Michigan Journal of Race & Law最新文献

{"title":"9/11 Impacts on Muslims in Prison","authors":"SpearIt","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.27.1.impacts","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.27.1.impacts","url":null,"abstract":"It is no understatement to say that September 11, 2001, is the most important date in the history of American Islam. From this day forth, Muslims would become a target for social wrath and become vilified like at no other time in American history. In one fell swoop, Muslims became the most feared and hated religious group in the country. While analysis of the impacts on Muslims tends to focus on Muslims outside of prison, it is critical to recognize that Muslims in prison were no exception to the post- 9/11 hostilities directed at Muslims. They experienced similarly heightened levels of Islamophobia and discrimination. The main goal of this essay is to consider the War on Terror in the prison context in the years following the events of 9/11. The work aims to assess how fear and anger seeped into prisons and became the means of repressing Muslims and casting them as a unique threat to national and institutional security. Although time has proved these attitudes unjustified and alarmist, they have taken a toll on those in prison and made life more difficult for individuals already existing in some of the harshest conditions in the country.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124918347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Legacy in Paradise: Analyzing the Obama Administration’s Efforts of Reconciliation with Native Hawaiians","authors":"Troy J. H. Andrade","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.22.2.legacy","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.22.2.legacy","url":null,"abstract":"This Article analyzes President Barack Obama’s legacy for an indigenous people—nearly 125 years in the making—and how that legacy is now in considerable jeopardy with the election of Donald J. Trump. This Article is the first to specifically critique the hallmark of Obama’s reconciliatory legacy for Native Hawaiians: an administrative rule that establishes a process in which the United States would reestablish a government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians, the only indigenous people in America without a path toward federal recognition. In the Article, Obama’s rule—an attempt to provide Native Hawaiians with recognition and greater control over their own affairs to counter their negative socio-economic status—is analyzed within the historical and political context of a government coy to live up to its reconciliatory promises. The Article analyzes past attempts to establish a government-to-government relationship and considers new avenues for reaching this end. The Article concludes that although the rule brings the federal government closer to its ideals of justice, it does not go far enough to engender true social healing, specifically because of the uncertainty that the rule will be followed by a conservative Trump Administration that will likely be hostile toward Native Hawaiians and other indigenous communities.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"139 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113972745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Strip Searching in the Age of Colorblind Racism: The Disparate Impact of Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington","authors":"André Keeton","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.21.1.strip","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.21.1.strip","url":null,"abstract":"In 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington. The Court held that full strip searches, including cavity searches, are permissible regardless of the existence of basic reasonable suspicion that the arrestee is in possession of contraband. Further, the Court held that law enforcement may conduct full strip searches after arresting an individual for a minor offense and irrespective of the circumstances surrounding the arrest. These holdings upended typical search jurisprudence. Florence sanctions the overreach of state power and extends to law enforcement and corrections officers the unfettered discretion to conduct graphically invasive, suspicion-less strip searches. The Court’s dereliction of duty is enough to concern all citizens. However, the impact of this phenomenal lapse will not be felt equally in the age of what Bonilla-Silva has termed colorblind racism. In 2013, in the case of Floyd v. City of New York, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin found that between January 2004 and June 2012, the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) made 4.4 million stops. She further found that more than eighty percent of these 4.4 million stops were of Blacks or Hispanics. Specifically, Judge Scheindlin found that in “52% of the 4.4 million stops, the person stopped was black, in 31% the person [stopped] was Hispanic, and in 10% the person stopped was white.” This rate of stops and frisks is grossly disproportionate to Black and Hispanic population representation in New York City and the United States in general. Further, as Judge Scheindlin astutely points out, “The NYPD’s policy of targeting ‘the right people’ for stops . . . is not directed toward the identification of a specific perpetrator, rather, it is a policy of targeting expressly identified racial groups for stops in general.” These findings make clear that Florence and colorblind racism enable law enforcement to wage war against the civil rights of minority citizens. This Article argues that the Court’s phenomenal lapse in Florence and its general abdication of law enforcement oversight inevitably subjects minorities, particularly Blacks and Latinos, to the blanket authority of law enforcement to harass and humiliate based on perfunctory arrests predicated on the slightest of infractions. Other legal analyses of Florence have largely ignored, and hence minimized, the salience of race when thinking about strip searches. In light of the significant consequential impacts of this decision on minority populations, this oversight is itself unreasonable. This paper will analyze the rationale and policy implications, particularly for people of color, in light of Florence. Finally, I will also propose policy recommendations to temper the projected negative impacts of the decision.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"99 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113988443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Without Representation, No Taxation: Free Blacks, Taxes, and Tax Exemptions Between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars","authors":"Christopher J. Bryant","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.21.1.without","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.21.1.without","url":null,"abstract":"This Essay is the first general survey of the taxation of free Blacks in free and slave states between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. A few states treated all equally for tax purposes, but most states enacted taxation systems that subjected free Blacks to different requirements. Both free and slave states viewed free Blacks as an undesirable population, and this Essay posits that—within the relevant political constraints—states used taxes and tax exemptions to dissuade free Black immigration and limit the opportunities for free Blacks within their borders. This topic is salient for at least two reasons. First, the Essay sheds light on laws and events that the literature—and the American educational system—has largely ignored. It directly contradicts the commonly held belief that free Blacks largely enjoyed the same set of rights and privileges as their White counterparts until Jim Crow and the Black Codes set in after the Civil War. Second, by juxtaposing then-widely prevailing views with historical tax laws, this Essay underscores the inherent relationship between tax policy and social policy. Taxes have never been just about bolstering the public fisc. Although this Essay will hopefully never have direct applicability to contemporary events, it can provide insight into current and future tax policies and the extent to which history, prejudice, and economic concerns inform policymakers’ decisions.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117135156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fairness in the Exceptions: Trusting Juries on Matters of Race","authors":"Virginia Weeks","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.23.1.fairness","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.23.1.fairness","url":null,"abstract":"Implicit bias research indicates that despite our expressly endorsed values, Americans share a pervasive bias disfavoring Black Americans and favoring White Americans. This bias permeates legislative as well as judicial decision-making, leading to the possibility of verdicts against Black defendants that are tainted with racial bias. The Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado provides an ex post remedy for blatant racism that impacts jury verdicts, while jury nullification provides an ex ante remedy by empowering jurors to reject convicting Black defendants when to do so would reinforce racially biased laws. Both remedies exist alongside a trend limiting the role of the jury and ultimately indicate that we trust juries to keep racism out of the courtroom in the exceptions to our normal procedures.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115361826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Toward Self-Determination in the U.S. Territories: The Restorative Justice Implications of Rejecting the Insular Cases","authors":"Sarah Kelly","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.28.1.toward","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.28.1.toward","url":null,"abstract":"Conservatives and liberals alike are increasingly calling for condemnation of the Insular Cases—a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases from the early 1900s, in which the Court developed the doctrine of territorial incorporation to license the United States’ indefinite holding of overseas colonial possessions. In March 2021, members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced House Resolution 279, which declares that the Insular Cases should be rejected as having no place in U.S. constitutional law. Moreover, in 2022, Justice Gorsuch called for the Supreme Court to squarely overrule the cases.\u0000\u0000For many, rejecting the Insular Cases is a long-overdue reckoning for U.S. colonialism. Nonetheless, some representatives and scholars from the U.S. territories have raised concerns about potential implications for existing local laws in the territories. Many of these local laws protect Indigenous territorial peoples from further colonial harms. If the proposed bill or Supreme Court’s overruling of the cases functioned to extend the U.S. Constitution in full to the territories, these laws may be found invalid under current constitutional jurisprudence.\u0000\u0000This Article employs a contextual framework for Indigenous peoples to explore the nuanced restorative-justice implications of rejecting the Insular Cases. It emphasizes the varying perspectives of Indigenous peoples of the present-day U.S. territories, who would be most impacted by the measure. Finally, flowing from this restorative justice framework, this Article demands that any resolution to the Insular Cases forward the human rights principle of self-determination for Indigenous peoples—not mere equality.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121495992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Barriers to the Ballot Box: Implicit Bias and Voting Rights in the 21st Century","authors":"Arusha Gordon, E. D. Rosenberg","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.21.1.barriers","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.21.1.barriers","url":null,"abstract":"While much has been written regarding unconscious or “implicit bias” in other areas of law, there is a scarcity of scholarship examining how implicit bias impacts voting rights and how advocates can move courts to recognize evidence of implicit bias within the context of a voting rights claim. This Article aims to address that scarcity. After reviewing research on implicit bias, this Article examines how implicit bias might impact different stages of the electoral process. It then argues that “results test” claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) present an opportunity for plaintiffs to introduce evidence regarding implicit bias in the electoral process. In addition, this Article explores policy solutions to reduce the impact of implicit bias in elections.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133674039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Keynote Remarks","authors":"Vanita Gupta","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.21.2.keynote","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.21.2.keynote","url":null,"abstract":"In communities across America today, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Flint, Michigan, too many people—especially young people and people of color—live trapped by the weight of poverty and injustice. They suffer the disparate impact of policies driven by, at best, benign neglect, and at worst, deliberate indifference. And they see how discrimination stacks the deck against them. So today, as we discuss the inequality that pervades our criminal justice system—a defining civil rights challenge of the 21st century—we must also acknowledge the broader inequalities we face in other segments of society. Because discrimination in so many areas—from the classroom, to the workforce, to the marketplace—perpetuates the inequality we see in our justice system. And for those already living paycheck-to-paycheck, a single incident—whether an arrest by the police or a fine by the court—can set off a downward spiral. It can lead to a cycle of profound problems that ruin lives and tear apart families. Problems like losing your health care, your job, your children, or your home. As someone who focuses on civil rights work and criminal justice reform, I see these problems every day. But today in America, I also see a country on the cusp of change. Across a wide range of political perspectives, policymakers and advocates have come together to bridge divides and support meaningful criminal justice reform. And I’m proud to say that this administration—and this Department of Justice—has made criminal justice reform a top priority. We believe that our country needs, and deserves, a criminal justice system that more effectively protects our communities, more fairly treats our people, and more prudently spends our resources. And we believe that no matter how deeply rooted and long-standing the injustices that underlie inequality in our criminal justice system—with clear thinking, hard work and collaboration—we can make real progress.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133159249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Foreword: Innocent Until Proven Poor","authors":"Sara Zampierin","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.21.2.foreword","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.21.2.foreword","url":null,"abstract":"One of the core tenets of our criminal justice system is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. As the title of the Symposium recognizes, we have allowed our justice system to ignore that presumption for people living in poverty in a variety of ways. Instead, it often inflicts additional and harsher punishment on individuals because of their poverty.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"108 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127945167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Under Coyote’s Mask: Environmental Law, Indigenous Identity, and #NoDAPL","authors":"Danielle Delaney","doi":"10.36643/mjrl.24.2.under","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36643/mjrl.24.2.under","url":null,"abstract":"This Article studies the relationship between the three main lawsuits filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the Yankton Sioux Tribe against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DaPL) and the mass protests launched from the Sacred Stone and Oceti Sakowin protest camps. The use of environmental law as the primary legal mechanism to challenge the construction of the pipeline distorted the indigenous demand for justice as U.S. federal law is incapable of seeing the full depth of the indigenous worldview supporting their challenge. Indigenous activists constantly re-centered the direct actions and protests within indigenous culture to remind non-indigenous activists and the wider media audience that the protests were an indigenous protest, rather than a purely environmental protest, a distinction that was obscured as the litigation progressed. The NoDAPL protests, the litigation to prevent the completion and later operation of the pipeline, and the social movement that the protests engendered, were an explosive expression of indigenous resistance—resistance to systems that silence and ignore indigenous voices while attempting to extract resources from their lands and communities. As a case study, the protests demonstrate how the use of litigation, while often critical to achieving the goals of political protest, distorts the expression of politics not already recognized within the legal discourse.","PeriodicalId":373432,"journal":{"name":"Michigan Journal of Race & Law","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126060569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}