5,862 research outputs found

    Looking to Torts: Exploring the Risks of Workplace Discrimination

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    Tort law plays a powerful role in defining cognizable harms and allocating responsibility based on concepts of fault, individual and community interests, social values, morality, compensation, deterrence, and notions of fairness. So, the idea that it may serve as a source of guidance in employment discrimination law, and in particular, in one of the most intractable debates within employment discrimination jurisprudence--the requirement of discriminatory intent--is not unreasonable. To shift from an intentional discrimination mindset to one focused on risks of discrimination will not be easy. Hopefully, this brief inquiry has offered some food for thought

    The Group Dangers of Race-Based Conspiracies

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    This article argues that just as federal courts recognize the group dangers of criminal conspiracies, they should recognize the special group dangers of race-based conspiracies, and hold racist corporate officers accountable for racially motivated intracorporate conspiracies under § 1985(3). If the defendants in Dickerson had been found guilty of the most basic federal criminal conspiracy, such as conspiring to defraud the government, they would have been sentenced accordingly because the majority of circuits reject the application of the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine to criminal conspiracies. The federal courts do not immunize intracorporate criminal conspiracies because the action by an incorporated collection of individuals creates the \u27group danger\u27 at which conspiracy liability is aimed, and the view of the corporation as a single legal actor becomes a fiction without a purpose

    State Action That Penalizes Children as Evidence of a Desire to Harm Politically Unpopular Parents

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    This Article is the first to advance the position that when the government takes the extreme step of denying children basic rights and benefits because of their parents, such state action should be recognized not just as evidence of animus against the children, but also as evidence of a bare desire to harm their politically unpopular parents. Identifying this type of government motivation and calling it what it is--animus toward parents--is just as important as condemning animus against the children themselves. Anti-parent animus that motivates harmful government behavior towards children should be prohibited as an impermissible means to accomplish an end and viewed as antithetical to our equal protection values

    Seven Principles: Increasing Access to Law School Among Students of Color

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    In Fall 2010, I became one of the first tenured professors in the nation to hold a deanship dedicated exclusively to diversity in a school of law. As the Associate Dean of Institutional Diversity and Inclusiveness at the University of Denver\u27s Sturm College of Law ( SCOL ), I am charged with strengthening access to the legal academy, particularly among, but not limited to, students and faculty of color. This Essay describes the evolution of my role and the seven principles that currently guide student pipeline and recruitment efforts at the SCOL. These principles help the SCOL focus those efforts, work strategically, and increase the likelihood that desired outcomes will be achieved. I conclude by offering three examples of efforts undertaken by the SCOL in the first six months of my service as associate dean, each of which reflects the principles in action

    Equal Protection for Children of Same-Sex Parents

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    Gay rights litigation and advocacy traditionally have focused on the unequal treatment of gay and lesbian individuals and couples; less attention has been dedicated explicitly to the legal rights of the children of gay and lesbian parents. This Article asserts that a child of same-sex parents denied a government benefit has a cognizable equal protection challenge—a legal claim that is separate and distinct from that of the child’s gay or lesbian parents. It is well-settled equal protection law that the government may not treat nonmarital children differently than marital children because of moral disdain for their parents’ relationship, and laws classifying children based on their parents’ marital status are subject to intermediate scrutiny. Today, a majority of states exclude children of same-sex parents from the economic benefits that could be derived from their non-biological same-sex parent, including health insurance, workers’ compensation benefits, child support, and social security benefits. When medical events, divorces, lay-offs or death occur in the lives of children of same-sex parents in these “no-protection” states, they are denied important economic safety nets—safety nets that children of married and unmarried opposite-sex parents enjoy. As a subset of nonmarital children, children of same-sex parents exercise no control over their parents’ conduct, but suffer concrete economic injuries because of the state’s imputation of immorality to them. This government-sponsored discrimination cannot be fairly justified on the basis of preserving traditional family values or on the basis of ensuring administrative efficiency. “No-protection” states must dismantle the insurmountable barrier that blocks children of same-sex parents from establishing a legal relationship with their non-biological same-sex parent, and place them on equal footing with their opposite-sex parented peers

    Children\u27s Equality Law in the Age of Parents\u27 Rights

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    In this Article, I will briefly highlight the meager doctrinal landscape for children\u27s equal protection rights. I will then argue that the current family law system, relying on parents to act in the best interest of children to protect them, falls far short in a society built upon group-based hierarchies. Sometimes, parents will not have the political power to act in their children\u27s best interest to intervene to stop their unequal treatment at the hands of state and private actors. In fact, several landmark cases demonstrate that often out of necessity, children\u27s rights play a pivotal role in ensuring our nation\u27s fidelity to its aspirational equal protection values. In these cases, children invoked their own rights to protect themselves and in doing so, provided a constitutional back-stop for group-based discrimination. Finally, this Article will briefly explain the importance of developing the field of children\u27s equality law

    (Un)Masking Race-Based Intracorporate Conspiracies under the Ku Klux Klan Act

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    The intracorporate conspiracy doctrine should not be applicable to § 1985(3) conspiracies. Section 2 of the Ku Klux Klan Act was designed to specifically challenge collective action and eliminate the many ways in which individuals conspired to engage in civil rights violations. Some commentators may argue that race-based intracorporate agreements are actionable under other federal antidiscrimination laws and state causes of actions. However, § 1985(3) fulfills a unique role in the national comprehensive civil rights scheme to eliminate different forms of bias-motivated and discriminatory actions. As the only federal civil conspiracy statute that punishes individuals who use collective resources to deprive others of their federally protected rights, it serves the unique role of eliminating the dangers present in racially-motivated collective activity. These group dangers exist when the collective is comprised of members of two different corporate entities and when the collective is comprised of members of one corporation. Immunizing civil rights violations simply because the perpetrators are members of the same corporation veils the racist acts of conspirators behind the mask of a legal fiction. These conspirators hide behind the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine\u27s cloak, while their victims suffer deprivations and permanent harm. The uncompensated physical and psychological injuries from collective racist acts that go unpunished make the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine a fiction without a purpose

    \u3cem\u3eBrown\u3c/em\u3e\u27s Children\u27s Rights Jurisprudence and How It Was Lost

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    The first decision in Brown v. Board of Education is a landmark children\u27s rights case that has been lost. After all, segregated education was not sui generis; free and independent Black children in the United States had always been perceived as a significant threat to White supremacy, just as their subjugation had always been a powerful and effective means to uphold it. In an unprecedented move to address this age-old practice, Brown I recognized Black children\u27s right to protect themselves from government exploitation that targeted them because they were Black and young-erecting barriers in their equal path to adulthood in order to maintain a racial caste system across generations. Regrettably, the Supreme Court relinquished its groundbreaking children\u27s rights precepts by shifting to an exclusive focus on Black and White adults\u27 rights and interests. In Brown I \u27s aftermath, the Court abdicated Black children\u27s rights through an effort to placate White adults\u27 rights in Brown II, playing directly into the hands of segregationists. As the Court relinquished Black children\u27s rights, the civil rights movement lost an indispensable weapon in the battle to desegregate K-12 public schools in the short-term as well as the opportunity for doctrinal and theoretical development of a more expansive and coherent children\u27s equal protection jurisprudence in the long-term. Imagine if the Court had retained, nurtured, and developed Brown I\u27s children\u27s equality law precepts
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