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  • Land and Liberation: Lessons for the Creation of Effective Land Reform Policy in South Africa

    Based upon the premise that land reform is essential to creating socio-economic equality, easing racial tensions and stemming the tide of violence in South Africa, this note will provide suggestions for effective land reform policy. To accomplish this, this Note will examine the paths taken by several other transitional African governments in land reform policy. It will attempt to extract practical lessons from their experiences and apply them towards the development of effective land redistribution policy in South Africa. Part I of this note will provide a historical overview of colonialism and land law in Africa. Part II will examine the postcolonial land reform policy in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe and part III will attempt to extract lessons from the experiences in these countries. Part IV will seek to apply these lessons towards the development of effective land reform policy in South Africa. Finally, Part V will again stress the need for land reform as a means of creating economic equity and racial harmony.

  • Redefining American Democracy: Do Alternative Voting Systems Capture the True Meaning of “Representation”?

    This Article explores whether alternative voting systems are compatible with the meaning of representation in the United States. Part II begins by examining the role of geographical representation and the effect it has on the ability of individuals and groups of voters to give or withhold their consent. Part III follows this inquiry by assessing the relationship between representatives and constituents under majoritarian and proportional systems to determine the consequences of moving away from geographical representation towards models designed to enhance opportunities for all voters to choose winning candidates. A description of what a "majority" is and when and how it is attained to secure the people's consent then is taken up in Part IV, providing some insight into the extent to which departures from majority rule are consistent with the American conception of representation. This discussion leads into Part V, which evaluates the role of our two-party system and ascertains whether proportional models of representation can cure the perceived defects of winner-take-all elections without undermining the continued stability of our Republic.

  • Putting Black Kids into a Trick Bag: Anatomizing the Inner-City Public School Reform

    Part I of this Article discusses the history of Brown, and the legal and political barriers that prevented the nation from fulfilling Brown's promise. Part II, will examine the phenomenon of White flight, which resulted from the efforts to implement the court-ordered desegregation of public schools. The political and economic effects of White flight on school reform efforts will also be examined. Part III will provide the reader with possible explanations for why school desegregation failed. The author will argue that the unexpected complexity of the task of desegregation, the lack of a unified direction among the judiciary, and local political entities, as well as beliefs about the effects that school desegregation would have on White children, prevented desegregation efforts from being successful. Part IV will analyze the various alternatives to court-ordered school desegregation that developed as a result to the legal, social and political barriers, which prevented court-ordered desegregation from taking place. Part V briefly surveys the school-reform efforts of four cities. Part VI discusses the role of school finance in relation to student achievement. The property tax, as the major source of funding for public schools, will be examined, as well as the effects of funding disparities between affluent and poor school districts. Part VII follows with a discussion of the use of testing as a method of school reform.