By Abigail HesterAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 Let me set a scene: You’re a waitress. You’ve been in quarantine for months and are finally, finally, getting to return to work. You’re weary about COVID, but desperate to receive a consistent paycheck. During your quarantine, you’ve been one of the lucky ones. You have not been […]
From Our Editors
Stigma at Every Step: Mistreatment of Black Americans in the Opioid Crisis
By Nathan BennettAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 As the COVID-19 crisis extends into its second year in the United States, the years-long epidemic of opioid misuse continues forward—and may be worsening.[1] The opioid crisis is popularly portrayed as a problem of white America—suburban moms hooked on prescription pills and Appalachian men laid off from factory […]
“Professional” Hairstyles: How Title VII Protections Have Condoned the Policing of Black Women’s Hair
By Jasmine BenjaminAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 Everyone is faced with the question of how to style their hair. However, this decision is of particular social, professional and economic import for Black women. According to recent studies, Black women are 83% more likely to report being judged more harshly on their looks than other women, 1.5x […]
The Dismissed Tragedy Behind the Native American Boarding School System
By: Meghan PateroAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 One thing I’ve realized about myself in law school is that, when reading about historical events, I often downgrade the event’s importance and subsequent consequences. I read the words at face value and dismiss the significance attached to the event at that time. As a result, I have been […]
Exploring Mapping Inequality: Redlining Close to Home
By: Eve HastingsAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 Background Mapping Inequality is a website created through the collaboration of three teams at four universities including the University of Richmond, Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University.[1] I was introduced to the website through my Property professor during the Fall 2020 semester as we learned about […]
The Right to Education: Where We Go Next
By: Daniel BaumAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 This blog calls on scholars and practitioners to advocate, and for courts to hold, that every student in this country—no matter whether they live in Orange, Wayne, or Washtenaw County, or whether their skin is Black, white, or neither—possesses a fundamental right to education that the government must […]
Uneven Distribution Leads to Increased Disparate Impact
By: Emma RosenAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines created a visible light at the end of the long, dark tunnel that has been the past ten months. This tunnel was even darker for those communities on which COVID-19 has had a disparate impact. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact – including […]
Race and Blackness in Brazil
By: Thomas DesoutterAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 Brazil is a nation of 210 million people, sixty percent of whom are Black or multiracial. Many of the country’s most celebrated cultural traditions are rooted in the practices of Brazil’s enslaved people and their descendants. The most famous Brazilian of all time, the soccer legend Pelé, is Black, […]
How the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Fails Minority Students
By: Liza DavisAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), every child with a disability who participates in a state school system accepting federal special education funds is guaranteed a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment appropriate.[i] Instead of ensuring that all disabled children have meaningful access to […]
The Danger of Using “Terrorism” to Describe the Capitol Attack
By: Aashna RaoAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 On January 7, 2021, the day after the attack on the Capitol, President Joe Biden said of the Trump supporters who participated, “Don’t dare call them protestors. They were…domestic terrorists.”[1] Biden’s use of the word “terrorists” to describe the violent mob was intended to distinguish them from Black Lives […]
