Legal scholar Peter Irons, a leading academic expert on the Japanese internment cases, has written a powerful article calling on the Supreme Court to explicitly repudiate those decisions [HT: Constitutional Law Prof blog]. Those notorious cases, most notably Korematsu v. United States, upheld the forcible detention of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World […]
Archive | Racial Discrimination
The Scope of Federal Power Under the Thirteenth Amendment
My wife Alison Somin and University of San Diego law professor Gail Heriot have published a short article in Engage criticizing recent claims that the Thirteenth Amendment, which bans “slavery” and “involuntary servitude,” and authorizes Congress to pass “appropriate” enforcement legislation, actually gives Congress broad authority to legislate on a wide range of other issues: […]
What Did Clarence Thomas Actually Say About Whether African-Americans Were Part of “We the People” at the Time of the Founding?
In this recent post, I took issue with Justice Clarence Thomas’ apparent recent statement that African-Americans were not considered part of the “we the People” referred to in the Preamble of the Constitution. In conveying what Thomas said, I relied on a report in the Washington Post, which was echoed by many other media sources. […]
Were African-Americans Part of “We the People” at the Time of the Founding?
In a recent public forum, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas made news by conceding that blacks were not part of “We the People” at the time of the Founding in the 1780s: It is true, Justice Clarence Thomas acknowledged the other night, that the “we the people” extolled in the Constitution 225 years ago did […]
Rejoinder to Akhil Amar on the Application of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Government
By Ilya Somin on September 13, 2012 6:23 pm in Constitutional Theory, Originalism, Racial Discrimination
I am grateful that Akhil Amar has taken the time to respond to my post criticizing his theory that the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment bans racial discrimination by the federal government as well as the states. Akhil makes some good points, but I think he continues to fall short on the central point […]
Jonah Goldberg on Heather Gerken’s Progressive Case for Federalism
Like me, conservative National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg has a generally favorable take on Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken’s progressive case for federalism: A one-size-fits-all policy imposed at the national level has the potential to make very large numbers of citizens unhappy, even if it was arrived at democratically….. Pushing government decisions down to the […]
Racial “Obligations” of Mixed-Race People
Co-blogger David Bernstein links to a New York Times column by Thomas Chatterton Williams which argues that “[m]ixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black — and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look.” […]
Heather Gerken’s Progressive Defense of Federalism
By Ilya Somin on March 13, 2012 9:11 pm in Federalism, Gay Rights, Racial Discrimination, Racism, Voting With Your Feet
Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken, a prominent federalism scholar, has an interesting article in Democracy urging her fellow liberals to take a more favorable view of federalism: Progressives are deeply skeptical of federalism, and with good reason. States’ rights have been invoked to defend some of the most despicable institutions in American history, most notably […]
George Will on Fisher v. Texas
George Will recently published an interesting column on Fisher v. Texas, an important affirmative action case that the Supreme Court is in the process of deciding whether to take: The Supreme Court faces a discomfiting decision. If it chooses, as it should, to hear a case concerning racial preferences in admissions at the University of […]
Sixth Circuit Strikes Down Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
By Jonathan H. Adler on July 1, 2011 11:07 am in Affirmative Action, Racial Discrimination, Sixth Circuit
In a divided opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down Michigan’s Proposal 2, aka the “Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.” Proposal 2 was a successful ballot initiative that provides that the state, including state educational institutions, may not “discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the […]
The “Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011”
Thanks to commenter Ispep Teid for alerting me to this interesting Arizona statute, which was just signed by the governor on March 29: A. A person … is guilty of a class 3 felony … [if he or she p]erforms an abortion knowing that the abortion is sought based on the sex or race of […]
Are Judges “Employees” Covered by State Antidiscrimination Law?
Howard v. Kansas City (Mo. Jan. 25) says “yes,” as to state antidiscrimination law, and notes the difference of opinion among different states’ courts on the subject. Judges are not covered by federal antidiscrimination law, and it’s not clear whether the Equal Protection Clause bars discrimination in the appointment of high-level officials (a category that […]
Asian-Americans and Affirmative Action
As co-blogger David Bernstein notes, Fisher v. Texas highlights the ways in which today’s affirmative action programs victimize Asian-American students for the benefit of groups that often have not endured the kind of massive systematic discrimination inflicted on blacks, and indeed may have suffered less historic discrimination than the Asian-Americans themselves. I previously wrote about […]
Fisher v. Texas
By David Bernstein on January 20, 2011 9:26 pm in Affirmative Action, Constitutional Law, Racial Discrimination
As Ilya notes below, the Fifth Circuit has upheld the University of Texas’s racial and ethnic preference practices in Fisher v. Texas. There are a number of interesting aspects of Fisher. One is that the University of Texas-Austin had a very “diverse” class without using preferences. Under the university’s previous, race-neutral system, which included the […]
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds University of Texas Affirmative Action Admissions Program
By Ilya Somin on January 20, 2011 2:49 am in Academia, Affirmative Action, Constitutional Law, Racial Discrimination
In yesterday’s opinion in Fisher v. Texas, the US Court of Appeals upheld a University of Texas affirmative action program in admissions, applying the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which held that racial diversity in higher education is a “compelling state interest” justifying the use of racial preferences to ensure that there […]