Post Tagged with: "Civil Rights"

• Clarence Thomas to Wrongfully Convicted Louisiana Death Row Inmate: "You Get Nothing."

  Courts, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Issue Areas April 2, 2011 10:18 pm 13 comments

  John Thompson was convicted of murder in New Orleans in 1985 . After a trial where he opted not to testify on his behalf, Thompson was sentenced to death. He spent the next 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row. Only a few weeks before his execution [...]

   

• Supreme Court Hears Wal-Mart Sex Discrimination Case Certification

  Consumers and Corporations, Courts, Issue Areas, Sex Equality March 30, 2011 9:44 am 3 comments

  The Supreme Court heard oral argument Tuesday on a challenge to the certification of a class-action lawsuit on behalf of female employees against the giant retailer Wal-Mart. In the case Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, Wal-Mart is challenging a 9th Circuit certification of a class of all female employees, arguing it [...]

   

• Essay: Why the ACLU’s President is a Card-Carrying Member

  Issue Areas, Outside Author February 28, 2011 5:11 pm no comments

  When I was a third-grader in public school (in Long Beach, NY) our class play was Johnny Tremain — the story of a 14 year old boy caught up in the American Revolution. I decided to take the book version out of the school library to read the whole story but the librarian told me I wasn’t allowed to. That book was in the boy’s section. The girl’s section, as I well knew, contained collections of fairy tales and biographies of Presidents’ wives, Florence Nightingale, and Clara Barton.

   

• Justice Department Will Not Fully Defend DOMA

  Issue Areas, LGBTQ Rights February 23, 2011 9:11 pm 2 comments

  Contrary to the suggestion of one Amicus author, the Justice Department today announced that it will stop defending parts of the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court. The Washington Post, citing many of the same arguments put forth in that Amicus post, calls the move risky. Amicus will of course continue to cover the developments on the legal and social fallout from this decision.

   

• Article: Ricci v. DeStefano: Declaring Civil War within Title VII – By William Yeomans

  Amicus, Courts, Issue Areas, Labor and Employment, Outside Author, Race and Immigration February 25, 2010 8:19 am 2 comments

  It is the height of folly to make hard and fast predictions about the impact of freshly minted Supreme Court decisions, especially when the Court announces a new standard. Yet it is safe to predict that Ricci v. DeStefano, while not as devastating as some advocates have feared, will discourage [...]

   

• Article: Making Employment Civil Rights Real – by Stephen Churchill

  Amicus, Issue Areas, Labor and Employment, Outside Author, Race and Immigration February 25, 2010 8:17 am 1 comment

  When Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, it was heralded as a long-overdue measure to eradicate discrimination. The law has had a profound effect on the workplace, both by helping to establish a public ethic against discrimination and by providing a mechanism by which victims of [...]