Civil Rights Movements & the Law

"The 21st Century law enforcement officer serves a variety of public service functions only some of which involve the enforcement of criminal laws. From some of those non-criminal public service roles the courts have recognized the community caretaking doctrine to authorize some limited stops and searches by officers that may not be related to criminal enforcement duties."

"U.S. Supreme Court justices returned to the contentious issue of police powers on Wednesday as they grappled with whether to make it easier for officers to enter a home without a warrant for reasons of health or public safety in a case involving the confiscation of a Rhode Island man's guns."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday expanded the ability of people to sue police for excessive force ruling in favor of a New Mexico woman who filed a civil rights lawsuit after being shot by officers she had mistaken for carjackers."

"Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a blistering dissent Thursday hammered a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Brett Kavanaugh that rejected certain limits on juvenile life sentences."

"Against a backdrop of increasing national attention to police violence the Supreme Court on Thursday issued an opinion in a closely watched criminal-procedure case that clarifies the meaning of the term seizure."

"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."

"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."

"Justices of the United States Supreme Court have heard and ruled on many cases that have dealt with race”questions such as who has the right to use the courts where can black and white people live what public schools can a person attend and how can education be equal for everyone? For the courts rulings from earlier cases set a precedent for current and future rulings. Sometimes the Court even states when an earlier Court's ruling was just flat out wrong or misguided. The five cases below were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and dealt with how the Court interpreted race and who has rights under the law."

"White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday called the fatal police shooting of a Black teenage girl in Columbus Ohio 'tragic' and said that President Biden has been briefed on the matter."

"The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday welcomed a pledge by U.S. President Joe Biden to work towards abolishing the death penalty in the United States."

"A second local prosecutor on Thursday asked the U.S. Justice Department to have his name removed from a controversial report on policing reforms saying he feared it would fail to address systemic racism in the criminal justice system."

"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."

"In 1994 death penalty lawyer Stephen Bright published his seminal essay Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer. His argument 'succinctly stated in the title' was that indigent defendants were disproportionately sentenced to death because their lawyers (who were often court-appointed) were under-resourced ill-prepared and failed at the most basic levels in their duty to represent their clients."

"This page outlines various key court cases that deal with racial issues from a legal standpoint. These sites offer an introduction and information about historic precedents and other data that also impact on viewpoints found in relation to decisions made within wider society."

"On January 5 2022 the governor of Louisiana posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy the defendant in the famous 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. Plessy is known for affirming the legal theory of 'separate but equal' that was used to justify Jim Crow laws in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was later overturned in part by Brown v. Board of Education."

"President-elect Joe Biden will be under tremendous pressure to take action toward greater racial justice throughout the country on Day 1 of his presidency following massive nationwide protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor along with other incidents of violence against Black Americans."

"Vice President Harris on Tuesday urged every American to do their part to confront racial injustice after a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder in the death of George Floyd."

"The president promised one during his campaign. But civil rights groups and police union reps both said it wasn't necessary."

"President Biden and Vice President Harris on Tuesday phoned the family of George Floyd after a jury found ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of Floyd's murder. 'Vice President Harris on Tuesday phoned the family of George Floyd after a jury found ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of Floyd's murder.'"

"President Joe Biden signed a bill establishing Juneteenth the date marking the end of slavery in the United States as a federal holiday."

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) decried the Trump administration's decision to appoint Darren Beattie to a commission tasked with preserving Holocaust-related sites after it originally fired him in 2018 for appearing at a conference with white nationalists."

"President Joe Biden on Monday issued a proclamation to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre when hundreds of Black Americans were killed by a White mob that attacked a prosperous Black neighborhood and burned dozens of city blocks to the ground."

"Trump refused to condemn the insurrection which left five people dead including a Capitol law enforcement officer. He even praised the rioters calling them "patriots" saying "we love you" and "you are very special." The episode was reminiscent of his notorious declaration that there were "very fine people on both sides" in the aftermath of the violence at the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville Virginia."

"Current attempts to correct historical discrimination by local and regional offices of the USDA have been met with charges of 'reverse discrimination'"

Compiled resources from Harvard Law Review.

"Race Racism And The Law considers race racism and racial distinctions in the law. It examines the role of domestic and international law in promoting and/or alleviating racism. This website makes law review scholarship (and related material) more accessible to community activists students and non-legal faculty."

"This blog is maintained by Pamela Oliver. I am a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. My specialties are collective action and social movements race and ethnicity and racial disparities in criminal justice."

"The Presidential Inaugural Committee for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has announced that former National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman will perform her poetry at the 59th Presidential Inaugural Swearing-In Ceremony set to take place on Wednesday January 20 on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. Amanda who was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate in April 2017 will become only the 6th poet to perform at a presidential inauguration and the first inaugural poet since Richard Blanco who read his poem “One Today” at Barack Obama’s 2013 inaugural. She is also the youngest ever inaugural poet."

"NOBLE has been at the forefront of promoting police accountability since the organization's inception in 1976. NOBLE's mission is to ensure equity in the administration of justice and in the provision of public service to all communities and to serve as the conscience of law enforcement agencies and personnel by being committed to justice by action."

"The Multiculturalism Policy Index is a scholarly research project that monitors the evolution of multiculturalism policies in 21 Western democracies. The project is designed to provide information about multiculturalism policies in a standardized format that aids comparative research and contributes to the understanding of state-minority relations. The project provides an index for each of three types of minorities: one index relating to immigrant groups one relating to historic national minorities and one relating to indigenous peoples. The Multiculturalism Policy Index and supporting documentation are freely available for researchers public officials journalists students activists and others interested in the topic."