Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Ambivalence & Activism: Employment Discrimination In China, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

Chinese courts do not vigorously enforce many human rights, but a recent string of employment discrimination lawsuits suggests that, given the appropriate conditions, advocacy strategies, signals from above, and rights at issue, courts can help victims vindicate their constitutional and statutory rights to equality. Since 28, carriers of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) have used the Employment Promotion Law to challenge hiring discrimination. Their high success rate suggests official support for making one potent form of discrimination illegal. Central to these lawsuits is a broad network of lawyers, activists and scholars who have advocated for protecting the rights of HBV …

No Difference?: An Analysis Of Same-Sex Parenting, George W. Dent

Faculty Publications

The principal argument for traditional marriage is that it is uniquely beneficial to children. The campaign for same-sex marriage (“SSM”) denies this argument and claims that same-sex couples are just as good as other parents; there is “no difference” between the two. This article analyzes this claim and concludes that it is unsubstantiated and almost certainly false.

When "The Evil Day" Comes, Will Title Vii's Disparate Impact Provision Be Narrowly Tailored To Survive An Equal Protection Clause Challenge?, Eang L. Ngov

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ricci V. Destefano And Disparate Treatment: How The Case Makes Title Vii And The Equal Protection Clause Unworkable, 39 Cap. U. L. Rev. 1 (2011), Allen R. Kamp

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

When The Evil Day Comes, Will Title Vii's Disparate Impact Provision Be Narrowly Tailored To Survive An Equal Protection Clause Challenge, Eang Ngov

Faculty Articles

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Employers must be careful about the intentional and unintentional effect of their employment practices, even when acting with good motive. Title VII’s disparate impact provision holds employers liable for employment practices that cause an adverse impact on racial groups, even when the employment practice applies equally to all groups and was not implemented to disadvantage a particular group. A prima facie case of disparate impact can arise solely based on numbers - a comparison between the rate at which one racial group passes a test or is selected for hiring or …

The Internal Revenue Code And Latino Realities: A Critical Perspective, Leo P. Martinez, Jennifer M. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Noah's Curse: How Religion Often Conflates Status, Belief, And Conduct To Resist Antidiscrimination Norms, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Georgia Law Review

Today, many devout Christian fundamentalists support
some state discrimination against gay people, on the
ground that full equality for gays would mean fewer
liberties for themselves. In its recent controversy with a
public law school, the Christian Legal Society argued that
it was entitled to state subsidies even though it violated
the school's antidiscrimination policy. The Society said it
excluded only "unrepentant homosexuals"-those gay
persons whose "immoral" conduct and degraded status
were directly linked to what the Society considered an
anti-Christian message.
Professor Eskridge demonstrates that the same clash
between equality for minorities and liberty for Christian
fundamentalists played out …

Discrimination By Comparison, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Contemporary discrimination law is in crisis, both methodologically and conceptually. The crisis arises in large part from the judiciary's dependence on comparators – those who are like a discrimination claimant but for the protected characteristic – as a favored heuristic for observing discrimination. The profound mismatch of the comparator methodology with current understandings of identity discrimination and the realities of the modern workplace has nearly depleted discrimination jurisprudence and theory. Even in run-of-the-mill cases, comparators often cannot be found, particularly in today's mobile, knowledge-based economy. This difficulty is amplified for complex claims, which rest on thicker understandings of discrimination developed …

Hastening The Wheels Of Change: International Cold War Pressure And Civil Rights Reform During The Truman Presidency, Caley A. Robertson

Honors Theses

In the early Cold War arena, international pressure on the United States to live according to its ideological rhetoric enabled the Truman Administration to set a precedent for federal engagement in domestic civil rights reform. As the United States led the march to institutionalise human rights as the standard of moral legitimacy in the global arena, the country’s grisly record of racial oppression and violence invited foreign and domestic criticism alike. This paper intends to prove five discrete points. First: Cold War tensions brought questions of moral legitimacy to the forefront of the U.S. national agenda. Second: during the Truman …

Judicial Interference With Effective Assistance Of Counsel, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A lawyer’s ineffective representation of a client may be attributable to a lawyer’s own personal failings. However, impairment of the right to effective assistance of counsel may also come from a trial judge’s conduct, and can takes many forms, and occur in varying circumstances. It is therefore difficult to formulate clear principles to cover all of the various situations in which a judge can undermine effective representation. The Borukhova and Mallayev case is only the most recent illustration of the way a ruling of a judge – forcing the lawyer to sum up his case without giving the lawyer adequate …

The Mystery Of Life In The Laboratory Of Democracy: Personal Autonomy In State Law, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

Recent controversies, such as enactment of an individual mandate to purchase health insurance and the legalization of assisted suicide in Washington and Montana, have renewed the war over personal autonomy. Debates about the value and limits of personal autonomy also play major roles in the controversies over abortion, same-sex intimacy, and same-sex marriage. On one side of the autonomy war, advocates of unfettered individual freedom assert that by her un-coerced and autonomous choice, the individual person determines the value of human goods such as life, health, and marriage.

On the other side, proponents of strong government restrictions on personal choice …

Localities As Equality Innovators, Robin A. Lenhardt

Faculty Scholarship

This Article thus argues that instead of regarding cities and localities that, like Seattle and Louisville, try to develop serious solutions to existing racial disparities as "bad cities" no different from those whose notorious policies spurred the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, we should be regarding them as potential "equality innovators.” Their on-the-ground experience with the realities of race and its operation in the twenty-first century arguably places them in a better position than courts to develop innovative approaches to the structural racial inequities with which so many municipalities must grapple. Existing doctrine limits dramatically the ability …

Unsex Cedaw? No! Super-Sex It!, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article reflects upon Darren Rosenblum's provocative piece Unsex CEDAW, or What's Wrong with Women's Rights. At the outset I should note that this critical analysis should not be misinterpreted. I do not quarrel with Professor Rosenblum's observations that inequality in law and life is much broader than sex inequalities. To the contrary, I am in full accord with him that discrimination along other categorical axes is also undesirable and sometimes as prevalent as sex inequality. Indeed, oftentimes such other discriminatory tendencies dovetail with those rooted in sex discrimination.

Where we diverge, however, is in his proposal that the …

Why Reparations To African Descendants In The United States Are Essential To Democracy, Adjoa A. Aiyetoro

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Some Thoughts On The State Of Women Lawyers And Why Title Vii Has Not Worked For Them, Theresa M. Beiner

Law Faculty Scholarship

This essay discusses why women lawyers have not been as successful in large firms in spite of graduating from law school in large numbers over the last twenty years. It begins by giving a snapshot of the state of women lawyers, including women lawyers of color. It includes stories and studies of women’s struggles at these firms. It also describes why Title VII has not worked to solve the problems associated with being a successful woman in a law firm. Finally, it suggests some potential solutions that may help women be more successful in these environments.

The Family Law Canon In A (Post?) Racial Era, Shani M. King

UF Law Faculty Publications

While the debate about a post-racial society rages, our justice system continues to operate in a way that is race-conscious. It seems as though most of the discussion about race and the justice system concerns criminal justice, juvenile justice, education, and immigration. But race consciousness also impacts family law. Nonetheless, the family law canon does not scrutinize race-based disparities in laws, procedures, and outcomes, and that omission feeds a mistaken notion of a race-blind or a post-racial society. One consequence of this omission is that it obscures race-based decision making by legislatures, judges, legal reform organizations, legal scholars, lawyers, and …

The Domestic Face Of Globalization: Law's Role In The Integration Of Immigrants In The United States, Alfred C. Aman, Graham Rehrig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article applies a global perspective to immigration in the United States, focusing in particular on law’s role in the integration of immigrants into U.S. society. The global perspective illuminates the relationship of immigration to other forms of transnationalism, as well as to the situation of non-immigrant minorities and the working poor. We review the history of immigration law in the United States as well as the main elements of current debate. Drawing on the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection, as well as the preemption doctrine, we suggest specific ways in which immigration law might optimally evolve in the future. …

Justice Kennedy To The Rescue?, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Using Human Rights Mechanisms Of The United Nations To Advance Economic Justice, Risa E. Kaufman, Joann Kamuf Ward

Human Rights Institute

As a growing number of social justice lawyers employ human rights standards and strategies to advocate for their clients. human rights mechanisms of the United Nations have become a promising way for lawyers to work toward economic justice. These mechanisms are not only an alternative to traditional litigation and administrative advocacy but also unique opportunities for collaboration among U.S. civil society groups and engagement with policymakers. Because they are grounded in international human 1ights norms. human rights mechanisms have the potential to deal with social and economic issues beyond the reach of traditional domestic protections. By strategically using these mechanisms. …

Gender Justice In The Americas: A Transnational Dialogue On Violence, Sexuality, Reproduction, And Human Rights University, Human Rights Clinic, Centro De Derechos Humanos De La Universidad Diego Portales, Center For Reproductive Rights

Human Rights Institute

On February 23-25, 2011, over 100 women's rights, gender, and sexuality advocates and scholars from twenty countries in North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean gathered at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida to attend a groundbreaking convening, Gender Justice in the Americas: A Transnational Dialogue on Violence, Sexuality, Reproduction, and Human Rights. The Convening, hosted by the University of Miami School of Law Human Rights Clinic, University of Diego Portales Human Rights Center, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, brought together key players in the region to exchange views and …