An Essay on the New Public Defender for the 21st Century

Funding for public defender services is woefully inadequate. Ogletree offers some anecdotal advice for public defenders and those designing public defender services

Tulsa Reparations: The Survivors\u27 Story

This Article explores the ability of reparations litigation to transform the American debate about race by promoting interest convergence between reparations advocates and the majority population. As Professor Derrick Bell has argued, only when the interests of the majority converge with those of the minority will the minority achieve its goals. Reparations lawsuits-especially those framed as traditional civil rights claims, as in the ongoing litigation seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot-can begin to promote the convergence of interests between reparationists and the reluctant majority population by forcing the majority population to confront past and present injustices against African Americans. The Article concludes that litigative reparations are a promising first step toward insuring justice for those who were sacrificed during slavery and Jim Crow oppression

America's Schizophrenic Immigration Policy Race, Class, and Reason

The historical purpose of American immigration policy was to provide a haven for those fleeing persecution and those seeking prosperity, as well as to satisfy workforce and frontier-expansion needs. However, a survey of U.S. immigration policy reveals that this historical purpose has been distorted and abandoned, if in fact it ever represented our nation's goal. This essay evaluates and critiques the effect that race and politics have had on immigration policy and enforcement, and on the public opinion that shapes our immigration priorities. This essay specifically questions whether immigration laws are equitably applied, without regard to the race or ethnicity of the immigrant