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Abstract Since the unprecedented Summer 2020 uprisings against policing and racism, many elites have embraced an “anti-woke” politics that openly celebrates law-and-order authoritarianism, heteropatriarchy, and white nationalism. This Article attends to a different but reinforcing response to the George Floyd uprisings: repression through a politics of recognition, as elites fortified policing...

Abstract Racial justice is one of the most pressing issues in America today, and police brutality is its flashpoint.  Incident after incident ofpolice brutality confirm that police harm with impunity those whom they have a duty to protect.  Existing criminal statutes are filled withdiscretionary standards that give officers deference, while civil remedies require victims to surmount the doctrine...

Abstract The federal government’s enormous financial commitment to infrastructure development has drawn renewed attention to the transformative economic potential of public procurement. However, as this Article shows, that potential is limited by the little-known federal competition rule, which requires state and local governments using federal transportation funds to award contracts through a...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

About the Author Sandy Hudson is a recent graduate from UCLA Law where she specialized in Critical Race Theory. Sandy founded Black Lives Matter - Canada, and also co-founded the Black Legal Action Centre, a specialty legal aid clinic in Ontario, Canada. A multidisciplinary creative, Sandy also co-founded the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism, co-hosts the Sandy & Nora Talk Politics...

Abstract During the coronavirus pandemic, movements for penal abolition and racial justice achieved dramatic growth and increased visibility. While much public discussion of abolition has centered on the call to divest from criminal law enforcement, contemporary abolitionists also understand public safety in terms of building new life-sustaining institutions and collective structures that improve...

Abstract Nashville, Tennessee was once heralded as a desegregation success story. Three decades after the United States Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Brown v. Board of Education, schools in Nashville were, in a statistical sense, desegregated. Since then, Nashville schools have returned to a far more segregated state, mirroring many cities across the United States where desegregation...

Abstract The COVID-19 death toll is staggering and has impacted the funeral industry more than any other event in recent memory. Funeral service providers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic doing the work of the dead—transporting, storing, and disposing our dead. They have performed a critical service during uncertain times. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the funeral industry was...

Abstract From Uber to Home Depot to Starbucks, companies are increasingly asking customers to rate workers. Gathering data from these ratings, many firms utilize algorithms to make employment decisions. The proliferation of customer ratings raises the possibility that some customers may review workers negatively for racist, sexist, or other illegal reasons. Absent a legal framework to address...