Abstract The United States has a history of racial segregation in its facilitation of federal housing programs. One such program, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), was intended to respond to the need for affordable housing since its establishment in 1986. Through the LIHTC program, the federal government grants tax credits to investors and developers who rent to low-income tenants. In...
Restorative Justice for Indigenous Culture
Abstract One still unresolved aspect of North American colonization arises out of the mass expropriation of Indigenous peoples’ cultural expressions to European-settler institutions and their publics. Researchers, artists, entrepreneurs, missionaries, and many others worked in partnership with major universities, museums, corporations, foundations, and other Institutions to capture and exploit...
The International Commitments of the Fifty States
Abstract U.S. law allocates power to conduct foreign relations primarily to the federal government, but it is well known that states routinely maintain foreign relations of their own. Much of this activity appears to result in legal and political commitments, whether in the form of “sister state” agreements or binding pledges to cooperate on discrete issues such as investment, environmental...
The Immigration Implications of Presidential Pot Pardons
Introduction On October 6, 2022, President Biden issued a proclamation pardoning most federal and Washington D.C. (D.C.) offenders—including lawful permanent residents—who have committed the offense of simple marijuana possession as defined by the federal Controlled Substance Act.[1] The impact of this proclamation is likely modest in light of the relatively small number of past federal and D.C...
Democratizing Abolition
Abstract When abolitionists discuss remedies for past and present injustices, they are frequently met with apparently pragmatic objections to the viability of such bold remedies in U.S. legislatures and courts held captive by reactionary forces. Previous movements have seen their lesser reforms dashed by the white supremacist capitalist order that retains its grip on power in America. While such...
An Abolitionist Critique of Quality-of-Life Policing
Abstract Policing “disability in public” refers to the ways in which coerced compliance with norms for appearing, walking, talking, thinking, or otherwise existing, render disabled people more vulnerable to citation, arrests, or imprisonment even where such conduct is linked to, or caused by, disabilities. Disabled people have been suspected of criminal activity, arrested, jailed, and even killed...
Diversifying K–12 Public Schools: A Federal Court Finds Admission Plan Unconstitutional
Introduction In 2021, it was reported that there were only eight Black students enrolled in a class of 749 ninth graders at New York City’s most selective public high school, Stuyvesant.[1] In the same year, a group of public school students brought a lawsuit challenging admissions programs at selective New York City public schools, arguing that these schools are racially segregated as a result...
The Racialized History of Vice Policing
Abstract Vice policing targets the consumption and commercialization of certain pleasures that have been criminalized in the United States—such as the purchase of narcotics and sexual services. One might assume that vice policing is concerned with eliminating these vices. However, in reality, this form of policing has not been centered on protecting and preserving the moral integrity of the...