Dec

14

A Tale of Three States, Part 4: The Racial Threat Hypothesis

Posted by: | December 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment

In the previous post in this series, I highlighted a wide gap in the incarceration rates of Indiana and Minnesota, with Wisconsin in the middle.  The ordering of the three states from highest incarceration rate to lowest corresponds with the ordering from highest rate of violent crime to lowest.  However, for reasons I explained in the previous post, I [...]

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Dec

13

American Indians and Equal Protection

Posted by: | December 13, 2011 | Leave a Comment

This is the second in a series of posts addressing some of the most commonly asked questions regarding American Indians, Indian Tribes, and the law. The first post addressed casinos, hunting and fishing rights, and taxes. This second post, unlike the first, is devoted to just one question, namely, why doesn’t the unique legal treatment [...]

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Dec

10

A Tale of Three States, Part 2: Racial Disparities

Posted by: | December 10, 2011 | 2 Comments

In the first post in this series, I highlighted a sizable gap between the incarceration rates of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Although the two states have similar crime rates, Wisconsin has more than twice Minnesota’s incarceration rate (651 per 100,000 versus 310). In this post, I cover racial disparity data in the two states.  As summarized in [...]

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Dec

7

American Restrictive Covenants and Israeli Community Exclusions

Posted by: | December 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Controversies in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s regarding restrictive covenants related to race foreshadow current controversies in Israel regarding community exclusions of Arab citizens. Both controversies illustrate how difficult it is to maintain equality in a pluralistic society and underscore the importance of freedom to choose one’s housing in that effort. In [...]

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Nov

28

New Affirmative Action Cases

Posted by: | November 28, 2011 | 2 Comments

[Editor's Note: This month, faculty members are posting on upcoming judicial decisions of particular interest. This is the second post in the series.] It seems almost certain that the Supreme Court will again take up the issue of affirmative action in higher education, as two highly controversial cases separately make their way up the appellate ladder. On two [...]

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Oct

7

R.I.P. Derrick Bell, Pioneer of Critical Race Theory

Posted by: | October 7, 2011 | 2 Comments

  On Wednesday of this week, the world lost several visionaries. Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a prominent civil rights activist, and Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc. both died.  But there was a third visionary whose light went out on Wednesday:  Derrick Bell. Bell was a visiting professor of law at New York University School of [...]

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Oct

6

New Report on Contacts Between Police and the Public: Numbers Generally Look Good for Police, But Racial Disparities Are Also in Evidence

Posted by: | October 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment

As I discussed here, there is a substantial body of social psychological research suggesting an important connection between crime levels and the way that police treat citizens – basically, the more that police are perceived to be fair and respectful, the more that citizens, in turn, will feel respect for the law and a sense [...]

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Sep

24

New Report Shows Big Increase in Arrests for Simple Possession Since 1980

Posted by: | September 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Last week, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released an interesting new report, Arrest in the United States, 1980-2009.  I was particularly interested in the data on arrests for simple drug possession or use, which accounted for about ten percent of all arrests in 2009.  This seems a little high (so to speak), especially in comparison to [...]

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Sep

17

What Has Become of All the Native American Law Students?

Posted by: | September 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Between 1990 and 2000, slightly more than 2,600 self-identified Native Americans graduated from ABA-accredited law schools. As a consequence, one might have expected the number of Native-American lawyers in the United States would have increased by about 2000 or so by the end of that decade. (The increase would be less than 2,600, since some [...]

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Aug

23

Gender Discrimination in Jury Selection as Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Posted by: | August 23, 2011 | Leave a Comment

A defendant’s right to reasonably competent legal representation is violated when the defendant’s lawyer discriminates on the basis of gender during jury selection, the Seventh Circuit ruled last week inWinston v. Boatwright (No. 10-1156).  The court’s reasoning would presumably apply equally to racial discrimination.  However, because of the peculiarities of federal habeas law, the particular defendant who [...]

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Aug

2

Adoption Across Race: Disparate Treatment of Native Americans and African Americans

Posted by: | August 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment

David Papke has a new paper on SSRN that contrasts the laws governing the adoption of Native American and African American children by whites. Once rare in this country, “transracial” adoptions became common over the latter decades of the twentieth-century. Such adoptions sparked concerns within both Native American and African American communities, but the legal [...]

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Jun

27

Department of Justice Files Fair Housing Act Suit Against City of New Berlin

Posted by: | June 27, 2011 | 2 Comments

On Thursday, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint against the City of New Berlin. The complaint arises out of a series of events that led to the City’s denial of a “workforce” housing development proposal made by MSP Real Estate, Inc. (MSP).  The DOJ alleges that the City of New Berlin ultimately denied the [...]

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