Suchergebnisse

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 primarily to modify numerous Supreme Court opinions of the 1988 Term that jeopardized the rights of minorities and women. Particularly striking about those Supreme Court cases was the number which involved procedural questions and process values. These included the timing of litigation, both when employment discrimination victims must commence actions and when non-parties can reopen civil rights cases resolved through consent decrees; litigant responsibility for the expense of lawsuits; and proof requirements. Most of the procedural developments in civil rights and employment discrimination litigation of the 1988 Term, however, were only recent manifestations of judicial decisionmaking that has disadvantaged civil rights and employment discrimination plaintiffs over the past fifteen years. Moreover, the determinations encompass restrictive interpretations by the Supreme Court and lower federal courts of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, fee-shifting legislation, and procedural provisions in civil rights and employment discrimination statutes. In short, the whole picture for civil rights and employment discrimination litigation has been more than the sum of the procedural parts. The federal judiciary's decisionmaking has adversely affected civil rights and employment discrimination plaintiffs, who Congress intended to serve as private attorneys general, but whose lack of resources for litigating often makes them risk averse. Because these judicial determinations threatened the progress that minorities and women have achieved through litigation, Congress enacted the new civil rights and employment discrimination legislation which rectifies or ameliorates certain procedural difficulties faced by civil rights and employment discrimination plaintiffs. Unfortunately, Congress did not treat a number of important procedural problems that significantly disadvantage civil rights plaintiffs. This essay addresses those omissions. The article initially examines procedural developments that have detrimentally affected civil rights plaintiffs over the last decade and a half. The piece then analyzes the Civil Rights Act of 1991, emphasizing how that measure fails to remedy numerous procedural complications which confront these plaintiffs. Accordingly, the essay affords suggestions for additional change that would respond to the procedural difficulties which remain.

"The times," wrote Bob Dylan in 1963, "they are a-changin'." One hundred years after formal emancipation, blacks in 1963 were beginning to see the end of laws that prevented their full participation in American society. The United States Supreme Court had struck down the separate but equal doctrine, Congress had passed the first civil rights legislation in seventy-five years, and the executive branch was enforcing the law. Anthony Lewis wrote in the mid-1960s that "[n]o one could doubt that the conscience of America has been seized by the injustice of unequal treatment because of a man's skin." A women's liberation movement also grew with publication in 1963 of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. A year' later, blacks and women gained new legal rights with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The times were changing, and marginalized groups began to feel the winds of social progress at their backs. This Symposium addresses the state of civil rights progress in America as a new Presidential Administration takes office. During the twenty-five years since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including eight years of the conservative Reagan Administration, the civil rights agenda has undergone a profound re-evaluation. In the articles that follow, this Symposium examines the premises of the conservative philosophy on civil rights and considers four specific areas of civil rights concern: Housing, voting, employment, and women's status in the work-place.' Like a state of the union address, the articles are partisan, some-times passionate, and they do not address all areas of concern from all points of view. They add to the debate without ending it.Although the authors in this Symposium fall on both sides of the political spectrum, each believes that the civil rights agenda can still achieve social progress.

By focusing on a number of the CRA's key titles - without belittling the act's importance to Latinos, women, et al.- this commentary illustrates how the act moved beyond eliminating segregation; it addresses how the racial climate of the early 1960s shaped public policy. Broadly, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sought to change the balance of racial (and genderbased) power in the America by using federal law to finally protect African Americans' right to live equal lives. After 1964, for the first time since Reconstruction, race was national policy agenda. This agenda and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are difficult to understand without considering just how deeply entrenched American racism was in the early 1960s. By examining the political and racial climates at the time of the Civil Rights Act, it is possible to better understand what policymakers hoped to address through the federal protections under the Civil Rights Act.

By focusing on a number of the CRA's key titles - without belittling the act's importance to Latinos, women, et al.- this commentary illustrates how the act moved beyond eliminating segregation; it addresses how the racial climate of the early 1960s shaped public policy. Broadly, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sought to change the balance of racial (and genderbased) power in the America by using federal law to finally protect African Americans' right to live equal lives. After 1964, for the first time since Reconstruction, race was national policy agenda. This agenda and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are difficult to understand without considering just how deeply entrenched American racism was in the early 1960s. By examining the political and racial climates at the time of the Civil Rights Act, it is possible to better understand what policymakers hoped to address through the federal protections under the Civil Rights Act.

The central focus of this article is on the role played in these episodes by the U.S. Department of Justice, the primary federal agency entrusted with law enforcement duties and powers. In particular, the role of the attorney general as the department's titular head and as the personification of federal enforcement of civil rights and liberties provides this article with its analytic framework. A recent press commentary put this crucial cabinet post in perspective: "More than anyone but the President himself, it is the Attorney General who sets the moral tone of an Administration, symbolizing its commitment or lack of commitment to impartial justice." The four men who served Franklin Roosevelt in this post—Homer Cummings, Frank Murphy, Robert Jackson, and Francis Biddle—spanned the spectrum in the "moral tone" that each imposed on the department's approach to civil rights and liberties, from the virtual unconcern shown by Cummings to the passionate moralism and activism with which Murphy invested his office.

This essay originally started out as a review of Charles Abernathy's casebook, Civil Rights and Constitutional Litigation , which the author was using to teach his "Civil Rights Litigation" course at the University of Baltimore. Since at some point in his career the author has used three of the four major casebooks available to law faculty teaching Civil Rights (the Abernathy casebook, Eisenberg's Civil Rights Legislation , and Low and Jeffries's Civil Rights Actions ), he decided to extend this review to all four books. All four are quite good, including the newest, Nahmod, Wells & Eaton's Constitutional Torts . They all differ, however, in coverage and focus, and these differences might lead a professor to choose one or the other, depending on the type of Civil Rights course one wants to teach. The author hopes that this essay may prove helpful to someone choosing a casebook for such a course. This review will first discuss the nature of the Civil Rights course, as the author teaches it and as he believes it is taught at many law schools. Next, this review will compare the general suitability of each of the four texts for various kinds of Civil Rights courses. It then discusses the Abernathy book, examining both its strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the review will describe the advantages offered by each of the other three texts.

In this article, Missouri Supreme Court Judge Michael A. Wolff, who also is distinguished visiting professor at St. Louis University School of Law, outlines the judicial and legislative victories and failures of civil rights advocates over the last forty years at both the federal and state level. He details the reform efforts through personal anecdotes of many of his own cases that he pursued as a legal services lawyer and has seen as a judge. Judge Wolff's stories focus on the rights that legal services programs fought for and obtained and the battles that continue to be lost. In particular, he looks at both racial and economic inequality in the education system and the penal system. He explores the results of inadequate state funding such as the absence of affordable educational institutions for its citizens. In looking at the penal system, he examines the increasing criminalization of previously non-criminal conduct and the resulting incarceration and its dramatic effect on minority populations. He also discusses the expanding inequality among the United States population as the rich are given disparate tax breaks. Judge Wolff concludes by advocating for continued support of both public education and public health systems and supportive civic institutions.

Zingo reviews 'Enforcing Civil Rights: Race Discrimination and the Department of Justice' by Brian K. Landsberg.

The article examines and appraises conventional methods of interpreting the section 15 equality rights including a comparison of equality rights under the American Constitution. It determines that the most suitable interpretation is one which prohibits "constructive discrimination." Further, the analysis of section 15 finds a built-in limitation - the right against invidious discrimination - making recourse to section 1 unnecessary. But review of constructive discrimination and its justification is constrained by the adjudicative model and the state action doctrine. In the final analysis, the article challenges us to rethink our classic liberal conceptions of equality by looking less at invidious states action and more at the equality of result - yet accepting that the courts are a limited forum.

Calls for change to the infrastructure of civil rights enforcement have grown more insistent in the past several years, attracting support from a wide range of advocates, scholars, and federal, state, and local officials. Much of the attention has focused on federal-level reforms, including proposals to overrule Supreme Court doctrines that stop many civil rights lawsuits in their tracks. But state and local officials share responsibility for the enforcement of civil rights and have underappreciated powers to adopt reforms of their own. This Article evaluates a range of state and local interventions, including the adoption of state law causes of action for constitutional violations, improved local budgeting and indemnification practices, and new litigation strategies that encourage government attorneys charged with defending civil rights litigation to take better account of the significant public interest in enforcing constitutional norms. Rather than await federal reforms that may never come, the many state and local officials who have advocated for change can promptly translate their professed commitments into law and policy.

Throughout history courts and legislatures alternatively have enlarged and diminished civil rights protections." Today, employment discrimination claims are the most commonly litigated civil rights cases. A succession of cases decided by a new conservative majority of Justices during the 1988 Supreme Court Term has altered radically the delicate balance of civil rights in the workplace. The then prevailing economic, political, and legal environment seemed to be impervious to any advances in employment discrimination protections. Since that Term, courts and legislatures at the state and federal levels have promulgated a confusing combination of advances and re- treats in employment discrimination law. This uncertain climate poses substantial risks to workplace rights and yet, at the same time, holds great potential for improvement of civil rights in the workplace. The developments of the 1990s will play a pivotal role in determining the future of workplace rights. This Special Project addresses four evolving areas of employment discrimination law. The Special Project begins by examining the most controversial issues raised by the vetoed Civil Rights Act of 1990. Congress had introduced the Act in an attempt to restore both Title VIPs and section 19811 protections that the Supreme Court had limited during its 1988 Term. The Project suggests compromises that both Congress and the President should make in the continuing quest for acceptable civil rights legislation. The Project then considers both the recent trend toward a more conservative federal judiciary and the changes in state employment discrimination law in light of Yellow Freight System, Inc. v. Donnelly," a case holding that state and federal courts share concurrent jurisdiction over Title VII claims. The Project explores a restructuring of the parity debate in an attempt to develop an analytical framework for forum selection in a concurrent system of employment discrimination litigation. The Yellow Freight decision illustrates the expanding role that ...