Category: Law

  • Chris Harper Mercer: details emerge of Oregon college killer The Guardian 2015-10-02 Ben Jacobs and Nicky Woolf Chris Harper Mercer, the alleged gunman in the Oregon shootings. He had captioned this photo: ‘Me, holding a rifle.’ Photograph: Myspace Umpqua college shooter, who was born in England according to media reports, had a varied online presence…

  • What Makes Black Men Run From the Police? The Root 2015-08-27 Will Jawando Your Take: A good, hard look at the statistics will tell you why African Americans have reason to fear an encounter with police. t’s never much of a surprise when I hear it, but it stings all the same. Freddie Gray would…

  • The 1965 Act at 50 Adam S.I. Goodman 2015-09-24 Adam Goodman President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Hart-Celler Act, 3 October 1965, Liberty Island, NY, NY. (Photo credit: LBJ Presidential Library/Yoichi Okamoto) Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1965 Immigration Act. By eliminating the discriminatory national-origins quota system, the Act created…

  • Here’s why Equal Protection may not protect everyone equally The Washington Post 2015-09-23 Lauren Sudeall Lucas, Assistant Professor of Law Georgia State University Intersectionality is the acknowledgment that different forms of identity-based discrimination can combine to give rise to unique brands of injustice. For example, although women may generally face certain challenges in the workplace…

  • The Science Behind ‘They All Look Alike to Me’ The New York Times 2015-09-20 Rachel L. Swarns The outcry was immediate and ferocious when a white New York City police officer tackled James Blake, the retired biracial tennis star, while arresting him this month in a case of mistaken identity. The officer mistook Mr. Blake…

  • Identity and Form California Law Review Volume 103, Number 4 (August 2015) pages 747-838 Jessica A. Clarke, Associate Professor of Law University of Minnesota Recent controversies over identity claims have prompted questions about who should qualify for affirmative action, who counts as family, who is a man or a woman, and who is entitled to…

  • James Blake doesn’t want NYPD cop who tackled him to ‘ever have a badge and gun again’ The New York Daily News 2015-09-12 Wayne Coffey, Special Reporter Rich Schapiro, Staff Writer Retired tennis star James Blake said Saturday the NYPD cop who brutally wrestled him to the ground should be served his walking papers. “I…

  • James Blake and the Myth of an Unarrestable Black Man The Daily Beast 2015-09-10 Tomás Ríos Bill Bratton said race ‘had nothing at all to do’ with tennis star James Blake’s wrongful collaring and arrest. The numbers tell a different story. What does a non-white person have to do for the police to leave them…

  • The twisted irony of the NYPD wrongly assaulting and detaining black tennis star James Blake The Daily Kos 2015-09-10 Shawn King Yeah. This really happened. Retired black tennis star James Blake, in an NYPD double-fault, was slammed to a Manhattan sidewalk and handcuffed by a white cop in a brutal case of mistaken identity. The…

  • Police Tactics in Harsh Glare After Arrest of James Blake The New York Times 2015-09-10 Benjamin Mueller, Al Baker and Liz Robbins A New York Police Department officer was stripped of his gun and badge as Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton issued swift apologies on Thursday for the rough arrest…