Law and Race Commons^™

Creating And Maintaining Consistent Standards Regarding The Role Of Parental Substance Abuse At Shelter Care Hearings In Washington State, Emma Vanderweyst

Washington Law Review

When Child Protective Services (CPS) removes children from their home in Washington State, the State must hold a shelter care hearing within seventy-two hours to determine where the children should be placed while the investigation and dependency hearing proceed. RCW 13.34.065 requires the State to return a child to their parent’s care if there is a parent capable of caring for the child and there is no “serious threat of substantial harm” to the child. However, in July 2023, the Washington State Legislature will update RCW 13.34.065 to reflect a recently passed bill. This bill heightens the previous burden and …

Black And Blue Police Arbitration Reforms, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

The racial justice protests that engulfed the country after seeing a video of the appalling killing of a Black male, George Floyd, by a Minnesota police officer in 2020 has led to a tremendous number of questions about dealing with racial issues in policing. Similar concerns arose a little more than fifty years ago when police unions gained power to respond to the civil rights protests occurring during those times by establishing strong protections for their officers in light of brutality claims. This rhythmic progression of protests and union responses is destined to continue without any lasting reforms focused on …

Latinas In The Legal Academy: Progress And Promise, Raquel E. Aldana, Emile Loza De Siles, Solangel Maldonado, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

The 2022 Inaugural Graciela Oliva ́rez Latinas in the Legal Academy (“GO LILA”) Workshop convened seventy-four outstanding and powerful Latina law professors and professional legal educators (collectively, “Latinas in the legal academy,” or “LILAs”) to document and celebrate our individual and collective journeys and to grow stronger together. In this essay, we, four of the Latina law professors who helped to co-found the GO LILA Workshop, share what we learned about and from each other. We invite other LILAs to join our community and share their stories and journeys. We hope that the data and lessons that we share can …

Racializing Algorithms, Jessica M. Eaglin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

There is widespread recognition that algorithms in criminal law’s administration can impose negative racial and social effects. Scholars tend to offer two ways to address this concern through law—tinkering around the tools or abolishing the tools through law and policy. This Article contends that these paradigmatic interventions, though they may center racial disparities, legitimate the way race functions to structure society through the intersection of technology and law. In adopting a theoretical lens centered on racism and the law, it reveals deeply embedded social assumptions about race that propel algorithms as criminal legal reform in response to mass incarceration. It …

Going The Extra Mile: Expanding The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act, Emily R. Casey

University of Richmond Law Review

The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act (“Act”), introduced in Congress in June 2021 and signed into law six months later, proposes a goal of balancing the disproportionately-high costs of housing and transportation felt by lower-income families by combining these resources in one project: transit-oriented housing developments. Middle-income and wealthy suburbanites have ready access to cities by car, but lower-income urbanites lack access to the suburbs without a private vehicle. While the goal of the Act recognizes this disparate outcome, the Act’s failure to include expansion of mass transit into the suburbs will continue to restrict low-income minorities to urban …

Gender, Race, And Job Satisfaction Of Law Graduates, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Studies typically find that lawyers have high job satisfaction and that women are not less satisfied than are men. But racial differences as well as gender differences by race or ethnicity in satisfaction may be masked because most lawyers identify as racially White. To examine whether job satisfaction differs by race and whether gender and race/ethnicity have an intersectional relation to job satisfaction, I use data on nearly 13,000 law graduates drawn from six waves of the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG) conducted between 2003 and 2019. The NSCG uniquely provides a large enough sample to examine intersectionality in …

Walls Or Bridges: Law’S Role In Conflicts Over Religion And Equal Treatment, Martha Minow

BYU Law Review

Presented as the Bruce C. Hafen Lecture, Brigham Young University Law School January 18, 2023

“[D]o you see religion as a club or do you see religion as a path? Do you see it as a wall that separates you or do you see it as a bridge that connects you to God and other people?

— Keith Ellison1

Title Vii’S Failures: A History Of Overlooked Indifference, Elena S. Meth

Michigan Law Review

Nearly sixty years after the adoption of Title VII and over thirty since intersectionality theory was brought into legal discourse by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently failed to meaningfully implement intersectionality into its decisionmaking. While there is certainly no shortage of scholarship on intersectionality and the Court’s failure to recognize it, this remains an overlooked failure by the Supreme Court. This Note proceeds in three parts. Part I provides an overview of Title VII and intersectional discrimination theory. I then explain how the EEOC and the Supreme Court have historically handled intersectional discrimination cases. Part II …

Reinvest In Us: Reimagine The Role Of Police In The U.S., Jamil Davis

College Honors Program

In America, we must question and understand what is “law and order.” Over centuries, America developed a racialized slave-class politically and socially through power and force. Police are the foot soldiers of maintaining law and order as Slave Patrols evolved into the State Police. In my thesis, I discuss how their efforts in traffic enforcement enable a dominant class to target and enslave the oppressed class. Traffic control leads to 18 million interactions a year which is 34 people a minute. The numbers of interactions along with persistent practices regarding discrimination cause police to be a social liability. When bad …

The White Supremacist Structure Ofamerican Zoning Law, Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

Brooklyn Law Review

This article disrupts the false narrative of white supremacism that has, for more than a century, cast American land use law as race neutral. In doing so, this article builds on an important but underdeveloped body of legal scholarship elucidating zoning law’s role in creating and perpetuating a separate and unequal dual housing system. It provides primary historical evidence and a clear narrative demonstrating that the defining feature of American zoning law—a strict residential use taxonomy that privileges neighborhoods of restrictively regulated single-family homes and burdens less restrictively regulated residential areas—emerged directly from the facially race-based and facially neutral, but …

Law School News: Commencement 2023: Rwu Graduates Urged To 'Work Hard And Dream Big Dreams' 5-19-2023, Jill Pais, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Criminal Injustice: An Examination Of Racial Profiling And Discriminatory Police Practices In Canada And The United States, Patricia Advincula

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

The Black Lives Matter movement swept across the United States after the murders of black people at the hands of law enforcement. Not fully acknowledged in the media are the police brutality cases that have also occurred in Canada, a country that prides itself on tolerance, acceptance, and diversity. Police brutality is an unfortunate reality that stems from racial profiling, one of the many symptoms of historically oppressive institutions. In this paper, I will examine police coercion and racial profiling in Canada and the United States. This paper will employ a theoretical framework of conflict theory and minority threat hypothesis …

Minnesota Dep’T Of Nat. Res. V. Manoomin, Anna Belinski

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2021 manoomin (wild rice), a legally recognized person in White Earth Band tribal law, brought a case in White Earth Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court against the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Wild rice brought this case against the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ over its issuance of a water permit to Enbridge Inc. for the construction of the Line 3 oil pipeline. Though ultimately ruling that the Tribal Court did not have subject matter jurisdiction because the activity at issue occurred by non-Indians outside of the reservation boundaries, this case still brings a novel consideration in the tribal …

Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo V. Texas, Sawyer J. Connelly

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo and Alabama and Coushatta Indian Tribes. The Court’s decision settles a conflict around bingo stemming from a long series of conflicts between Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Texas gaming officials dating back to the 1980s. The court held the Texas Restoration Act bans only gaming on tribal lands that is also banned in Texas. This decision upholds previous caselaw that states cannot bar tribes from gaming that is not categorically banned in the state.

Environmental Defense Center V. Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management, Eliot M. Thompson

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s grants of summary judgment and injunctive relief against BOEM for violating the ESA and CZMA. The Ninth Circuit found BOEM violated NEPA, CZMA, and the APA by failing to adequately consider the environmental impacts of well stimulation treatments. The Ninth Circuit also reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment against the Environmental Defense Center for their NEPA claims.

Metlakatla Indian Community V. Dunleavy, Elizabeth L. Orvis

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court of Alaska’s judgment that dismissed the Metlakatla Indian Community’s suit against Alaska’s limited entry program. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit addressed whether and to what extent the 1891 Act preserved an implied off-reservation fishing right for members of the Metlakatla Indian Community. The Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the Metlakatla Indian Community but remanded to the district court to determine the boundaries of the traditional off-reservation fishing grounds. Motions for rehearing and rehearing en banc were denied.

Black Lives Matter And The Push For Colonial-Era Cultural Heritage Restitution, Kathryn Speckart

Catholic University Law Review

The influence of the Black Lives Matter movement extends into U.S. museums in the form of calls for “decolonization” of collections comprised of art and artifacts from Africa and other colonized areas. As a result, the accompanying legal and ethical questions surrounding these artifacts now figure prominently in the museum industry. This Comment analyzes why the current U.S. cultural heritage law framework does not accommodate colonial-era African artifacts. This is due to few of these artifacts being subject to legal claims under current laws, African artifacts not having protection as a special classification, and the lack of enforcement mechanisms in …

Look Away: The Impact Of The Lost Cause On Civil Rights, Social Justice And Critical Race Theory, How Storytelling And Mythology Shaped American History, Angela Downes

LSU Law Journal for Social Justice & Policy

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

LSU Law Journal for Social Justice & Policy

No abstract provided.

Drug Ideologies Of The United States, Macy Montgomery

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

The United States has been increasingly creating lenient drug policies. Seventeen states and Washington, the District of Columbia, legalized marijuana, and Oregon decriminalized certain drugs, including methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine. The medical community has proven that drugs, including marijuana, have myriad adverse health side effects. This leads to two questions: Why does the United States government continue to create lenient drug policies, and what reasons do citizens give for legalizing drugs when the medical community has proven them harmful? The paper hypothesizes that the disadvantages of drug legalization outweigh its benefits because of the numerous harms it causes, such as …

Empowerment Agents: How Student Affairs Professionals Facilitate The Persistence Of Undocumented Students, Tiffany Paige

Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated how student affairs professionals (SAPs) assist undocumented students in their designated institutional roles, and how their support empowers undocumented students to persist. This research sought to document and assess how student affairs professionals—who interact with undocumented students— identify and respond to the issues they face in their work. Built on the theoretical frame of social capital, and using a thematic analysis design set forth by Braun and Clarke (2012), the researcher interviewed seven SAPs and used a phenomenological approach to design the study and to collect and analyze the data.

Two findings and five corresponding themes …

Camera-Enforced Streets: Creating An Anti-Racist System Of Traffic Enforcement, Katie O'Brien

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

On July 10, 2015, Sandra Bland was pulled over while driving in Prairie View, Texas, for failure to signal a lane change after moving to allow a trooper’s vehicle to pass her car. As the stop progressed, the trooper ordered Bland to get out of her car. When she refused, the trooper threatened to “yank [Bland] out” of her car and “light [her] up” with his taser. After Bland left her vehicle, Trooper Encinia handcuffed her, wrestled her to the ground, and kneeled on her. He later falsely claimed that Bland assaulted him. Three days later, police found Bland …

Vertical Farming: A Bottom-Up Approach, Michael Martinez

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The twenty-first century will require innovative solutions to address the effects of climate change. Vertical farming is one solution that could help conserve a significant amount of freshwater and reduce the agricultural industry’ s overuse of pesticides and intensive tilling practices, which contributes to soil erosion and pesticide runoff. There has been significant investment in vertical farming in every region of the United States; however, the cost to produce foods with vertical farming remains more costly than traditional farming, which is in large part due to the substantial amount of electricity needed to power all the technology required to grow …

Conviction On Interpretation, Advocate Adaptability, And The Future Of Emojis And Emoticons As Evidence, Samantha Lyons

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The dawning of the digital age introduced new and unique interpretive quandaries for judges and litigators alike. These quandaries include (but are not limited to) misinterpretation of pictorial slang as used in instant messaging, new or collateral meanings invented by phrases paired with specific emoticons or emojis, and the existence of emojis alone as communicative accessories.

This Note analyzes how lawyers and judges have essential free reign to treat emojis as they see fit: a prosecutor can argue, even in good faith, that the inclusion of an emoji depicting an open flame means the sender knew the heroin he sold …

Testimonios Of Latinas In The Federal Government Senior Executive Service: Honoring Women Who Excel In Public Service, Amarylis Lopez

Theses & Dissertations

The Senior Executive Service (SES) is the highest tier of executive management and leadership in the federal government. The Latino/a population has significantly increased in the past three decades with no corresponding increase in the federal workforce and the number of Latinos/as serving in the SES remains low. As Latinos/as in the SES are largely underrepresented, their ability to influence federal policies is significantly undermined. The purpose of this study is to explore the testimonios (testimonies) of Latinas in the SES to better understand their experiences while navigating entry into the SES and maintaining their respective positions.

This study used …

Batson V. Kentucky Guidelines And The Use Of Peremptory Challenges In Arkansas Courts: A Case Study, Abigail Lindsey

Political Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The peremptory challenge is a method by which attorneys can strike a potential juror from the jury pool without a valid reason. With Batson v. Kentucky (1986), the Supreme Court ruled that peremptory challenges cannot be issued on the basis of race, however, there are many problems with the way this precedent has been followed in various states. The goal of this research is to analyze how Arkansas courts implement the Batson precedent. This research also studies whether the way in which Arkansas courts utilize the peremptory challenge creates ideologically imbalanced juries.

Judicial Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion: How Do Diverse Judges Affect Sentencing Guidelines In The State Of Minnesota, Morgan Bausman

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Equal representation within the judicial system is very important. The state of Minnesota has four-hundred-forty-one judges, all different. When the legal system was created, the stereotypical judge was a white male. The legal system that represents the country should grow and diversify along with society. The issue of diversified judicial representation, with a focus on the race and gender of such judges, is a contentious debate across the country. Prior research has studied judges at the federal level and showed that diversity matters, but there have been no studies done at the state level, specifically in Minnesota. I gather data …

The Ambiguity Of Probable Cause And Its Contentious Application By Police, Dave Sainte-Luce

College Honors Program

It is well documented how our country’s Criminal Justice System has a history of targeting people of color. A lot of this contention is derived from police officers’ behavior when interacting with individuals, yet officers only act upon the laws and legal policies that grant them authority, including probable cause. My thesis addresses the question, how does the fluid and ambiguous nature of probable cause leave the door open for officers to disproportionately target people of color in the United States? While focusing on vehicle, person, and property searches, I first define probable cause, building an understanding of exactly what …

Etuaptmumk: A Means To Advance Indigenous Economic Development “In A Good Way”, Frankie Young

Dalhousie Law Journal

A reckoning is required on how Eurocentric laws and economic systems are biased toward Western worldviews while not accounting for Indigenous realities, legal orders, or economic perspectives. Most notably, Eurocentric laws have been instrumental in advancing non-Indigenous economic interests to the detriment of Indigenous interests, largely because Indigenous laws have not been respected. The strengthening of certain Eurocentric property and contract laws have limited Indigenous peoples’ legal and economic interests and continues to constrain positive economic outcomes and advancement for Indigenous nations. This article argues that re-centering Indigenous legal traditions is a means to advance Indigenous economic interests. The principle …

“With All Deliberate Speed”: The Ironic Demise Of (And Hope For) Affirmative Action, Vinay Harpalani

Faculty Scholarship

Is affirmative action in university admissions about to end? As the United States Supreme Court prepares to decide lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC), the outlook for race-conscious admissions policies is not good. Even before its recent rightward shift, the Court had long been hostile to such policies, and many observers think it will now overturn Grutter v. Bollinger and end them altogether. Such a ruling would be a painful and paradoxical twist for civil rights advocates. In a classic turn of Orwellian irony, the plaintiffs challenging affirmative action now call themselves Students for …