Sep

23

SAT Scores and Affirmative Action

Posted by: J. Gordon Hylton | September 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment

In her majority opinion in the landmark civil rights case Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 342-44 (2003), Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote:
Enshrining a permanent justification for racial preferences would offend this fundamental equal protection principle. We see no reason to exempt race-conscious admissions programs from the requirement that all governmental use of race must [...]

Jul

31

The Beer Summit-A Restorative Justice Experience?

Posted by: Janine P. Geske | July 31, 2009 | 3 Comments

As I listened to the political pundits argue about the “beer summit” that occurred at the White House yesterday, I am amazed by the debate as to whether President Barrack Obama, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Lieutenant James Crowley really gave us “a teachable moment.” There is no doubt in mind that they did. [...]

Jul

21

Law Professors Reflect on Brown v. Board of Education

Posted by: J. Gordon Hylton | July 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The United States Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education is without question one of the most significant cases in modern constitutional law.  It was also a defining event in the lives of a generation of American law teachers.  Vanderbilt University Press has recently published Law Touched Our Hearts: A Generation Remembers [...]

Apr

8

Parlow and Pilon Rumble in Room 325

Posted by: Richard M. Esenberg | April 8, 2009 | 3 Comments

Yeah, that doesn’t quite recall the Ali-Foreman fight, but there was still a pretty good conversation between Dr. Roger Pilon and our own Professor Matt Parlow yesterday. Dr. Pilon argued that public sector affirmative action encroached upon libertarian principles (he does not believe that such efforts should be prohibited in the private sector) and the idea [...]

Mar

23

Seventh Circuit Week in Review: Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection and Improper Closing Arguments

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | March 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The Seventh Circuit had three new opinions in criminal cases last week.  The most interesting was United States v. McMath (No. 08-2316), which featured the Seventh Circuit’s most extended discussion to date of Snyder v. Louisana, 128 S. Ct. 1203 (2008).  In my view, the Supreme Court’s decision in Snyder represented a real break-through in the [...]

Mar

19

Drug Courts, Racial Disparities, and Restorative Justice

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | March 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I have a new paper on SSRN dealing with drug courts, focusing particularly on their (poor) prospects as a mechanism to address racial disparities in the prison population.  Here is the abstract:
Specialized drug treatment courts have become a popular alternative to more punitive approaches to the “war on drugs,” with nearly 2,000 such courts now [...]

Feb

20

Meares on Race and Policing

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | February 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment

In delivering the first annual Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law yesterday, Yale Professor Tracey Meares set a high bar for future speakers.  (A webcast is available here, and a written version will appear in the summer issue of the Marquette Law Review.)  Tracey’s talk was a call for police to move from an emphasis on deterring crime through [...]

Jan

23

I Refer to the Woman with Whom You Have a Child But Who Is Not Your Wife (Hereafter “Baby Mama”)

Posted by: Richard M. Esenberg | January 23, 2009 | 3 Comments

Perhaps Professor O’Hear can straighten me out on this.
The decision of a divided Court of Appeals setting aside the sentence of Landray Harris has gotten a fair amount of play in the blogs and on talk radio. Put briefly, the court vacated the sentence because the sentencing judge, apparently frustrated by the defendant’s failure to [...]

Dec

26

A Heartbreaker Named Detroit

Posted by: Richard M. Esenberg | December 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

As a native Milwaukeean, Detroit breaks my heart. There are just a few cities that you can go to that you remind you of home. Chicago and Cleveland are the big two. Cincinnati is reminiscent, but a bit too southern. Detroit — or what used to be left of Detroit — was another. (Minneapolis is an entirely [...]

Oct

16

Time for Racial Impact Statements in Wisconsin?

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | October 16, 2008 | 4 Comments

As reported in the new issue of Sentencing Times, Iowa and Connecticut adopted new laws earlier this year that call for the preparation of racial impact statements as sentencing bills are working their way through the state legislative process.  In many states, it is already required that fiscal and environmental impact statements be prepared for new legislative proposals, but Iowa and Connecticut are the first [...]

Oct

1

Responding to Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | October 1, 2008 | 1 Comment

The Sentencing Project has just published a new edition of Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System, a manual for policymakers that describes numerous best practices for addressing disparities.  This publication should be of particular interest in Milwaukee and Wisconsin, which have some of the worst criminal justice disparities in the nation.  As The Sentencing Project described [...]