Inequality Inquiry
Shorter Form Content from the Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality
Purging False Narratives Around Cash Bail
October 28, 2022
By Christian Purnell. With Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act (PFA) set to take effect in a matter of months, opponents are stepping up their efforts to spread misinformation about the law on social media. Homing in on a provision of the PFA that abolishes cash bail in the state’s pretrial system, Twitter trolls, and even…
Continue ReadingHow Worker Centers Can Build Working Class Solidarity Outside of Traditional American Labor Law
June 23, 2022
View/Download PDF Version By Jon Erik Haines† Those who believe in the power of the labor movement have struggled to process the continued, seemingly unstoppable decline in union membership over the last 50 years. The percentage of the American workforce that is represented by a union fell to a significant low in 2020.[1] The causes…
Continue ReadingA Full Constellation of Benefits: How In Re the Custody of N.S.V. Exemplifies the Need for Courts and Legislatures to Readdress Definitions of Parenthood in Light of the Recognition of Same-sex Relationships
June 21, 2022
View/Download PDF Version By Esther Raty† Two women fall in love, move in together, and decide to start a family.[1] While two women cannot both genetically[2] be the parent of one child, they can choose when to have a child, which sperm donor to use, and how to co-parent a child.[3] However, no matter how…
Continue ReadingMore than Miranda: Exploring Preventive Solutions to Juvenile False Confessions
May 31, 2022
Juveniles, at a right rate, waiver their Miranda rights during interrogations with police, but they are also more likely to make false confessions. This blog explores solutions to this problem, including modifications to Miranda and requirements for counsel.
Continue ReadingEmergency Intellectual Property Reform: COVID-19 and Vaccines
The healthcare industry, like others, relies on patent and trade secret law to protect sensitive and profitable information. This blog discusses the extent to which these laws should apply, though, to life-saving vaccines during a global pandemic such as COVID-19.
Continue ReadingThe Arsenic Triangle of South Minneapolis
Cedar Weyker discusses ongoing public health and environmental concerns caused by the “arsenic triangle” in South Minneapolis.
Continue ReadingWorker-Led Organization: Is a New Labor Wave on the Horizon?
Andrew Selva examines recent efforts by workers to unionize in the face of resistance from corporate juggernauts.
Continue ReadingGentrification, Displacement, and Disparate Impact Liability: How Gentrification Theory is Not Cognizable Under the Fair Housing Act
May 2, 2022
by Adam Mikell* In the United States, the topic of housing has an ugly history comprised of decades of government-sanctioned discrimination and segregation carried out through racially-motivated practices such as “neighborhood composition” rules, racial covenants, steering, and redlining. In 1968—the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement—the Fair Housing Act (FHA) was passed to…
Continue ReadingThe Constitutionality of SB 1142
April 28, 2022
By Chase Lindemann[1] On March 1, 2022, Oklahoma State Senator Rob Standridge introduced Senate Bill 1142 to the Oklahoma Senate Floor.[2] SB 1142’s title states that this bill is an act “prohibiting certain schools and school libraries from maintaining or promoting certain books.”[3] If a parent believes that there is a violation of SB…
Continue ReadingWhat’s Wrong With My Hair?: Discrimination Against Black Hair in the Workplace
April 26, 2022
By Jocelyn Rimes* I spent the days leading up to my first day of my summer law clerk position agonizing over how I would do my hair. While still unsure, I eventually decided that I would do a twist-out, sectioning my hair in small twists and untwisting it the next day for defined curls. On…
Continue ReadingSigning Away Your Right to Parent: How Safety Plans Evade Due Process Requirements in Child Welfare Proceedings
April 20, 2022
By Eleanor Khirallah While safety plans are supposedly voluntary and lack the court’s involvement, there have been many questions about the coercion involved in having parents sign these agreements. This is particularly true because these plans may be used to deprive parents of their right to custody of their children without due process of law.
Continue ReadingAn Illogical and Harmful Assessment: Credibility Findings in Trauma Survivor Asylum Applicants
April 18, 2022
By Linnea VanPilsum-Bloom* The current focus on and process for establishing credibility in asylum application interviews is illogical and harmful. A person who seeks asylum in the United States will either request asylum affirmatively, by applying to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), or through their potential removal in Immigration Court. In either process, the…
Continue ReadingRacism, Social Control, and the Regulation of Bar Admissions
April 14, 2022
By Professor David Schultz* Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. famously declared: “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” When it comes to admission to practice law, one could say that “The life of admission to practice law has not been fairness but exclusion.” From its birth, America was a racist…
Continue ReadingOut of the Cell and Into the Fire: Inherently Dangerous Prison Work Assignments, the Eighth Amendment’s Guarantee of Safe Conditions of Confinement, and California’s AB-2147
April 13, 2022
by River Lord[1] Using the labor of inmates in the United States has a long and controversial tradition. Many observers have identified how higher rates of policing and incarceration among minority communities, coupled with the widespread use of inmate labor in exchange for sub-minimum wages, create a system of labor exploitation and racial oppression…
Continue ReadingAttack on the Right to Choose
April 12, 2022
By Laura Gustafson* A person’s right to choose has been under attack by state actions for some time, making headlines as the Supreme Court rules on bills restricting access to abortion. These bills can inflict great harm on people and attack the right to choose, but there is another very real threat that often goes…
Continue Reading“The Harvest of Solidarity”: Achievements of Black Activists Following the 1921 Duluth Lynchings
April 11, 2022
By Brenna Evans[1] Minnesota’s history with lynchings is a long and bloody one. [2] Over two dozen lynching attacks stain Minnesota’s history, but none are more infamous than the 1921 lynchings of Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson, and Elias Clayton in Duluth.[3] But one part of this brutal history that is often overlooked is the…
Continue ReadingDiscriminating Against Survivors of Domestic Violence as Sex-Based Discrimination Under Title VII
April 6, 2022
By Kendra Saathoff* Discriminating against a woman for being a victim of domestic violence is sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Domestic violence is a workplace issue, whether from an abuser threatening an office and the workers in it or because a survivor needs to miss work to ensure she…
Continue ReadingInsurer Liability for Discriminatory Policies: Can Insurers as Agents of the Employer Be Liable Under Title VII?
April 5, 2022
By Elizabeth Wellhausen* In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One section of the Act, referred to as Title VII, made it illegal for an employer to discriminate against an individual because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. However, the courts have struggled to…
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 ReadingIgnoring Inequalities and Refusing to Consider Consequences: The Supreme Court’s Blocking of OSHA’s Emergency COVID Standard
March 31, 2022
By Brandon Vaca[1] On January 13, the six conservative Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court stayed (blocked) and effectively struck down the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) emergency vaccine-or-test standard (Standard) for employers.[2] The Court’s reasoning in its unsigned opinion ranges from vexing to troubling. As the three dissenting Justices pointed out, the Court…
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 ReadingA Healthy Start: Minnesota Is Pioneering an Alternative to Prison Nurseries, and Other States Should Follow Its Lead
March 28, 2022
by Rachel Pokrzywinski* In May 2021, Governor Tim Walz signed Minnesota’s Healthy Start Act (HSA) into law. The first of its kind in the United States, the HSA authorizes placement of pregnant and postpartum inmates into alternative housing—such as halfway houses and residential treatment facilities—with their newborns for up to one year after birth.…
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 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 ReadingInjured on the Job: Minnesota Case Presents Opportunity to Address Employment Rights of Medical Cannabis Users
March 3, 2022
Grace Moore* The United States Supreme Court seems poised to consider the case of an employee injured in Mendota Heights, Minnesota that could settle a dilemma in employment law that has divided state courts and denied injured workers their employment rights. In Musta v. Mendota Heights Dental Center (“Musta”), the Minnesota Supreme Court determined that…
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