Social Security Reform: Risks, Returns, and Race

The debate over social security reform has far-reaching implications for the economic well-being of blacks and other minority groups. In this article, we examine how blacks have fared under the existing system, and then consider the likely consequences of moving toward a privatized system. Specifically, we consider the claim, recently advanced by some privatizers, that blacks receive an especially bad deal under the existing system and would be better off under a privatized system. We find that, for blacks as a group, this claim tends to overstate both the shortcomings of the existing system and the advantages of privatization. Furthermore, we urge that the racial impact of social security reform deserves serious and sustained consideration. While the path of reform will inevitably require difficult tradeoffs between competing policy goals and political constituencies, no serious reform proposal can ignore the issue of racial equality in the debate over social security

LatIndia II — Latinas/os, Natives, and \u3ci\u3eMestizajes\u3c/i\u3e — A LatCrit Navigation of \u3ci\u3eNuevos Mundos\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3eNuevas Fronteras\u3c/i\u3e, and \u3ci\u3eNuevas Teorias\u3c/i\u3e

This Essay is a journey that will elucidate a personal exploration of LatCrit\u27s trinitarian goals of engagement of identity interrogations, community building, and self-critical analysis. It will reflect personal travels and travails, bumps in the road and epiphanies, theory and practice. The plot for these musings is a cultural voyage in which this viajera embarks to live and comprehend the meaning of mestizaje in a personal quest for identity location; the stage is LatCrit IV. My interrelated trips are chartered in three parts. Part I, Nuevos Mundos. Traveling LatCrit Community, presents the historical background of, contexts for, and evolutions of personal identity explorations in which I have engaged in the past utilizing the vehicle of LatCrit. As will become evident, that vehicle is a complex and changing one. But at its core, LatCrit philosophizes inclusiveness in light of diversity, support in light of difference, community in light of conflict. These foundational elements imbue the personal, political, and academic/intellectual aspects of the LatCrit movement. As my observations and experiences reveal, such an environment absorbs the shocks of stresses and conflicts and transmogrifies potentially disruptive energy into transformation and growth. Part II, Nuevas Fronteras. LatCrit IV Crossings, relates my personal journey through our fourth LatCrit encounter. In so doing, it illuminates, by re/presenting a lived experience, several locations of stress points among our communities. Specifically, this Part, largely a narrative of my presentation at LatCrit, my participation in the circle, and the events surrounding those two experiences, unearths possible tensions in the interrogation of identities and in claims to mestizaje as well as the potential conflicts such interrogation may engender. The last section, Part III, Navegando Nuevas Teorias (Traveling/Navigating New Theories) seeks to unravel the discord that surfaced as this Essay exposes in Part II. It seeks to unbundle the positive and transformative potential of tension and strife. This exploration does not deny, indeed it recognizes and accepts, the existence of stress, and, suggests how, by utilizing its force and redirecting it towards constructive projects, it can move us towards accomplishing the LatCrit goals of producing knowledge, connecting communities, and building coalition

Restoration Rx: An Evaluation and Prescription

In this introductory article, I explore what ethics, science, economics, and law suggest about the value of restoration. These themes -- the questions and challenges posed by ethics, science, economics, and law -- resonate throughout the Articles in this Symposium. Drawing on the presentations given at the Symposium and the literature on environmental restoration, this article reviews some of the major questions that science and ethics pose for restoration, as well as the challenges posed by the economic and legal contexts within which environmental restoration occurs. After a brief comment on the definition of restoration, this article addresses the challenges posed by science, ethics, and the legal and socioeconomic contexts in which restoration occurs

The Reasonable Woman and the Warrior Code

In the provocative book A Law of Her Own: The Reasonable Woman as a Measure of Man, Caroline Forell and Donna Matthews argue that existing law systematically undervalues women\u27s experiences of sexual harassment and sexual violence. In essence, the authors contend that law is a warrior code that is unduly forgiving of sexual aggression and violence, and they support this contention by showing how male-centered values permeate the law of sexual harassment, stalking, domestic violence, and rape. This critique alone would make this work worthy of serious consideration by anyone concerned with the law\u27s treatment of women

Setting a New Standard for Public Education: Revision 6 Increases the Duty of the State to Make ‘Adequate Provision’ for Florida Schools

Among the nine revisions proposed to Florida voters by the Constitution Revision Commission in 1998, Revision 6 fundamentally enhanced Florida\u27s responsibility for public education. Revision 6 amended Article IX, Section 1, of the Florida Constitution, which sets forth the State\u27s duty to provide for public education. Entitled “PUBLIC EDUCATION OF CHILDREN,” Revision 6 makes a declaration of the relative importance of education to the people of Florida, and describes as “paramount” the duty of the state to adequately provide for education. Revision 6 goes on to detail and raise the constitutional standard for what constitutes “adequate provision” for public education, and obliges the state to deliver a high quality education to its children. This Article will attempt to place Florida\u27s recent education amendment into context, briefly examining both the development of education finance litigation in Florida and the recent waves of education finance litigation nationwide. By successfully revising its constitutional language, Florida has uniquely modified the ongoing discussion about the adequacy of state support for education. By providing specific standards for adequacy, the Constitution Revision Commission has invited greater court supervision of the Legislature\u27s role in education funding and has guaranteed that future litigation will determine whether the state currently meets its duty to make “adequate provision” for public education. Ironically, both proponents and opponents argued that the change will provide a standard for litigation. The Constitution Revision Commission\u27s clear goal was to increase the state\u27s constitutional duty and raise the constitutional standard for adequate education, and in fact to make the standard high quality. It remains to be seen how the challenge of providing a sound basic education for Florida\u27s children will be met

Building Bridges IV: Of Cultures, Colors, and Clashes--Capturing the International in Delgado\u27s Chronicles

Sex, race, gender, sexuality, color, religion, language, nationality, ethnicity, culture, poverty - socially constructed categories, social tropes that relegate others to subordinated positions in the varied and various cultural and economic marketplaces of both global and local societies. Richard Delgado\u27s transformational work engages all of these tropes insightfully, disturbingly, and illuminatingly. His rich literature conceptualizes persons as multidimensional, complex beings and exposes society as the pre-fabricated stage in which diverse interactions evolve. Delgado\u27s epistemological stance is fluid, non-rigid, and grounded on subjectivity. In this essay I will focus on Delgado\u27s latest book When Equality Ends: Stories About Race and Resistance. I will develop how that work injects invaluable dimensions of international human rights law and theory into contemporary domestic jurisprudence. I will also explore the benefit that Delgado\u27s treatment of international human rights law and theory will bring to both critical and human rights perspectives in the analysis of law, theory, and policy. Part One of this piece will suggest how conversations about human rights law can enrich Critical Theory, as well as how Critical Theory can serve to develop, expand, and transform human rights norms. Part Two will look more specifically at Cultures, Colors, and Clashes to illustrate the value of the analysis that is suggested in Part One. The Conclusion underscores the utility of Professor Delgado\u27s rich and creative work in guiding global understanding on multidimensionality, interconnectivity, and intersectionality

Law as Interpretation

In this Article, I shall trace out separate professional narratives in common law, constitutional law, and in legal cases turning on the distinction between community and society (Part III). But first I should like to situate these legal-professional narratives within a broader interdisciplinary framework (Part II)

Gender Politics in Global Governance (Mary K. Meyer & Elisabeth Prügl eds., 1999)

Prof. Hernández-Truyol reviews the book Gender Politics in Global Governance from editors Mary K. Meyer and Elisabeth Prügl. Given the emergence of multilateral institutions in this century, the mobilization of women against male supremacy has taken an internationalist turn; it seeks to shape the agendas of international organizations and the normative practices of global governance. In an effort to understand and analyze this movement and its impact, the editors have compiled a volume drawing new research together exploring gender politics in global governance that is also attentive to historical and contemporary modes of women\u27s organizing from the local to the global levels to effect change in the governance structures and practices that oppress women