Click to see the beacon journal online
Homes   Jobs   Cars   Shopping
Akron Law Café -- Community Blog

Posts tagged as:

equal protection

Louisiana Justice of the Peace Violates the Constitution – and His Reasoning Strikes a Familiar Chord

October 18, 2009

     This much is obvious.  Keith Bardwell, an elected Justice of the Peace in Louisiana, violated the Constitution when he refused to marry an interracial couple.  People have not paid too much attention to the reason that he refuses to marry people of different races.  That reasoning is instructive.

Read the full article →

Two Supreme Court Cases Relevant to the Gates Controversy

July 24, 2009

     I still haven't made up my mind as to who was right and who was wrong in the matter of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates.  I am confident that all the facts will emerge either through good investigative reporting or because some television show will induce both men to speak to each other about [...]

Read the full article →

Coleman v. Franken and Bush v. Gore

July 1, 2009

     The Minnesota Supreme Court decided in favor of Al Franken yesterday, declaring him the winner of the 2008 election for U.S. Senator in the State of Minnesota.  One of Norm Coleman's arguments was that the counting of the absentee ballots violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause under the case of Bush v. [...]

Read the full article →

Ricci v. DeStefano – the New Haven Firefighter case – Which Is Fairer, Multiple Choice or Oral Examinations?

June 30, 2009

     In a previous post I described the New Haven firefighter case and Judge Sonia Sotomayor's participation in it as a member of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.  In this posting I will analyze yesterday's 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court reversing the Court of Appeals' decision in that case.  One aspect of this case particularly [...]

Read the full article →

Is Marriage a Constitutional Right or Merely a Governmental Benefit?

June 23, 2009

     Under the Constitution the government is not obligated to grant us benefits.  However, the Constitution prohibits the government from interfering with our fundamental rights.  Is marriage a right or a benefit?  The question obviously has legal significance, but it also has important political consequences.  Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight points out that public attitudes towards same-sex marriage seem to be [...]

Read the full article →

A Proposed First Amendment Challenge to Proposition 8

November 16, 2008

     On November 4 California voters adopted Proposition 8, an amendment to their state constitution which simply states, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."  Opponents of the measure contend that it was adopted in an unconstitutional manner because the California Constitution provides that while "amendments" to the [...]

Read the full article →

The Supreme Court at the Tipping Point – Be Sure to Vote

September 2, 2008

     Between 1937 and 1943 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed eight justices to the Supreme Court. These justices, who included Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William Douglas, and Robert Jackson, changed the meaning of the Constitution. For the first time in American history the Court began to systematically protect the rights of individuals and minority groups [...]

Read the full article →

The Supreme Court at the Tipping Point – Affirmative Action

August 4, 2008

     Affirmative action is a difficult issue for the same reason that abortion is – the stakes are high for both sides.

Read the full article →

The Supreme Court at the Tipping Point: Gay Rights

July 28, 2008

     Gay rights cases may be arranged in four categories that fall along a spectrum according to the level of hardship that the law imposes. The most serious cases involve criminal laws or legal disabilities that are imposed upon gays and lesbians; less serious, but no less significant, are laws that deny equal benefits to [...]

Read the full article →

The Supreme Court at the Tipping Point: Racial and Gender Equality

July 21, 2008

      
     Originally the United States Constitution did not embrace the principle of equality. Instead the Constitution protected slavery in gross contradiction to the Declaration of Independence that had stated "all men are created equal."

Read the full article →
 

© The Akron Beacon Journal • 44 E. Exchange Street, Akron, Ohio 44308

Powered by WordPress
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).