Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

A Punishment That Harms Everyone And Benefits No One: An Analysis Of The Use Of Solitary Confinement Under Common Sociological Theories Of Punishment, Allison Lampert

Et Cetera

In the United States, experts estimate that nearly 100,000 incarcerated individuals are held in solitary confinement. While individuals can be held in solitary confinement for a variety of reasons, many are placed in lockdown because they have untreated mental illnesses, have committed some sort of minor disciplinary infraction, are need of protection, or for unpopular personal beliefs. In other words, solitary confinement is used as a broad catch-all to a wide range of low-level and nonviolent misbehaviors. This note argues that solitary confinement is an unjustifiable mode of punishment as analyzed under two commonly cited sociological theories of punishment: retributivism …

The Right To Gender-Affirming Care, Justin J. Soulas

Theses and Dissertations

As of recent, twenty-four states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care, restricting minors from accessing medically necessary treatment. Existing scholarship has begun to explore the profound impact of these bans on transgender youth, their parents or guardians, and the medical professionals who support them. However, the body of literature on this rapidly evolving issue remains limited. This thesis aims to fill that gap by offering a legal defense of gender-affirming care, grounded in judicial precedent. It argues that parental rights to make medical decisions for their children—recognized in constitutional jurisprudence—extend to decisions involving gender-affirming treatment. Additionally, it draws on anti-discrimination …

Brief Of Amici Curiae 775 Law Professors In Support Of Plaintiff's Motion For Summary Judgment And Declaratory And Permanent Injunctive Relief, Wilfred U. Codrington Iii, Haiyun Damon-Feng, Rebecca Ingber, Rachel Landy, Jacob Noti-Victor, Alexander A. Reinert, Anthony J. Sebok

Amicus Briefs

Amicus curiae brief submitted by 775 law professors in support of Susman Godfrey LLP's motion for summary judgment and request for declaratory and permanent injunctive relief in Susman Godfrey LLP v. Executive Office of the President. The brief argues that Executive Order 14263 unlawfully targets a law firm based on its clients, advocacy, and litigation activities, in violation of the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, and Sixth Amendment. The amici contend that the order constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination, interferes with the right to counsel, and threatens the independence of the legal profession and the rule of law.

Changemakers: Susannah Johnson : L'25 : Charting A New Course : From Navy Officer To Legal Advocate, Jane Govednik

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Splitting Equality: Access To Gender-Affirming Care In The Fourth Circuit, Gilbert D. Jones

Journal of Law and Health

This Note critically examines the evolving legal landscape surrounding transgender individuals' access to gender-affirming care in the United States, focusing on two pivotal cases before the Fourth Circuit: Kadel v. Folwell (North Carolina) and Fain v. Crouch (West Virginia). These cases present a constitutional and statutory challenge to the exclusion of medically necessary gender-affirming care from state health plans, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Note contextualizes these lawsuits within a broader historical trajectory of transgender rights, highlighting legal and cultural milestones that have shaped access …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Center For Civil Rights And Critical Justice, Aclu Of Washington And King County Department Of Public Defense, Center For Civil Rights And Critical Justice, Jessica Levin, Melissa Lee, Ronald A. Peterson Law Clinic, David Montes, La Rond Baker

Center for Civil Rights and Critical Justice Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Hindsight Is 20/20: Epilepsy Is Not One-Size-Fits-All, Raika Kim

Northwestern University Law Review

For many, epilepsy is one of the first conditions that come to mind when thinking of a disability, and for good reason: over 50 million people in the world live with epilepsy. Yet misunderstandings about epilepsy have perpetuated social stigma surrounding the disability for centuries. Ableist beliefs led to the passage of laws in the 1900s condoning—and in some cases, requiring—sterilization of individuals with epilepsy and restriction of their right to marry. Even today, state driving laws, justified as promoting public safety, categorically prevent anyone diagnosed with epilepsy from driving unless they are seizure free for an arbitrary, nonuniform period …

Challenging Race-Based Health Care Discrimination: A New Private Right Of Action, Aaron Pinkett

Northwestern University Law Review

The Hippocratic Oath calls on doctors to “do no harm.” Yet we know from extensive public health research that clinicians repeatedly cause harm to Black patients by dismissing their medical concerns, misdiagnosing them, and undertreating their pain. These practices of differential treatment for Black patients have led to steadily increasing racial disparities in health care outcomes throughout the United States. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits this type of disparate impact, but modern Supreme Court jurisprudence forecloses opportunities for affected parties to seek legal relief—despite the clearly established legislative intent of Title VI. However, another legal …

Cruising Over Controversy: Addressing Discrimination Gaps In The Montreal Convention's Framework, Catherine Mitri

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Re-Evaluating Fulton V. City Of Philadelphia: A “Narrow” “Wisp” Of A Decision Or Free Exercise “Bedrock?”, Mark Rienzi

Catholic University Law Review

In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), a unanimous Supreme Court held that Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause by excluding Catholic Social Services from participating in its foster program because CSS would not certify same-sex couples. Both supporters and critics of the Court’s decision publicly characterized the decision as “narrow” and noted that Philadelphia (and other governments) can easily sidestep Fulton and continue excluding religious providers from foster and adoption programs.

Four years later, the evidence shows that Fulton is anything but narrow. In Philadelphia and in other jurisdictions, Fulton has played a strong role in ending litigation against …

Champions For Justice 2025 03-27-2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

State V. Hayes: Privacy Of The Mind And The Incompetent Defendant, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Although numerous jurisdictions have faced the question of whether a criminal defendant can be considered competent to stand trial when his competency is medically induced, the question of whether the state may force the accused to take competency-inducing medication during trial over the pretrial objections of the defense is relatively novel. Confronted with that issue recently, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire in State v. Hayes held that the state could compel a criminal defendant to take psychotropic drugs' necessary to maintain competency if the jury was informed about the use of medication. It is clear from the New Hampshire …

Bakke, Lochner, And Law School: The Nobility Clause Versus A Republican Form Of Medicine, James E. Lobsenz

Maine Law Review

Alan Bakke, an unsuccessful medical school applicant, filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the minority admissions program administered by the Medical School of the University of California at Davis. The practice of reserving sixteen special places for minority students out of a total of 100 positions in the entering class, Bakke contended, constituted a denial of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. Bakke's suit afforded the justices of both the California Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court a unique opportunity to examine the substantive nature of the "equality" …

The Misuse Of Land Use Control Powers Must End: Suggestions For Legislative And Judicial Responses, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

Municipal governments in almost all parts of the country are frequently inclined to exercise their police, spending, and policymaking powers in an impermissibly exclusionary manner. Their objective in many instances is simply to keep population growth and local property taxes down. In Maine these tendencies are very much in evidence. This misuse of local governmental powers is almost totally predicated on a misconception of the status of local governments and the purposes for which they exist. Local governments are not sovereign. They are not independent units of government. They are subunits of state government, creatures of the state analogous to …

A Response To Professor Delogu: Is Impermissible Exclusion A Reality In Maine?, Madge Baker

Maine Law Review

A basic premise of Professor Orlando Delogu's article, The Misuse of Land Use Control Powers Must End: Suggestions for Legislative and Judicial Responses, is that many Maine municipalities are using their land use regulatory powers in impermissibly exclusionary ways. Professor Delogu proposes that the legislature and courts of Maine should respond to correct the situation. This Commentary will attempt to illustrate that Professor Delogu has failed to document his premise or to define accurately the difference between permissible and impermissible exclusion. He is unable, therefore, to substantiate the need for state intervention in an area of law traditionally delegated to …

A Final Note On The Misuse Of Land Use Control Powers Must End: Suggestions For Legislative And Judicial Responses, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

The Baker criticism of my article is flawed in several major respects. First, while tacitly accepting the basic premise of the article that impermissible exclusion may be achieved by local misuse of a wide variety of facially permissible land use control tools, Ms. Baker argues that merely because the article did not demonstrate a sufficient degree of misuse in Maine, the corrective measures suggested are unwarranted. But a full reading of the article makes clear that no such exhaustive indictment of Maine towns was intended. The article was not an empirical study. The article intended to point out a widening …

The Prima Facie Case Approach To Employment Discrimination, Joanne F. Cole

Maine Law Review

Employment discrimination litigation has increased dramatically during the past decade. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—Congress' sweeping prohibition of discrimination in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin –older federal civil rights statutes and state counterparts to Title VII, courts have developed discrete, cognizable theories of discrimination. An analytical framework has also developed by which to evaluate the facts, innuendoes, and statistics that constitute the claims and defenses in a discrimination case. Within the generally accepted approach to the evidence, however, there is no consensus about the weight each element …

Perspectives On Older Workers: Maine's Prohibition Of Mandatory Retirement, Susan Dana Kertzer

Maine Law Review

The 1978 Amendments to the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which generally prohibit mandatory retirement before the age of seventy, have been criticized as proposing to "extend freedom of choice by restricting freedom of contract. Despite such criticisms and other less philosophical objections to the Act, the 108th Maine Legislature in 1977 passed the first part of a legislative program which, as of January 1, 1980, prohibits all mandatory retirement in Maine, in both the public and private sectors. Emphasizing the parallels between age discrimination legislation and other civil rights legislation, one of the bill's senate supporters acknowledged …

Beware Of The Dangers Of The State-Created Danger Doctrine: A Look At The Ninth Circuit's Approach, Julia Steiner

University of Miami Law Review

The Fourteenth Amendment applies to state, not private, actors. It, like the whole of our Constitution, operates as a negative restraint on government. The Due Process Clause thus forbids states from taking certain action—but it does not and cannot compel the state to act ab initio. These core concepts formed the basis of the Supreme Court’s decision in DeShaney v. Winnebago County, where the Court reaffirmed that the only instance where the state assumes an affirmative duty to provide safety and security is when the state itself restrains an individual from protecting themselves.

Yet, since DeShaney, the circuit …

The Development And Consequences Of The "Good Faith" Exception To The Exclusionary Rule And The Qualified "Good Faith" Immunity From Liability Under Section 1983, Philip M. Coffin Iii, Paul F. Driscoll

Maine Law Review

The remedies fashioned to redress violations of the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution continue to be the subject of much judicial, legislative, and scholarly inquiry. In striking the balance between the need to protect individual freedom and the need to protect society from criminal activity, the Supreme Court and Congress have developed two principal remedies for fourth amendment violations: the exclusionary rule and civil actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 or under theories of constitutional tort. on the development of both of these remedies it is assumed that their effectiveness is the true measure of fourth amendment liberties. …