Boynton v. Virginia and the Anxieties of the Modern African-American Customer

In 1958, Bruce Boynton was arrested for ordering food in a Whites-Only diner and charged with criminal trespass. Sixty years later, African Americans continue to face arrest and threat of arrest in commercial establishments based on discriminatory trespass claims. When store owners or employees decide to exclude would-be patrons from their establishment for discriminatory reasons, both overt and implicit, they rely on the police to enforce this form of discrimination. This article considers the legacy of Boynton v. Virginia, particularly the resonance of Boynton’s unaddressed claim, that the state enforcement of discriminatory trespass allegations is an Equal Protection violation. African-American consumers continually experience the threat of police intervention or actual arrest as they shop in stores and sit in coffee shops. The Article argues that state enforcement of discriminatory trespass claims against African Americans results in unequal access to commercial establishments open to the public. Trespass allegations can result in lifelong concerns—legal and psychological consequences. The continued enforcement of discriminatory trespass claims cause significant harms, including demonstrative public health effects on African Americans. In recounting Boynton, the Article draws from its legacy forms of action to address discriminatory trespass enforcement

A Free Start: Community-Based Organizations as an Antidote to the Mass Incarceration of Women Pretrial

In 1973, the feminist newsmagazine Off Our Backs featured a segment on women in jail awaiting trial in Washington, D.C. Many of the women faced minor charges, such as soliciting prostitution, but remained in detention because they could not afford to pay even very low amounts of monetary bail. The magazine interviewed Myrna Raeder, then a fellow at Georgetown, and other attorneys involved in a class action suit against D.C. corrections, who argued that low-income women were unjustly subjected to the punitive effects of pretrial detention, in violation of their due process rights. Raeder reported to the newsmagazine, “as a practical matter, many bondsmen refuse to write bonds for small amounts which yield only a limited fee.” Forty years later, advocates are still pushing courts to consider alternatives to setting bail, which effectively leaves poor women in detention pretrial. During the last few years, a number of reports have been published to encourage the use of alternatives to pretrial incarceration, particularly to address the needs of the rising number of women in the system. This comment illustrates how collaborations with community-based programs can potentially reduce the mass incarceration of women in jails across the country. First, I consider the consequences of defaulting to pretrial detention in women’s jails. Second, I argue that community-based pretrial support for people who would otherwise be in detention is one of the most effective paths towards reducing mass incarceration. Finally, I examine how to close gaps in the provision of social services in order to facilitate effective long-term improvements in women’s lives. As local jurisdictions trend toward exploring pretrial services for women, we must consider how the lessons of local community-based alternatives can minimize detention for all

Unexceptional Protest

Anti-protest legislation is billed as applying only in the extreme circumstances of mass-movements and large scale civil disobedience. Mass protest exceptionalism provides justification for passage of anti-protest laws in states otherwise hesitant to expand public order criminal regulation. Examples include a Virginia bill that heightens penalties for a “failure to disperse following a law officer’s order”; a Tennessee law directing criminal penalties for “blocking traffic”; a bill in New York criminalizing “incitement to riot by nonresidents.” These laws might be better described as antiprotest expansions of public order legislation. While existing critiques of these laws emphasize the chilling effects on free speech, this analysis masks the threat of such legislation in the everyday lives of already targeted people and communities. In actuality, the application of anti-protest legislation is not limited to “exceptional” circumstances, increasing everyday surveillance and public order regulation for Black, Latinx, and other targeted communities. The consequences of anti-protest legislation on highly surveilled communities are alarming. This Article examines the construction of mass protest law exceptionalism and advocates for using resistance frameworks, such as joyful protest, to better understand the burdens and consequences borne by communities. This analysis incorporates text of recent mass anti-protest legislation, proponents’ arguments in media, and debate in legislative sessions. This framing exposes the lack of exceptionalism, surfaces the thin line between mass protest and everyday public order regulation in targeted communities, and demonstrates the high stakes of ignoring this blurred line when considering mass anti-protest criminal laws

\u3cem\u3eBoynton v. Virginia\u3c/em\u3e and the Anxieties of the Modern African-American Customer

In 1958, Bruce Boynton was arrested for ordering food in a Whites-Only diner and charged with criminal trespass. Sixty years later, African Americans continue to face arrest and threat of arrest in commercial establishments based on discriminatory trespass claims. When store owners or employees decide to exclude would-be patrons from their establishment for discriminatory reasons, both overt and implicit, they rely on the police to enforce this form of discrimination. This article considers the legacy of Boynton v. Virginia, particularly the resonance of Boynton’s unaddressed claim, that the state enforcement of discriminatory trespass allegations is an Equal Protection violation. African-American consumers continually experience the threat of police intervention or actual arrest as they shop in stores and sit in coffee shops. The Article argues that state enforcement of discriminatory trespass claims against African Americans results in unequal access to commercial establishments open to the public. Trespass allegations can result in lifelong concerns – legal and psychological consequences. The continued enforcement of discriminatory trespass claims cause significant harms, including demonstrative public health effects on African Americans. In recounting Boynton, the Article draws from its legacy forms of action to address discriminatory trespass enforcement

Centering Women in Prisoners\u27 Rights Litigation

This Article consciously employs both a dignity rights-based framing and methodology. Dignity rights are those rights that are based on the Kantian assertion of “inalienable human worth.”29 This framework for defining rights spans across a number of disciplines, including medicine and human rights law.30 Disciplinary sanctions like solitary confinement or forced medication might be described as anathema to human dignity because of their degrading effect on an individual’s emotional and social well-being. This Article relies on first-person oral histories where possible. Bioethics scholar Claire Hooker argues that including narratives in work on dignity rights “is both a moral and an aesthetic project.” Using oral histories in this way—requesting, offering, and receiving narrative—is important for two reasons. First, it is crucial for developing a shared understanding of the context surrounding the event, such as the position, setting, and social order. First-person narratives reveal the human experience behind legal rules. Secondly, the methodology is significant to dignity rights scholarship since it respects and augments the idea of a right to dignity by recognizing that the people who are primarily affected by an event are the people best informed about the dynamics of the harm they have endured. The precise influences that lead an individual to articulate her rights cannot be conveyed through court records or opinions. That process occurs before, beside, and in the aftermath of litigation. Traditional forms of scholarship—those based on highly bureaucratic processes such as court decisions and filings—may even be considered dignity-violative. For women of color or poor women, those indignities are often rendered invisible by supposed “neutral” applications of law and summarization of harms in court decisions. In this way, marginalizing individual narratives can be dignity-corrosive. To examine the role of women in the development of prisoners’ rights litigation, I conducted oral history interviews with three individuals involved in the lawsuits from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in the 1970s

Centering Women in Prisoners\u27 Rights Litigation

This Article consciously employs both a dignity rights-based framing and methodology. Dignity rights are those rights that are based on the Kantian assertion of “inalienable human worth.”29 This framework for defining rights spans across a number of disciplines, including medicine and human rights law.30 Disciplinary sanctions like solitary confinement or forced medication might be described as anathema to human dignity because of their degrading effect on an individual’s emotional and social well-being. This Article relies on first-person oral histories where possible. Bioethics scholar Claire Hooker argues that including narratives in work on dignity rights “is both a moral and an aesthetic project.” Using oral histories in this way—requesting, offering, and receiving narrative—is important for two reasons. First, it is crucial for developing a shared understanding of the context surrounding the event, such as the position, setting, and social order. First-person narratives reveal the human experience behind legal rules. Secondly, the methodology is significant to dignity rights scholarship since it respects and augments the idea of a right to dignity by recognizing that the people who are primarily affected by an event are the people best informed about the dynamics of the harm they have endured. The precise influences that lead an individual to articulate her rights cannot be conveyed through court records or opinions. That process occurs before, beside, and in the aftermath of litigation. Traditional forms of scholarship—those based on highly bureaucratic processes such as court decisions and filings—may even be considered dignity-violative. For women of color or poor women, those indignities are often rendered invisible by supposed “neutral” applications of law and summarization of harms in court decisions. In this way, marginalizing individual narratives can be dignity-corrosive. To examine the role of women in the development of prisoners’ rights litigation, I conducted oral history interviews with three individuals involved in the lawsuits from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in the 1970s

Developing a Pedagogy of Beneficiary Accountability in the Representation of Social Justice Non-Profit Organizations

This article seeks to begin a conversation on how we teach the problem of beneficiary accountability in the representation of organizations with social justice missions: How do we guide students towards a fuller understanding of the moral responsibility to engage and respect the voices of the communities most directly affected by the non-profit organization’s mission? We look at the issue through the pedagogical lens of our experience supervising clinic students, deconstructing the problems of beneficiary accountability that students faced in the representation of two social justice organizations, surveying relevant legal scholarship on organizational representation and community lawyering, and considering alternative teaching methods to better prepare students to meet these challenges. We then explore how other fields—public health, international development, and urban planning—have approached beneficiary accountability in practice and in pedagogy. The experiences of these fields are useful because they have similar tripartite relationship structures (akin to lawyer-organization-beneficiary), explicit ethical obligations towards beneficiary accountability, and a history of critical pedagogy on accountability practices. Moreover, the efforts within these professions to create models of, and solutions to, beneficiary accountability have been more innovative because these professions are unconstrained by the preeminence of the lawyer-client relationship. The formulation of a complete analytical framework and pedagogical strategy for beneficiary accountability is a significant project beyond the scope of this article. We aim to put a range of experiences and insights on the table for further discussion and conclude by identifying a handful of key concepts that we think will be useful to clinicians and practitioners facing beneficiary accountability issues in their work

Developing a Pedagogy of Beneficiary Accountability in the Representation of Social Justice Non-Profit Organizations

This article seeks to begin a conversation on how we teach the problem of beneficiary accountability in the representation of organizations with social justice missions: How do we guide students towards a fuller understanding of the moral responsibility to engage and respect the voices of the communities most directly affected by the non-profit organization’s mission? We look at the issue through the pedagogical lens of our experience supervising clinic students, deconstructing the problems of beneficiary accountability that students faced in the representation of two social justice organizations, surveying relevant legal scholarship on organizational representation and community lawyering, and considering alternative teaching methods to better prepare students to meet these challenges. We then explore how other fields—public health, international development, and urban planning—have approached beneficiary accountability in practice and in pedagogy. The experiences of these fields are useful because they have similar tripartite relationship structures (akin to lawyer-organization-beneficiary), explicit ethical obligations towards beneficiary accountability, and a history of critical pedagogy on accountability practices. Moreover, the efforts within these professions to create models of, and solutions to, beneficiary accountability have been more innovative because these professions are unconstrained by the preeminence of the lawyer-client relationship. The formulation of a complete analytical framework and pedagogical strategy for beneficiary accountability is a significant project beyond the scope of this article. We aim to put a range of experiences and insights on the table for further discussion and conclude by identifying a handful of key concepts that we think will be useful to clinicians and practitioners facing beneficiary accountability issues in their work

Remarks on Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights

The following are remarks from a panel discussion co-hosted by the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law on the book Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights

Remarks on \u3cem\u3eManifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights\u3c/em\u3e

The following are remarks from a panel discussion co-hosted by the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law on the book Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights