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There is a growing interest in Artificial Intelligence in tech hubs like Silicon Valley and in the world at large that is finally matching the ambition and creativity that movies and media have been producing for a very long time. This paper takes that cultural interest and economic investment to its logical conclusion and assumes that a humanlike Artificial Intelligence, or synthetic person, can and will be created in the near future. Then it considers what the law should do about that creation. Specifically, this paper argues that a test should be developed for whether a synthetic person can be granted personhood under the law before such test is needed. The tenets, if not the specifics, of such a test are outlined here that provide for a synthetic person that is intelligent, social, self-conscious, and individualized. But that is only half the problem. If a synthetic person can be created, one that passes a pre-determined test that allows it to access legal standing, to what sorts of rights and responsibilities does it have access? In light of the kind of synthetic person that could pass the test, four potential outcomes for rights for a synthetic person are addressed ranging from none to a full suite of human civil rights.

This paper poses the following question in the context of civil rights in education — is proportionality synonymous with parity? Since 1974 the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has determined that in order for an educational institution to be in compliance with Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, educational opportunities must be proportional to male/female demographics. In this paper, my empirical research shows that in fact interests are not proportional among men and women in many areas of education. In some areas, male interests are stronger than female interests, and in other areas the reverse is true. In support of my argument, I present a collection of studies that measure male and female demand in areas of sports and STEM, as well as demand for protection against sexual harassment. These studies cast light on the reality behind civil rights for both men and women in education, a reality that, I argue, civil rights theoreticians and advocates don’t want to see or cannot see. In September of 2015 President Obama issued an Executive Order to encourage the use of behavior science in lawmaking. The question remains as to why OCR continues to operate under the assumption that the interests of males and females are equal in all areas of education.

This paper examines the impact of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 60’s on the contemporary social, economic and political predicament of African Americans. This evaluation is descriptive in nature and focuses primarily on the current social and economic reality. This paper is an attempt to examine and better understand changes in the social and economic predicament of African Americans since the 1950’s and 60’s relative to white Americans. Given the success of the Civil Rights Movement, one would reasonably expect to observe an improvement in the performance of social and economic indicators among African Americans relative to whites. This paper seeks to determine if this in fact has been the case. If this has not occurred, it is important to identify factors which have impeded progress towards achieving social, economic and political equity.

This paper will primarily address Catholic Emancipation from the mid-eighteenth century to the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829. Catholic Emancipation serves as an interesting example of a pre-twentieth-century civil rights movement. Part I addresses the rise of Catholic repression beginning with Henry VIII’s split with the Catholic Church and continuing to the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Part II examines the legal impediments imposed on Catholics in the years after the Glorious Revolution, as well as the role that informers played in Catholic repression. Part III addresses the role of an activist judiciary as a crucial first step in the process of Catholic Emancipation. This section also addresses the relief provided by the Papists Act of 1778, and the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791. This section will also address the Gordon Riots. Part IV deals with the unification with Ireland under the Union with Ireland Act of 1800, the promises made by Prime Minister Pitt to ensure passage in Ireland, and how George III used the Coronation Act of 1688 to refuse Irish Emancipation. Part V addresses the final push for emancipation beginning with the rise of the Catholic Association under Daniel O’Connell and ending with the final passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829. Finally, this paper treats briefly the subsequent history of Catholics in the United Kingdom as well as how Catholic Emancipation can be seen as a road map for future civil rights movements.

This paper defends the adoption, by Brazilian legislation, of safe harbors that exempt online service providers from any civil liability arising from the violation of copyrighted material uploaded by third parties. Such exemption is justified because in the lack thereof, websites would be transformed into censors of what might or not be shared online, undermining the great expansion of freedom of expression rights that were made possible by the Internet. This paper is divided in six different sections. The first introduces the aforementioned theme; the second describes the concept of safe harbor regulations present in the legislation and legal doctrines of different jurisdictions around the world, including the safe harbors now being discussed in Brazil; the third presents case law from the United States, France, Italy, and Germany to discuss how these safe harbors are being interpreted around the world; the fourth presents the way Brazilian tribunals have been deciding matters regarding third party content on the web; the fifth uses the proportionality test applicable in jurisdictions such as Germany and Brazil to justify the establishment of safe harbors; and the sixth briefly concludes what was previously discussed.

This paper describes the origins of fair lending litigation in the 1970s. It documents two litigation strategies, one aimed at discriminatory lenders in local communities and a second at the federal lending regulators. Together, these two litigation strategies helped to establish the basic anti-lending discrimination framework that remains in place today. Rather than view these two strategies as distinct, however, this paper argues that they represented complementary efforts to establish an effective anti-discrimination strategy at local and national levels.The research for this paper was conducted in a law school seminar at Washington University taught by Professor Margo Schlanger. The research for this paper drew on dozens of fair lending cases from the 1970s to the present; summaries for all of these cases can be found at the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, located on the Washington University School of Law's website.

This paper traces the history of Title IX, since its inception in 1972. In that time, Title IX has led to dramatic increases in athletic opportunities for women. This growth has been precipitated by the activism of Title IX proponents. Title IX survived early challenges from school boards and the NCAA. But Title IX enforcement efforts were stalled from 1984, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Grove City College v. Bell, until 1988, when the Grove City College decision was overruled by Congress with the passage of the Civil Rights Restoration Act. Title IX athletics discrimination litigation took off at the college level in the early 1990s. The late 1990s saw a surge of Title IX athletics discrimination litigation at the high school level. In addition to litigation, Title IX proponents have filed numerous complaints with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and with individual educational institutions. Men have attempted to bring reverse discrimination claims of their own under Title IX, but none have been successful. The paper provides an appendix that lists Title IX litigation, including unpublished cases. This paper and other similar papers dealing with civil rights litigation are available through the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse (search for case studies).

This paper explores whether Title IX's proportionality requirement can be justified under any of three standard civil rights frameworks. The proportionality requirement has been widely criticized for failing to follow the "careers open to talents" model enforced by Title VII. The paper argues that the critics are correct that the proportionality requirement is inconsistent with the careers open to talents model but contends that the critics' own distribution proposals are also inconsistent with this model. The paper next considers whether the proportionality requirement can be justified by either of two other civil rights models: a utilitarian model (of the sort that underlies the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and what is referred to in the text as a tool-giving model (of the sort that underlies the school financing cases). Neither model provides an adequate justification for the proportionality requirement, however. Finally, the paper examines whether the proportionality requirement might best and most honestly be justified on the grounds that it encourages girls to participate in activities and develop traits and attributes that are widely socially valued. The paper concludes that the proportionality requirement is indeed best understood and justified as an openly "perfectionist" resocialization measure.

This paper considers the implications of assisted outpatient commitment laws (OPC), with specific focus on New York's "Kendra's Law" through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ). Kendra's Law's day-to-day operationalization, the on-going constitutional challenges, the law's potential impact on the delivery of other mental health services in the state, and - most important - the inevitability of a "mistake" (a case in which denial of a Kendra's Law commitment is followed by the commission of a notorious criminal act, or a case in which entry of a Kendra's Law commitment is followed by a patient developing neuroleptic malignant syndrome or some other potentially-fatal antipsychotic drug side effect because of a misdiagnosis or an error in prescription or medication dispensation) all make it inevitable that it will become the centerpiece of the next mental health law debate. It is thus especially important that a discussion of Kendra's Law also provide a national perspective as well as background on OPC - and how, for decades, OPC has been the paradigm trompe l'oeil illusion of mental disability law. In this paper. I first offer some perspectives on the relationship between involuntary civil commitment and outpatient commitment, with a few brief words about how all of this relates to the concept of the "least restrictive alternative" (LRA). Then, I consider some of the empirical research that's been done on outpatient commitment laws in other jurisdictions - most notably, North Carolina - and focus on both the issues that seemed to matter to whether OPC "worked" and on the impact OPC may have had on "revolving door" commitments. After that, I look at the most controversial aspect of outpatient commitment: its relationship to forced drugging. Here, I consider briefly the civil libertarian critique of OPC/forced drugging laws, look at some important recent developments, and consider the state-of-the-art research done by the MacArthur Research Network on Mental Health. Finally, I will look closely at Kendra's Law, providing a brief overview of the law itself, and identifying some "pressure points" and pivotal issues in the law. I believe that there are ambiguities in some of the "pressure points" that cry out for resolution, and that the appellate disposition of some of the pivotal issues will provide some clues as to the ultimate "real life" impact of Kendra's Law. Finally, I will consider the TJ implications of Kendra's Law, in part, in an effort to determine how it "fits" into the public's "take" on all of mental disability law.

The Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission is widely construed as a narrowly tailored opinion with minimal import for the Court’s Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence. This paper submits that in fact, the opinion establishes two largely overlooked but significant principles that must guide future litigation relating to the Free Exercise Clause. It is argued that these components of the Court’s analysis are central to its holding and therefore carry the full weight of stare decisis. The first relates specifically to cases in which free exercise rights collide with the civil rights of LGBT persons, as in Masterpiece itself. The second applies more broadly across free exercise cases in which the purported claim is discrimination against religion in an adjudicatory context. Part I is broken into two sections. Part I (A) posits that Masterpiece elevated important dicta from the Court’s opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges to the full status of a “holding”. Part I (B) argues that Masterpiece implicitly rejected a powerful argument often advanced by LGBT litigants and activists in antidiscrimination cases. Part II explains that Masterpiece did more than simply reaffirm the Court’s opinion in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah.

As the judicial and scholarly debate rages over the power of federal courts to issue universal or non-particularized injunctions protecting beyond the plaintiffs in a case, this paper explores the power and role of Congress in ending this controversy. It examines the details, wisdom, and efficacy of five legislative proposals to eliminate or limit universal/non-particularized injunctions. It concludes that one approach is necessary, appropriate, and likely to work—a flat and unequivocal prohibition on courts issuing injunctions protecting anyone other than the plaintiffs to a case, wherever those plaintiffs may be.

John Noonan’s jurisprudence, it has been written, depends upon the formation of an "empathic bond between judge and litigant." This paper is intended as an exploration of how Noonan’s jurisprudence functions in practice. Over the course of three decades on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, Judge Noonan established himself as one of America’s most original, insightful, and genuinely empathetic judges. While hundreds of his judicial opinions might have been chosen for this investigation, I have selected only a single one. The case to be examined is Wagner v. County of Maricopa, involving a wrongful death action and civil rights claims brought against the County and its Sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

Patents are intended as a means of promoting innovation through private pecuniary incentives. But the patent system has for some time been on a collision course with guarantees of expressive freedom. Surprisingly, no one has ever subjected patent doctrine to a close First Amendment analysis. In this paper I show, first, that patents clearly affect expressive freedom, second that patents are subject to legal scrutiny for their effect on expressive rights, and third that patents are not excused from scrutiny by virtue of constituting property rights or by virtue of private discretion. After examining the patent system in terms of familiar First Amendment metrics such as strict scrutiny, narrow tailoring, governmental interest, and least restrictive means, I conclude that even though many patents may survive First Amendment analysis, many will not.

This paper focuses on the staying power of civil rights litigation post-settlement. Specifically, through an examination of Battle v. City of New York, I focus on the usage of civil rights litigation settlements in bringing down an entrenched practice, like stop and frisk, as well as discussing the legacy of Battle itself. Though I do not purport to make any definitive statements regarding the efficacy of civil rights litigation on the whole, I draw tentative conclusions about the propensity for civil rights litigation to break down a widespread and illegal practice. I make these conclusions while focusing on a single case and dealing with a specific issue of law, i.e., the constitutionality of passenger searches under the Taxi/Livery Robbery Inspection Program (TRIP).

Jim Crow-era Black lawyers could not operate solely within an all-black environment. As officers of the court, they had to practice law in front of white judges against white opposing counsel. Consequently, the black community, understandably to a degree, began to avoid using attorneys of their own race during this period of increased racial separation.This paper explores that important moment in Southern legal history before prospects for working as an attorney became virtually non-existent for blacks in Atlanta.

The purpose of this article is to review the role of Ombudsman institution in increasing the accountability, efficiency, transparency in public administration and promoting a higher level on protection of human rights. The article analysis that ombudsmen have become a crucial part of the political, social and legal actuality in different countries of the world. As a dedicated institution on protecting citizens’ rights, an Ombudsman can be considered as a mechanism to promote democracy, civil rights, rule of law, reforms in public administration and combat maladministration. This paper discusses two particular issues: the concept of Ombudsman institution in general and its role in promoting good administration and governance. By doing so, it raises a multilevel argument for more transparency, effectiveness and accountability in the work of public administration.

Earlier work evaluated the association of asset forfeiture with the clearances of crimes reported to police and with the distribution of arrests by type. This paper provides further results concerning the impact of forfeiture on policing.Asset forfeiture refers to a government seizure of assets that are the instrumentalities or fruits of a crime. Criminal forfeiture requires the criminal conviction of the owner of the assets. However, forfeiture often occurs even when a crime is not prosecuted. Under civil forfeiture, the property itself is the defendant and generally does not have the “beyond a reasonable doubt” protection afforded to people; instead, the standard of proof is usually a weaker standard, such as probable cause or preponderance of the evidence. The actual owner of the property has the status of a third party intervener and may bear the burden of proof to show that the asset is not implicated in a crime. If the seizure of an asset is not challenged by the owner, a non‐judicial, administrative forfeiture occurs. The low standards of proof, the locus of the burden of proof, and widespread use of administrative and civil forfeiture raise difficult civil rights questions. Even more controversial, however, is the fact that police agencies often can retain the cash and other assets that they seize. This has led to accusations that civil forfeiture encourages “policing for profit.”

Politicians and other public figures often apologize after making controversial statements. While it is assumed that they are wise to do so, this proposition has yet to be tested empirically. There are reasons to believe that apologizing makes public figures appear weak and risk averse, which may make them less attractive as people and lead members of the public to want to punish them. This paper presents the results of an experiment where respondents were given two versions of two real-life controversies involving comments made by public figures. Approximately half of the participants read a story that made it appear as if the person had apologized, while the rest were led to believe that the individual stood firm. In the first experiment, involving Rand Paul and his comments on the Civil Rights Act, hearing that he was apologetic did not change whether respondents were less likely to vote for him. When presented with two versions of the controversy surrounding Larry Summers and his comments about women scientists and engineers, however, liberals and females were much more likely to say that he definitely or probably should have faced negative consequences for his statement when presented with his apology. The effects on other groups were smaller or neutral. Overall, the evidence suggests that when a prominent figure apologizes for a controversial statement, the public is either unaffected or becomes more likely to desire that the individual be punished.

The International Labour Organization estimated that profits from victims of human trafficking exploited for labor in private enterprises exceed $31.6 billion alone. These crimes often take place in the shadows and constitute some of the worst crimes against human rights. While sexual exploitation is egregious – it constitutes the majority of trafficking, both internationally and within the European Union – this paper focuses on labor and non-sexual exploitation which are often overlooked, but they have an enormous effect on the lives of victims, the economic faculty of organized crime, and the ongoing struggle to ensure international human rights.

Recent exposes of global surveillance have heightened already-heated debates about privacy in a technological society. In this paper, we explore the context and probable effects of this crisis, the character of privacy concerns, re-interpret what is meant by 'privacy', provide some solutions to the crisis. Fundamentally, we explore privacy not as a forensic or civil rights issue, but instead as a secondary psychological drive, the combination of two more profound drives – territoriality and identity. As such, the problem lies in the fact that cyberspace generally, is a wholly interconnected and networked environment which makes the demarcation of individual spaces problematic. However, by viewing privacy as identity territoriality, and by examining the psychology of those concepts, we can chart solutions to this crisis more easily. For example, we should interpret lower privacy concerns among youth as reflective of normal identity development processes in adolescence and young adulthood. Similarly, aspects of gender and temporality can be fruitfully incorporated to the discourse on privacy. On this basis, possible solutions and research directions are outlined to overcome the privacy crisis.

Research has shown that the higher penalties for discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1991 appear to have induced hiring discrimination. This occurs because employers use the proxy of protected group membership to identify high litigation risk employees in the absence of reliable indicators of true risk. This paper develops and tests a mechanism to reverse the induced discrimination. The mechanism creates a reliable signal of litigation risk to replace the imperfect proxy of protected group membership. This allows employers to reduce litigation risk without discriminating against protected groups. Experimental results indicate that the mechanism behaves as theory predicts. Accordingly, use of the mechanism could restore race/gender-blind hiring.

Illegal immigration has become a grave concern for the United States. The wave of the influx into the United States has been like a tsunami with cities struggling with how to deal with this issue. The poor certainly are welcome; however, it is not just about guest workers, but terrorist, human slavers, anarchists and those who have hidden agendas to overthrow the US government if their needs are not met. This paper will examine these issues.

Pursuant to §5 of the 14th Amendment, Congress passed 42 USC §1983, which gives individuals a remedy for constitutional violations. This statute was largely ignored for almost a century, until it was resurrected during the civil rights era. Though the statute is broadly worded, and the legislative history suggests that the statute was intended to be broadly applied, the Supreme Court has construed it narrowly. In Monroe v. Pape, the case that resurrected §1983, the Supreme Court excluded municipal liability from §1983. Seventeen years later, the Supreme Court acknowledged its mistake in Monroe, and held that municipalities are in fact liable under §1983, but only under very restrictive circumstances. This paper argues that the Supreme Court in Monell v. New York Department of Social Services made a mistake with regards to §1983’s history, its purpose, and the economic effects of application.

This essay explores how the past Civil Rights Movement and discrimination against persons of color, mainly Latinos and African Americans, can help to address current forms of discrimination in our country. In particular, since the election of the first African American President, who also has immigrant parents, many people have claimed that we have reached a “post-racial” America. In the new post-racial America, proponents claim that the pre-Civil Rights Movement racial caste system of the sixties has been eradicated. In this context, this essay seeks to explore whether there is any link between the past experiences of African Americans with the current experiences of Latinos in resisting laws that deprive both groups of their basic civil and human rights. To this end, this essay first examines past employment discrimination against Latinos and African Americans. Second, the paper addresses why there is an historical absence of a unified movement to address discrimination against African Americans and Latinos. The underlying goal is to create a sense of identification between African Americans and Latinos and their experiences in the United States. This section also addresses how both groups may or may not benefit from unified strategies to address discriminatory laws and work for the passage of laws that exclude persons from membership in the American society. The third section addresses how the law has reified social exclusion of African Americans and Latinos. This section focuses on using past models of resistance in an attempt to address labor discrimination against Latinos and African Americans as a wise strategy. Finally, the essay will discuss how intersection and structural-racism theories can be used as a foundation for building a coalition between African Americans and Latinos.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination in employment on the basis of color is prohibited, and color is a protected basis independent from race. Using data from the spouses of the main respondents to the New Immigrant Survey 2003, this paper shows that immigrants with the lightest skin color earn on average 16 percent to 23 percent more than comparable immigrants with the darkest skin color. These estimates control for years of legal permanent residence in the U.S., education, English language proficiency, occupation in source country, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, race, country of birth, as well as for extensive current labor market characteristics that may be themselves influenced by discrimination. Furthermore, the skin color penalty does not diminish over time. These results are consistent with persistent skin color discrimination affecting legal immigrants to the United States.

This paper describes seven cases, mostly from state courts, that are unremarkable except that they reveal a pattern of attack by conservative activists, including law firms, on the rights of lesbians and gay men. In attacking the rights of lesbians and gay men, these conservatives also frequently assert special rights for themselves. Five of these cases involve standing or intervention, with conservatives asserting patently insupportable (except in one case) claims to standing for the purpose of depriving lesbians and gay men of benefits. Two involve full faith and credit. With one exception, these are all state cases that would otherwise never attract much attention. By considering them all together, however, we see a pattern according to which conservatives are willing to jettison long-standing, well established principles of American law in order to chase queers in the legal system.

In this day and age, can the First Amendment sanction police surveillance of protected, non-criminal activity? Put differently, do we want the police spying on people who are not breaking the law? What are the constitutional ramifications of allowing such surveillance? How can injunctions and consent decrees operate to limit police activity, and what is the optimal balance such decrees should strike between the benefits of police protection and the burdens on First Amendment activity?In this essay, I examine these questions through the prism of the only federal police surveillance case of the last fifteen years, American Friends Service Committee v. City and County of Denver. I first discuss the history of such police surveillance, including the seminal cases from the 1970s and 1980s. These cases, and the consent decrees that resulted from them, effectively banned police surveillance of purely First Amendment activity. However, modifications of those decrees, particularly following 9/11, have undermined their effectiveness and left the state of the law somewhat confused. By examining one case, American Friends, in depth, I attempt to outline how a successful case to restore the protections gained in the 1970s might be litigated in the future.This paper is also available at the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse (search for case studies).

This paper explores the narrative strategies of majority and dissenting opinions in Lawrence v. Texas, Romer v. Evans, and Bowers v. Hardwick, all major lesbian/gay civil rights decisions. It demonstrates that the story of U.S. history - increasing protection for individual rights, or decreasing respect for moral and constitutional tradition - explains as much about the legal outcome as the doctrinal arguments that the opinions contain. In particular, it places these opinions into a discussion about the relationship between narrative and identity, individual and national. From this perspective, Justice Antonin Scalia shares with French philosopher Michel Foucault the belief that narrative is closely related to identity, with the important difference that Foucault celebrates the fragility of this connection while Scalia deplores it.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not include protection on the basis of sexual orientation. In a surprising, though legally justifiable move, courts have circumvented this prohibition by characterizing discrimination against gays and lesbians as a type of gender stereotyping outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins decades before. This paper explores this interesting legal phenomenon and the intersection of law and social policy in the workplace.

This paper uses panel data estimation techniques to examine the relation between the number of federal court civil filings by inmates and jail and state prison populations (and, hence, the relation between jail and prison inmate filing rates) both before and after the effective date, in 1996, of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). The research issue matters for several reasons. First, the amount of litigation by inmates is a crucial component of the regulatory regime governing jails and prisons and what factors drive filings, and by how much, deserves close attention and assessment. Second, the PLRA was a major congressional attempt to control and ration litigation; understanding its effects in finer gauge seems itself worthwhile. Third, we hope to show, methodologically, how research about litigation rates can be carried out sensitively, even if the litigation results from case filings by two separate populations. We make three major findings: (1) As expected, inmate filings vary positively with prison population. However, the relationship with jail population is less secure. (2) As the prison proportion of inmates in a particular state increases, so too does the number of filings. (3) The PLRA's passage has significantly lessened but not eliminated this prison proportion effect.

This paper reports on interviews with 246 randomly selected whites (25-55) in three areas of the country regarding views of civil rights and equal opportunity. The interviews find that most whites are positive about the civil rights movement, but are opposed to affirmative action in the form of quotas. The interviewees espouse a principle of colorblindness (that color doesn't or shouldn't matter), that everyone should have equal opportunity as long as they are qualified, and that those who try hard enough and don't give up will have a reasonable chance of reaching their goals. The interviewees condemn prejudice and discrimination based on color. Although there are some variations, these views are consistent across region, class, and gender. Because the interviewees believe that their views define what is fair, they do not see themselves as contributing to racial conflict. Many attribute to blacks a view that they believe to be unfair, namely, that blacks want special privileges and that they believe that the country owes them a living. The life histories of the white interviewees, however, show their own reliance on social capital and family resources. Indeed, the interviews show that most whites are not content to live by the principle of equal opportunity. Instead, they seek advantage. Because of the ideology of colorblindness, however, the advantages that the white interviewees enjoy are not salient to them. They believe themselves to have gotten ahead through hard work, motivation, persistence, and talent.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 (CRA91) was enacted after a rancorous debate about whether it was a "quota" hiring bill or a necessary means of opening labor markets. In this paper, we analyze the effects of CRA91 on the composition of firms' workforces. We consider employer behavior when firms vary exogenously in their susceptibility to discrimination suits and when firms can reduce their exposure to discrimination claims by employing more protected workers. These forces lead to a sorting effect, which causes firms that are more susceptible to discrimination litigation to substitute away from protected workers, and a quota effect, which causes firms with fewer pre-CRA91 protected workers to substitute toward these workers. We examine these effects empirically using data collected from a variety of sources. We find that trends in employment shares of protected workers changed after CRA91 in a manner consistent with the sorting effect. Whereas prior to CRA91 employment of blacks and women had been increasing in industries where they had been least represented, this trend did not continue into the post-CRA91 period. We find no evidence that CRA91 lead to widespread quota hiring and no evidence that CRA91 helped integrate industries that excluded protected workers.

Author(s): Weisselberg, Charles D. | Abstract: The article explores law enforcement compliance with Miranda in the wake of Dickerson and other recent cases. During the past decade, police officers in California have been taught that Miranda establishes a non-constitutional rule of evidence that police are free to disregard to obtain impeachment statements or other evidence. The practice has become so well established in California that it has acquired its own moniker, questioning "outside Miranda." By placing Miranda on a secure constitutional footing, Dickerson seems to undercut the theory that supports this practice. This article collects training materials used by police departments to explain the holding in Dickerson and recent decisions from the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals. The article concludes that the prospect of civil rights liability may, more than Dickerson, lead officers to comply with Miranda, though the practice of violating Miranda will only end if supervisors in the different police departments inculcate a culture of respect for Miranda.

This paper studies a possible link between two trends that have affected the labor market over the last decade: increases in wrongful termination litigation and increasing frequency of mass layoffs. We model the displacement strategy of a firm faced with concave displacement costs and employees who vary in productivity. The firm has some periods of "layoffs," where it displaces a relatively large group, and other periods where it engages in selective "firings" of only the least productive employees. We show that layoffs and firings are substitutes and that the set of steady-state policies shifts in the direction of smaller firings and larger layoffs as the cost of firings increases. We explore the relationship between displacement costs and layoff size by considering potential effects of the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1991. By increasing most firms' exposure to wrongful termination lawsuits, this legislation made displacements of smaller groups of workers more costly without proportionately affecting the costs of large layoffs. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), we explore the effects of CRA91 using variation in protected status (specifically, race), state Fair Employment Laws, age, and employer size. We find evidence suggesting that CRA91 affected firms' choices about how to displace workers and had especially strong effects on the firing rates of black men.

This paper will explore the evolution of the bill which was originally called the “Civil Rights Amendments of 1974" into the “Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1997." The principle focus will be on how the current version of this law can be characterized as a reaction to the controversies and developments in the broader field of personnel management and the way it is a reflection of American society’s “hopes and fears” about providing equal employment opportunity to not only lesbian and gay citizens, but to any protected class.

A history of the formation and work of the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee, an organization created to provide legal assistance to the Civil Rights Movement in 1964. The history relies heavily on interviews with those who formed the organization as well as volunteer lawyers who worked in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida in 1964 and 1965. The paper was a senior honors thesis in the Department of History at Columbia University, advised by Professor Alan Brinkley.