Civil Rights and Liberties
2020 Summit for Civil Rights – Who’s Profiting?
November 23, 2020
The $2 Billion-Plus Price of Injustice: A Methodological Map for Police Reform in the George Floyd Era
March 22, 2021
View/Download PDF Version David Schultz† Introduction The death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer forced America again to confront the connection between racism and law enforcement. It also compelled the City of Minneapolis to act. Merely a few days later on June 7, 2020 a majority…
Continue ReadingAbove the Law: How Kim Potter’s Sentencing Serves as Another Example of Police Receiving Disproportionately Low Sentences
March 7, 2022
The recent sentencing of former Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kimberly Potter provides a reminder that police officers who kill people while on duty are granted leniency over and over again in the criminal justice system.
Continue ReadingThe Forgotten Child Bride in the United States
December 1, 2022
In this blog post, staffer Rachel Emendorfer discusses child marriage in the United States, the current landscape of legal issues surrounding marriages involving minors, and the specific impact child marriage has on young girls.
Continue ReadingBreonna Taylor is Not Forgotten: Department of Justice Finds Civil Rights Violations by the Louisville Metro Police Department and the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government
May 9, 2023
By Alejandrea Brown* Police violence and misconduct against Black people in America is not a new phenomenon. Studies have shown that Black people are 3.23 times more likely than White people to be killed by the police.[1] The lack of accountability concerning police misconduct and violence against the Black community is also not new trend.[2] …
Continue ReadingResponse to MPD’s Killing of George Floyd
June 2, 2020
by Jen Davison and the JLI Editorial Team On May 25, 2020, a White Minneapolis Police Department officer killed George Floyd, a Black man in our Twin Cities community. The White police officer killed Mr. Floyd while Mr. Floyd was in police custody, and bystanders captured the scene of Mr. Floyd’s final…
Continue ReadingThe Movement Lawyer of 2020
August 11, 2020
Want to hear how two recent University of Minnesota Law grads chose to respond to the tragic killing of George Floyd? Click the link to learn more about the inspiration behind the “Breathless” podcast, created by Ian Taylor, Jr. (’19) and Haaris Pasha (’19).
Continue ReadingHow We Got Here: Race, Police Use of Force, and the Road to George Floyd
April 1, 2021
Long before the killing of George Floyd, the United States has struggled to mitigate racially arbitrary use of force by the police. This article seeks to explain how we got to the killing of George Floyd. This article contends that that the law—especially the decisions of the Supreme Court and political choices made by politicians—has helped to enable the relatively unchecked use of force against people of color.
Continue ReadingBiden’s Private Prison Ban Must Include ICE Detention
March 16, 2022
By Katie McCoy* Our incarceration-focused immigration system needlessly locks up hundreds of thousands of noncitizens each year. The number of people incarcerated in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody was 15,000 when President Biden first took office, and it now hovers near 29,000. Sixty-nine percent of those detained have no criminal history. Many ICE detention…
Continue ReadingFirst Down, First Amendment: A Case Comment on Kennedy v. Bremerton School District
December 2, 2022
Note & Comment Editor Karissa Grapes analyzes a recent Supreme Court decision and discusses its impact on religious practices in schools.
Continue ReadingExpungement: The Missing Federal Piece
May 10, 2023
While states have created their own expungement laws, nothing similar exists under federal law. In this blog post, staff member Diana Kawka explores federal expungement law and offers solutions to solve this gap.
Continue ReadingJLI’s Statement of Solidarity
June 2, 2020
Black Lives Matter. The Journal of Law & Inequality extends its deepest sympathies to Mr. George Floyd’s loved ones and condemns the unequal legal system that continues to destroy Black American lives like Mr. Floyd’s. The Journal is deeply concerned that police brutality is disproportionately affecting Black Americans in our city and demands an independent and unbiased investigation into Mr. Floyd’s killing.
Continue ReadingAvoiding Atkins: How Tennessee is on the Verge of Unconstitutionally Executing an Individual with Intellectual Disabilities
November 18, 2020
If the state executes an intellectually disabled individual, but no one knows of the intellectual disability, has the state violated the constitution? It is our sincerest hope that Pervis Payne and others in a similar procedural labyrinth that could lead to what everyone agrees would be an unconstitutional execution are provided an opportunity to present the merits of their claims of intellectual disability. Justice, decency, and the Constitution demand it.
Continue ReadingWhere There’s Not a Will, There’s a Way: What We Can Learn From Same-Sex Adult Adoption
March 24, 2021
Sharon Maher[1] Like many same-sex couples hearing about the landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges,[2] Bill Novak and Norman MacArthur were excited to finally marry each other. But unlike most couples, Novak and MacArthur still had one more legal hurdle in the way of their union: they were legally father and son.[3] In 2000, after…
Continue ReadingA Constitutional Necessity, Not a Luxury: States Must Provide Public Defender Offices With More Resources to Provide Indigent Defendants With Effective Counsel
March 30, 2022
By Haashir Lakhani* The phrase “you have the right to an attorney” is so ingrained in our social conscience that we perhaps do not even give it a second thought. The task of upholding this right for indigent defendants falls largely on public defenders, with some cases being assigned to other court-appointed attorneys. However, underfunded…
Continue ReadingUnhoused and Handcuffed
January 13, 2023
By Eleanor Khirallah Under the guise of addressing homelessness and mental illness in New York City, on Tuesday, November 28, 2022, Mayor Eric Adams announced a new directive that allows the involuntary hospitalization of people suspected to be mentally ill on the street or subway. The city directive authorizes peace officers and police officers to…
Continue ReadingExamining the Constitutionality of Targeted Residential Protest Bans
May 12, 2023
By Alexandra Schrader-Dobris Introduction: Minnesota cities are steadily banning targeted residential protests in response to several Black Lives Matter demonstrations following George Floyd’s death in 2020.[1] That summer, over one hundred Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters picketed outside Minneapolis Police Union President Bob Kroll’s house, calling for his resignation as a result of his failure…
Continue ReadingTurning Gaming Dollars into Non-Gaming Revenue: Hedging for the Seventh Generation
May 27, 2016
by Shane Plumer
There are four levels of diversification that tribes engage in: level one consists of amenities to gaming facilities; level two consists of tourist-reliant non-gaming businesses; level three involves on-reservation businesses that export products off the reservation; and the most sophisticated level involves acquiring off-reservation businesses in order to access more diverse markets. Historically, tribal economic development has been hindered by lack of access to capital markets, limitations placed on federal funding, federal Indian policy that requires creation of jobs on the reservation, information asymmetry and conservative investment strategies that are holdovers from how federal agencies invested tribal funds. This article provides a roadmap for cutting-edge tribal economic development that focuses on off-reservation investment by mobilizing investment banks and private equity in order to diversify tribal investment portfolios.
2020 Summit for Civil Rights – The State of Multi-Racial America and Black Power
November 16, 2020
In “The State Of Multi-Racial America And Black Power” panel, AG Ellison began his keynote speech by acknowledging the efforts of the common people protesting in the streets every day “bringing forth justice, freedom, [and] accountability in [the criminal justice] system.” Ellison remarked that in order to ensure that Black lives matter Black Power…
Continue Reading“How Are We Supposed to Move Forward with THIS Police Force After This?”: The Stalled Reform Movement in Minneapolis
March 26, 2021
Gabrielle Maginn* On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. The horrifying incident, in which Floyd calls out for his mother and tells Chauvin and the other officers present that he can’t breathe, was caught on camera and broadcast widely. In the days and weeks that followed, residents of…
Continue ReadingProtecting Civil Liberties: Easier Said Than Done
April 1, 2022
by Julia Decker* It is easy to say that voting is the cornerstone of our democracy, perhaps easier still to say that protecting the right to vote is paramount. There is nuance, however, in assessing those protections. In an era of what many perceive to be increasing political polarization, ostensibly neutral yet increasingly stringent…
Continue ReadingD.C. Statehood: A Half-Made Promise Losing Momentum
January 11, 2023
In the newest blog post on Inequality Inquiry, staff member Sergi Torres reviews and responds to arguments against D.C. statehood.
Continue ReadingRight to Spiritual Advisors During Executions: Missouri’s Latest Refusal and the Supreme Court’s Evolving Jurisprudence
June 12, 2023
In Inequality Inquiry’s latest blog post, Britane Hubbard discusses how the Missouri Department of Corrections denied Leonard “Raheem” Taylor’s request for a spiritual advisor leading up to his execution.
Continue ReadingPass Senate Bill 355: How Proposed Minnesota Legislation Brings the U.S. into Compliance with International Norms
May 25, 2016
by Maria Warhol
As the 2016 presidential election approaches, the issue of voting rights in the United States is more salient than ever. While millions of people will take advantage of their right to vote in the election, nearly six million U.S. citizens are unable to vote as a result of a felony conviction. Of this disenfranchised population, only 25% are incarcerated. The remaining 75% are in the process of completing supervised release (probation or parole) or have served their sentence entirely. This concern only deepens when data reveals that disenfranchisement policy disparately impacts some communities more than others. These concerning figures impact almost every state in the United States.
