Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

The (Mis)Categorization Of Sex In Anglo-American Cases Of Transsexual Marriage, John Parsi

Michigan Law Review

The United States' promise to establish equality for all has been challenged by post-operative transsexuals seeking recognition in their acquired sex. The birth certificate is the legal gateway to changing other legal documents; but the process for changing the birth certificate varies widely from state to state. This lack of national uniformity makes post-operative transsexuals' recognition of their acquired sex complicated at best and impossible at worst. This Note details the legal progression from non-recognition to recognition of post-operative transsexuals' acquired sex in the United Kingdom and through the European Court of Human Rights. The Note goes on to explore …

The Texas Mis-Step: Why The Largest Child Removal In Modern U.S. History Failed, Jessica Dixon Weaver

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article sets forth the historical and legal reasons as to how the State of Texas botched the removal of 439 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints parents residing in Eldorado, Texas. The Department of Family and Protective Services in Texas overreached its authority by treating this case like a class-action removal based on an impermissible legal argument, rather than focusing on the facts and circumstances that could have been substantiated for a select group of children at risk. This impermissible legal argument regarding the “pervasive belief system” of a polygamist sect that allowed minor …

Equal Protection And Aesthetic Zoning: A Possible Crack And A Preemptive Repair, Louis G. Tassinary, Dawn E. Jourdan, Russ Parsons

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, the property owner alleged "the Village intentionally demanded a 33-foot easement as a condition of connecting her property to the municipal water supply where the Village required only a 15-foot easement from other similarly situated property owners." The complaint further described the village's demand as "irrational and wholly arbitrary." According to the Seventh Circuit, the property owner could allege an equal protection violation by asserting the state's action was motivated solely by a "spiteful effort to 'get' him for reasons wholly unrelated to any legitimate state objective." On appeal, the Supreme Court agreed, …

A Right To Bare All? Female Public Toplessness And Dealing With The Laws That Prohibit, Danielle Moriber

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The note examines the legal and societal implications of women's right to be topless in public, arguing that this issue intersects with First Amendment rights, equal protection under the law, and cultural perceptions of gender and modesty. It contends that while societal norms heavily influence laws restricting female toplessness, such restrictions often disproportionately target women and raise constitutional concerns. The analysis advocates for a balanced approach, such as zoning regulations, to address these issues while respecting individual rights and community standards.

Abandoning The Ten Percent Rule And Reclaiming One Person, One Vote, Stephanie Cirkovich

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Search-And-Seizure Law: How New Hampshire And Federal Law Differ, Randall Lawrence–Hurt

Inquiry Journal 2010

No abstract provided.

Challenges To State Anti-Preference Laws And The Role Of Federal Courts, Michael E. Rosman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Of Fat People And Fundamental Rights: The Constitutionality Of The New York City Trans-Fat Ban, Katharine Kruk

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Sit-Ins And The State Action Doctrine, Christopher W. Schmidt

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

By taking their seats at “whites only” lunch counters across the South in the spring of 1960, African American students not only launched a dramatic new stage in the civil rights movement, they also sparked a national reconsideration of the scope of the constitutional equal protection requirement. The critical constitutional question raised by the sit-in movement was whether the Fourteenth Amendment, which after Brown v. Board of Education1 prohibited racial segregation in schools and other stateoperated facilities, applied to privately owned accommodations open to the general public. From the perspective of the student protesters, the lunch counter operators, and most …

The Future Of Discriminatory Local Ordinances Aimed At Regulating Illegal Immigration, John Ryan Syllaios

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Gender Autonomy, Transgender Identity And Substantive Due Process: Finding A Rational Basis For Lawrence V. Texas, Jillian T. Weiss

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Pursuit Of Perfection: Congressional Power To Enforce The Reconstruction Amendments, A. Christopher Bryant

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In June 2009 the Supreme Court avoided a decision on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act's preclearance requirement, while at the same time managing to foreshadow that provision's ultimate demise. In a separate opinion, Justice Thomas announced that he would have reached the issue and invalidated the preclearance requirement. Conceding that unconstitutional racial discrimination in the administration of elections continued to be an unfortunate reality, he asserted that Congress was not permitted to pursue "perfect compliance" with the Constitution's mandate via the use of "broad prophylactic legislation."

Justice Thomas's statement accurately, though to be sure rather starkly, expressed an …

Gps Monitoring May Cause Orwell To Turn In His Grave, But Will It Escape Constitutional Challenges? A Look At Gps Monitoring Of Domestic Violence Offenders In Illinois, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 845 (2010), Mary Ann Scholl

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Of Visible Race-Consciousness And Institutional Role: Equal Protection And Disparate Impact After Ricci And Inclusive Communities, Richard A. Primus

Book Chapters

Six years ago, Ricci v. DeStefano foregrounded the possibility that statutory disparate-impact standards like the one in Title VIl might be on a collision course with the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. For many observers, it was a radically new possibility. Until that point, disparate-impact doctrine had usually been understood as an ally of equal protection rather than as a potentially conflicting aspect of the law. But between the 1970s and the beginning of the present century, equal protection doctrine became more individualistic and less tolerant of race-conscious actions intended to redress inherited racial hierarchies. Those developments put equal protection …

A Post-Race Equal Protection?, Trina Jones, Mario L. Barnes, Erwin Chemerinsky

Faculty Scholarship

Most vividly demonstrated in the 2008 election of the first African-American President of the United States, post-race is a term that has been widely used to characterize a belief in the declining significance of race in the United States. Post-racialists, then, believe that racial discrimination is rare and aberrant behavior as evidenced by America’s pronounced racial progress. One practical consequence of a commitment to post-racialism is the belief that governments - both state and federal - should not consider race in their decision making. One might imagine that the recent explosion in post-racial discourse also portends a revised understanding of …

Second-Class Citizenship: The Tension Between The Supremacy Of The People And Minority Rights, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 963 (2010), Adam H. Morse

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

War And Peace Between Title Vii's Disparate Impact Provision And The Equal Protection Clause: Battling For A Compelling Interest, Eang Ngov

Faculty Articles

“[T]he war between disparate impact and equal protection will be waged sooner or later, and it behooves us to begin thinking about how – and on what terms – to make peace between them.” This Article addresses Justice Scalia’s premonition in Ricci v. DeStefano by providing an analysis of how that war may be waged and whether peace can be made between Title VII’s disparate impact provision and the Equal Protection Clause. Ricci involved a challenge to the City of New Haven’s decision to void the test results of an examination required for promotion within the City’s fire department. The …

Which Came First The Parent Or The Child?, Mary P. Byrn, Jenni Vainik Ives

Faculty Scholarship

From the moment a child is born, she is a juridical person endowed with constitutional rights. A child’s parents, however, do not become legal parents until a state statute grants them the fundamental right to raise one’s child. The state, therefore, exercises considerable power and discretion when it drafts the parentage statutes that determine who becomes a legal parent. This article asserts that the state, through its parens patriae power, has a duty to act as an agent for children when it drafts its parentage statutes. In particular, the state must adopt parentage statutes that satisfy children’s fundamental right to …

"The Prejudice Of Caste": The Misreading Of Justice Harlan And The Ascendency Of Anticlassificaiton, Scott Grinsell

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article reconsiders the familiar reading of Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson as standing for the principle of constitutional colorblindness by examining the significance of Harlan's use of the metaphor "caste" in the opinion. By overlooking Harlan's invocation of "caste," it argues that conservative proponents of anticlassification have reclaimed the opinion for "colorblindness," and buried a powerful statement of the antisubordination principle that is at the heart of our equality law. The Article begins by examining the emergence of a reading of the opinion as articulating a view of equality law based in anticlassification. The Article then returns …

The Latest Phase Of Negro Disfranchisement [1912 Reprint From The Harvard Law Review], Julien C. Monnet

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.