Law and Society Commons^™

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

The Right To Truth, Maureen Edobor

Scholarly Articles

This Article argues that today’s anti-CRT statutes, book bans, and “divisive concepts” laws are not isolated culture-war skirmishes but the latest chapter in a long campaign—dating back to the Lost Cause and the United Daughters of the Confederacy—to legislate white innocence as national identity. By sanitizing slavery, suppressing discussions of systemic racism, and threatening educators with punitive ambiguity, these laws flatten historical truth and convert classrooms into zones of anticipatory obedience. The result is a state-engineered amnesia that undermines the core First and Fourteenth Amendment protections the Supreme Court has recognized for more than a century, from Meyer and Barnette …

An Eye For An Eye Makes A Vigilant Society, Liam C. Preyer

Capstone Showcase

Vigilantism is one of the oldest practices of mankind; for as long as there have been moral and legal laws to govern us and live by, there have been individuals who have sought justice outside these systems. Vigilantism is the response to failures in the justice system, and in the United States in particular, we have seen examples from the Western Frontier to the modern-day digital landscape. This paper will explore the nature of vigilante justice through historical, psychological, media-driven, legal, and digital lenses. We will explore how cultural narratives, media influences, government actions, and psychological motivations have shaped the …

Institutionalized Ostracism, Danieli Evans

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Belonging is a fundamental need, like food or water. Hundreds of social psychology studies find that people who are ostracized (excluded, rejected, or ignored) experience severe pain and suffering. Ostracism threatens basic needs, triggers the same neurocognitive processing system as physical pain, and impairs functioning. Furthermore, ostracized people may cope in ways that beget “deviant” labeling and further ostracism.

Belonging and ostracism are prevalent themes in social psychology research, but these constructs have received relatively little attention in law. This Article begins to explore the implications of this research for law. I make three contributions: First, I name and describe …

Green Dividends: A Case Study In Green Dividends And The Conditions For Private Ordering Solutions, Anne M. Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay introduces a novel private ordering solution to facilitate corporate investments in pro-social and environmental initiatives: Green dividends. Green dividends are an optional increase in shareholder dividends that are returned to the company to be reinvested in environmental initiatives or kept by a shareholder.

Green dividends pose an alternative to the current gridlocked debate that corporations can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, and shouldn’t even try to act in pro-social or environmental ways. Turning the common refrains on their head converts each narrative into an element for a successful private ordering solution: authority, accountability, shareholder buy-in, and government- backed enforcement. With Green …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

Should Copyright Protect Racist Works? A Review Of Intellectual Property And Immorality: Against Protecting Harmful Creations Of The Mind By Ned Snow, Cathay Smith

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Essay reviews Ned Snow’s provocative book, Intellectual Property and Immorality: Against Protecting Harmful Creations of the Mind, and critically examines the intersection of copyright law and morality. It explores the ethical dimensions of copyright protection and examines whether works which fail to advance societal progress, as defined by Snow, should be ineligible for copyright. Drawing parallels between pornography and offensive and racially insensitive classic children’s literature and films, this Essay considers the broader implications of denying copyright to immoral works, including the potential for increased dissemination of harmful content, the challenge of aligning copyright with evolving moral standards, …

The Deferential Asian American: Low Racial Status And The Invisibility Of Asian Americans In Leadership And The American Narrative, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article will proceed in five parts. First, an important caveat. When the Article refers to Asian Americans, it refers to all Asian American subgroups except for South Asian Americans, because South Asian Americans are not perceived to be deferential in the same way as other Asian American subgroups. Consequently, their experience with leadership is unique among Asian Americans, and much of the analysis in this Article does not apply to them.

With that caveat, Part I will discuss the invisibility of Asian Americans generally, but particularly in leadership positions. Part II will discuss the concept of social status bias …

From Downes To Dobbs: Why Stare Decisis Should Not Stop The Court From Overturning The Territorial Incorporation Doctrine, Gino Piccinini

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Seeking Safety And Losing The Self: Affirmative Action Bans And The Whitening Of Mexican American Identity, Bella Bennett

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Beyond A Boundary Of Systemic Anti-Black Racism In The Workplace In Canada, Adelle Blackett

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this lecture, I will, however, focus on one of the legacies of slavery, that is, the largely untold story of racial segregation in the world of work in Canada. We have come so effectively, and rightly, to focus on the effects of discrimination, that we may have inadvertently walked past the history. Reclaiming this history will comprise the first part of my talk.

The second part of my talk will reference the emergence of the duty of fair representation. I will seek to illustrate the weight of the erasure of anti-Black racism through this duty. In other words, far …

Enforced Colorblindness, Goldburn P. Maynard Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

The time for race consciousness is over, and the era of enforced colorblindness is upon us. The dawn of this new age is troubling because it closes the door on effective strategies to achieve racial justice, including efforts to grant federal reparations. This Article analyzes the areas in which courts have invalidated race-conscious measures, with a particular focus on recent racial equity efforts by the Biden Administration. Rather than treating the loss of race consciousness exclusively as a loss to the movement for equality, this Article argues for a silver-lining approach. While court-led efforts to remedy the effects of slavery …

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Lecture January 24, 2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

"Arbitration In Name Only": A Race Claims Mismatch, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

With arbitration's meteoric rise as a tool in resolving statutory employment discrimination matters beginning in the 1990s, concerns about lack of employee bargaining power received little consideration when raised in court challenges to the enforcement of employer-mandated agreements to arbitrate those claims. Only in rare circumstances, when an employer appeared to go to extremes in using its overwhelming bargaining power to implement an arbitration process so clearly unfair would a court find the agreement created an unfair "arbitration in name only" that should not be enforced. 

Employers have become savvier in how they require employees to agree to resolve discrimination …

Just Research And Citation, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Contemporary research and citation practices are often unjust. Data cartels like Westlaw and Lexis have parent companies that prioritize profits in ways that threaten immigrants. Even before the Dobbs decision, search engines could be deployed to weaponize data against pregnant people seeking reproductive care. Women and people of color have been legal scholars for more than a century but, as many scholars have observed, colleagues consistently under-cite, mis-cite or appropriate those scholars’ work with minimal recourse. Citation materials are often inaccessible to disabled people, poor people, or the public due to poor design, paywalls, or unpreserved content that falls prey …

Lessons For The Trump Administration From The Biden U.S. National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism, Lili Levi

FIU Law Review

In May 2023, the Biden Administration issued the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism with a goal of hindering further normalization of antisemitism by increasing public awareness of antisemitism and highlighting positive Jewish contributions to America. Recent events, however, particularly the social and political upheaval over protests of the war in Gaza, have led to public contestation over Israel, increased instances of antisemitism, and the partisan politicization of Jewish issues. All this has raised questions about whether the National Strategy's assumptions about public attitudes, the viability of antisemitism awareness initiatives, and the possibility of whole-of-society agreement on countering antisemitism …

Exploring The Intersectionality Of Antisemitism And The Law: A Case Study Of The Crown Heights Riots And Aftermath, Stephen Sussman, Carole Huberman

FIU Law Review

Antisemitism does not exist in isolation; it often intersects with other forms of discrimination and prejudice. Examining these intersections is crucial to understanding the broader dynamics of discrimination and developing effective strategies. Antisemitism and racism often intersect in complex ways. Historical examples include the portrayal of Jews as racially inferior or “other” during periods of heightened racial tension. This intersection has implications for policies related to hate crimes, racial profiling, and equal protection under the law. This research examines the complex interplay between antisemitism and the legal system, using the Crown Heights Riots of 1991 as a focal point. The …

The Excluded: Where Did Our Rights Come From, Who Paid The Price Trying To Establish Them, And Who Is Trying To Take Them Away? The Centuries-Long Struggle For Inclusion, Jim Brosnahan

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Understanding The Big Three’S Wavering Support Of Environmental And Social Shareholder Proposals, Jeff Schwartz, Jefferson Jensen

Seattle University Law Review

Because of their substantial equity portfolios, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (the Big 3) are central players in corporate governance. It is, therefore, critical to understand how they vote. One puzzle is that their support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters appears to waiver. In 2020, for instance, BlackRock supported 11.1% of environmental proposals at S&P 500 firms. In 2021, it seemingly reversed course, supporting 55.2%. It then flipped again, supporting 32.1% in 2022. Such statistics suggest that the Big 3 are constantly changing their views on these topics. This Article seeks to better understand whether this is …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

The Resurgence Of Massive Resistance, Danielle Wingfield-Smith

Law Faculty Publications

“Massive Resistance” to equal access to good quality public education is resurging across the nation. First employed by segregationists in Virginia, Massive Resistance spread across the South to oppose school desegregation. This extreme push to suppress equitable education occurred most notably post-Brown. Although 2024 marked Brown’s seventieth anniversary, Massive Resistance is again surging. In fact, the last few years have witnessed increasing resistance to publicly funded education. Some areas where anti-public education resistance strategies have manifested include political rhetoric around Critical Race Theory, library censorship, and renewed parental rights debates.

To devise the most effective response to …

From The Kkk To The Modern Day: How An Accurate Understanding Of History Can Inform The Proper Standard For Punishing Civil Rights Conspiracies Under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), Bair Srivastav

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Following the Civil War, Congress passed the Reconstruction Amendments, which secured political rights for newly freed slaves and ushered in a new era for the United States. The Union defeated white Southerners on the battlefield and removed former Confederates from the halls of political power. But white Southerners were still Confederates in spirit. Full of racial hatred, they did not perceive a new era of freedom, but a world twisted into an unnatural order where African Americans walked freely amongst white people and participated in the political process of Southern society. In response to the extension of basic freedoms to …

What's In A Name? Policing, Juliet., Shanée Brown

Scholarly Works

Child welfare" and "child protection" are misnomers. These terms do not accurately depict the investigatory nature of the system purported to help families, or at the very least, save endangered children. Contrary to public opinion, the "child welfare system" comprises of state actors who police parents and children. It is the naming of this system that convinces the public that these agencies are excised from the category of law enforcement, persuading many that the agencies engage in social work and not police work. Calling the system what it really is-family policing-is a step toward achieving justice for families adversely impacted …

Ten Years And Ten Miles: Reflecting On "Ferguson", Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Essay serves as the introduction to a symposium on the ten-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri and the subsequent protests and uprisings across the country. The authors look back on the past decade—their own experiences and our experiences as a nation—to consider the impacts of the Ferguson uprisings and the landscape of criminal justice and racial justice advocacy, scholarship, and teaching today. In this Essay, I provide a brief introduction to the Volume and essays that follow. In Part I, I situate the Ferguson uprisings in the broader context of activism responsive to racial injustice in …

Reevaluating Felon-In-Possession Laws After Bruen And The War On Drugs, Laura Ginsberg Abelson

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The legal landscape surrounding firearm possession is evolving rapidly. In 2022, the Supreme Court accelerated its expansion of the individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment in New York Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen. Since Bruen, courts around the country have struck down nearly all types of firearm regulations, with a notable exception: felon-in-possession laws. This Article examines the implications of a legal landscape where those who have prior felony convictions, and especially prior drug convictions, are punished harshly for the same behavior—possession of a firearm—that is constitutionally protected for nearly everyone else. I argue …

Rwu Law Alumni Newsletter December 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Pbn Connect, Edward Fitzpatrick, Danna Lorch

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Roger Williams University 2024 President's Report: A Message From President Miaoulis, Roger Williams University

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.