Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

A Tale Of Two Law Schools, Benjamin H. Barton

Arkansas Law Review

On the august occasion of the 100th anniversary of the University of Arkansas School of Law, this Essay celebrates one of its singular achievements: the decision of then-Dean Robert Leflar to admit Silas Herbert Hunt, the first African American allowed to enroll for graduate or professional studies at any all-white university in the former Confederacy since reconstruction. The bravery of both Leflar and Hunt has been correctly celebrated in the past, but this Essay seeks to highlight why it was actually braver than one might think (for both Hunt and Leflar) by comparing the actions of Arkansas Law with the …

Honoring Juneteenth, Tori L. Murray

BLSA Documents

Notre Dame Law School, Black Law Students Association president, Tori L. Murray, writes to remind us to take a moment to recognize today's national holiday, Juneteenth.

She writes, "Juneteenth is a landmark moment in American History: it is a day that changed the lives, and the fate, for generations of Black people in America."

A Tragedy Of Incommensurability: Indigenous Rights And The Limits Of Human Rights Law, Zeina Ali

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the tragedy of incommensurability between indigenous rights and international human rights law. Despite the emergence of frameworks like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), indigenous calls for sovereignty remain fundamentally unintelligible within a liberal order structured to preserve settler-state legitimacy. Tracing the historical and theoretical evolution of indigenous advocacy, this study critiques the strategic shift from demands for self-determination to claims of cultural rights. It argues that this shift offers no real alternative: self-determination and cultural rights are functionally equivalent, as both are ultimately filtered through legal and political frameworks that cannot …

Caste Discrimination In Ny - Starting A Conversation, Pranathi Charasala, Gali Racabi

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Despite rapid socioeconomic ascent of Indian Americans in the U.S., caste hierarchies continue to structure inequality within the Indian diaspora. This working paper examines caste discrimination in contemporary New York, situating it within broader civil rights frameworks and legal precedents. Drawing from headline cases, emerging local laws, and collective bargaining agreements, the paper shows how caste operates as a social category—legally unrecognized yet experientially real. It explores both the possibilities and pitfalls of folding caste into existing categories like race, color, national origin, and religion, while grappling with arguments that frame caste protections as anti-Hindu bias. The paper concludes with …

Examining County-Level Implicit Stereotypes And Prejudice As Predictors Of Racial And Gender Disparities In Incarceration Across The United States, Emma Elizabeth Lee Money

Dissertations and Theses

Background: This dissertation investigated the role of local macropsychological factors - specifically, county-level implicit racial bias and implicit gender stereotyping - in shaping inequalities in incarceration across the United States. Despite overall declines in incarceration, trends in the incarceration of women and people of color (particularly Black women) show disparities compared to White men. Regional aggregations of implicit biases have been proposed as robust markers and drivers of systemic inequalities and are examined in current research.

Research Questions: Three overarching research questions (RQ) guided this dissertation: RQ1 tested the relationship between county-level implicit racial bias and proportions of Black (relative …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Center For Civil Rights And Critical Justice In Support Of Petitioner, Melissa Lee, Jessica Levin, Ronald A. Peterson Law Clinic

Center for Civil Rights and Critical Justice Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Is It Time To Scrap Stare Decisis?, Wilfred U. Codrington Iii

Articles

Shortly after returning to the presidency, Donald Trump terminated several independent federal officers, prompting legal action by employees who occupied government positions covered by statutory for cause removal protections long held constitutionally permissible and valid. Eventually, one or more suits alleging unlawful termination owing to the removal without cause will reach the Supreme Court to be decided on the merits. Having steadily narrowed the Humphrey’s Executor line of cases that insulate these officers, the Court now seems poised to displace that precedent entirely. In isolation, the overruling would mark a seismic doctrinal shift and major advance in legal conservatism's pursuit …

“Any Black Man Will Do”: A Transparency Framework For Eyewitness Identification In The Facial Recognition Technology Era, Ariam O. Kiflemariam

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Justice Lewis Powell’S Quiet Luxury: From Bakke To Sffa, Lucille A. Jewel

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

The Objective Observer: The Washington State Supreme Court's Remedial Aspirations And Experience On The Ground, David B. Owens

Washington Law Review

The Washington State Supreme Court has adopted an “objective observer rule” for addressing whether race impacted jury selection and extended this rule to evaluating all aspects of Washington courts, including jury trials. The objective observer rule allows courts to evaluate whether decisions in those courtrooms could be viewed as the result of racial bias, even where there is no evidence of specific racial animus and in the absence of racial slurs. The rule, which covers a form of disparate impact, has now existed for over half a decade. This Article outlines the Washington State Supreme Court’s development of the objective …

The Gift Of Public Funds Bogeyman, Noah Purcell, Michelle Saperstein

Washington Law Review

Washington’s “gift of public funds” doctrine is frequently misunderstood in ways that impede innovative ideas aimed at remedying some of our state’s most intractable problems. This doctrine arises from article VIII, sections 5 and 7 of the Washington Constitution, which prohibit state and local governments from gifting assets or loaning credit. While the Washington State Supreme Court historically applied these provisions in restrictive and confusing ways, the Court’s modern jurisprudence recognizes that the doctrine is inapplicable to funding expended for any of the many “fundamental purposes” of government. Even where a government program does not fall under this broad category, …

Whose Truth Commission, Lehlohonolo January

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

It is often said that the victor always dictates the narrative and thus dictates how history is represented. The end of Apartheid in South Africa wasn’t a result of an outright victorious defeat of the Apartheid State together with its institutions of coercion but rather came about as a result of a culmination of a series of events. If this adage holds true, then why is it that the narrative seems to paint a picture of a victor’s perspective? This assertion is not made lightly but is no less reflective of how the facts seem to portray themselves in that …

Why Medicaid Is Addressing Homelessness With Section 1115 Waivers: A Critical Examination Of The United States' Federalist Mental Health System, Joshua Haas

Washington Law Review

Housing and health care are deeply interconnected, and their systemic relationship profoundly affects individual and societal well-being. Inadequate funding has undermined the American mental health system for decades, leading to gaps in care that have caused lasting harm to vulnerable individuals and society as a whole. This Comment examines the historical connections between homelessness and the American mental health system. It explores the benefits and criticisms of the United States’ federalist approach to health care, particularly focusing on Medicaid and its “section 1115 waivers,” which grant states flexibility to develop innovative, state-specific Medicaid programs. Recently, states began to utilize section …

All-American Crime: Reflections On Welcome The Wretched By César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, Kit Johnson

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

In his 2024 book, Welcome the Wretched, Professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández questions why it is that non-citizens who have committed crimes are slated for removal from this country. After all, he notes, “Migrants don’t bring crime here. It’s already here. It always has been and always will be.”

We may not readily admit it, but crime in the United States is truly All-American. Section I of this Essay tries to shed light on the widespread nature of criminality in the United States by recounting my own crimes and those of family and friends, with the goal of pushing the …

The Wretched All Around, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Overstated Cost Of Ai Fairness In Criminal Justice, Ignacio Cofone, Warut Khern-Am-Nuai

Indiana Law Journal

The dominant critique of algorithmic fairness in AI decision-making, particularly in criminal justice, is that increasing fairness reduces the accuracy of predictions, thereby imposing a cost on society. This Article challenges that assumption by empirically analyzing the COMPAS algorithm, a widely used and widely discussed risk assessment tool in the U.S. criminal justice system.

This Article makes two contributions. First, it demonstrates that widely used AI models do more than replicate existing biases—they exacerbate them. Using causal inference methods, we show that racial bias is not only present in the COMPAS dataset but also worsened by AI models such as …

The Future Is In Their Care: Justice And The Washington Constitution, Steven González

Washington Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New Redlining: How Progressive Policies Restrict The Development Of Housing Supply And Perpetuate America's Racist Property Law Past, Steve Calandrillo, Kelsey Dunn

Articles

Recent scholarship has exposed America’s racist property law past. During the twentieth century, decades of deliberate state-sponsored discrimination (a.k.a., “Redlining”) made homeownership—and the accumulation of wealth—more difficult for people of color. In 1948, the Supreme Court outlawed these practices in the seminal case, Shelly v. Kraemer. However, the damage had been done, and has proven to be long-lasting. Redlining slowed economic mobility for people of color and exacerbated the racial wealth gap. As a result, America is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis that disproportionately impacts people of color.

Readers well versed in economics and public policy …

The Equal Protection-Fourth Amendment Shell Game: An Essay On The Limited Reach Of The 2023 Affirmative Action Cases, The Fourth Amendment, And Race Beyond Skin Color, David B. Owens

Articles

In striking down race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the Supreme Court used lofty rhetoric about the importance of ending race discrimination, even calling the command of Equal Protection “universal.” In two ways, this Essay explores the legal and practical limits of the affirmative action cases and illustrates how the Court’s claimed concern about race discrimination rings hollow. First, this Essay discusses state actors permitted to use race in their decision-making: the police. Unlike elite universities whose policies are subject to exacting scrutiny, the Supreme Court permits police to use race when deciding whom to seize …

The Equal Rights Amendment: The 28th Amendment To The U.S. Constitution, Twiss Butler, Patrick Butler

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article reviews how Supreme Court interpretations of the 14^th Amendment have allowed laws to discriminate against women. It aims to show that the Equal Rights Amendment, ratified as the 28^th Amendment in 2020, offers a constitutional basis for eliminating all forms of legal sex discrimination against women. These forms include discrimination based on pregnancy and abortion, commodifying women’s bodies, and allowing men to intrude into women’s protected spaces. The review starts with the denial of protection for women by America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776, denounces the Supreme Court’s precedent-setting 1974 Geduldig decision, which ruled—quite illogically—that discrimination …