My draft paper on “The Child Labor Amendment and the Court-Packing Plan,” which I’ve blogged about previously, is now available here.

The Court described the factual basis for finding that the City’s decision not to use the test scores was disparate treatment discrimination against those testtakers — the [...]]]> While the Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano focused mostly on disparate impact law, much of the subsequent discussion has focused on the threshold finding that the City of New Haven’s decision not to use the test scores to promote firefighters was, as a matter of law, disparate treatment discrimination against some white firefighters who would be promoted if the test scores were used. Recent events suggest that the issues raised in those discussion may have to be decided since African-American testtakers have now challenged the use of the test scores as both disparate treatment and disparate impact discrimination.

The Court described the factual basis for finding that the City’s decision not to use the test scores was disparate treatment discrimination against those testtakers — the 17 whites and two Hispanic who would have been promoted if the test scores were used:

“When the examination results showed that white candidates had outperformed minority candidates, the mayor and other local politicians opened a public debate that turned rancorous. Some firefighters argued the tests should be discarded because the results showed the tests to be discriminatory. They threatened a discrimination lawsuit if the City made promotions based on the tests. Other firefighters said the exams were neutral and fair. And they, in turn, threatened a discrimination lawsuit if the City, relying on the statistical racial disparity, ignored the test results and denied promotions to the candidates who had performed well. In the end the City took the side of those who protested the test results. It threw out the examinations.”

The Court later describes why those facts support, as a matter of law, a finding of disparate treatment discrimination:

“The City’s actions would violate the disparate-treatment prohibition of Title VII absent some valid defense. All the evidence demonstrates that the City chose not to certify the examination results because of the statistical disparity based on race—i.e., how minority candidates had performed when compared to white candidates. . . . Whatever the City’s ultimate aim—however well intentioned or benevolent it might have seemed—the City made its employment decision because of race. The City rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white.”

In sum, because the City knew the distribution by race of the test scores and knew that if the scores were used to promote firefighters to lieutenant and captain positions, no African American testtakers and all but two Hispanic testtakers would not get promoted to fill the openings that then existed.  (Over the two year lifetime of the test, three African Americans might be considered for promotion to lieutenant if there were new openings.) While the Court appeared to focus on two racial groups of testtakers – whites and African-Americans — in fact there were six different groups based on three racial groups members which were represented in two groups — those affected favorably by the decision not to use the test scores and those affected unfavorably.

 These are the six different groups:

 1. The  24 African American who, because the City decided not to use the test scores,  now have an improved chance for promotion if some other method is used to make the promotions. The City claims their threat of a disparate impact lawsuit was why it decided not to use the test scores.

2. The three African-American testtakers who might be considered for promotion to lieutenant if there were more openings over the two year life span of the test results. If it was decided not to use the test scores, their chance for promotion probably decline but that would not be known until it was known what the alternative promotion procedures the City might adopt would mean for them.

 3. The 20 Hispanic testtakers who, like the 24 African-American testtakers in group 1, would not have been promoted under the tests.

 4. The 51 white testtakers who did not score high enough to be promoted if the test scores would be used. Like the African-American and Hispanic testtakers in groups 1 and 3, their chances for promotion were improved by the City’s decision not to use the test scores because they had no chance for promotion if the test scores were used.

 5. The 17 white testtakers who did score high enough to be promoted if the test scores were used. With the decision not to use the test scores, their chances for promotion declined. They lost a sure thing and only have some chance for promotion under whatever system the City would decide to use for promotions instead of the test scores.

 6. The two Hispanic testtakers who scored high enough to be promoted if the test scores were used. Like the members of group 5, they have a reduced chance of promotion because they lost a sure thing.    

 In sum, there are six distinct groups involving three different racial groups and two possible outcomes. Each racial group had members in the group that would be treated more favorably if the test scores were used and had members in the group who likely would be treated more favorably if the scores were not used and some alternative selection method was adopted. In other words, the results as to all the testtakers resembles a racial mosaic, with the decisions not made along strict racial lines. This table shows the results as to all six groups: 

                                               Racial Groups

 Based on this, how could the Court conclude, as a matter of law, that the “City rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white”? Was it also disparate treatment discrimination against the two Hispanic testtakers who would be promoted if the test scores were used and the three African-American testtakers who had some chance for promotion during the life span of the test results? None of these questions were addressed in Ricci. Why was this solely discrimination against the 17 white testtakers and not anyone else or everyone else?

 The basis for the Court’s conclusion appears to be simply that the City acted with knowledge of the racial impact of using or not using the test scores on all three races, not just the impact on the 17 white testtakers who were the first group to sue. The Court assumed there was no animus against any of the racial groups because there was disparate treatment racial discrimination “[e]ven if respondents were motivated as a subjective matter by a desire to avoid committing disparate-impact discrimination.”

 So, even if the City had subjectively intended to benefit members of the first three groups that included whites, Hispanics and African Americans, its decision not to use the test scores amounts to an intent to discriminate against only one group, the whites who would benefit if the test scores were used. If the City’s decision was disparate treatment discrimination against the white plaintiffs, what is the explanation for it also not being disparate treatment against those members of these two minority groups who were similarly situated to those white plaintiffs? Since those Hispanics and African Americans did not sue, is it simply out of sight, out of mind? 

Deciding to benefit, or not to disadvantage, most of the testtakers be they African-American, Hispanic or white inevitably, for the Court, supports drawing the inference, as a matter of law, that the City acted with an objective intent to discriminate solely against the comparatively small group of whites who were disadvantaged by that decision. Apparently, what got the City in trouble with the Supreme Court was that the City acted, knowing the racial consequences of its decision not to use the test. Of course, the City also had to know that its decision would also disadvantage some Hispanic and African-American testtakers as well as the white plaintiffs and that it would also be to the advantage of members of all three racial groups who would get a new chance to be promoted under whatever alternative promotion system the City might adopt.

Can support for this objective intent rule be found in the Title VII systemic disparate treatment cases where plaintiff establishes liability by proving the existence of an explicit, written employment policy that expressly discriminates? For example, in Los Angeles Department of Water & Power v. Manhart, plaintiffs proved that the defendant had an employment policy requiring all women to contribute more for their pensions than all men. That policy was drawn with all women on one side of the classification and all men on the other. That is not the situation in Ricci since members of all three groups fall on both sides of the line and there is no express policy to discriminate.  In International Union, UAW v. Johnson Controls, the Court found that an express employment policy excluding all fertile women but no fertile men from jobs making batteries was systemic disparate treatment even though non-fertile women and all men were not disqualified. This is not Ricci since not all members of one racial group were on one side of the line as the men were in Johnson Controls and, again, there was no express policy drawing any racial division. Those cases give little support to the idea that disparate treatment liability can be found without an express classification and with impact that leaves members of all racial groups on both sides of the line.

It is also not clear that the systemic disparate treatment cases based on statistical evidence proving the employer had an intentionally discriminatory employment practice support the holding in Ricci. In Teamsters and Hazelwood School District, the statistics established intent, even in the absence of proof that no African Americans were, respectively, over-the-road truckers or school teachers. In the situation of an “inexorable zero” of African-American truckers in Teamsters and the statistically significant absence of African-American teachers in Hazelwood is quite different from the statistics in this case where disparate treatment was found even though the white plaintiffs were only 25% of all the whites who took the test. Looking at the statistics alone, it would seems to be unlikely to support drawing an inference of intentional race discrimination against the members of any of the six groups without drawing the same inference as to the members of each of the six groups. That would not be disparate treatment discrimination.

There is support in the cases for the proposition that simply being conscious of the race or gender of the affected individuals does not support drawing an inference of intent to discriminate sufficient to support a claim of disparate treatment discrimination. Justice O’Connor, in her concurring opinion in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, made it clear that intent to discriminate cannot be found solely on the fact that the race or gender of the person affected by the decision is known to the decisionmaker:

“Race and gender always ‘play a role’ in . . . a benign sense that these are human characteristics of which decisionmakers are aware and may comment on in a perfectly neutral fashion. For example, . . mere reference to ‘a lady candidate’ might show that gender ‘played a role’ in the decision, but by no means could support a rational factfinder’s inference that the decision was made ‘because of’ sex.”

Similarly, in the context of equal protection law, the Court, in Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, found that an absolute preference for hiring military veterans at a time when men were 98% of the veterans was not intentional discrimination against all women other than the 2% of veterans who were women even though the vast majority of women would be disqualified if even one veteran applied for the job:

“’Discriminatory purpose,’ however, implies that the decisionmaker . . . selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part ‘because of,’ not merely ‘in spite of,’ its adverse effects upon an identifiable group.”

The concurring opinion of Justice Alito in Ricci argues that the motive for the City deciding not to use the test was the mayor’s fear of the consequences of local, racialized politics aimed at him: “[W]ere the exams certified, the Mayor would incur the wrath of [Rev. Boise] Kimber and other influential leaders of New Haven’s African-American community.” Assuming that avoiding the wrath of some members of the community was what drove the decision not to use the test, the City’s announced reason for not using the tests of trying to avoid disparate impact liability seems like a pretext. But, a pretext for what? It is hard to conclude that it is a pretext for discrimination against some of the testtakers. Giving in to political pressure to benefit African-American does not equate with an intent to discriminate against some but not all white, Hispanic and African-American testtakers “because of” their race. Justice Alito’s reasoning is at odds with Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, where the Court, in an age discrimination case, held that an illegitimate, even unlawful, intent to discriminate to deny the plaintiff his pension simply was no evidence of age discrimination. Of course, decisions can be motivated by more than one factor, but where is the evidence of another factor other than racial politics or the subjective intent to not disadvantage African American testtakers? If anything, Justice Alito has inadvertently provided a defense in this case that the City did not think to present. Perhaps its best defense would have been to admit that the City gave into political pressures. That may be a lot of things, but it is not evidence of an intent to discriminate “because of” race against the 17 white testtakers who sued first. Whether or not what he claims was the motivation for the City’s action is true, Justice Alito’s position does not support finding the City acted with intent to discriminate against the 17 Riccii plaintiffs.

The Court appeared to take a giant leap from the fact that the City knew the racial distribution of the testtakers and the racial consequences of using the test to concluding, as a matter of law, that the decision not to use the scores was “because of” the race of one of the six different groups. With whites, Hispanics and African Americans in both groups of those affected positively and negatively by whatever decision that was made, it is hard to see where intent to discriminate because of race against these particular plaintiffs played any role at all.

Should civil rights advocates take Ricci as a progressive step forward?  Ricci does seem to have tremendous potential for changing the approach to proving intentional discrimination to the advantage of plaintiffs: Plaintiff can establish liability simply by proving that (1) the defendant knew the racial or gender consequences of its decision and (2) it then made that decision and (3) the plaintiff suffered an adverse employment impact. The intent to discriminate element, which traditionally has been the hardest to prove, becomes simply a question of the defendant’s knowledge of the racial consequences without more.  Not only is plaintiff’s burden of proving intent vastly simplified, the Court’s approach seems to knock out the linkage, the “because of” race element, that supposedly joins a defendant’s intent to discriminate to an adverse employment action suffered by the plaintiff “because of” the victim’s race. All that is necessary is proof that the defendant knew the race of those affected by the decision and that those adversely affected were of one race or another or, as in Ricci, of as many racial groups that are involved. Go back to the opening quote. Once the racial consequences of the use of the test were known, a huge debate broke out, with some claiming the use of the test was discrimination and others claiming the refusal to use the test was discrimination. The City picked one of those two outcomes and the Supreme Court found it liable for discrimination in making that choice. If the City had picked the other outcome, would not there just be a different group of plaintiffs claiming disparate treatment discrimination?

Let’s see how this works now that the City of New Haven has announced that it will implement the test scores to promote firefighters to the lieutenant and captain openings. Without more evidence, the outcome on all six groups is the same though the valence has flipped: As before some, but not all, white testtakers, Hispanic and African-American testtakers are positively affected by using the test scores and some members of all three racial groups are negatively affected.  Assuming no other proof of subjective intent to discriminate because of race against anyone, is the City nevertheless liable for intentional disparate treatment based against those newly affected by the decision to go ahead using the test scores?  Just as in Ricci, the City will be acting, knowing the racial consequences of its action. Only this time, those who were advantaged when the test scores were not used are now disadvantaged and vice versa. This makes the City damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t. But, that is the outcome that logical consistency seems to require based on the minimalist grounds relied on to find, as a matter of law, disparate treatment discrimination in Ricci.

We may get to find out how this will be worked out since some African-American testtakers who will be disadvantaged if the City goes ahead with its plan to use the test scores have moved to intervene in Ricci at its implementation phase and have filed EEOC charges that the decision to use the test scores is both disparate treatment and disparate impact discrimination. Further, Briscoe v. City of New Haven involves a claim by an African-American testtaker that the test caused disparate impact because of how the test score were weighted with oral test scores to make the rank order list. Briscoe claims that if the weighting were different, he would be among those promoted.

Some might argue that it is wrong to put the City in the situation of being liable to the Ricci plaintiffs for deciding not to use the test scores and to the new plaintiffs for deciding to use the scores. If the standard is in fact to be “color-blind” in decisionmaking that affects employees, that is, that making a decision knowing its racial consequences is disparate treatment discrimination, the result may seem harsh but it seems logically to follow. Further, holding the City liable to both groups does not put it in the position of having mutually inconsistent obligations: Because of Ricci, those white plaintiffs will get promoted (as will the two Hispanics and, if openings subsequently occur within two years, up to three African Americans as well). Because of a disparate treatment challenge recently brought against the City for now deciding to use the test scores, these new plaintiffs also get a remedy, but it would not include replacing those promoted using the test scores. Since these new plaintiffs have yet to be determined to be qualified for promotion, presumably, the City would be ordered to establish a nondiscriminatory system of promotions. Then, if these plaintiffs successfully wend their way through that process, they would be eligible openings for lieutenants and captains that occur after the time span for the use of the test has passed. Presumably, they would receive as backpay and frontpay the difference between their pay as firefighters and lieutenant or captain salaries which would last until they are promoted into openings as they arise.

If the Court has adopted a something like an absolute “color-blind” test of intent to discriminate for Title VII, the only way employers can insulate themselves from disparate treatment liability is to make employment decisions behind a veil of ignorance as to race. Employers may have to follow the lead of symphony orchestras that have come to use blind auditions when selecting new members of the orchestra. If there was no other evidence of discrimination, the effective use of a veil of ignorance would seem to protect the decisions from claims of disparate treatment discrimination since the racial consequences were not known by the decisionmaker when the decision was made. The “cats paw” case that the Supreme Court recently granted cert. on may illuminate this area of discrimination law.

Where did this radical “color-blind” standard of disparate treatment discrimination come from and how can it be? While, during the Sotomayor nomination proceedings, some talking heads and commentators denounced empathy as a factor in judicial decision making, the Ricci majority, and the dissent, exude empathy for the white plaintiffs who did go to great effort and expense to prepare for the exam and thought they won the prize: test scores high enough to result in their promotions to lieutenant and captain positions. The decision not to use the test scores dashed those expectations. Justice Kennedy expressed it this way:

“[A]fter the tests were completed, the raw racial results became the predominant rationale for the City’s refusal to certify the results. The injury arises in part from the high, and justified, expectations of the candidates who had participated in the testing process on the terms the City had established for the promotional process. Many of the candidates had studied for months, at considerable personal and financial expense, and thus the injury caused by the City’s reliance on raw racial statistics at the end of the process was all the more severe.” 

One way of looking at this from a technical point of view is that the Court feels compelled to justify finding that the reduced opportunity for promotion which resulted from the decision not to use the test scores was sufficiently adverse to satisfy the “adverse employment action” element of a disparate treatment discrimination case. Without finding some present impact on these white testtakers, it might be hard to conclude that they had suffered an adverse employment action. Dashing an earned reliance interest does provide an adverse employment action even though nothing has actually happened to these plaintiffs or, in fact, to any of the testtakers. But Justice Kennedy seems to make much more out of this. It appears to be the basis for jumping past the “because of” element of a disparate treatment case so that racial consciousness satisfies the intent to discriminate element which establishes liability when an adverse employment action results from that decision, whether or not that decision was “because of race.” 

Another way of looking at this earned reliance interest issue is as a limit on the scope of application of this newly announced disparate treatment doctrine: The employer does not commit disparate treatment discrimination if its decision that is based on the known racial consequences precedes the creation of reliance interests in anyone. Planning to use some sort of employment practice, such as the written test in Ricci, can include the employer projecting what the racial consequences of that use of that practice might be and revising the plan so as to reduce disparate impact, just as long as all the action takes place before anyone has a reliance interest in the implementation of the employment practice. This meaning seems consistent with Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion in Parents Involved, as to the ability of school boards to act to establish school attendance policies that take account of the racial populations of the different schools just as long as race is not used to decide the school to which individual students will be assigned. So, not all action when the racial consequences are known constitutes disparate treatment discrimination. But the employer must be “color-blind” when some employees have an established reliance interest. So, perhaps, employers need not establish race-blind procedures to make all employment decisions, as long as no one has any established reliance interest as stake. An important new issue will be, therefore, when reliance interests are created because, once they are, risk averse employers will use race-blind procedures.

Does anyone believe that Ricci is a tremendous progressive step making employment discrimination cases very much easier for plaintiffs? Will a majority of the Court now empathize with the African-American plaintiffs who have challenged the use of the test scores in Ricci as disparate treatment discrimination against them?  If a majority of the Court avoids finding liability as to them, how will they support such a decision, given  the logical consequences of its move toward a color-blind standard of liability in this race conscious society of ours?

As I explain in my forthcoming article, which should be out any day now, Slaughterhouse is not hostile to incorporation.  It only acquired that meaning in Maxwell v. Dow, a 1900 case that reread Slaughterhouse in light of recent political events (i.e., the defeat of William Jennings Bryan). Indeed, the brief just adopts Maxwell’s faulty claim that using the Privileges or Immunities Clause  for incorporation [...]]]> On Monday, the petitioners in the Second Amendment incorporation case filed their merits brief and asked the Court to overrule Slaughterhouse, United States v. Cruikshank, and Presser v. Illinois.  While I agree with their view that the Second Amendment should apply to the States and think the brief’s discussion of the Fourteenth Amendment’s original understanding is excellent, the case analysis is flawed.

As I explain in my forthcoming article, which should be out any day now, Slaughterhouse is not hostile to incorporation.  It only acquired that meaning in Maxwell v. Dow, a 1900 case that reread Slaughterhouse in light of recent political events (i.e., the defeat of William Jennings Bryan). Indeed, the brief just adopts Maxwell’s faulty claim that using the Privileges or Immunities Clause  for incorporation would require the overruling of Slaughterhouse and Cruikshank.  Cruikshank can be distinguished on state action grounds — it’s holding is not inconsistent with incorporation–and Presser is irrelevant as the Second Amendment claim there was not properly pled.  The real case that needs to be overruled (or modified) is Maxwell.

Finally, what does “overruling Slaughterhouse” mean exactly?  Would I now have a constitutional right to be a butcher?

This could be a significant doctrinal development.  The OLC’s analysis, of course, was driven by concern about whether a federal hate crimes bill would be vulnerable under the Supreme Court’s holding in United States v. Morrison. There’s more going on here though. The Thirteenth Amendment, unlike the Fourteenth, does not have a state action requirement.  To the extent that lawyers start using the Thirteenth to sustain congressional action on racial discrimination, that [...]]]> A few weeks ago the President signed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law.  The Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion concluding that the Act is constitutional under Section Two of the Thirteenth Amendment, relying heavily on the Second Circuit’s analysis in United States v. Nelson, 277 F.3d 164 (2d Cir. 2002).

This could be a significant doctrinal development.  The OLC’s analysis, of course, was driven by concern about whether a federal hate crimes bill would be vulnerable under the Supreme Court’s holding in United States v. Morrison. There’s more going on here though. The Thirteenth Amendment, unlike the Fourteenth, does not have a state action requirement.  To the extent that lawyers start using the Thirteenth to sustain congressional action on racial discrimination, that would render Morrison a dead letter.  This line of thought was rejected in the Civil Rights Cases (over Justice Harlan’s dissent), but may be making a comeback.

This ad-hoc way of dealing with the detainee issue strikes me as problematic.  In effect, it allows the Executive Branch unfettered discretion to establish penal colonies around the world and place curbs on the post-release activities of detainees without any due process whatsoever.  While I’m sure most of the detainees would prefer some freedom on some random island over prison, I think that Congress needs to take a [...]]]> On Friday, attorneys for six of the Uighurs held in Guantanamo Bay announced that they have been transferred to live on the island of Palau.  (Pitcairn Island must have been unavailable). Perhaps all of the detainees who are the parties in Kiyemba (just taken on certiorari by the Supreme Court) will be resettled to render the case moot.

This ad-hoc way of dealing with the detainee issue strikes me as problematic.  In effect, it allows the Executive Branch unfettered discretion to establish penal colonies around the world and place curbs on the post-release activities of detainees without any due process whatsoever.  While I’m sure most of the detainees would prefer some freedom on some random island over prison, I think that Congress needs to take a look at this practice and consider establishing some guidelines.

Volume 57, Issue 1 (October 2009)

Articles

Essay

Comments

Discourse

Th UCLA Law Review is also pleased to announce the launch of a our new website.

In this essay for a festschrift in celebration of Philip Frickey and his work, I show how equal protection and federal Indian law can be reconciled without succumbing [...]]]> I want to flag this forthcoming article by Bethany Berger entitled “Reconciling Equal Protection and Federal Indian Law.”  This is one of the best efforts I’ve seen to take the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment seriously with respect to how Native Americans should be treated.  My own interest is how the Native American example should inform equal protection doctrine generally, which I think is a major blind spot in antidiscrimination law.  While this is not what Berger is talking about, her focus on the interaction of these concepts is well worth reading.  The Abstract follows the jump:

In this essay for a festschrift in celebration of Philip Frickey and his work, I show how equal protection and federal Indian law can be reconciled without succumbing to what Professor Frickey has called the seduction of artificial coherence. Federal Indian policies increasingly face arguments that, in providing special treatment for individuals and groups defined in part by descent from indigenous tribes, they violate the requirement of equal protection before the law. I argue that such arguments ignore the congruence of federal Indian policy and equal protection as a matter of constitutional norms, constitutional history, and constitutional text. Federal Indian policies at their best undo the results of defining indigenous peoples as inferior racial groups rather than sovereigns entitled to political and property rights. This consistency between civil rights and protection of tribal rights was recognized by the framers of the fourteenth amendment, and is reflected in both judicial decisions and historical developments in federal Indian policy. American constitutional principles, in other words, support both equal protection and tribal rights, and militate against any false consistency that would undermine the principles of equality and respect on which both are based.

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, [...]]]> An incredible story in today’s news:

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

It’s 2009, the Obama era, and some folks (a JP!) still haven’t gotten the memo on Loving v. Virginia. Mind-boggling.

Think about it — in the last twenty-five years the only two contrary examples are the Balanced Budget Amendment and the Flag Burning Amendment.  Reaching back further, I don’t think there are many others (though I’d be interested if people know of some). [...]]]> As part of my research on the Child Labor Amendment, I’ve come across an interesting issue.  There is a strong assumption that constitutional amendments are hard to enact, in part, because you need a two-thirds vote in each House of Congress.  It turns out, though, that there are very few amendment proposals that have received a majority in each House but not two-thirds.  In other words, in practice, the rules that govern statutory enactments (including the filibuster) weed out almost all amendment proposals.

Think about it — in the last twenty-five years the only two contrary examples are the Balanced Budget Amendment and the Flag Burning Amendment.  Reaching back further, I don’t think there are many others (though I’d be interested if people know of some).  One wonders, then, why there is a belief that the two-thirds rule is the reason for the lack of amendments rather than robust political support (or norms) in favor of the text as is.

A less known aspect of the now failed bid was the connection between the bid and one of the landmark cases taught in most civil procedure, civil [...]]]> By this point, everyone probably knows that Chicago finished last among the finalists for the 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Truth be told, I am personally glad that Rio got the games, but civic pride had me hoping that we would come in second, rather than last. I certainly knew a few people who really wanted the games for our fair city, but most actual Chicagoans I talked to were neutral to negative about the whole enterprise, but quite fascinated by the possibility of being able to rent out their homes to tourists for exorbitant sums.

A less known aspect of the now failed bid was the connection between the bid and one of the landmark cases taught in most civil procedure, civil procedure, and complex litigation courses. A temporary 80,000 seat stadium was planned for the opening and closing ceremonies and certain track and field events including the finish of the marathon. The stadium was to have been constructed in Washington Park, a south side neighborhood just west of Hyde Park and the University of Chicago campus. The park would have been the site of massive improvements and some sort of smaller permanent facility would have survived the end of the Games.

The residential portion of Washington Park immediately to the south of the actual park was the site of one of the many ugly incidents in the early part of the 20th century as many Chicago neighborhoods sought to maintain segregated communities in the face of the tremendous expansion of the African-American population that came to Chicago seeking work. At one time, the Washington Park neighborhood was all white and subject to a racially restrictive covenant. In the depths of the depression, a white home owner sold to a middle class black family. The family endured harassment beyond description as angry mobs howled outside their home and the family faced daily threats and numerous incidents of vandalism and violence.

On the legal front, there were also attempts to enforce the racially restrictive covenants that were still lawful in the days before the Supreme Court’s 1948 decision in Shelley v. Kramer. But first, the white land owners had to establish that the covenant was enforceable as a matter of contract law. The covenant was to take effect only when 95% of the owners had executed it. An action in the Illinois courts held that the requisite percentage of owners had signed the covenant. Then certain white home owners sought to enforce the covenant against the new black owner arguing that he was bound by the results of the earlier state court litigation.

By now, you may have figured out that I am describing the landmark case of Hansberry v. Lee. In the United States Supreme Court, Justice Stone wrote on behalf of a unanimous court (three Justice concurring in the result). As my civ pro students can tell you, the case holds that Mr. Hansberry could not be enjoined from purchasing or living in his home as a result of the earlier litigation, since he had been neither a party in the earlier case nor adequately represented by either side in what had amounted to a class action under Illinois law. The case matters today for all manner of principles we explore at length in civil procedure, class action, and mass litigation courses, but it also stands as an important early landmark on the way to the later civil rights rulings of Shelley v. Kramer and eventually Brown v. Board of Education.

To better understand the personal issues at stake for the Hansberrys throughout this ordeal, we have the moving play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, who was a young child when her family moved into their new neighborhood. For a detailed and sensitive history of the underlying facts and the convoluted sets of litigation leading up to Justice Stone’s opinion, we are also fortunate to have Jay Tidmarsh’s chapter on the case in Civil Procedure Stories.

I would like to think that the Olympic Games would have done some good for Washington Park and all the surrounding neighborhoods that Mr. Hansberry and others suffered so greatly to integrate, but as a somewhat cynical Chicagoan I suspect that the burdens would have shared by the public at large and the benefits enjoyed by a privileged few. But if you’re ever in town, I hope you will consider visiting Washington Park and seeing where an important part of legal history took place and where a very different type of sporting history was nearly made this past week. If you get there in the next two weeks, there is even a pretty good circus on the site of where the Olympic Stadium would have been.

One feature of prior constitutional generations (or new party systems) in their initial phase is that there is often a clash between a rising movement and the Supreme Court over a key demand of that movement. Jackson and Marshall fought over the Cherokee Removal.  Dred Scott attacked the Republican Party over slavery in the territories.  And the Old Court in the 1930s went after the NRA.  It is pretty clear that [...]]]> There is a lively discussion underway (on Volokh and in some op-eds) about whether a federal statute requiring all Americans to buy health insurance would be constitutional under the Commerce Clause.  I’m interested in this question because I’m now revising a draft paper on the “30,ooo foot” view of the Obama Administration in political time.

One feature of prior constitutional generations (or new party systems) in their initial phase is that there is often a clash between a rising movement and the Supreme Court over a key demand of that movement. Jackson and Marshall fought over the Cherokee Removal.  Dred Scott attacked the Republican Party over slavery in the territories.  And the Old Court in the 1930s went after the NRA.  It is pretty clear that health care is the crucial issue for President Obama.  The obvious question is how could the Court challenge that initiative (if enacted) consistent with existing doctrine?

My faculty colleague, David Orentlicher, and I batted around the following idea today.  Congress clearly has broad authority to prohibit harmful commercial transactions.  It also has similar power to regulate transactions that occur. But does it follow that Congress can require people to engage in a commercial transaction that they do not want  to undertake?  (Like buying health insurance).  I’m not so sure.  Are there any precedents for this?  I don’t think so. Conscription is a possibility, but that’s a weak analogy.  Nothing else comes to mind.  Can you think of any examples of federally-mandated commerce?  (Obviously, if Congress just encourages people to buy insurance through tax breaks, then this analysis would not apply.)

Of course, nothing in the “substantial effects” test distinguishes between prohibition, regulation, and requirement.  I’m just saying that such a distinction could be made and would be plausible.

Both articles go too far, but, basically, Rivkin and Casey are right and Hutchison is wrong.  As Rivkin and Casey point out, the President can get advice from whomever he wants.  He could [...]]]> Two interesting articles on the Washington Post Op-Ed page recently about the increasing number of policy ”czars” in the White House.  These officials report to the President, are not subject to Senate confirmation, and play a nebulous role in policy formulation and implementation.  Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison suggests that czars therefore damage the constitutionally required separation of powers.  Lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey respond that the President can get advice from anyone he wants, and that, if anything, it would be unconstitutional for Congress to stop the President from getting advice from policy czars.

Both articles go too far, but, basically, Rivkin and Casey are right and Hutchison is wrong.  As Rivkin and Casey point out, the President can get advice from whomever he wants.  He could get all his advice from me if that’s what he wanted to do.  He doesn’t need Congress’s permission to seek anyone’s advice.

Hutchison expresses concern that the czars may be “impos[ing] the administration’s agenda on the heads of federal agencies and offices who have been vetted and confirmed by the Senate.”  But if we’re talking about officials who serve at the President’s pleasure, what’s wrong with that?  The President would be entitled to tell these officers personally what they need to do to keep him pleased (the President does that all the time with Executive Orders, for example).  But the President doesn’t have time to keep on top of every one of the innumerable officials who serve at his pleasure, so he appoints some trusted intermediaries to serve that function, and so what? 

Of course, these intermediaries could not, any more than the President himself, order officials to do anything illegal, but the President, like any boss, can tell his suboridnates that what would please him best would be for them to do what some intermediate official tells them, insofar as it is lawful to do so.  Imagine, for example, that the President said, “I want the heads of DOJ, DHS, the military, State, and Treasury to report directly to me.  Everyone else who serves at my pleasure, do what Joe Biden tells you to do.”  Could there be anything wrong with that?  I think not.

And with regard to officers who exercise power but who don’t serve at the President’s pleasure, the President’s ability to influence them is more limited, but again, whatever the President can do with these officials personally, he can tell them that someone else is his voice in their affairs.  So the President can’t exactly order Ben Bernanke to do something, but whatever influence the President has with Bernanke, he could say, “Ben, whatever my economic czar tells you, that’s what I want.”

So I think Hutchison is wrong to suggest that there’s a constitutional problem.  Of course, whether having so many czars makes sense as a public policy matter is a different question. 

And I do think Rivkin and Casey go too far in one respect — they suggest that there would be a constitutional problem in Congress’s insisting on vetting White House czars.  I’m not so sure about that.  If the President wants to seek my advice, Congress can’t stop him.  But if someone wants to be on the federal payroll, then Congress is footing the bill.  If Congress  wants to eliminate the budget for czars, I’m hard pressed to see how it could be prevented from doing so.  The President has a lot of power, but the power of the purse is pretty potent, too.

In that spirit, let me mention this paper of mine from a few years on the relationship between Jackson’s removal of the Cherokees from Georgia and the Fourteenth Amendment.  The piece argues that part of the original understanding of the Amendment was shaped by its framers support for Native American rights and disgust at the “Trail of Tears.”  For example, John Bingham cited Worcester v. Georgia more than once as a benchmark for [...]]]> I find that blogging is useful for three things.  First, you can try out new ideas and see how people react. Second, you can react to current events in real time.  Third, you can talk about old ideas that did not get enough attention the first time around.  (Call this “Broadway revival” blogging.)

In that spirit, let me mention this paper of mine from a few years on the relationship between Jackson’s removal of the Cherokees from Georgia and the Fourteenth Amendment.  The piece argues that part of the original understanding of the Amendment was shaped by its framers support for Native American rights and disgust at the “Trail of Tears.”  For example, John Bingham cited Worcester v. Georgia more than once as a benchmark for interpreting Section One of the Amendment.  Obviously, there were distinctions made between African-Americans and Native Americans in that text, as tribes with treaty relations with the United States were excluded from birthright citizenship under its “subject to the jurisdiction” clause. Nevertheless, there are important interpretive resources to be found in the law and practice concerning Native Americans leading up to 1868 (on the antidiscrimination principle, positive economic rights, and more traditional individual rights).  After Brown, the legal community concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment’s history was basically unhelpful.  That is a mistake that more scholars should examine.

I’m not sure that the Court will outright overrule Austin, but I understand why many smart people are predicting that it will.

After hearing the case originally last [...]]]> As Gerard noted earlier, the Court today is hearing arguments in Citizens United v. FEC, the well-publicized case featuring “Hillary: The Movie.” The case is receiving a great deal of public attention, not only because many commentators suspect the Court will overrule Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, but because the case represents a number of notable firsts—it will be the first case of the 2009 Term, the first oral argument by Elena Kagan as solicitor general, and the first case on the Court for Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Rick Hasen has collected previews of Citizens United here.

I’m not sure that the Court will outright overrule Austin, but I understand why many smart people are predicting that it will.

After hearing the case originally last spring, the Court ordered supplemental briefing and re-argument to address the specific question whether the Court should overrule Austin, which affirmed the constitutionality of source restrictions on campaign expenditures from corporate treasury funds. This obviously was not a good sign for Austin or supporters of campaign finance restrictions on corporate campaign spending. However, the build-up to Citizens United reminds me of another election law case last Term and therefore gives me pause about expecting the Court to strike down federal restrictions on corporate campaign money that have existed in some form for a century. In NAMUDNO v. Holder, the Court decided against summary affirmance, scheduled arguments on the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and led many to expect a decision striking it down. But the Court then surprised nearly everyone with an incremental ruling that trimmed back Section 5 based on an odd reading of the statutory language but left Section 5 otherwise constitutionally intact for the time being. It was easy to conclude that a Justice or two contemplated a more sweeping decision but ultimately backed away from the political controversy that would have followed a Court decision striking down the revered Voting Rights Act. Similarly here, it’s easy to imagine a Justice or two being deterred by the potential headlines about the Court opening the “floodgates” to corporate money following a decision outright striking down Austin. I cannot claim any particular ability to predict accurately what the Court ever does, but for the reasons above, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if the Court ultimately produces a more incremental decision than many expect, even if all signs right now point to a sweeping decision against Austin.

Putting Citizens United aside, it seems to me that the larger problem in campaign finance reform has less to do with whether regulation can be characterized as “anything other than an effort to silence contrary views,” as Gerard puts it, and everything to do with what Sam Issacharoff and Pam Karlan call the hydraulics of campaign finance. Although I have written a bit about the ulterior motivations behind some forms of campaign finance regulation, I believe that there are plenty of reasonable arguments that characterize campaign finance regulation as something more than simple viewpoint discrimination. However, in my view and the view of many election law scholars, the practical reality in campaign finance is that money wants to enter the political system and tends to restore its own level in response to almost any constitutionally realistic form of regulation. Of course, the re-direction of money through new channels may be useful and worth the effort. But as an overarching matter, I’m not sure that re-directing money away from candidates and parties, for instance in the form of independent expenditures, is usually a good idea. And as the Court began to suggest in Caperton v. Massey, independent expenditures may not be much less corrupting when we’re talking about significant amounts of money. So far, we have a campaign finance system that is more regulated and transparent than ever before, but it’s not clear that many of us are very happy with the results.