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No Voice, No Exit, But Loyalty? Puerto Rico and Constitutional Obligation
The Michigan Law Review is honored to have supported Professors Charles and Fuentes-Rohwer's Essay on the subjugated status of Puerto Rico as an "unincorporated territory." This Essay contextualizes Puerto Rico not as an anomalous colonial vestige but as fundamentally a part of the United States' ongoing commitment to racial economic domination. We are thrilled to highlight this work, which indicts our constitutional complacence with the second-class status of Puerto Rican citizens and demands a national commitment to self-determination for Puerto Rico.U.S. Race Relations and Foreign Policy
It is easy for Americans to think that the world’s most egregious human rights abuses happen in other countries. In reality, our history is plagued by injustices, and our present reality is still stained by racism and inequality. While the Michigan Journal of International Law usually publishes only pieces with a global focus, we felt it prudent in these critically important times not to shy away from the problems facing our own country. We must understand our own history before we can strive to form a better union, whether the union be the United States or the United Nations. Ambassador Susan Page is an American diplomat who has faced human rights crises both at home and abroad. We found her following call to action inspiring. We hope you do too.
The CROWN Act: Fighting Hair Discrimination with Legislation
By Tamar Alexanian Associate Editor, Vol. 25 In December of 2018, black New Jersey high school wrestler Andrew Johnson was forced to cut his dreadlocks or forfeit his wrestling match.[1] Although Johnson was wearing his usual headgear and covering his head, the referee claimed that Johnson’s dreadlocks…The Right to Be and Become: Black Home-Educators as Child Privacy Protectors
The right to privacy is one of the most fundamental rights in American jurisprudence. In 1890, Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis conceptualized the right to privacy as the right to be let alone and inspired privacy jurisprudence that tracked their initial description. Warren and Brandeis conceptualized further that this right was not exclusively meant to protect one’s body or physical property. Privacy rights were protective of “the products and the processes of the mind” and the “inviolate personality.” Privacy was further understood to protect the ability to “live one’s life as one chooses, free from assault, intrusion or invasion except as can be justified by the clear needs of community living under a government of law.” Case law supported and extended their theorization by recognizing that privacy is essentially bound up in an individual’s ability to live a self-authored and self-curated life without unnecessary intrusions and distractions. Hence, privacy may be viewed as the right of individuals to be and become themselves. This right is well-established; however, scholars have vastly undertheorized the right to privacy as it intersects with racial discrimination and childhood. Specifically, the ways in which racial discrimination strips Black people—and therefore Black children—of privacy rights and protections, and the ways in which Black people reclaim and reshape those rights and protections remain a dynamic and fertile space, ripe for exploration yet unacknowledged by privacy law scholars. The most vulnerable members of the Black population, children, rely on their parents to protect their rights until they are capable of doing so themselves. Still, the American education system exposes Black children to racial discrimination that results in life-long injuries ranging from the psychological harms of daily racial micro-aggressions and assaults, to disproportionate exclusionary discipline and juvenile incarceration. One response to these ongoing and often traumatic incursions is a growing number of Black parents have decided to remove their children from traditional school settings. Instead, these parents provide their children with home-education in order to protect their children’s right to be and become in childhood.Regarding Narrative Justice, Womxn
The story within this article explores how narrative justice can be applied as a form of advocacy for persons seeking access to justice. The questions—what is narrative justice? How do we define it?—deserve a separate space, which will be shared in a forthcoming article. Meanwhile, in short, narrative justice is the power of the word—written, spoken, articulated with the emotion or experience of an individual or collective, to shape or express reaction to law and policy.
How the Child Welfare System Targets Black Families
By Raul Noguera-McElroy Associate Editor, Vol. 25 Part I: Overview This fall, I enrolled in Race and the Law, a class that examines how the United States’ legal system oppresses various ethnic and/or racial minority groups. The course gave a passing mention of how the child welfare system fits…How ‘Know Your Rights Training’ Can Protect You and Others
By Liz Morales Associate Editor, Vol. 24 Disclaimer: This blog post is not intended to provide legal advice. If you are interested in learning about your constitutional rights, please visit the webpage of a legal organization linked below, or consult with a licensed attorney. The importance of ‘Know Your Rights’ training was recently highlighted in a video showing a man using his training to prevent an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer from arresting two persons.[1] In the clip, an unidentified ICE officer can be seen approaching a vehicle claiming to have a judicial warrant for the arrest of an alien.[2] Sitting in the driver’s seat was Bryan MacCormack, executive director of a nonprofit organization that helps immigrant communities in Columbia County in New York. [3] MacCormack and the two undocumented persons he was accompanying had just left the local court house to deal with minor traffic citations when the ICE officer came up to their window.[4] Refusing to open his car door, MacCormack told the ICE officer that the paperwork he was presenting to him was “not signed by a judge” and thus was “not a judicial warrant.”[5] “I have no obligation to oblige by that warrant,” he continued.[6] MacCormack was able to articulate his rights to the ICE officer thanks in part to his Department of Justice-accredited ‘Know Your Rights’ training.[7] The training had provided attendees with copies of the letter the ICE officer was presenting as well as copies of a ‘real’ warrant, both of which MacCormack had in the car with him.[8] MacCormack said training administrators provided these materials so that “people know not to listen” to documents like the one used by this ICE officer.[9]Striking the Balance: Social Media as a tool for Social Justice
By Leah Duncan Associate Editor, Vol. 24 Since its creation, social media has evolved well beyond its initial purpose of social connection. Today, social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter--to name a few--are now being used to promote brands, market products, and foster social connections.[1] Beyond these uses, social media has become a tool to promote social justice and civil rights activism. For example, “hashtagging” on social media has become a popular way to spread awareness. #BlackLivesMatter #SocialJustice #WhyIMarch are but a few hashtags that people have used in developing issue awareness and promoting reform. Even further, social media has been used to facilitate protests and other forms of civic engagement. While social media can be a productive tool for change, it can also be a restricting force. In some ways, it can lead to the tokenization of social justice causes and can hamper further action beyond the internet. With this in mind, it is important that social media activism remain connected to the on the ground causes and be viewed not as an end-goal but as a means to an end. Social media has played and continues to play an important role in helping “users bring greater attention to issues through their collective voice.”[2] Through the use of hashtags, tweets, and other types of social media posts, users are able to both “display solidarity with” and “criticize” different social movements.[3] Moreover, through event and group pages or accounts, social media has played a significant role as a springboard for organizing and planning collective action on the ground. One major example of the power of social media in the context of social justice movements is the 2016 Women’s March on Washington. This movement started with Teresa Shook’s Facebook event invite to forty of her friends, and quickly blossomed into a march of hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets of D.C., along with many other groups who led their own marches in their own cities.[4] The hashtag “#WhyIMarch” was used in conjunction with the marches to not only facilitate further awareness for those unable to attend but also allowed users to find and join marches in their area.[5] In these ways, social media was used as a productive tool of organizing and promoting awareness of a movement intended to further women’s rights.
Call It What It Is: Environmental Racism
By Kara Crutcher Associate Editor, Vol. 24 On March 15th, young people walked out of classrooms across the globe in the name of environmental justice. Following in the footsteps of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg – who’s been protesting Swedish lawmakers’ failure to implement the Paris Climate Agreement – young activists took to the streets to further emphasize that not only is climate change real, but that we need to take it more seriously as a global community.[2] According to GreenAction, a grassroots organization based out of California dedicated to environmental justice work, environmental racism is defined as “the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color.”[3] This concept is exemplified by two major events within the past two decades – the effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Flint Water Crisis. In 2013 almost 80% of 9th Ward in New Orleans still had not returned to their homes because the city’s reconstruction efforts were lacking. Flint’s residents drank contaminated water for at least two years due to eroding pipes, highly contaminated water,[5] and a disregard for resident’s safety. Just like those affected in 9th Ward in New Orleans, Flint’s residents are overwhelmingly Black.States Holding Foster Kids Ransom
By Taylor Jones Associate Editor, Vol 24 In America, estimates show that six percent of all children and twelve percent of black children will have been placed in foster care by the age of eighteen.[1] As a result of interactions with Child Protective Services, on any given day there are roughly 438,000 children in foster care.[2] When children are taken from their families and placed in the foster system, the parents are charged child support, to be paid to the state. Child support is frequently imposed on families because of the belief that parents should remain responsible for the financial well-being of their children.[3] Although intended to provide for the needs of children in foster care, child support, when imposed on families without sufficient funds, can have a number of negative collateral consequences. One such consequence includes an interference with the return of children to their families based on an inability to pay child support to the state. Child support is imposed on families as a type of cost recovery scheme. The individual child or children involved do not receive money directly from their parents. Instead, child support is collected from parents with children in the foster system in order to reimburse or offset the government’s costs for providing foster care services.[4] The funds collected are meant to serve as revenues for states with limited resources. While the cost of child support varies among states, it does not typically track the child’s actual costs while in foster care. Instead, the amount is typically generated based on the income of the parent or parents. Thus, a parent could be paying more money to the state than their child is spending while in foster care. Such a discrepancy does not raise many eyebrows likely because of the widely held belief and assumption that parents should be responsible for the financial care of their children, especially when the parents are not providing custodial care.