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Legislative Inaction And The Patterson Case, Earl M. Maltz Feb 1989

Legislative Inaction And The Patterson Case, Earl M. Maltz

Michigan Law Review

In its October 1988 issue,1 the Michigan Law Review published a symposium on Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, a case in which the Supreme Court has requested reargument on the question of whether Runyon v. McCrary should be overruled or modified. Each of the three distinguished contributors to the symposium concludes that the Court should not overrule Runyon. In reaching this conclusion, Professor William N. Eskridge and Professor Daniel A. Farber rely heavily on the view that because Congress has recognized the existence of the Runyon doctrine and has refused to overrule the decision, the doctrine of stare decisis …


Scholars' Reply To Professor Fried, Yale Kamisar, Lee C. Bollinger, Judith C. Areen, Barbara A. Black Jan 1989

Scholars' Reply To Professor Fried, Yale Kamisar, Lee C. Bollinger, Judith C. Areen, Barbara A. Black

Articles

As Solicitor General of the United States, Charles Fried, like any good advocate, was often in the position of attempting to generate broad holdings from relatively narrow and particularistic Supreme Court decisions. This was especially true in affirmative action cases. There, the Department of Justice argued that cautious precedents actually stood for the broad proposition that measures designed to put members of disadvantaged groups on a plane of equality should, for constitutional purposes, be treated the same as measures intended to stigmatize or subordinate them. The Supreme Court, however, has consistently rejected this reading of its precedents and the broad …


Statutory Interpretation, Legislative Inaction, And Civil Rights, Daniel A. Farber Oct 1988

Statutory Interpretation, Legislative Inaction, And Civil Rights, Daniel A. Farber

Michigan Law Review

This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. Professor Farber identifies three issues which lie at the heart of Patterson: Must statutes be construed to conform to the intent of the drafters? Does legislative inaction provide reliable guidance to interpreters of statutes? And should the nature of the claim at issue - here a claim of civil rights - influence the interpreters? On this last point, Professor Farber argues that public values must be relevant to statutory interpretation and that judges …


Interpreting Legislative Inaction, William N. Eskridge Jr. Oct 1988

Interpreting Legislative Inaction, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. In this article, Professor Eskridge addresses the issue of how legislative inaction should affect statutory interpretation. He begins by constructing a detailed analysis of the Court's legislative inaction cases, arguing that the case law is much more coherent than previous analysts have suggested. Professor Eskridge then considers Justice Scalia's critique of that case law and provides support for Justice Scalia's views by distinguishing actual and presumed legislative intent, arguing that, based on a conception …


Updating Statutory Interpretation, T. Alexander Aleinikoff Oct 1988

Updating Statutory Interpretation, T. Alexander Aleinikoff

Michigan Law Review

This month the Supreme Court will hear reargument in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union on the question of whether section 1981 prohibits discrimination by private parties. Professor Aleinikoff examines in depth the first issue raised by Professor Farber. Using metaphors of the archeological and the nautical Professor Aleinikoff describes theories of originalism and their application to statutory interpretation. Concluding that there are nonoriginalist (or nonarcheological) elements implicit in these theories, he proceeds to consider how an explicitly nonoriginalist (or nautical) theory of interpretation might work He concludes by commenting on the application of such a theory to Patterson.


The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz Dec 1987

The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

For the moment, the affirmative action wars are over. In a ten-year set of decisions, culminating in five during the last two terms, the Court has now legitimated almost all types of race and gender preferences, even if they benefit nonvictims, including voluntarily adopted preferences in hiring, promotion, university admissions, and government contracting; hiring and promotion preferences in consent decrees; and court-ordered hiring and promotions. It has approved preferences by both public and private bodies, and for both racial-ethnic minorities and women. It has barred only layoffs of white (and presumably male) employees who have more seniority than employees hired …


The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler Oct 1985

The Class-Based Animus Requirement Of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3): A Limiting Strategy Gone Awry?, Devin S. Schindler

Michigan Law Review

This Note focuses on Scott's impact on attempts to determine what groups fall within the statute. Part I examines the various class-based animus formulas generated by the circuits since Griffin and the potential impact of Scott on these formulas. Part II argues that the key to understanding the scope of the class-based animus requirement lies in traditional fourteenth amendment equal protection analysis.


The Limits Of Litigation: Putting The Education Back Into Brown V. Board Of Education, T. Alexander Aleinikoff Mar 1982

The Limits Of Litigation: Putting The Education Back Into Brown V. Board Of Education, T. Alexander Aleinikoff

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Shades of Brown: New Perspectives on School Desegregation edited by Derrick Bell


The Supreme Court: A Citadel For White Supremacy, Sidney Willhelm Mar 1981

The Supreme Court: A Citadel For White Supremacy, Sidney Willhelm

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Race, Racism and American Law by Derrick A. Bell, Jr.


From Brown To Bakke: The Supreme Court And School Integration: 1954-1978, Michigan Law Review Mar 1980

From Brown To Bakke: The Supreme Court And School Integration: 1954-1978, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Book Notice about From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration: 1954-1978 by J. Harvie Wilkinson III


Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow May 1977

Judicial Protection Of Minorities, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

In United States v. Carolene Products Co., Justice Stone suggested by indirection that there "may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality" when courts are called upon to determine the validity "of statutes directed at particular religious . . . or national . . . or racial minorities."' In such cases, he explained, "prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry."' Forty years later, …


Bakke: A Compelling Need To Discriminate, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 1977

Bakke: A Compelling Need To Discriminate, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Two of America's most cherished values collided head-on a few months ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court began to come to grips with the most significant civil rights suit since the school desegregation cases of 1954. Arrayed on one side is the principle of governmental "color-blindness," the appealing notion that the color of a person's skin should have nothing to do with the distribution of benefits or burdens by the state. Set against it is the goal of a truly integrated society, and the tragic realization that this objective cannot be achieved within the foreseeable future unless race and color …


Racial Preferences In Higher Education: Political Responsibility And The Judicial Role, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1975

Racial Preferences In Higher Education: Political Responsibility And The Judicial Role, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

Controversy continues unabated over the question left unresolved by DeFunis v. Odegaard: whether in its admissions process a state law school may accord preferential treatment to certain racial and ethnic minorities. In the pages of two journals published by the University of Chicago, Professors John Hart Ely and Richard Posner have established diametrically opposed positions in the debate. Their contributions are of special interest because each undertakes to answer the question within the framework of a theory concerning the proper distribution of authority between the judiciary and the other institutions of government. Neither position, in my judgment, adequately confronts the …


Strangers In Paradise: Griggs V. Duke Power Co. And The Concept Of Employment Discrimination, Alfred W. Blumrosen Nov 1972

Strangers In Paradise: Griggs V. Duke Power Co. And The Concept Of Employment Discrimination, Alfred W. Blumrosen

Michigan Law Review

In March 1966, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) negotiated an extensive agreement with the Newport News Shipyard to eliminate employment discrimination. The outcome of these negotiations-which were conducted by the Office of Conciliations which I then headed-was the first major achievement for the EEOC under title Vll of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following that episode, Ken Holbert, Deputy Chief of Conciliations, and I decided to try to negotiate a model conciliation agreement on the subject of discriminatory employment testing. We knew that many companies had introduced tests in the 1950's and early 1960's when they could no …


Racial Equality In Jobs And Unions, Collective Bargaining, And The Burger Court, William B. Gould Dec 1969

Racial Equality In Jobs And Unions, Collective Bargaining, And The Burger Court, William B. Gould

Michigan Law Review

In dealing with the problems of employment discrimination, the Burger Court will have to face several new and major issues. This Article is concerned with two of the most important of those issues. The first is whether the present requirement that workers seek redress of their grievances through the exclusive representation of the union is applicable to victims of racial discrimination; and if not, what other remedies should be available to those workers. The second is whether quotas and ratios based on race are permissible; and if so, whether it is required that they be used to integrate union leadership …


Comment On Powell V. Mccormack, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1969

Comment On Powell V. Mccormack, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

The rapid pace of constitutional change during the past decade has blunted our capacity for surprise at Supreme Court decisions. Nevertheless, Powell v. McCormack is a surprising decision. Avoidance of politically explosive controversies was not one of the most notable characteristics of the Warren Court. And yet, it is one thing for the Court to do battle with the Congress in the service of important practical ends or when the necessity of doing so is thrust upon it by the need to discharge its traditional responsibilities. It is quite another to tilt at windmills, especially at a time when the …


The Warren Court And Desegregation, Robert L. Carter Dec 1968

The Warren Court And Desegregation, Robert L. Carter

Michigan Law Review

When Chief Justice ·warren assumed his post in October 1953, the underpinnings of the "separate but equal" concept had become unmoored beyond restoration. Full-scale argument on the validity of apartheid in public education was only weeks away, and the portent of change in the constitutional doctrine governing American race relations was unmistakable. Although the groundwork had been carefully prepared for the Chief Justice's announcement in Brown v. Board of Education that fundamental principles forbade racial segregation in the nation's public schools, the decision, when it was delivered on :May 17, 1954, was more than a break with the past. In …


Race Segregation Ordinance Invalid, Henry M. Bates Jan 1918

Race Segregation Ordinance Invalid, Henry M. Bates

Articles

The opinion in Buchanan v. Warley reflects the confusion and difficulty of that troublesome problem, the place of the negro race in the United States, with which the case and the segregation ordinance of Louisville discussed therein are essentially concerned. The decision by a unanimous court reverses the holding of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and declares that the ordinance violates the Fourteenth Amendment. This result is reached by one of those anomalous and objectionable devices which characterize our methods of solving fundamental constitutional questions. The case arose upon a bill for specific performance of a contract, whereby the plaintiff, …


Constitutionality Of Segregation Ordinances, John B. Waite Jan 1917

Constitutionality Of Segregation Ordinances, John B. Waite

Articles

The effort of various southern states to segregate white persons and colored ones into mutually exclusive residential districts has received a final quietus, unless the Supreme Court of the United States shall reverse itself, by the decision in Buchanan v. Warley, handed down November 5, 1917. The suit in this case was for specific performance of a contract to buy land. The contract expressly stipulated that the buyer, a colored man, was not to be held to his purchase unless he had "the right under the laws of the state of Kentucky and the city of Louisville to ocupy said …