Your Latino Law Student Association: Interview with President Luis Torrero - Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library Blog
This is the second post in a series about student organizations at the College of Law to help students find out what is going on at the school and get involved. Each blog post will feature an interview with the leadership of a student group.
President Luis Torrero agreed to answer some questions about the Latino Law Student Association (LLSA). Thank you, Luis, for taking a break from your studies to answer a few questions.
Día de los Muertos at the Law Library - Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library Blog
Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos)
The Day of the Dead (el Día de los Muertos), is a Mexican holiday where families welcome back the souls of their deceased relatives for a brief reunion that includes food, drink and celebration. A blend of Mesoamerican ritual, European religion and Spanish culture. The holiday is celebrated each year from October 31- November 2. While October 31 is Halloween, November 1 is "el Dia de los Inocentes," or the day of the children who have passed away, and All Saints Day. November 2 is All Souls Day or the Day of the Dead. According to tradition, the gates of heaven are open at midnight on October 31 and the spirits of children can rejoin their families for 24 hours. The spirits of adults can do the same on November 2.
Law Library Black History Month Book Display and Other Resources - Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library Blog
As we begin February, we mark the beginning of Black History Month.
Black History Month dates back to 1915 when Charter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History as a way to encourage others to popularize and promote the achievements of the Black community. In February of 1926 he announced the first “Negro History Week.” He chose February because it encompasses the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, and urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
Black couple settles lawsuit claiming their home appraisal was lowballed due to bias
Paul Austin and Tenisha Tate-Austin alleged that an appraiser undervalued their home by nearly $500,000. They got a higher appraisal after they removed evidence that a Black family lived in the home.
“Plantation Politics”: How White Mississippi Lawmakers Want to Seize Power in Majority-Black Jackson
Mississippi’s Republican majority in the state Legislature has put forth a slew of bills in recent months to put the majority-Black capital of Jackson under a white-led superstructure. Under the proposed bills, the Capitol Police would be expanded and given greater authority over much of Jackson without being accountable to local leaders or residents, and a separate court system would be set up in the city, composed of judges appointed directly by white state officials. This comes after Jackson suffered a number of water crises in recent years stemming from systematic disinvestment by the state, and after the federal government approved $600 million late last year to address the city’s infrastructure problems. “These bills are an attack on Black leadership, a way to seize power of a majority-Black city which cannot be seized democratically through an election,” says Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. We also speak with community activist Makani Themba, who described the state’s plans in a recent piece for The Nation as “Apartheid American-Style.”
Climate change is racist : race, privilege and the struggle for climate justice - Jeremy Williams
"When we talk about racism, we often mean personal prejudice or institutional bias. Climate change isn't racist in that way. It is structurally racist, disproportionately caused by majority White people in majority White counties, with the damage unleashed overwhelmingly on people of colour. In this eye-opening book, writer and environmental activist Jeremy Williams takes us on a short, urgent journey across the globe--from Kenya to India, the USA to Australia--to understand how White privilege and climate change overlap. We'll look at the environmental facts, hear the experiences of the people most affected on our planet and learn from the activists leading the charge."--Back cover
National Indian Law Library (NILL) of the Native American Rights Fund
The National Indian Law Library at the Native American Rights Fund supports justice through knowledge by providing unique and useful Indian Law information.
The development of law is inextricably linked to matters of race and ethnicity. The stories of minority citizens--the texture of their lives, the prejudices they have endured, and their struggles for fair treatment--have been documented in the pages of legal opinions, as judges over the years have wrestled with fundamental questions of racial bias and inequality. Studying race, ethnicity, and the law is challenging for many reasons, not the least of which is the prime difficulty of defining what we mean by race. Even the choice of words used to identify minority individuals has social and political ramifications. How law functions to oppress and liberate minorities has been a longstanding topic in the field of sociolegal studies. Issues of race, ethnicity, and law have taken on new urgency in recent years, as affirmative action and reverse discrimination claims as well as reapportionment battles and racial hate speech cases have come before the courts.
This special issue of Law and Human Behavior focuses on social science research on race, ethnicity, and the law. Articles in the special issue consider the influence of race and ethnicity on substantive law, legal processes, and crime and deviance, and illustrate the tensions and contradictions that pervade the law's treatment of racial and ethnic minorities. We conclude that taking race and ethnicity into account may force scholars to reconceptualize theories about law's impact and that a greater number of racial and ethnic minority scholars would enrich the field of sociolegal studies.
Law Schools Make Remarkable Progress – Boosting Bar Pass Rates and Diversity Standards
Three law schools have managed to comply with the American Bar Association’s (ABA) accreditation standard requiring a two-year bar passage rate of at least 75%. The ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar recently announced that Ave Maria School of Law, the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School […]
Rep. Bush Calls Trump a 'White Supremacist President' on House Floor - Aris Folley
"Newly sworn-in Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) referred to President Trump as the 'white supremacist in chief' in her remarks on the House floor on Wednesday as the lower chamber prepares to impeach the president for a second time."
Curtis B. Stuckey, the outspoken civil rights attorney who became a champion of the downtrodden though his crusade for justice, died Aug. 10 at his home in Nacogdoches.
Art and Abolition: Art Objects and the Rejection of Slavery
Conversations about cultural property usually revolve around questions of ownership, conservation, national patrimony and public access. From a legal perspective, the origins and provenance of individual artworks or artifacts are of primary importance. Yet from
Hate crimes in US reach highest level in more than a decade
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade as federal officials also recorded the highest number of hate-motivated killings since the FBI began collecting that data in the early 1990s, according to an FBI report released Monday...
Seattle becomes the first US city to ban caste discrimination
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council on Tuesday added caste to the city's anti-discrimination laws, becoming the first U.S. city to ban caste discrimination and the first in the world to pass such a law outside South Asia.
"Current attempts to correct historical discrimination by local and regional offices of the USDA have been met with charges of 'reverse discrimination'"
Muslim Advocacy Group Sues Facebook Over Claims it Removes Hate Speech - Elizabeth Culliford
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Civil rights group Muslim Advocates sued Facebook Inc and its top executives on Thursday alleging they misled the U.S. Congress and others by falsely claiming the company removes content that violates its policies."
Mississippi Governor Signs Law Removing Confederate Design From State Flag - Debbie Elliott
"After more than 120 years of flying over the state of Mississippi the Confederate battle flag is no longer a part of the state's official flag.
On Tuesday Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law a bill fast-tracked by the Mississippi Legislature over the weekend that calls for a new design. In a somber ceremony Reeves said he was signing the law to turn a page in Mississippi."
North Carolina City Bans Protests Protecting Confederate Monument A - Aida Chavez
"A North Carolina city is using a restrictive ordinance to outlaw protest threatening to arrest anyone who even attempts to peacefully protest without a permit as part of an effort to protect a Confederate monument that sits outside its courthouse."
New York City school segregation perpetuates racism lawsuit contends - Joseph Ax
"A group of New York City students filed a sweeping lawsuit on Tuesday that accuses the United States’ largest public school system of perpetuating racism via a flawed admissions process for selective programs that favors white students."
New York State Bar Forms Task Force to Address Racism and Social Inequality - Eduardo Munoz
"The New York State Bar Association is launching a task force focused on examining and addressing structural racism and other types of prejudice as part of its latest effort to resolve broader national social problems."
U.S. Supreme Court Takes up FBI Bid to Block Muslim Civil Rights Suit - Lawrence Hurley
"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the FBI's bid to block a civil rights lawsuit by three Muslim men from California who accused the agency of illegally conducting surveillance on them following the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the United States."
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case Involving Racial Slur in Workplace - Melissa Quinn
"The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a legal battle involving one of the most offensive words in the English language spurning a case raising whether its utterance in the workplace even one time creates a hostile work environment."
Rep. Andy Kim on Asian hate: 'I've never felt this level of fear' - Scott Wong
"Amid a rash of violent incidents aimed at Asian Americans Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) on Tuesday spoke about the racism and xenophobia his family has personally experienced and said he has never felt this level of fear before in his life."
"The barbed debate over racial justice is exploding this week on Capitol Hill, as Democrats in both chambers are charging ahead with a host of proposals to empower minorities amid the national clash over police bias, brutality and the future of law enforcement."