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Against Equality: A Critical Essay for the NAACP and Others
Get PDFWe address a recurring problem in movement scholarship and activism: why do some civil rights organizations persist in promoting themselves as advocates of equal protection when street activists rarely mention it, and lawyers know that litigation brought under that clause almost always loses? Try to recall the last time you heard of a street protest by a group -- say Mexican-American school children in Tucson, Arizona, Black victims of police violence, or military women subjected to sexual harassment -- proceeding under the banner of equal protection. Or think when you last read of a lawyer who brought and won a case for a client alleging that some form of official treatment violated that guarantee because the official action fell unequally on the client\u27s group vis-i-vis another. If these causes of action are practically dead letters, why do institutions continue to evoke them on official occasions, fundraising appeals, and their websites? We show how equal protection has receded in importance as a means of advancing the interests of outsider groups, yet traditional organizations that advertise themselves as representing those interests continue to be wedded to it. Drawing on critical race scholarship, including our own, we show how better means are available for advancing the goals of these groups, including street demonstrations, struggle, righteous indignation, and voting. Institutions such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) know this yet continue to press their case with unceasing fervor. We offer an explanation for why this is so and conclude by urging methods that are likely to prove more productive
Administrative Law
No full textFor instructors who prefer a case-oriented approach, the Fifth Edition of Administrative Law is a case-rich text that focuses on the core issues in administrative law. Lightly-edited cases preserve the feel of reading entire opinions and include facts, content, full analyses, and citations. Keystone cases introduce important themes and topics. Introductory material and questions following the cases focus students’ reading and stimulate class discussion, while helpful notes facilitate keen understanding of legal doctrines, introduce students to academic responses to judicial decisions and agency practices, and identify recent developments in doctrine and academic study. “Theory Applied” sections at the conclusion of major parts offer teachers an opportunity to evaluate students’ grasp of the materials in new factual and legal contexts. This flexible, easily teachable text is designed for a 3-unit course, and its self-contained parts can be taught in any order.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_books/1056/thumbnail.jp
Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. and His Extended Law Clerk Family: Reminiscences on Working for a Living Profile in Courage
No full textIn his earlier books, In Chambers and Of Courtiers and Kings, Todd C. Peppers provided an insider’s view of the Supreme Court from the perspective of the clerks who worked closely with some of its most important justices. With Of Courtiers and Princes, he concludes the trilogy by examining the understudied yet equally fascinating role of lower court clerks—encompassing pioneering women and minorities.
Drawing on contributions from former law clerks and judicial scholars—including an essay by Ruth Bader Ginsburg—the book provides an inside look at the professional and personal bonds that form between lower court judges and their clerks. While the individual essays often focus on a single judge and his or her corps of law clerks, including their selection process, contributions, and even influence, the book as a whole provides a macro-level view of the law clerk’s role in the rapidly changing world of lower federal and state courts, thereby offering an unusual yet crucial perspective on the inner workings of our judicial system.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_bookchapter/1006/thumbnail.jp
Law and Economics: Theory, Cases, and Other Materials
No full textLaw and Economics: Theory, Cases, and Other Materials is a comprehensive introduction to the subject area of law and economics, with stimulating in depth discussion of actual case law by two leading scholars in the field. It provides a clear description of the key points of law and economics across various substantive areas of law, combining the traditional approach to the study of law and economics with new important insights from behavioral economics and competing theories. Importantly, Law and Economics artfully introduces and connects theory to practice to provide a coherent picture rather than a patch-like studying experience. Using detailed case-notes, comments and examples, Law and Economics explains why future lawyers should care about economic analysis of the law and how economics can and should play a role in litigation and conflict resolution. This important new casebook not only makes law and economics accessible to students but also indubitably establishes the importance of law and economics in a globalized world.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_books/1053/thumbnail.jp
State-Created Fetal Harm
Get PDFHalf a century of state-level restrictions on abortion access might cause a casual observer to conclude that state governments have a long-standing commitment to protecting fetal life. And yet, over the last several decades, state governments and local law enforcement are increasingly taking steps that actively undermine fetal health. Through the passage of state fetal endangerment laws and the prosecution of pregnant women under stretched interpretations of existing criminal laws, states are actively creating conditions that result in poorer fetal health outcomes-including an increase in fetal and infant death.
This Article seeks to make three important contributions to the scholarly literature regarding the undesirability of fetal endangerment laws. First, it shows for the first time through empirical evidence that fetal endangerment laws fail to accomplish the state\u27s goal of protecting and promoting fetal and infant health. Second, it shows that these laws actually have a statistically significant, negative impact on fetal and infant health. In particular, we examine the impact of Tennessee\u27s 2014 fetal endangerment law - a law that explicitly criminalized prenatal drug use - by analyzing comprehensive datasets on births, fetal deaths, and infant deaths. We find consistent evidence that this law undermined the ability of mothers to access prenatal care, worsened birth outcomes, and increased both fetal and infant death rates. For example, in 2015 alone, this law resulted in twenty more fetal deaths and sixty more infant deaths. Finally, based on this empirical evidence, this Article argues that states should be prohibited from passing additional fetal endangerment laws and continuing to enforce current ones because such state action fails to survive even rational basis review
Big Data and the electoral process in the United States: Constitutional constraint and limited data privacy regulations
No full textIn this multidisciplinary book, experts from around the globe examine how data-driven political campaigning works, what challenges it poses for personal privacy and democracy, and how emerging practices should be regulated.
The rise of big data analytics in the political process has triggered official investigations in many countries around the world, and become the subject of broad and intense debate. Political parties increasingly rely on data analytics to profile the electorate and to target specific voter groups with individualised messages based on their demographic attributes. Political micro-targeting has become a major factor in modern campaigning, because of its potential to influence opinions, to mobilise supporters and to get out votes. The book explores the legal, philosophical and political dimensions of big data analytics in the electoral process. It demonstrates that the unregulated use of big personal data for political purposes not only infringes voters’ privacy rights, but also has the potential to jeopardise the future of the democratic process, and proposes reforms to address the key regulatory and ethical questions arising from the mining, use and storage of massive amounts of voter data.
Providing an interdisciplinary assessment of the use and regulation of big data in the political process, this book will appeal to scholars from law, political science, political philosophy and media studies, policy makers and anyone who cares about democracy in the age of data-driven political campaigning.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_bookchapter/1008/thumbnail.jp
Blake v. Stradford, 725 N.Y.S.2d 189 (Dist. Ct. 2001)
No full textHow could feminist perspectives and methods change the shape of property law? This volume assembles a group of diverse scholars to explore this question by presenting fundamental property law cases rewritten from a feminist perspective. The cases cover a broad range of property law topics, from landlord-tenant rights and obligations, patents, and zoning to publicity rights, land titles, concurrent ownership, and takings. These rewritten opinions and their accompanying commentaries demonstrate how incorporating feminist theories and methods could have made property law more just and equitable for women and marginalized groups. The book also shows how property law is not neutral but is shaped by the society that produces it and the judges who apply it.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_bookchapter/1066/thumbnail.jp
President Biden\u27s Executive Orders on the Environment: Praiseworthy Policy, Political Red Herring, or...Both?
Get PDFTreat Every Defendant Equally and Fairly: Political Interference and the Challenges Facing the U.S. Attorneys\u27 Offices as the Justice Department Turns 150 Years Old
Get PDFThe US Attorneys\u27 Offices are the flagships of the federal government\u27s law-enforcement work. But as the Department of Justice (DOJ) approaches its 150th anniversary, there are deep concerns for their future. The four years of the Trump Administration have shaken public confidence in DOJ, and during his tenure, Attorney General William Barr all too often took on the role of the President\u27s lawyer rather than upholding the integrity and credibility of line prosecutors to work free from political interference. This Essay, written in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, argues that, in a new administration, there must be a hardcore realignment of cultural values inside of the Justice Department that supports its independence and permits line prosecutors to effectively resist and reject political interference in criminal matters. The past four years have revealed frailty in the Department that requires more than the new laws and new policies that will be designed to shore up some of the weaknesses that have been revealed. Ultimately, even with those new laws and policies, there must be a culture restoration that guarantees they will be implemented effectively so that the independence of prosecutions from political influence, which is critical to our criminal-justice system, is firmly in place