Law and Race Commons^™

Are California's Homeless Children Being Left Behind - Analyzing The Implementation Of Mckinney-Vento Education Rights In California, Taylor Pospichel

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The term "homeless" evokes the image of an individual adult begging for change on a city sidewalk. The growing problem of homeless families, and of homeless children in particular, has not achieved the same level of social consciousness. Perhaps for that reason, the services in place for homeless individuals are not equipped to address the needs of displaced children. Title VII of the federal McKinney-Vento Act addresses the problems homeless children face in attending and succeeding in school. California has similar measures in place. However, the needs of California's homeless children are not adequately met at present.

This note exan-mines …

Physician Assisted Suicide: Debunking The Myths Surrounding The Elderly, Poor And Disabled, Anne Marie Su

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

In most states, patients with terminal, painful, and debilitating conditions have no means of ending their suffering except by waiting to die. As interest in physician assisted suicide began to grow in this country, the Supreme Court in a series of decisions expressed fear that recognition of a right to die would lead to abuses. For example, disability rights activists in particular argue that it would encourage burdened family members to pressure disabled persons to end their lives. Evidence from the two states that have legalized physician assisted suicide, however, should lay these fears to rest.

This note opens with …

Crimes Without Punishment: An Update On Violence Against Women And Impunity In Guatemala, Karen Musalo, Blaine Bookey

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

In response to rates of violence against women that rank among the highest in the world, Guatemala enacted the Law Against Femicide and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in 2008. Unfortunately, the law does not seem to be rectifying the deeply rooted problem of gender-based violence that plagues Guatemala. A 2010 report by the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and later investigation in collaboration with the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic at UC Hastings revealed the degree to which Guatemala is failing to protect women from gender-motivated attack.

This article first surveys the scope of the problem of …

Planting People, Growing Justice: The Three Pillars Of New Social Justice Lawyering, Artika R. Tyner

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

To accomplish meaningful social change, lawyers must move beyond their traditional role as mediaries between clients and the justice system and work collaboratively with marginalized communities. Lawyers should stand as leaders to help underprivileged people obtain the basic necessities of life and dignity. To that end, Dr. Tyner introduces three pillars of new social justice lawyering: social justice lawyering, leadership, and public policy advocacy.

This essay opens with a survey of several theoretical approaches to social justice lawyering. It moves on to examine how lawyers can serve as leaders. Finally, the article explores ways in which lawyers can serve as …

Rape By The System: The Existence And Effects Of Sexual Abuse Of Women In United States Prisons, Samiera Saliba

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

For thousands of women incarcerated in U.S. prisons, punishment has come to include sexual abuse by male prison guards. Twenty-five percent of women inside prison report such abuse, and that number likely falls short of the true figure. Nonetheless, the majority of guards in women's prisons continue to be male.

This note first explores the reasons for the prevalence of sexual abuse in women's prisons. It moves on to the effect of this abuse on women inside and on their communities. The note also surveys the legal barriers that prevent abused women inside from seeking redress. Finally, the note proposes …

The Affordable Care Act And Beyond: Opportunities For Advancing Health Equity And Social Justice, Rene Bowser

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

In 2010, the most monumental health care legislation in forty-five years was enacted. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("ACA") makes changes great and small in virtually every important component of the American health care system. The new law's implications will not be known fully for many years because state governments and federal agencies are in the process of interpreting key provisions, drafting rules and devising general implementation strategies. And, uncertainty exists about the scope of the ACA because of the recent Supreme Court ruling in National Federal of Independent Business v. Sebelius. The court upheld nearly all of …

More Restrictive Than Necessary: A Police Review Of Secure Housing Units, Zafir Shaiq

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

When almost seven thousand Pelican Bay inmates refused food for weeks on end, California took notice of the unacceptable living conditions in its Secure Housing Units (or SHUs). SHU residents live for months and years with almost no human contact, and succumb to serious mental illness as a result. Despite the attention that the hunger strikes brought to the issue, however, meaningful improvement to California's SHUs does not appear to be on the horizon.

This note begins with the history of isolation in American prisons and its use as a means of long-term punishment and control. It then depicts the …

San Felipe Pueblo Tribal Court Handbook (2013), Tribal Law Journal Staff

Tribal Law Journal

This handbook helps take some of the mystery out of practicing in tribal courts. Without the necessary information to learn new rules and protocols many attorneys are understandably reluctant to practice in a new jurisdiction. As a result, tribal courts are underused or misused. This handbook is intended to help attorneys and advocates become more aware of the various individual tribal court systems and to learn their rules and protocol.

San Ildefonso Pueblo Tribal Court Handbook (2013), Tribal Law Journal Staff

Tribal Law Journal

This handbook helps take some of the mystery out of practicing in tribal courts. Without the necessary information to learn new rules and protocols many attorneys are understandably reluctant to practice in a new jurisdiction. As a result, tribal courts are underused or misused. This handbook is intended to help attorneys and advocates become more aware of the various individual tribal court systems and to learn their rules and protocol.

Integration Reclaimed: A Review Of Gary Peller's Critical Race Consciousness, Michelle Adams

Articles

Integration occupies a contested and often paradoxical place in legal and public policy scholarship and the American imagination. Today, more Americans are committed to integration than ever before. Yet this attachment to integration is hardly robust. There is a widespread perception that integration has failed. A vanishingly small percentage of social and economic resources are spent on integration. At the same time, some progressives and those who would otherwise consider themselves on the "left" criticize integration as insufficiently attentive to economic equality and dismissive of black identity and culture. Scholars from across the political spectrum have sought to explain this …

Dignité/Dignidade: Organizing Against Threats To Dignity In Societies After Slavery, Rebecca J. Scott

Book Chapters

This chapter is not an attempt to join the fractious debate over philosophical first principles or juridical first usages of the term 'dignity'. Instead, it explores the tight connection between the institution of slavery and the giving of specific meanings to the concept of dignity, in particular times and particular places. To explore the dynamics of the intertwined process of creating and drawing upon meaning for the terms 'dignity' and 'slavery', I examine two historical movements that emerged after formal abolition.

Federal Preemption And Immigrants' Rights, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Recently, immigration scholars have focused on the relationship between federal, state, and local governments in regulating immigration to the exclusion of civil rights issues. States and localities assert that they should be able to use their Tenth Amendment police powers to regulate unauthorized immigrants within their borders, while the federal government claims exclusivity in the area of immigration law and policy. In the middle of this debate, there is the question of whether states abrogate individual civil rights and civil liberties when exercising their police powers to regulate immigration. This article takes a detailed look at these complex issues of …

Neofeminism, Aya Gruber

Publications

Today it is prosaic to say that "feminism is dead." Far from being moribund, feminist legal theory is breaking from its somewhat dogmatic past and forging ahead with new vigor. Many modern feminist legal scholars seek innovative ways to better the legal, social, and economic status of women while simultaneously questioning some of the more troubling moves of second-wave feminism, such as the tendency to essentialize the woman's experience, the turn to authoritarian state policies, and the characterization of women as pure objects or agents. These "neofeminists" prioritize women's issues but maintain a strong commitment to distributive justice and recognize …

Measuring The Racial Unevenness Of Law School, Jonathan Feingold, Doug Souza

Faculty Scholarship

In "Measuring the Racial Unevenness of Law School," Jonathan Feingold and Doug Souza introduce and analyze the concept of racial unevenness, which refers to the particularized burdens an individual encounters as a result of her race. These burdens, which often arise because an individual falls outside of the racial norm, manifest across a spectrum. At one end lie obvious forms of overt and invidious racial discrimination. At the other end, racial unevenness arises from environmental factors and institutional culture independent from any identifiable perpetrator. As the authors detail, race-dependent burdens can arise in institutions and communities that expressly promote racial …

Grandma In The White House: Legal Support For Intergenerational Caregiving, Jessica Dixon Weaver

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Marian Robinson’s status as the live-in First Grandmother is an example of a growing trend in the United States - the multigenerational family. The 2010 United States Census Data reflects that the number of households with multiple generations living under one roof has increased by 25% this decade. Mrs. Robinson also reflects another new development in American families: grandparents helping their adult children with caregiving. More than 70% of grandparents are taking care of their grandkids on a regular basis, and 13% are primary caretakers. Many grandparents treat their role as caregiver like a profession, and they sacrifice jobs, residences, …

Lockdown For Liberty: Black Masculinities, Mass Incarceration And Labor In The Georgia Prisoners Strike, Jeremiah Chin

Articles

This article examines the Georgia prisoners’ protest and uses the prisoners’ list of demands to examine the relationship between historical and present notions of race, labor, rights and incarceration. Particular focus will be placed on how mass incarceration is racialized in the disproportionate imprisonment of men of color, specifically black men, and how this contributes to the invisibility of this population in the public eye. The next section offers a theoretical framework to understand how prisons and prisoner issues are removed from public discourse, the general assumptions undergirding public perceptions of prisons and how common sense assumptions of prisons can …

Pharaohs, Nubians, And Antiquities: International Law Suggests It's Time For A Change In Egypt, Angi Porter

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Part I of this Comment describes the history and structure of Egypt's antiquities laws. It also describes Egypt's relevant international obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In Part II, this Comment argues that the current state of Egypt's antiquities system is inconsistent with its international obligations. Part II considers whether Egypt's exclusion of the Nubians stems from Egyptological superiority narratives and analyzes which narratives Egypt could adopt without violating international law. Finally, Part …

In Search Of Racial Justice: The Role Of The Prosecutor, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article examines the role of prosecutors in establishing and maintaining racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and examines efforts of the Prosecution and Racial Justice Program of the Ve,:-a Institute of Justice to enact reform within prosecutors' offices. After providing an overview of the debate on causes of such racial disparities generally, the article examines how seemingly race neutral charging and plea-bargaining decisions by prosecutors can actually cause and perpetuate racial disparities. As a model for reforming such practices, the article evaluates and critiques the Prosecution and Racial Justice Program and makes recommendations for how this program can …

"Give Us Free": Addressing Racial Disparities In Bail Determinations, Cynthia E. Jones

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article considers racial disparities that occur nationally in the bail determination process, due in large part to the lack of uniformity, resources, and information provided to officials in bail proceedings. It argues that the almost unbridled decision making power afforded to bail officials is often influenced by improper considerations such as the defendant's financial resources or the race of the defendant. As a result of these failures, the bail determination process has resulted not only in racial inequalities in bail and pretrial detention decisions, but also in the over-incarceration of pretrial defendants and the overcrowding of jails nationwide. The …

"He Is The Darkey With The Glasses On": Race Trials Revisited, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

No abstract provided.