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The Right to Bear Arms? Muslim Americans and Second Amendment Rights: Part 1
This piece is the first of a two-part series on Muslim Americans and Second Amendment rights. Read the second post here. By Serena Rabie Associate Editor, Vol. 21 Executive Editor, Vol. 22 The recent shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida has reinvigorated two of the most tense debates of the…Making a Buck While Making a Difference
It is not right for children to die before their parents. It is not right for peaceful, unarmed citizens to die at the hands of the police. In my civil rights practice, I have met many mothers, fathers, and family members who are struggling to recover after a law enforcement officer caused the death of their loved one. Sure, they want fair compensation. But money does little to reduce their loss or make the grief more bearable. They often want to do something that will ensure that their loved one did not die in vain. They want to prevent other families from suffering the same loss. This Article will show that even without standing to seek injunctive relief, these plaintiffs can indeed secure significant reform. This Article will also share suggestions for the practitioner on how to litigate these cases economically and efficiently. Part I explores avenues for relief other than compensatory and punitive damages. Part II shares language to include in retainer agreements to encourage clients to share any settlement they reach with the public to increase awareness of police misconduct. Part III explains that researching local police policies and practices helps to inform where meaningful opportunities for reform exist. Part IV then provides examples of resolutions that require the officers involved and their supervisors to personally engage with the victims’ families or that commemorate victims in their respective communities. Finally, Part V reviews techniques for case selection, case theory, and working within a budget so the small office practitioner can make enough money to carry the work forward.Poll workers: gatekeepers of the democratic process
By Amy Luong Associate Editor, Vol. 21 Production Editor, Vol. 22 March marked an increased number of states that began imposing Voter ID requirements among other voting prerequisites.[1] In 2013, the Supreme Court declared the coverage formula, § 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), unconstitutional in Shelby…Espionage charges against Chinese-American scientist Dr. Xiaoxing Xi dropped, confirming recent pattern of baseless prosecutions
By Dan Cho Associate Editor, Vol. 21 On an early May morning this past spring, armed FBI agents raided the suburban Pennsylvania home of Dr. Xiaoxing Xi, a Temple University physics professor and naturalized U.S. citizen, placing him under arrest for four counts of wire fraud. Dr. Xi was…Foreword: Reflections on Our Founding
Law Journals have been under heavy criticism for as long as we can remember. The criticisms come from all quarters, including judges, law professors, and even commentators at large. In an address at the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference almost a decade ago, for example, Chief Justice Roberts complained about the “disconnect between the academy and the profession.” More pointedly, he continued, “[p]ick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something, which I’m sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn’t of much help to the bar.” Similarly, law professors have developed what Lawrence Friedman calls “a literature of invective” against law reviews. Adam Liptak summarized one line of criticism with a question: “[W]hy are law reviews, the primary repositories of legal scholarship, edited by law students?”There Are No Racists Here: The Rise of Racial Extremism, When No One is Racist
At first glance hate murders appear wholly anachronistic in post-racial America. This Article suggests otherwise. The Article begins by analyzing the periodic expansions of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the protection for racist expression in First Amendment doctrine. The Article then contextualizes the case law by providing evidence of how the First Amendment works on the ground in two separate areas —the enforcement of hate crime law and on university campuses that enact speech codes. In these areas, those using racist expression receive full protection for their beliefs. Part III describes social spaces—social media and employment where slurs and epithets may be used frequently. The final portion of the Article briefly explores two forms of unacknowledged racial violence—violence directed at minorities who move to white neighborhoods and extremist killings. Our inaccurate approach to bias-motivated crime and the culture of protection around racist expression, the Article concludes, leaves American society vulnerable to the danger created by racial extremists.Trajectory of a Law Professor
Women of color are already severely underrepresented in legal academia; as enrollment drops and legal institutions constrict further, race and gender disparities will likely continue to grow. Yet, as many deans and associate deans, most of whom are white, step down from leadership positions during these tumultuous times in legal education, opportunities have arisen for women of color to fill those roles in record numbers. However, there are individual and structural barriers preventing access to the leadership level. Significant hurdles have long prevented women of color from entering law teaching. Thus, this Article provides evidence to support the thesis that ongoing changes in legal education will likely continue to create barriers both to entry and advancement for women of color law faculty members and those who aspire to join legal academia. This Article draws from quantitative and qualitative analyses of data drawn from the Diversity in Legal Academia (DLA) project, a landmark mixed-method study of law faculty diversity, which utilizes an intersectional lens to focus on the experiences of women of color in legal academia while also incorporating those of white men, white women, and men of color. Empirical findings reveal that structural barriers (i.e., outright discrimination) as well as more indirect obstacles prevent women of color from joining legal academia in meaningful numbers and also preclude women of color who are already legal academics from taking on leadership positions. Law school administrators and policy makers should work against these structural and individual barriers to increase and improve faculty diversity at all levels. Greater diversity in legal academia generally, and leadership in particular, will not only provide greater opportunities for particular law faculty members, but will also have a positive effect on law students, legal education, legal academia, and the legal profession overall.Loretta Lynch vote: Democrat says race and gender ‘a factor’ in Senate delay
By Luis E. Gomez Associate Editor Vol. 20; Contributing Editor Vol. 21 Democrats have questioned the Republican party’s motives for dragging out unnecessarily the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general. Some Democrats attribute the delay to race and gender. Lynch was selected by President Obama four months…OPINION: Why Muslim Lives Don’t Matter: Before, and Beyond, the Chapel Hill Shooting
By Khaled A. Beydoun Assistant Professor of Law, Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law Irrespective of what rallying cries, signs, or adapted hashtags proclaim – Muslim lives in America don’t matter. The aftermath of the murder of the three Muslim American students in Chapel Hill, and the broader…OPINION: On the Grammys, Co-opting, and Pharrell Williams
By Joseph Molina Flynn, Executive Articles Editor, Vol. 20 On Sunday, February 8, 2015, the world watched as the 57th Grammy Awards were bestowed upon their recipients at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Where the Grammys differ from other award shows is that unlike acting awards which are…
