Symposium Issues
Vol. 33:1 An America Divided: The Brett Kavanaugh Nomination
Vol. 29:1 Confronting the New Jim Crow of Mass Incarceration
Vol. 28:1 Perspectives on the State of Voting Rights in America
Vol. 27:1 Opening Doors: Making Diversity Matter in Law School Admissions
Vol. 26:3 Legal, Secular, and Religious Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage
Vol. 26:1 National People of Color Conference: Our Country, Our World in a “Post-Racial” Era
Vol. 24:3 Thinking Outside the Box: New Challenges and New Approaches to Domestic Violence
Vol. 24:2 Making History: Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Elections
Vol 37:2 Symposium
The Fight Against Anti-Wokeism in the Classroom: The Legal System’s Role in Maintaining the Status Quo
Vol. 35:2 Symposium
Racial Capitalism as Legal Analysis (Forthcoming)
Vol. 34:2 Symposium
Navigating the Laws of Fashion
Shannon Cumberbatch
Several years ago, I attended my first large-scale career fair as a recruiter where I screened a mass of aspiring lawyers for staff attorney positions at my legal organization. During our brief break from marathon interviewing, my white colleagues shut down their tables to enjoy their downtime and as I prepared to do the same, I looked up to find a critical mass of Black women excitedly converging upon my interview station. Forming a half circle around my table, they began exclaiming how enamored they were by my appearance and how it countered much of the counseling they had received on how to appear “professional” and “look like a lawyer.”
Ann Juliano
Law schools often claim that they are teaching students “how to think like a lawyer.” What is less touted, however, is that students are learning how to look like a lawyer. They receive this message from multiple sources (faculty, alumni, peers, the career office) concerning a variety of situations: class, interviews, moot court, trial team, symposia and conferences. For law students who are first generation, these sources may be the only avenue (apart from the entertainment industry) of determining how to look like a lawyer. For law students who are transgender or gender non-binary, dress code advice dispensed along men/women categories reinforces that they are outside of the typical framework.
Model Dress Code: Promoting Genderless Attire Rules to Foster an Inclusive Legal Profession
Rebekah Hanley & Malcolm MacWilliamson
I knew that my likelihood of being able to wear a dress to court was pretty slim. I wasn’t that naïve. At the same time, I resented the notion that at no time in my future legal career would I be able to acknowledge, honor, or share the full complexity of my identity—that, by choosing law, I was relinquishing the right to ever be fully myself in my professional career.
I came out as transgender at age eighteen. Shortly thereafter, I began to transition socially and medically. I quickly realized how much of my “self” I had been unable to acknowledge in my yearning to be recognized as anything other than what I knew I was not—a girl. Early in my transition, this manifested as a desperate need to be recognized as male. Later, though, as I began to “pass,” feel comfortable in my own skin, and recognize the face looking back at me in the mirror, I also found myself exploring what I had long ignored: my femininity.
Why Don't We All Just Wear Robes?
Ruthann Robson
Lawyers and law professors select our professional outfits each day, often experiencing a mix of consternation and gratification. The dread springs from our failures: to know what constitutes the “right look;” to be able to achieve that “right look;” to anticipate what the day will bring; to have prepared by doing the laundry or other tasks. The joy resides in self-expression; we fashion ourselves as works of art, even within the constraints of professional attire.
It could have been different. We could have sacrificed the satisfaction of self-expression for the complacency of conformity; we could wear robes.
Vol. 34:1 Book Review Symposium
Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination
Tanya Katerí Hernández
To have a symposium organized to review the ideas in my book, Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination, is an honor, and the JCRED editors, along with their dynamic Faculty Advisors Elaine Chiu and Rosa Castello, have my gratitude for pulling it all together. Having each symposium contributor take the time to deeply engage the ideas in the book is an incredible gift, and exactly what every author dreams of—being read and provoking reflection. Without readers, ideas do not have an opportunity to matter. Thank you Taunya Lovell Banks, Nancy Chi Cantalupo, and Jasmine Mitchell, for helping my ideas matter, even where you did not fully agree with them. Now as to those points of disagreement . . . .
Commentary and Book Review:
Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination
Jasmine Mitchell
Can a drop of whiteness or “looking white” save someone from anti-Blackness? Are mixed-race peoples special, and should they be a protected class under the law? Did Loving v. Virginia’s legalization of interracial marriage lead to race becoming insignificant? Tanya Hernández’s Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination debunks persistent myths that racial mixture will eradicate racism and heal the racial wounds of the United States. Using cases and other legal sources, Hernández persuasively argues that multiracials are not exempt from racial discrimination. Multiracials and Civil Rights crystalizes the pervasiveness of white supremacy while offering a sociopolitical lens by which to tackle racial injustices.
Personal Identity Equality and Racial Misrecognition: Review Essay of Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination
Taunya Lovell Banks
There is a growing body of social science literature documenting multiracials as an “emergent minority group. . . who . . . have not always been recognized as either a separate racial group or as legitimate members of racial groups.” Tanya Hernández has been writing about aspects of American multiracialism for twenty years. Her 1998 article in the MARYLAND LAW JOURNAL focused on the multiracial discourse about racial categories on the 2000 U.S. census. In that article, she analyzes the multiracial identity movement’s effort to get a multiracial category on the U.S. census. Although that movement failed, the 2000 census did permit responders to mark more than one race. Hernández’s new book, Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination, explores another aspect of this movement: the growing scholarship of those she identifies as multiracial identity scholars (hereinafter identity scholars), a concept she first introduced in 2017. In her book, Hernández critiques these scholars’ claims that legal recognition of a separate “multiracial” category is needed to address the discrimination multiracial plaintiffs face.
“I Think You Didn't Get It Because They Misidentified You as Latina”: A Commentary on Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination
Nancy Chi Cantalupo
Liz was interviewing for a tenure-track, entry-level law faculty position at Law School X, “ranked” (in that year) around 100. She had heard a rumor that the law school was determined to hire a person who would add to the diversity of the faculty, which was both White- and male-dominated.
Liz’s “job talk,” a presentation on a current article that she was writing, used Liz’s own multiracial identification to illustrate a point relevant to her research, which utilized both critical race theory and feminist legal theory. In the course of explaining her illustration, Liz mentioned that she was often identified by others as Latina, but that her background (and her identification) was Asian Pacific American and White.
Vol. 33:1 Symposium
An America Divided: The Brett Kavanaugh Nomination
Hearing Women: From Professor Hill to Dr. Ford
Stephanie M. Wildman
One of the recent traumas, another skirmish in today’s civilian conflict over what kind of society America will be, arose from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony about sexual assault she had endured. Her composed, measured statement during the nowJustice Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing exemplified bravery in the face of adversity. The Senate and the nation’s response to her testimony underscored the high stakes in the ongoing ideological conflict, beyond the obvious prize of a Supreme Court seat. Constituents in the current ideological battle had differing reactions to Ford’s testimony and to this hearing, reflecting a range of views about a number of topics, including civility, sexual assault, and the criminal justice system.
In the service of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the United States Supreme Court, the President of the United States (and Republican Senators) both misappropriated and further eroded the already compromised concepts of due process and presumption of innocence. This Essay uses the prominent “Central Park Five” case in which five teenagers of color were wrongly convicted of a white woman’s widely-publicized beating and rape to expose the President’s disparate use of the presumption along race and status lines. This narrative is consistent with larger systemic inequities that leave poor black and brown criminal defendants less likely to benefit from the presumption of innocence than their white counterparts.
How the Boogeyman Saved Brett Kavanaugh
Cathren Page
We love to hate these boogeymen. When the societal narrative creates these invisible boogeymen, people can pour their rage against sexual abuse into these faceless antagonists. At the same time, the enraged survivors and protectors avoid conflicts with family, neighbors, colleagues, and social acquaintances who might actually commit or enable sexual abuse. We can dodge sticky questions regarding how a churchgoer, a judge, or an Ivy Leaguer could have committed a heinous act. The survivors can avoid all the victim-blaming backlash, threats of violence, and invalidation that accompanies reporting a sexual offense. Moreover, having less power on their own, survivors can continue to draw power and resources from the offenders and enablers aided by this narrative.
This essay proceeds in four parts. In Part I, I problematize the idea of the accused’s demeanor as evidence of guilt, remorse, or entitlement, arguing that we tend to overestimate our ability to deduce internal states of mind from people’s behavior and expressions. Part II assesses the potential (or lack thereof) of public performances of reckoning to produce a valuable expression of remorse, discussing the value of contingent apologies. Part III expands the framework to examine the way our politically fractured field responds to partisan efforts to excoriate culprits, arguing that “starting a national conversation” on the basis of excoriation and stigmatization is not a realistic expectation. In Part IV, I situate the Kavanaugh incident in the overall context of progressive punitivism, offering an initial and generative sketch of the ideology and its mixed effects. The conclusion offers a modest proposal for a better way to start a bipartisan conversation about gender-based inequities and iniquities, as well as a future agenda for research on progressive punitivism in its other manifestations.
The incredible events and raucous behavior by members of the Committee that colored Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation process rose to a level of intensity and virulence never seen before in this specific area of American government and politics. Nevertheless, the most analogous situation that somewhat closely reflects the events that transpired in 2018 occurred seventeen years earlier. President George H.W. Bush, on July 1, 1991, nominated then District of Columbia Circuit Court Judge, Clarence Thomas, to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. Thomas’s confirmation hearing was also opposed from the outset but by civil rights and feminist organizations pointing to Thomas’s criticism of the shortfalls of affirmative action programs, along with suspicions that he did not support the Roe v. Wade decision. However, the opposition to his nomination would soon ratchet up exponentially.
Vol. 29:1 Symposium
Confronting the New Jim Crow of Mass Incarceration
The Jim Crow Effect: Denial, Dignity, Human Rights, and Racialized Mass Incarceration
Professor Cecil J. Hunt, II
The overarching theme of this paper is that the racialization of mass incarceration in America, which has been taking place since the latter part of the last century, and continues to this very day, is characterized by what I term, the “Jim Crow effect.” Michelle Alexander has eloquently described this effect as “a stunningly comprehensive and well disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.” She goes on to describe this modern version of Jim Crow as functioning “[t]hrough a web of laws, regulations, and informal rules, all of which are powerfully reinforced by social stigma, [the victims of this stigma] are confined to the margins of society and denied access to the mainstream economy.” Moreover, I argue that this “Jim Crowing” of America has not taken place in secret. Most Americans are, at some level, totally aware of the pernicious and suffocating effects of racialized mass incarceration, but they have turned a collective blind eye to it. In short, most of the American public and its officials are in deep denial about this racialized plague, which is disastrously impacting so many Black and Brown lives. In addition, the existential cost of this process is a deep affront to the dignity and human rights of its victims, and ripples out into both their families and communities. In addition, there are also enormous costs to society at large, in terms of the huge financial drain on the American economy caused by the establishment and maintenance of such a large and complex system of racialized punitiveness. I conclude by arguing that in order to begin to unwind the tragic consequences of this system, we must first address the almost complete denial of its existence by so many Americans. Then we must begin to see this system in moral terms as a complete repudiation of the principles upon which this country was founded, and as a direct assault on the dignity and human rights of the victims that are ground under its oppressive institutionalized boot every day.
Purpose-Focused Sentencing: How Reforming Punishment Can Transform Policing
Jelani Jefferson Exum
This Essay proposes “purpose-focused sentencing” as a means of remedying the over-incarceration of blacks, thereby combatting attitudes about crime and black criminality, and in turn, affecting how police see and treat blacks. The goal is to reduce the racial disparity in incarceration, not solely through an overall lessened reliance on prisons and jails, but also by assessing and identifying appropriate sentences to fulfill criminal justice purposes. Once those purposes - deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and retribution - are identified and assessed, there will not be room to justify disparities in sentencing attributable only to the race of the defendant. All sentences, regardless of the peculiarities of an individual defendant, must be tailored to a specific result, rather than imposed at the whim of a particular judge or in accordance with legislation that has no basis in an identified sentencing goal. As a result, we will see prisons and jails being used much more exclusively (to the extent that incarceration is used at all) for violent, repeat felons, which statistics tell us are not where our racial disparities lie today. When punishment is more closely aligned with what the offender has done, and what our goals of punishments are given that behavior, we can begin to combat the stereotype that the dangerous criminal is most likely black.
Revamping Police/Urban Community/ Youth Relations by Recognizing the Errors of the Past and Moving Towards Building Relationships
Joanna N. Lopez, Esq.
The color of someone’s skin is not the ultimate factor in determining whether a person can be a victim of racial prejudice but having fair skin has clearly made it easier for certain ethnic minorities, such as the Irish, to assimilate into mainstream America. But that does not come as easily to people of color for obvious reasons. Due to slavery, African-Americans specifically have historically been targets of mistreatment. Using patrollers to seize runaway slaves pioneered formal police forces, especially in the South. Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed this devastating legacy continued to play a role in policing. For some, police harassment simply meant racial profiling, but for others it meant being beaten or murdered by those hired to protect and serve. The issue is whether police in the 21st century still believe subconsciously or not that their duty is to protect white people from people of color, specifically African-Americans. That mindset would explain why a disproportionately high numbers of black people are killed, beaten, and arrested by police in major urban cities of America, and why in 2014 more black people died at the hands of police than in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Toward Improving Policing in African American Communities
Melvin L. Otey
The distressed state of police relations with African American communities has enraptured national and international attention recently. Demonstrations and protests have persisted while pundits and interested parties have debated the matter in public and private spheres. No one can deny that disturbing problems exist, and reasonable people recognize that contributing factors are stubborn and complex. This article briefly surveys the environmental circumstances that have given rise to recent troubles in New York City, New York; Ferguson, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; and Baltimore, Maryland, because they are illustrative of similar troubles in many African American communities nationwide. The article then proffers five proactive initiatives local police departments should implement in order to improve the tenor and effectiveness of their relations with these communities, namely (1) provide comprehensive emotional and psychological training; (2) initiate intensive cultural competency education; (3) apologize for past transgressions; (4) broadly deploy body cameras; and (5) engage in cooperative crisis management planning with community leaders.
Vol. 28:1 Symposium
Perspectives on the State of Voting Rights in America
Prologue:
Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act: Time to Celebrate or Moan
Pamela J. Meanes
Our nation and the African American community are at a critical point. While as a country we have made significant progress in the area of the civil rights -especially in the past 60 years -and though we are halfway through the second term of our first African America president, challenges remain.Affirmative action is under attack; we've seen a growing movement to require voters to present photo IDs in order to vote, and the nominations of judges of color are frequently being fro-zen. Unfortunately, at the center of these challenges is an erosion of civil right laws, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1964.
Full Article
Race, Class, and Structural Discrimination: On Vulnerability within the Political Process
Atiba R. Ellis
A number of recent judicial and legislative transformations have defined the modem scope of the right to vote. These transformations have arguably narrowed African-Americans' ability to exercise the franchise. These changes include the decision in Shelby County v. Holder to limit the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the seeming consensus around the propriety of heightened regulation of the right to vote through implementing voter identification laws, and the long-standing consensus around felon disenfranchisement laws. All three of these issues implicate the African-American community in particular as some have argued that these are the enduring legacies of-and the imposition of-a new era of Jim Crow.
Yet, another more recent event must refocus our attention on the issue of the African Americans and the franchise. Specifically, the events in Ferguson, Missouri in the summer of 2014 revealed police abuse in both the killing of Michael Brown and the militarized siege of policing in the wake of subsequent protests. The examination of Ferguson that followed the unrest of that summer and fall revealed a structure built on the poverty of the St. Louis suburb's African-American residents. The media also discovered that these same residents of Ferguson were effectively lockedout of the political process.
The goal of this paper is to illustrate this racially intersecting lockout problem and to argue for the importance of attending to this problem within the context of the law of democracy. Specifically, this paper will illuminate the heart of this problem: the intersecting vulnerabilities that poor people of color suffer from within the political and economic process.
Full Article
Felony Disenfranchisement in Florida: Past, Present, and Future
Allison J. Riggs
Laws that restrict individuals with felony convictions from voting are widespread in the United States, but those laws themselves vary widely from state to state. Only Maine and Vermont allow people who are incarcerated for a felony to vote. Other states further prohibit individuals on parole or probation relating to a felony conviction from casting a ballot. The most stringent laws, that prohibit not only persons on probation and parole from voting, but also those who have satisfied their entire sentence,are found only in election states, including Florida. Because of disparities in the criminal justice system, African Americans, and other people of color are disproportionately more likely to be kept from voting because of felony disenfranchisement laws. Indeed, in Florida, 23 percent of voting-age African Americans is disenfranchised because of prior felony convictions. Under Florida law, regaining the right to vote following a felony conviction is exceptionally difficult. This article examines the fluctuating rules governing restoration of the right to vote in Florida, including legal challenges to those rules. This article concludes by discussing potential legal, policy, and advocacy routes for ameliorating the enormous burden that these rules place on people of color seeking to participate in the political process.
Full Article
The Need to Resurrect Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Keesha M. Middlemass
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended (VRA), has protected minority voting rights across the country since its passage, and its significant power lies in the combination of Section 4(b) and Section 5. Together, these two Sections function to stop purposeful discriminatory voting practices, procedures and policies from being implemented. Until recently, Sections 4(b) and 5 had the backing of the Department of Justice(DOJ) and the force of the U.S. Supreme Court behind them. However,with the 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court undermined a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Section 4(b). The Court held that "Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional; its formula can no longer be used as basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance." The preclearance provision in Section 5 only retains its power in Section 4(b) of the VRA; Section 4(b) determines the states and political subdivisions "covered" by the VRA and subject to Section 5preclearance. With the Court's invalidation of Section 4(b) in Shelby County, the foundation of Section 5 no longer remains.
Full Article
Who Bails? A Multivariate Analysis of Bailouts Under Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act
David Blanding & Shane Grannum
Noticeably absent from the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated the coverage formula of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), was any discussion of the fact that covered states and localities can be released from preclearance requirements using the"bailout" process stipulated by Section 4. Although the mechanism has been the subject of considerable legislative, judicial and public debate since the VRA was first adopted, surprisingly little is known about the factors that predict successful bailout. Our exploratory study attempts to fill this gap in scholarly knowledge using a data set comprised of jurisdictions covered under the VRA. We derive several alternative hypotheses about the probability that covered jurisdictions bail out from the VRA and construct multivariate logistic regression models to test these hypotheses.Preliminary results indicate that state public policy liberalism, local racial demographics, and federal legislative changes affect the probability of bailing out. Specifically, we find that greater liberalism in state policy preferences is associated with a higher probability of bailing out of the VRA. In addition, having a higher percentage of black residents in a jurisdiction is associated with decreased probability of successful bailout.Finally, we find that jurisdictions covered as a result of the 1970 reauthorization are significantly more likely to have bailed out than ones covered as a result of the original 1965 law, while jurisdictions covered under later reauthorizations are no more or less likely to have bailed out.
Full Article
Vol. 27:3 Symposium
Border Patrols:
The Legal, Racial, Social and Economic Implications of United States Immigration Policy
Introduction to the Symposium
Alina Camacho-Gingerich
On Friday, March 16, 2012, the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development of St. John's University's Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development, St. John's School of Law, hosted an all-day symposium Border Patrols: The Legal, Racial, Social and Economic Implications of United States Immigration Policy. This symposium provided a multidisciplinary exploration of the issues affecting immigration in the United States. It was co-sponsored by St. John's University's Committee on Latin American and Caribbean Studies(CLACS) and St. John's School of Law Education Law Society. This issue of the Journal is dedicated to a selection of the many informative papers presented at that symposium.
Full Article
Fixation: An Obsessive or Unhealthy Preoccupation or Attachment
Katherine L. Vaughns
Vol. 27:1 Symposium
Opening Doors:
Making Diversity Matter in Law School Admissions
With a Sense of Urgency: Making Diversity Matter in Law School Admissions
Hazel Weiser
African American Student Enrollment and Law School Ranking
Alfred L. Brophy
A Teacher Who Looks Like Me
Chris Chambers Goodman and Sarah E. Redfield
Don't Crimp the Pipe, or Dam the River, at the Law School Door
Placido G. Gomez, Barbara Kaye Miller, Hermelinda L. Alvarez, & Dr. Eric Romero
On Checkbox Diversity
Philip Lee
Vol. 26:3 Symposium
Legal, Secular, and Religious Perspectives on
Marriage Equality/Marriage Protection/Same-Sex Marriage
Civil Unions Reconsidered
John G. Culhane
The Imperial Judiciary's New Robes
William C. Duncan
Vol. 26:1 Symposium
National People of Color Conference:
Our Country, Our World in a “Post-Racial” Era*
Lost in Translation: Notario Fraud - Immigration Fraud
Mary Dolores Guerra
Reckoning with Employment Discrimination in a "Post Racial" Era
David A. Lacy
& Alexandra S. Ray
*The conference was held on September 9–12, 2010 at Seton Hall Law School. The Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development is just one of the many journals who published pieces for this symposium.
Vol. 25:1 Symposium
The Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Ronald H. Brown's Graduation from St. John's School of Law
Symposium Introduction
Leonard M. Baynes
Keynote Address: Issues of Race in the Age of Obama
Lawrence Joseph
Is it Time to Redefine the Negro Lawyer?
Victoria L. Brown-Douglas
Pope Benedict XVI, (President?) Ron Brown, and Workers' Rights
David L. Gregory
Social Justice in the Surrogate's Courts
Margaret Valentine Turano
Sense and Sentencing: Our Imprisonment Epidemic
Michael A. Simons
Bankruptcy Reform and Economic Recovery
G. Ray Warner
Vol. 24:3 Symposium
Thinking Outside the Box: New Challenges and New Approaches to Domestic Violence
Keynote Address
Mark Wynn
Vol. 24:2 Symposium
Making History: Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Elections
Courting the South Asian Vote: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Deepa Iyer and Priya Murth
Keynote Address
Donna Brazile
Jim Crow on the "Down Low": Subtle Racial Appeals in Presidential Campaigns
Leland Ware & David C. Wilson
The 2008 Elections and the Role of Gender Among Young Voters
Joanna Lian Pearson and Donna Rouner
Uncovering Race in 2008: Media, Politics and the Reporter's Eye
Meta G. Carstarphen
Campaign Finance and the 2008 Elections: How Small Change(s) Can Really Add Up
Ellen L. Weintraub & Jason K. Levine
Founded in 1985 as the Journal of Legal Commentary, the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development is committed to publishing-high quality scholarship and hosting innovative symposia on issues of social, racial, and economic justice.
In 2010, the Journal became the official journal of the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights at St. John’s University School of Law in Queens, New York.
The Journal publishes four issues each year, calling for submissions from scholars, practitioners, and students on a range of social, racial, and economic topics.