This is CORE.

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Employment Discrimination and the Assumption of Equality

The assumption of equality undergirds the American law of employment discrimination. The assumption is that racial and sexual classes are equally qualified for jobs. Although it has sometimes been ignored, and can be rebutted in a specific case, the assumption of equality is fundamental to the law of nondiscrimination. Proof of discrimination in a class action, whether based on disparate treatment or disparate impact, requires the assumption. The assumption is so strong in this context that when the Supreme Court weakened it recently, Congress promptly reinforced it. The assumption of equality is also a crucial element of the law of affirmative action and reverse discrimination. The former is consistent with the assumption and is legal; the latter is inconsistent with the assumption and is illegal. By prohibiting race norming, which violates the assumption, Congress has reaffirmed its commitment to the assumption

[Review of] Raymond L. Hall. Black Separatism in the United States

A startling look at black separatist movements of the past reveals interesting facts that parallel the rise and fall of the contemporary organizations with separatist ideologies. The author focuses on the period from 1960 to 1972, analyzing five black social movement organizations: The Nation of Islam/Black Muslims, The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Non-Violent (later National) Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and the Republic of New Africa (RNA)

Disparate Impact

There has been a lot of talk about post-racialism since the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States. Some have argued that the Obama election illustrates the evolution of the United States from its unfortunate racist past to a more admirable post-racial present in which the problem of invidious racial discrimination has largely been overcome. Others have argued that the Obama election illustrates only that an extraordinarily gifted, mixed-race, multiple Ivy League graduate, Harvard Law Review President was able to overcome the persistent discriminatory racial practices that continue to disadvantage the bulk of less fortunate racial minority group members in the United States. Part I of this essay discusses the claim that we have now become a post-racial society, arguing that this claim itself constitutes a form of systemic discrimination against racial minorities. Section I.A describes the history of Supreme Court involvement in the sacrifice of minority interests for the benefit of the white majority in order to establish a context in which the racial jurisprudence of the contemporary Supreme Court can be assessed. Section I.B describes how the contemporary Court has used post-racial assumptions to perpetuate discrimination against racial minorities in the name of protecting the equality interests of whites. Part II discusses the Supreme Court’s hostility to disparate impact claims. Section II.A describes how the Court rejected disparate impact claims under its constitutional equality jurisprudence. Section II.B describes how the Roberts Court is extending this hostility to the statutory disparate impact claims created by Congress in Title VII. Part III argues that the recognition of disparate impact claims is a sensible precommitment strategy for the resolution of the nation’s persistent racial discrimination problem. Section III.A argues that racial discrimination is so deeply embedded in United States culture that it cannot be eradicated through mere voluntary efforts to behave in nondiscriminatory ways. Section III.B argues that viewing racially disparate impact as sufficiently suspect to warrant a presumptive remedy would enable the culture to approximate the genuine racial equality that its ingrained racial attitudes have thus far precluded it from attaining. The Conclusion expresses the fear that Supreme Court jurisprudence will continue to reject disparate impact claims in the name of post-racialism precisely because the Court is one of the institutions on which the culture relies to perpetuate its systemic discrimination against racial minorities

THE CORE WAY: THE CONGRESS OF RACIAL EQUALITY AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: 1942-1968

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) pursued a vision to bring racial harmony to a nation divided. CORE--regionally known as the Chicago Committee of Racial Equality--began in the spring of 1942 in Chicago through the work of James Farmer, George Houser, Bernice Fisher, Homer Jack, James Robinson, and Joe Guinn. This group of young idealists directed its attention to social action and according to August Meier and Elliott Rudwick applied Gandhian techniques of nonviolent direct action to the resolution of racial conflict in the United States. THE CORE WAY: THE CONGRESS OF RACIAL EQUALITY AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT--1942-1968 reexamines CORE, its members, philosophies, and transitions. Chapter one, A New Reflection: Revisiting the Voices of CORE's Past--The Birth of CORE 1942, looks at the formation of the organization in 1942 and the development of its foundational principles and ideas. Chapter two, Reconciling the Journey of Reconciliation: The Revealing of the Congress of Racial Equality--1947, looks at the Journey of Reconciliation and how CORE put into practice nonviolent direct action--one of its main ideological principles. Chapter three, Until the Cup That We Drink from Is the Very Same: The 1961 CORE Freedom Ride, builds upon chapter two with a look at the Freedom Ride of 1961. It chronicles the overwhelming commitment of the organization to racial integration and harmony. Chapter four, We're Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: The Transitional CORE Years--1960-1966, begins to highlight the fracturing of CORE and its transition away from some of its traditional initiative, campaigns, but more importantly foundational principles. Finally, chapter five, The Opening of Pandora's Box: CORE at a Crossroads, examines the shift away from the original goals of CORE and the creation of a new direction

Racial Rivals Eye Clarksdale

Article regarding efforts by the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to reinvigorate integration efforts in Clarksdale, Miss.; Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.)https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jws_clip/1145/thumbnail.jp

The Supreme Court as the Major Barrier to Racial Equality

This Article suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court, through its decisions in cases alleging race discrimination, stands as a major barrier to racial equality in the United States. There are several aspects of its decisions that lead to this result. Between 1868 and 1954, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, while it had been interpreted to strike down a few blatant forms of de jure discrimination, allowed government to separate the races based on the “separate but equal” fiction. Beginning in 1954, Brown and a series of subsequent decisions attacked this fiction, and for a period of nearly twenty years, the Court was intent on eliminating the vestiges of segregation in the schools, approving broad remedial orders. This changed drastically beginning in 1974 when the Court began limiting the available remedies and relieving school systems of the burdens imposed by court orders. Around the same time, the Court decided that equal protection plaintiffs needed to show a discriminatory governmental purpose in order to trigger meaningful constitutional protection. This meant that facially neutral laws and practices with discriminatory effects were largely constitutional. Beginning with Bakke in 1978, the Court made it difficult, and eventually nearly impossible, for government to take affirmative steps designed to promote equality. A majority of the Court determined that invidious and benign racial classifications should be treated the same under the Equal Protection Clause, with both subjected to strict scrutiny. This completed the Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in a manner that makes it a real barrier to racial equality: government is free to engage in invidious discrimination as long as it masks the real purpose, and affirmative steps designed by government to promote equality will be struck down as a violation of equal protection. Ironically, the constitutional amendment designed to promote freedom and equality for the newly-freed slaves now stands in the way of true freedom and equality

The Obama Administration’s Decision to Defend Constitutional Equality Rather Than the Defense of Marriage Act

When President Barack Obama announced his view that the Defense of Marriage Act1 (DOMA) violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection,2 he joined a storied line of Presidents who have acted upon their own constitutional determinations in the absence of, and on rare occasion contrary to, those of the U.S. Supreme Court. How best to proceed in the face of a federal statute the President considers unconstitutional can involve complex judgments, as was true of the difficult decision to enforce but not defend DOMA. Ordinarily the Department of Justice should adhere to its tradition of defending statutes against constitutional challenge, but I believe that DOMA constituted a rare exception. To defend DOMA’s discrimination would have required making arguments that the Obama Administration did not consider reasonable and that in their very making would have exacerbated the constitutional harm to the equality and dignity of Americans on the basis of sexual orientation. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder acted appropriately and admirably in choosing instead to present their actual views on sexual orientation discrimination, just as their predecessors did on racial segregation, thereby leaving DOMA’s defense to Congress and the ultimate resolution to the courts

Neutralizing Grutter

Part I of this article argues that the Supreme Court lacks the institutional competence to formulate racial policy for the nation, and highlights the tension that exists between the Court\u27s abstract preference for race neutrality and the concrete reality of contemporary race relations, in which dedicated efforts to promote racial balance offer the only meaningful hope of eliminating systemic discrimination. Part II discusses moderate strategies that can be used to deflect the impact of Grutter’s prohibition on racial balance, suggesting that racial balancing can be restructured in ways that the Supreme Court may view as constitutional. Part III discusses more radical strategies that can be used to promote racial balance, and advocates a direct confrontation with the institution of judicial review in the context of affirmative action. The article concludes that the political branches of government possess the power to overcome Supreme Court impediments to racial justice, and hopes that they also possess the will to exercise that power

Race, Federalism, and Voting Rights

In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court struck down an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, section 4, on federalism grounds. The Court argued that Congress no longer had the power to enact section 4 because of the “federalism costs” imposed by the Act and because the Act violated basic principles of federalism. Unfortunately, the Court failed to articulate the costs to federalism imposed by the Act, much less conduct a cost-benefit analysis in order to determine whether the benefits of the Act outweighed its costs. Moreover, the Court failed to discuss whether the Reconstruction Amendments ought to matter at all to the federalism debate. In this Essay, we ask three basic questions in response to Shelby County. First, what does the Court mean by “federalism costs,” and why have these costs undermined the constitutionality of the VRA? Second, does the failure to discuss Reconstruction and the Reconstruction Amendments undermine the Court’s decision in Shelby County? And third, we ask how should we understand the utility of federalism in the context of race and voting. We suggest that if one purpose of federalism is that it enables minorities to engage in self-rule, we should ask whether federalism enables racial minorities to engage in self-rule