Letter of Professor Arthur Kinoy

Professor Kinoy joins SALT and asks SALT to communicate with the National Lawyers Guild

Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.: An Historic Step Forward

The historic decision last June by the Supreme Court in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.,\u27 reasserting for the first time in almost 100 years the constitutional mandate in the thirteenth amendment to abolish the badges and indicia of human slavery from all aspects of American society, has begun to meet with sharp criticism. This is, of course, no surprise. One might expect outcries from quarters of the country in which the far less abrasive vocabulary of Brown v. Board of Education still evokes memories of Black Monday, massive resistance and interposition.\u27 What is perhaps more surprising is that the current attack on Jones emanates from the home territory of Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner. It has recently been suggested in the Harvard Law Review that the Court in Jones was carried away by opportunity and temptation to overreach its proper constitutional role by giving the country statutes which no Congress ever enacted. \u27 Moreover, in the traditional foreword to the Harvard summary of the work in the 1967 term, Professor Henkin goes on to characterize the constitutional restatement of the sweep of the thirteenth amendment as a virtuoso performance, unnecessary and by clear implication unwise.\u27 I disagree. I would suggest, as I have previously, that it is impossible to overstate the potentially profound importance to the nation of this bold and courageous reaffirmation of historical realities and legal concepts which have lain buried for years under the conceptual rubble of the 1877 betrayal of the first Reconstruction

How to survive as a public interest lawyer

Talk given at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law on March 4, 199

How to survive as a public interest lawyer

Talk given at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law on March 4, 199

Non-Discrimination in the Sale or Rental of Real Property

The final version of the Fair Housing title anticipates a more active role for the federal government in the areas not presently covered by state or prior federal law. There is a central distinction between the protection afforded by the Act and the Jones decision. Where the latter recognizes the right of citizens to have their rights adjudicated, the former recognizes that not every victim of discrimination is willing or can afford to undergo the difficulty and expense of private litigation. The Fair Housing Law therefore provides for certain types of federal initiative to guarantee those rights. At the same time, however, the enforcement provisions require the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to defer to state and local agencies which are in a position to offer comparable remedies.Much of the opposition to the Act came from those who felt that this was a proper subject for state, local and individual initiative.With this we are all in agreement. But the record indicates that while the first state occupancy act was passed over ten years ago, until recently only 21 states had undertaken to act in this area. In a very real sense,the problem of housing discrimination is a national one and federal leadership is imperative if we are to deal with it