freedom Of Speech In French Law, Sévane Garibian

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The French National Assembly's adoption of a bill penalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide (October 12, 2006), later followed by the German plan to outlaw genocide denial throughout European Union, stoked the vigorous French debate on the connection between genocide denial and law and, more generally, between history and law. The main criticism expressed by the detractors of laws against negationism - in particular historians - is the following: penalization of denial constitutes a violation of freedom of expression and, as such, represents a threat to democracy.

Technology Mediated Dispute Resolution Can Improve The Registry Of Interpreters For The Deaf Ethical Practices System: The Deaf Community Is Well Prepared And Can Lead By Example, David Allen Larson, Paula Gajewski Mickelson

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This article examines the mediation process within the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf Ethical Practices System and suggests when and how technology may be utilized to enhance that process. Background information regarding the interpreting profession, the Deaf Community, and the process for filing and reviewing grievances will provide a context for this discussion. An overview of the technologies already being used within the Deaf Community and interpreting field will help to determine where new technologies can be introduced most effectively. Each of the three steps in the EPS will be analyzed to assess how additional technologies can be integrated …

The Current State Of Residential Segregation And Housing Discrimination: The United States' Obligations Under The International Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Racial Discrimination, Michael B. De Leeuw, Megan K. Whyte, Dale Ho, Catherine Meza, Alexis Karteron

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The United States government accepted a number of obligations related to housing when it ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ("CERD"). For example, the United States government must ensure that all people enjoy the rights to housing and to own property, without distinction as to race; cease discriminatory actions, including those that are discriminatory in effect regardless of intent; and take affirmative steps to remedy past discrimination and eradicate segregation. This Article discusses the United States government's compliance with those obligations, as well as the importance of meaningful compliance in maintaining the United …

From Pedagogical Sociology To Constitutional Adjudication: The Meaning Of Desegregation In Social Science Research And Law, Anne Richardson Oakes

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In the United States following the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) federal judges with responsibility for public school desegregation but no expertise in education or schools management appointed experts from the social sciences to act as court advisors. In Boston, MA, educational sociologists helped Judge W. Arthur Garrity design a plan with educational enhancement at its heart, but the educational outcomes were marginalized by a desegregation jurisprudence conceptualized in terms of race rather than education. This Article explores the frustration of outcomes in Boston by reference to the differing conceptualizations of desegregation in law and social science. …

Is A Burrito A Sandwich? Exploring Race, Class, And Culture In Contracts, Marjorie Florestal

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

A superior court in Worcester, Massachusetts, recently determined that a burrito is not a sandwich. Surprisingly, the decision sparked a firestorm of media attention. Worcester, Massachusetts, is hardly the pinnacle of the culinary arts-so why all the interest in the musings of one lone judge on the nature of burritos and sandwiches? Closer inspection revealed the allure of this otherwise peculiar case: Potentially thousands of dollars turned on the interpretation of a single word in a single clause of a commercial contract. Judge Locke based his decision on "common sense" and a single definition of sandwich-"two thin pieces of bread, …

"Copynorms," Black Cultural Production, And The Debate Over African-American Reparations, K. J. Greene

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Subordination And The Fortuity Of Our Circumstances, Sergio J. Campos

Articles

The antisubordination principle exists at the margins of equality law. This Article seeks to revive the antisubordination principle by taking a fresh look at its structure and underlying justification. First, the Article provides an account of the harm of subordination that focuses on one's position in society, rejecting the focus on groups popular in the existing antisubordination literature. Second, it argues for a theory of state obligation that goes beyond both the existing state action doctrine of the Equal Protection Clause and the failure to protect doctrine associated with Charles Black. The Article argues instead that the antisubordination principle mandates …

The African-American Child Welfare Act: A Legal Redress For African-American Disproportionality In Child Protection Cases, Jessica Dixon Weaver

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article proposes a radical change in the way African-American children and families are handled within the legal system when abuse and neglect are at issue. African-American disproportionality in child protection cases is significant for the United States because documentation shows that African-American children are overrepresented in the child welfare system in forty-eight states, although research shows that there is no difference in the occurrence of child abuse and neglect among the races. The first part of the article presents an overview of disproportionality by presenting the national statistics and research, revealing where racial bias and disparate treatment occurs within …

Leading Change In Legal Education - Educating Lawyers And Best Practices: Good News For Diversity, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Uniendo Comunidades By Learning Lessons And Mobilizing For Change, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

Building community, that is, sustaining our connections to family and our ancestry is often hampered by going to law school. Law schools are highly adept at assimilating you into a profession and a worldview that can be at odds with who you were and how you saw the world before you began law school. Unfortunately, in order to fit in, it can seem advantageous to forget tus ralces, your roots. I began by talking about unigndo comunidades as a progressive objective and have been talking about the second part of your conference theme, learning lessons and mobilizing for change, as …