Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Reflections On Obergefell And The Family-Recognition Framework's Continuing Value, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Unlike a typical law review essay, I offer reflections here based largely on my own past work in LGBT rights advocacy. Together with related scholarship, I rely on these experiences to argue that the 'family recognition" framework underlying earlier advocacy has value going forward, even after the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of nationwide marriage equality.

Are Asian Americans Now White?, Frank H. Wu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Said I, 'But You Have No Choice': Why A Lawyer Must Ethically Honor A Client's Decision About Mental Health Treatment Even If It Is Not What S/He Would Have Chosen, Michael L. Perlin, Naomi M. Weinstein

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that lawyers representing individuals with mental disabilities have an ethical responsibility to prioritize their clients' expressed preferences and autonomy, rejecting the presumption that substituted decisionmaking is acceptable. It critiques the legal system's reliance on paternalistic approaches and highlights the importance of supported decisionmaking, as mandated by international human rights law, particularly under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The analysis emphasizes the need for legal frameworks and attorney practices to align with therapeutic jurisprudence, which prioritizes psychological well-being and dignity while upholding due process principles.

Recalibrating The Scales Of Municipal Court Justice In Missouri: A Dissenter’S View, Kimberly Jade Norwood

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article examines the inefficiencies of Missouri municipal courts that came into sharp focus following the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Norwood details and expands on her lone dissent in the Final Report of the Municipal Division Work Group—a group created by the Missouri Supreme Court to address the alleged abuses of black and poor residents in Missouri. Norwood argues for consolidating failing municipal courts to create larger, more functional, and just courts.

Testimony On Pennsylvania Sb1306: No Additional Protections For Religious Freedom, Katherine M. Franke, Burton Caine, Lenore F. Carpenter, Eric A. Feldman, Thersa Glennon, Nancy J. Knauer, Jules Lobel, Wendell Pritchett, Dara E. Purvis, Brishen Rogers, Victor C. Romero, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

On behalf of the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project (PRPCP) at Columbia Law School I offer the following legal analysis of Senate Bill 1306. Overall, the current version of the bill promises to modernize Pennsylvania’s Human Relations Act by expanding antidiscrimination protections in employment to include sexual orientation and gender identity-based discrimination. Were the Pennsylvania legislature to pass SB 1306, the Commonwealth would join twenty-two states that include sexual orientation and nineteen states that include gender identity in their laws assuring equal employment opportunities for their citizens.

Memorandum On Mississippi House Bill 1523, Katherine M. Franke, Michèle Alexandre, Deborah A. Challener, Judith J. Johnson, Richard Gershon, Elizabeth A. Sepper, Noa Ben-Asher, Daria Roithmayr, Nomi M. Stolzenberg

Faculty Scholarship

As legal scholars with expertise in matters of religious freedom, civil rights, and the interaction between those fields, we offer our opinion on the scope and meaning of Mississippi House Bill 1523, which was signed into law today by Governor Phil Bryant. Specifically, we wish to call attention to language in the law that we believe conflicts with the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. We share the view of Justice Kennedy when he expressed that “a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest,” and would add that neither can …

Tools For Change: Boosting The Retention Of Women In The Stem Pipeline, Joan C. Williams, Katherine W. Phillips, Erika V. Hall

Faculty Scholarship

This study details how gender bias plays out in everyday workplace interactions in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). It is based on in-depth interviews with 60 women scientists of color (chiefly professors), and a survey of 557 women scientists (of all races). Different types of gender bias were reported at different rates. Prescriptive gender bias was most common (76.3% of women interviewed reported it), followed by descriptive gender bias (66.7%) and gender bias triggered by motherhood (64.0%); just over half of the women interviewed (55.3%) reported situations in which gender bias against women fueled conflicts among women. The survey …

Discrimination By Customers, Katharine T. Bartlett, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

Customers discriminate by race and gender, with considerable negative consequences for female and minority workers and business owners. Yet anti-discrimination laws apply only to discrimination by firms, not by customers. We examine efficacy and privacy reasons for why this may be so, as well as changing features of the market that, by blurring the line between firms and customers, make current law increasingly irrelevant. We conclude that, while there are reasons to be cautious about regulating customer behavior, those reasons do not justify acceding to customer discrimination altogether. To open a discussion of the regulatory options that take account of …

Race, Class, And Access To Civil Justice, Sara Sternberg Greene

Faculty Scholarship

After many years of inattention, policymakers are now focused on troubling statistics indicating that members of poor and minority groups are less likely than their higher-income counterparts to seek help when they experience a civil justice problem. Indeed, roughly three-quarters of the poor do not seek legal help when they experience a civil justice problem, and inaction is even more pronounced among poor blacks. Past work on access to civil justice largely relies on unconfirmed assumptions about the behavior patterns and needs of those experiencing civil justice problems. At a time when increased attention and resources are being devoted to …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Professors Of Law In Support Of Petitioner, Barbara Allen Babcock, Jeffrey Bellin, Darryl K. Brown, Robert P. Burns, James E. Coleman Jr., Lisa Kern Griffin, Robert P. Mosteller, Deborah Tuerkheimer, Neil Vidmar, Jessica L. West

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Thirteenth Amendment, Disparate Impact, And Empathy Deficits, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ps V Ontario: Rethinking The Role Of The Charter In Civil Commitment, Isabel Grant, Peter J. Carver

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In PS v Ontario, the Ontario Court of Appeal held that section 7 of the Charter requires that persons who are civilly committed for six months or more must have access to meaningful review over the conditions of their detention. In this paper, the authors argue that the decision has broad implications for provincial civil commitment regimes across the country. In particular, the Court’s analogy to the Criminal Code Review Board jurisprudence opens the door to a fuller recognition of the profound deprivation of liberty involved in civil commitments. An expanded role for civil review tribunals may be required, including …

No Refuge: Hungarian Romani Refugee Claimants In Canada, Sean Rehaag, Julianna Beaudoin, Jennifer Danch

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

From 2008 to 2012, thousands of Hungarian Roma sought asylum in Canada. Some political actors suggested that their claims were unfounded and demonstrated that Canada’s refugee processes were vulnerable to abuse. In contrast, advocates for refugees argued that persecution against Roma was rampant in Hungary and noted that hundreds of Hungarian Roma were granted refugee status in Canada. Much of this debate has occurred in an evidentiary vacuum. This article fills this vacuum through a qualitative and quantitative study of Hungarian Romani refugee claims. First, the context of the study is discussed. Then, the article explores the experiences of Hungarian …

Schools Are Employers Too: Rethinking The Institutional Liability Standard In Title Ix Teacher-On-Student Sexual Harassment Suits, Kathleen Mary E. Mayer

Georgia Law Review

To be entitled to any remedy under Title IX, students bringing private causes of action must show that their schools acted with actual knowledge and deliberate indifference. That liability standard is applied to both teacher-on-student and peer-on-peer harassment claims, without regard for an educational institution's relative control over the conduct of its employees versus its students. Schools should be held to a stricter standard in teacher-on-student cases than in peer-on-peer cases for numerous reasons of both law and policy. Considering that Title VII standards of liability do turn on relative control, a quirky imbalance results whereby a school is more …

The Same-Actor Inference Of Nondiscrimination: Moral Credentialing And The Psychological And Legal Licensing Of Bias, Victor D. Quintanilla, Cheryl R. Kaiser

Articles by Maurer Faculty

One of the most egregious examples of the tension between federal employment discrimination law and psychological science is the federal common law doctrine known as the same-actor inference.

When originally elaborated by the Fourth Circuit in Proud v. Stone, the same-actor doctrine applied only when an “employee was hired and fired by the same person within a relatively short time span.” In the two decades since, the doctrine has widened and broadened in scope. It now subsumes many employment contexts well beyond hiring and firing, to scenarios in which the “same person” entails different groups of decision makers, and the …

Can Dna Be Speech?, Jorge R. Roig

Scholarly Works

DNA is generally regarded as the basic building block of life itself. In the most fundamental sense, DNA is nothing more than a chemical compound, albeit a very complex and peculiar one. DNA is an information-carrying molecule. The specific sequence of base pairs contained in a DNA molecule carries with it genetic information, and encodes for the creation of particular proteins. When taken as a whole, the DNA contained in a single human cell is a complete blueprint and instruction manual for the creation of that human being. In this article we discuss myriad current and developing ways in which …

Obergefell And Resistance, Tiffany C. Graham

Scholarly Works

The movement for LGBT equality achieved a seminal victory in June 2015 -- the Supreme Court held in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage bans violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In the face of this triumph, many people of faith continue to disapprove of same-sex marriage. They are now advocating for spaces of objection that will, among other things, allow them to disclaim the need to follow anti-discrimination norms that might result in even a tangential connection to the marriage ceremonies themselves. This Essay sketches some of the most recent controversies flowing from the rearguard effort, and …

Reconsidering Copyright's Constitutionality, Graham Reynolds

All Faculty Publications

In 1996, in Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin – Michelin & Cie v. National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers Union of Canada (CAW-Canada) (Michelin), Teitelbaum J. of the Federal Court (Trial Division) held both that specific provisions of the Copyright Act did not infringe the right to freedom of expression as protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) and that, even if they did, these provisions could be justified under s. 1 of the Charter. Since Michelin, these conclusions have been treated by Canadian courts as settled. The purpose of this paper is to challenge these …

Brief For Amici Curiae Professors Of Law In Support Of Petitioner, Barbara Allen Babcock, Jeffrey Bellin, Robert P. Burns, Sherman J. Clark, James E. Coleman Jr., Lisa Kern Griffin, Robert P. Mosteller, Deborah Tuerkheimer, Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Radtalks: What Could Be Possible If The Law Really Stood For Black Lives?, Purvi Shah, Colette Pichon Battle, Vincent Warren, Alicia Garza, Elle Hearns, Carl Williams, Norris Henderson, Umi Selah, Maurice Mitchell

City University of New York Law Review

A Series of Talks Delivered at the Law for Black Lives Convening, Organized by the Bertha Justice Institute at the Center for Constitutional Rights