From Grutter to Fisher: Is Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s Legacy in Danger?

[Excerpt] “This paper explores the impact of Justice O’Connor on the Court’s race and education jurisprudence, both in the context of primary through secondary school education and in public universities. Section II outlines Justice O’Connor’s biography and explores several external influences on the Justice. Section III reviews the Court’s race and education jurisprudence prior to Justice O’Connor’s appointment to the Court. Section IV exposes the Court’s jurisprudence in this area during Justice O’Connor’s time on the Court, with an emphasis on those opinions authored by Justice O’Connor. Section V offers an analysis of the aftermath of Justice O’Connor’s race and education jurisprudence, beginning with Section V(A) addressing the state of the law after Justice O’Connor’s majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger. Section V(B) discusses the Court’s race and education jurisprudence following Justice O’Connor’s tenure, primarily through an analysis of Parents Involved in Community Schools. Finally, Section V(C) hypothesizes the future of race-conscious decision-making in education and Justice O’Connor’s legacy through the lens of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Section VI concludes this paper.

Can Rights Be Different?: Justice Stevens\u27 Dissent in McDonald v. City of Chicago

This Article responds to Justice Stevens\u27 assertion in McDonald that rights need not be identical in shape or scope

Operation Sojourner: The Government Infiltration of the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s and its Legacy on the Modern Central American Refugee Crisis

This Article will discuss “Operation Sojourner,” the federal government’s covert infiltration, and subsequent criminal prosecution, of persons involved in the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s, as well as its impact on the modern Sanctuary Movement in Arizona and the Southwest occurring in response to the current Central American refugee crisis. Section I will provide an overview of the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s, and the general religious beliefs and philosophies of those involved in the movement. Section II will discuss the genesis of Operation Sojourner by the former Immigration and Nationality Service (INS) in the early 1980s, and the criminal prosecutions of members of the Sanctuary Movement in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Section III will discuss one of the most high-profile cases that resulted from Operation Sojourner, United States v. Aguilar, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision upholding the defendants’ convictions for conspiracy and harboring and transporting aliens. Section IV will discuss the current Central American refugee crisis and the litigation that has been filed on their behalf challenging the Obama Administration’s policy of detaining families seeking asylum on the U.S.-Mexico border. Finally, the Article will conclude with Section V, which makes an argument about the need for a revitalized Sanctuary Movement in churches, homes, and schools in response to the government’s overzealous enforcement of immigration law now and in the new administration of President Donald Trump

Local Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinances: A Legal, Policy, and Litigation Analysis

Obtaining comprehensive immigration reform is one of the most important legal issues facing the Latino community today. For the nation, virtually every family, business, and community is touched by immigration. In 2006, when millions marched for comprehensive immigration reform, prospects for federal action increased. During the summer of 2006, as the U.S. House failed to move forward to complete legislative action, frustrations by anti-immigrant activists led to a small number of cities and towns attempting to enact restrictions and prohibitions against illegal immigrants at the local level. These measures violate the Constitution, and pit neighbor against neighbor. Immigration policy must be established and enforced at the federal level, as local ordinances threaten to discriminate against all Latinos, citizen and newcomer alike. This Article describes some of the local ordinances that have been enacted across the country and their legal flaws, provides arguments that can be utilized against them, and gives an overview of the current legal challenges against these ordinances throughout the United States. Part I describes the origin of these anti-immigrant ordinances and the types of ordinances that were enacted in their wake, in particular the first local antiimmigrant ordinance passed in the United States in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Part II discusses the legal arguments against these types of ordinances, in particular federal preemption of local immigration laws and possible violations of the Fair Housing Act. Part III provides a brief overview of the litigation that has been brought against municipalities that have enacted local illegal immigration relief ordinances, and the current status of those cases. The Conclusion summarizes the article and looks forward to the next step in combating local anti-immigrant ordinances from a legal, policy, and litigation standpoint

A Dry Hate: White Supremacy and Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric in the Humanitarian Crisis on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Beginning with the passage of its anti-immigrant “Show-Me-Your-Papers” law in April 2010, S.B. 1070, much has been written about the hostile political climate toward noncitizens in the State of Arizona specifically and the U.S.-Mexico border generally. However, the recent influx of refugees from Central America to the United States has seen a resurgence in the anti-immigrant rhetoric, which is particularly disturbing since a large percentage of the individuals fleeing violence and poverty are children. In this vein, one aspect of the genesis of S.B. 1070 and other anti-immigrant laws that have not received a great deal of attention is the significant presence – and the startling growth of – white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups throughout Arizona and the Southwest in the years leading up to the introduction and passage of S.B. 1070 and its predecessor laws. While groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have monitored and documented the rise of anti-immigrant hate groups in the Southwest over the past decade, the correlation between the activities of these organizations, anti-immigrant activism, and the passage of state laws designed to intimidate, threaten, and harass noncitizens and other people of color living and working in Arizona and the American Southwest has not been fully explored in the mainstream political and legal media. This Article examines the growth of the white supremacist movement in Arizona and other Southwestern states, and argues that the influence of these groups plays a significant role in the caustic rhetoric we are currently witnessing in the humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border and in the flurry of anti-immigrant laws approved by the state legislature and the electorate since the early 2000s. Part I discusses some of the most prominent white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups currently operating in Arizona and other states along the U.S.-Mexico border. Part II provides an overview of some of the prominent politicians and citizens in the Southwest who have been linked to extremist and racist groups, and how their affiliations impacted the spread of anti-immigrant rhetoric into the cultural mainstream, as well as the introduction and passage of state anti-immigrant laws and policies. Part III discusses the current humanitarian crisis on the border, and profiles some of the most notorious recent incidents of anti-immigrant sentiment tied to white supremacists – such as the murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores by border vigilantes in 2009 and the murderous rampage of Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready in 2011 – and examines how the anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric of these groups contribute to the ongoing violence against and scapegoating of migrants seeking refuge in the United States. The Article concludes with Part IV, in which I argue that unless and until the white supremacist roots of anti-immigrant rhetoric is acknowledged, the southern border of the United States will continue to be a flashpoint in which hate groups can continue to implement their extremist agenda against noncitizens and people of color

Many Disease-Associated Variants of hTERT Retain High Telomerase Enzymatic Activity

Mutations in the gene for telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) are associated with diseases including dyskeratosis congenita, aplastic anemia, pulmonary fibrosis and cancer. Understanding the molecular basis of these telomerase-associated diseases requires dependable quantitative measurements of telomerase enzyme activity. Furthermore, recent findings that the human POT1-TPP1 chromosome end-binding protein complex stimulates telomerase activity and processivity provide incentive for testing variant telomerases in the presence of these factors. In the present work, we compare multiple disease-associated hTERT variants reconstituted with the RNA subunit hTR in two systems (rabbit reticulocyte lysates and human cell lines) with respect to telomerase enzymatic activity, processivity and activation by telomere proteins. Surprisingly, many of the previously reported disease-associated hTERTalleles give near-normal telomerase enzyme activity. It is possible that a small deficit in telomerase activity is sufficient to cause telomere shortening over many years. Alternatively, mutations may perturb functions such as the recruitment of telomerase to telomeres, which are essential in vivo but not revealed by simple enzyme assays

Mean field approximation of two coupled populations of excitable units

The analysis on stability and bifurcations in the macroscopic dynamics exhibited by the system of two coupled large populations comprised of $N$ stochastic excitable units each is performed by studying an approximate system, obtained by replacing each population with the corresponding mean-field model. In the exact system, one has the units within an ensemble communicating via the time-delayed linear couplings, whereas the inter-ensemble terms involve the nonlinear time-delayed interaction mediated by the appropriate global variables. The aim is to demonstrate that the bifurcations affecting the stability of the stationary state of the original system, governed by a set of 4N stochastic delay-differential equations for the microscopic dynamics, can accurately be reproduced by a flow containing just four deterministic delay-differential equations which describe the evolution of the mean-field based variables. In particular, the considered issues include determining the parameter domains where the stationary state is stable, the scenarios for the onset and the time-delay induced suppression of the collective mode, as well as the parameter domains admitting bistability between the equilibrium and the oscillatory state. We show how analytically tractable bifurcations occurring in the approximate model can be used to identify the characteristic mechanisms by which the stationary state is destabilized under different system configurations, like those with symmetrical or asymmetrical inter-population couplings.Comment: 5 figure