Law and Race Commons^™

Foreseeability And Duty In Washington Negligence Law: Leaving The Road Less Traveled By, Leo Linder

Seattle University Law Review

Washington negligence law is a confusing labyrinth of foreseeability that not even Ariadne’s string could guide plaintiffs out of. Foreseeability is implicated in four distinct analyses, several of which overlap considerably. Doctrines that were once questions of law are now questions of fact, and vice versa. Something needs to change.

Washington has taken the novel approach of bifurcating the duty element into two parts—duty’s mere existence, which is a question of law for the court to determine; and duty’s scope, which is a question of fact handed off to the jury to determine. Foreseeability impacts both of these assessments, but …

Institutional Antiracism And Critical Pedagogy: A Quantum Leap Forward For Legal Education And The Legal Academy, Danielle M. Conway

Faculty Scholarly Works

A fundamental launchpad for redeeming American society is to look to the historical and contextual goals of the Second Founding—the Reconstruction Amendments—and grasp the lessons about justice and equality for all by focusing on the principles of institutional antiracism. While our nation should deploy teaching and learning strategies at all levels of the American system of education, legal education must be out front leading the way to incorporate institutional antiracism through critical pedagogy.

This article provides the historical context in which legal education developed in the antebellum and postbellum periods and up to what might be deemed the “Third Founding” …

From 1965 To 2023: How Allen V. Milligan Upheld The Voting Rights Act But Failed To Adapt To The Age Of Computers, Rachel E. Dudley

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

In 1982, Congress amended Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to outlaw voting practices that deprive or abridge minorities’ voting rights on account of race. This amendment outlaws both intentional discrimination and disparate impacts. For the past thirty years, private citizens have used Section 2 to challenge redistricting maps that dilute minority voters’ voices.

In Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court protected Section 2 when it held that Alabama’s redistricting map diluted minority voters’ right to vote. The Court rejected Alabama’s proposal for a new test to compare states’ maps to computer-generated redistricting maps that did …

Automated Stategraft: Electronic Enforcement Technology And The Economic Predation Of Black Communities, Sonia Gipson Rankin, Melanie E. Moses, Kathy Powers

Faculty Scholarship

Automated traffic enforcement systems disproportionately impact Black communities in the United States. This Essay uncovers a troubling reality: while technologies such as speed cameras and red light cameras are often touted as tools for public safety by the National Highway Safety Transportation Administration, they disproportionately burden Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The authors coin the term “automated stategraft” to describe this phenomenon—an insidious process that siphons financial resources from already vulnerable groups under the guise of law enforcement. In doing so, it exacerbates economic disparities and erodes trust in legal and governmental institutions.

This Essay delves into the biases inherent in …

The Difference A Da Makes, Victoria Smiegocki, Shem Vinton, Pamela R. Metzger

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

During his 2018 campaign to become Dallas County District Attorney, John Creuzot promised to decline prosecution of low-level marijuana misdemeanors. After his election, District Attorney Creuzot (DA Creuzot) honored this campaign promise, issuing policies designed to radically reduce misdemeanor marijuana prosecutions. Analyzing qualitative and quantitative data, the authors describe police enforcement changes associated with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office's (DAO) marijuana prosecution policies. The authors also explore how the DAO's Intake Unit successfully implemented and enforced these marijuana prosecution policies.

The authors show that DA Creuzot's policies were associated with a significant decrease in marijuana misdemeanor arrests and an …

Covid-19 And Access To Healthcare At The Crossing Of Race, Poverty, And Rurality, Shavonnie R. Carthens

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Black Americans make up 7.7 percent of the rural population in the United States. During the COVID-19 pandemic many in this population found themselves at a unique intersection of inequity - being Black, poor, and residing in a rural area. Poverty is a known contributor to negative health outcomes and is a risk factor for death from coronavirus infection. The association between race and poverty, when examining infectivity and mortality rates of COVID-19, have disproportionately devastated Black Americans and other minorities. Further, research indicates the presence of a general “rural mortality penalty” wherein rural Black communities have higher death rates …

The Need For Corporate Guardrails In U.S. Industrial Policy, Lenore Palladino

Seattle University Law Review

U.S. politicians are actively “marketcrafting”: the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act collectively mark a new moment of robust industrial policy. However, these policies are necessarily layered on top of decades of shareholder primacy in corporate governance, in which corporate and financial leaders have prioritized using corporate profits to increase the wealth of shareholders. The Administration and Congress have an opportunity to use industrial policy to encourage a broader reorientation of U.S. businesses away from extractive shareholder primacy and toward innovation and productivity. This Article examines discrete opportunities within the …

Securities Regulation And Administrative Deference In The Roberts Court, Eric C. Chaffee

Seattle University Law Review

In A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, A.C. Pritchard and Robert B. Thompson write, “Securities law offers an illuminating window into the Supreme Court’s administrative law jurisprudence over the last century. The securities cases provide one of the most accessible illustrations of key transitions of American law.” A main reason for this is that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a bellwether among administrative agencies, and as a result, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court is a history of administrative law in the Supreme Court of the United States as well.

Delegated Corporate Voting And The Deliberative Franchise, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Starting in the 1930s with the earliest version of the proxy rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has gradually increased the proportion of “instructed” votes on the shareholder’s proxy card until, for the first time in 2022, it required a fully instructed proxy card. This evolution effectively shifted the exercise of the shareholder’s vote from the shareholders’ meeting to the vote delegation that occurs when the share-holder fills out the proxy card. The point in the electoral process when the binding voting choice is communicated is now the execution of the proxy card (assuming the shareholder completes the card …

Capitalism Stakeholderism, Christina Parajon Skinner

Seattle University Law Review

Today’s corporate governance debates are replete with discussion of how best to operationalize so-called stakeholder capitalism—that is, a version of capitalism that considers the interests of employees, communities, suppliers, and the environment alongside (if not before) a company’s shareholders. So much focus has been dedicated to the question of capitalism’s reform that few have questioned a key underlying premise of stakeholder capitalism: that is, that competitive capitalism does not serve these various constituencies and groups. This Essay presents a different view and argues that capitalism is, in fact, the ultimate form of stakeholderism. As such, the Essay urges that the …

The Esg Information System, Stavros Gadinis, Amelia Miazad

Seattle University Law Review

The mounting focus on ESG has forced internal corporate decision-making into the spotlight. Investors are eager to support companies in innovative “green” technologies and scrutinize companies’ transition plans. Activists are targeting boards whose decisions appear too timid or insufficiently explained. Consumers and employees are incorporating companies sustainability credentials in their purchasing and employment decisions. These actors are asking companies for better information, higher quality reports, and granular data. In response, companies are producing lengthy sustainability reports, adopting ambitious purpose statements, and touting their sustainability credentials. Understandably, concerns about greenwashing and accountability abound, and policymakers are preparing for action.

In this …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Marijuana Insurgency: Federalism And Social Reframing In Policy Reform, Matthew P. Cavedon

Seattle University Law Review

After fifty years of federal prohibition, marijuana reform efforts have won political and legal success. These victories hold lessons for anyone seeking to resist federal law without being able to directly affect it.

Victory can come from reframing an issue. For marijuana reform, social reframing—not formal legal analysis or material factors—provides the best explanation for how advocates achieved change. Their unconventional political tactics, akin to those used by insurgents in wartime, undercut federal prohibition by winning hearts and minds.

This is an analysis of the sociology of legal change. It is also the story of how ordinary Americans retook personal …

Antisemitic Terrorism, J. Richard Broughton

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Recent surges in antisemitic activity—and antisemitic violence, in particular—have led increasingly to conversations about the connections between antisemitism and domestic terrorism. While the nexus between antisemitic violence and domestic terrorism has long been expressed in rhetorical terms, its connection in legal terms—notably, federal criminal law—has been more attenuated. This Article explores that connection and finds that existing federal criminal law requires rethinking: it is underinclusive and thus inadequate to fully capture and punish the threats posed by today’s domestic violent extremism, and particularly antisemitic violence. The Article surveys recent federal prosecution in cases involving actual or threatened antisemitic violence, and …

Restricting The Use Of Rap Lyrics As Evidence In Courts: A Targeted Approach To Tackling Discrimination In Criminal Procedure, Paige M. Walker

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Article is a review of Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America. The book largely focuses on the dangers of allowing rap lyrics to be presented as evidence in criminal trials. The authors posit that the fictitious and hyperbolic nature of rap lyrics are misrepresented by prosecutors as autobiographical confessions that document illegal activity and violent character traits of defendants. The authors compare rap to other musical genres and conclude that racism is the underlying cause for why the genres are treated differently in court. The authors also advocate for evidence nullification and argue for a complete …

Strictly Intersectional Scrutiny: A Recommendation For Transforming The Epc To Highlight Queer Black Women, Kayla M. Richardson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) and how this interpretation can become more intersectional for Black queer women. This question is explored within the scope of two theoretical frameworks: Derrick Bell’s theory of interest convergence and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality. This project examines whether any factors compel SCOTUS to be more intersectional in its approach to the Fourteenth Amendment. Simultaneously, this study also considers what social contexts make SCOTUS more likely to focus on the interests of the oppressor, a demographic …

Innovation Originators, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim, Rafeel Wasif

Michigan Technology Law Review

Asian Americans are one of the most striking and undertheorized ethnic groups in the field of innovation. While a prolific ethnic group when it comes to being named as inventors on U.S. patents, very little has been written on this observation, perhaps because of previously limited datasets and unwieldy data analysis on ethnic backgrounds about patenting at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). Research on inventor diversity and ethnicity in innovation has begun to explore some ethnic groups, but a more holistic account should focus on one particular overlooked group. Recently, entrepreneurship studies concerning ethnicity have shown that …

Shareholder Primacy Versus Shareholder Accountability, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

When corporations inflict injuries in the course of business, shareholders wielding environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) principles can, and now sometimes do, intervene to correct the matter. In the emerging fact pattern, corporate social accountability expands out of its historic collectivized frame to become an internal subject matter—a corporate governance topic. As a result, shareholder accountability surfaces as a policy question for the first time. The Big Three index fund managers, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, responded to the accountability question with ESG activism. In so doing, they defected against corporate legal theory’s central tenet, shareholder primacy. Shareholder primacy builds …

Verses Turned To Verdicts: Ysl Rico Case Sets A High-Watermark For The Legal Pseudo-Censorship Of Rap Music, Nabil Yousfi

Seattle University Law Review

Whichever way you spin the record, rap music and courtrooms don’t mix. On one side, rap records are well known for their unapologetic lyrical composition, often expressing a blatant disregard for legal institutions and authorities. On the other, court records reflect a Van Gogh’s ear for rap music, frequently allowing rap lyrics—but not similar lyrics from other genres—to be used as criminal evidence against the defendants who authored them. Over the last thirty years, this immiscibility has engendered a legal landscape where prosecutors wield rap lyrics as potent instruments for criminal prosecution. In such cases, color-blind courts neglect that rap …

Time To Abolish The Dea: Evaluating The Agency’S Failures And Calling For Community Investments, Ifetayo Harvey

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.