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The World of Private Terrorism Litigation
Since 9/11, private litigants have been important players in the “fight” against terrorism. Using several federal tort statutes, these plaintiffs have sued foreign states as well as other parties, like non-governmental charities, financial institutions, and social media companies, for terrorism-related activities. While these private suits are meant to address injuries suffered by plaintiffs or their loved ones, they often reinforce and reflect the U.S. government’s terrorism-related policies, including the racial and religious discrimination endemic to them. Indeed, much like the U.S. government’s criminal prosecutions for terrorism-related activities, private terrorism suits disproportionately implicate Muslim and/or Arab individuals and entities while reinforcing the belief that those groups are predisposed to engage in or support terrorism. This short Article provides a brief overview of the world of private terrorism litigation. It begins by describing the various federal tort statutes on terrorism—including their fraught relationship with foundational tort law norms. It explains the connection between those laws and the U.S. government’s terrorism prosecutions, as well as its other terrorism-related priorities. It ends by demonstrating how private terrorism suits reinforce discrimination and prejudice against Arabs and Muslims that are reflected in criminal terrorism prosecutions. In focusing on private terrorism litigation, this Article highlights how private parties are furthering the government’s counterterrorism work, as well as how private terrorism suits reinforce the state’s endemic discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in the counterterrorism realm.When Critical Race Theory Enters the Law & Technology Frame
Michigan Technology Law Review is proud to partner with our peers to publish this essay by Professor Jessica Eaglin on the intertwining social construction of race, law and technology. This piece highlights how the approach to use technology as precise tools for criminal administration or objective solutions to societal issues often fails to consider how laws and technologies are created in our racialized society. If we do not consider how race and technology are co-productive, we will fail to reach substantive justice and instead reinforce existing racial hierarchies legitimated by laws.A Fare Share: A Proposed Solution to Address the Racial Disparity in Access to Public Transportation Funding in America
Black American households are up to six times less likely to own a car than white families and are four times more likely to rely on public transportation to meet their daily needs. Despite this, communities of color have seen consistent disinvestment in their transit infrastructure. Four hundred years of continued housing segregation combined with post-recession austerity policies and ongoing pro-automobile bias has exacerbated this disparity. This Note proposes a straightforward legislative tool to begin to combat this inequity. The proposed legislation would require that urbanized areas spend their public transit dollars according to the population density of the communities a given project would serve, create reporting requirements related to the racial and economic impact of transit projects, and establish a private right of action. In proposing this legislation, this Note evaluates the state of civil rights litigation as it pertains to transportation racism and draws lessons from other areas such as environmental law in order to put forth a simple solution that would have tangible effects across the country in both the short and long term.
A Call for Democrats to Finally Embrace the Movements Behind their Success
By Max VogelAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 There is at least one constant in Democrats’ electoral post-mortems: win or lose, party leadership will find a way to either ignore or blame the work of coalition-building left-wing organizers. So when Democrats lost nine House seats this cycle (as of this…
Time for the Government to Show that it “CARES” about Individuals who are Incarcerated
By Emma RosenAssociate Editor, Vol. 26 “The IRS’s decision to exclude incarcerated persons from advance refund payments is likely contrary to law…. Plaintiffs have established they are likely to be irreparably injured without an injunction.”[i] Judge Hamilton, of the Northern District of California, gave hope to incarcerated…Man’s Best Friend? How Dogs Have Been Used to Oppress African Americans
The use of dogs as tools of oppression against African Americans has its roots in slavery and persists today in everyday life and police interactions. Due to such harmful practices, African Americans are not only disproportionately terrorized by officers with dogs, but they are also subject to instances of misplaced sympathy, illsuited laws, and social exclusion in their communities. Whether extreme and violent or subtle and pervasive, the use of dogs in oppressive acts is a critical layer of racial bias in the United States that has consistently built injustices that impede social and legal progress. By recognizing this pattern and committing to an intentional effort to end the devaluation of African Americans, the United States can begin to address the trailing pawprints of its racial inequities.Introducing Our New Advisory Board
The Michigan Journal of Race and Law is excited to announce and introduce the formation of our Advisory Board! The Advisory Board will help provide mentorship, commentary, and editorial assistance to some of our publishing scholars. The Advisory Board will also serve the crucial role of guiding the Journal in…
EVENT 4/11: Incorporating Social Justice in the 1L Legal Writing Course
The Michigan Journal of Race & Law hosted a talk with Professor Sha-Shana Crichton, Associate Professor of Lawyering Skills and Director of the Legal Writing Program at Howard University, on her forthcoming MJR&L article. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P5HJBgMC14] Incorporating Social Justice in the 1L Legal Writing Course: A Tool…From Pelican Bay to Palestine: The Legal Normalization of Force-Feeding Hunger-Strikers
Hunger-strikes present a challenge to state authority and abuse from powerless individuals with limited access to various forms of protest and speech—those in detention. For as long as hunger-strikes have occurred throughout history, governments have force-fed strikers out of a stated obligation to preserve life. Some of the earliest known hunger-strikers, British suffragettes, were force-fed and even died as a result of these invasive procedures during the second half of the 19th century. This Article examines the rationale and necessity behind hunger strikes for imprisoned individuals, the prevailing issues behind force-feeding, the international public response to force-feeding, and the legal normalization of the practice despite public sentiment and condemnation from medical associations. The Article will examine these issues through the lens of two governments that have continued to endorse force-feeding: the United States and Israel. This examination will show that the legal normalization of force-feeding is repressive and runs afoul of international human rights principles and law.Vulnerability, Access to Justice, and the Fragmented State
This Article builds on theories of the fragmented state and of human and institutional vulnerability to create a new, structural theory of “functional fragmentation” and its role in access to justice work. Expanding on previous concepts of fragmentation in access to justice scholarship, fragmentation is understood in the Article as a complex phenomenon existing within as well as between state institutions like courts. Further, it is examined in terms of its relationship to the state’s coercive power over poor people in legal systems. In this view, fragmentation in state operations creates not only challenges for access, but also opportunities for resistance, resilience, and justice. Focusing on problem-solving courts, and family courts in particular, the Article examines the intersection of human and institutional vulnerability within legal institutions and provides a framework for identifying ways to create greater access to justice. The Article contributes to state theory and the feminist theory of vulnerability, while providing a new way to understand and address an increasingly coercive state and its punitive effects on low-income people.