Supreme Court Amicus Brief of Law Professors in Support of Certiorari, Jones v. Harris Associates, No. 08-586

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Birdthistle
Keyword(s):  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-404
Author(s):  
Theresa M. Beiner

In Unequal: How America’s Courts Undermine Discrimination Law (“Unequal”), law professors Sandra F. Sperino and Suja A. Thomas provide a point-by-point analysis of how the federal courts’ interpretations of federal anti-discrimination laws have undermined their efficacy to provide relief to workers whose employers have allegedly engaged in discrimination. The cases’ results are consistently pro-employer, even while the Supreme Court of the United States—a court not known for being particularly pro-plaintiff—has occasionally ruled in favor of plaintiff employees. The authors suggest some reasons for this apparent anti-plaintiff bias among the federal courts, although they do not settle on a particular reason for the courts’ frequent dismissal of these claims. Instead, the book seeks to expose how these seemingly erroneous dismissals occur and suggest avenues for reforming these legal standards. This Review begins by describing the book’s main arguments. Throughout this description, the Review supports and at times challenges some of the authors’ positions. In particular, this Review examines arguments regarding the role politics play in the courts’ decisionmaking in employment discrimination cases. It also explores the ironic result that the courts’ approaches to these cases actually may lead to more discrimination in the workplace and therefore more cases. Finally, this Review describes the authors’ suggestions for reform and proposes that changes in this area of the law are best accomplished by the entities that created the problems—the courts.


2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 961-962
Author(s):  
Peter Li

Calling Power to Account: Law, Reparations, and the Chinese Head Tax Case, David Dyzenhaus and May Moran, eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005, pp. 471.This is a collection of fifteen essays that addresses different aspects of the Chinese head tax case. Edited by two law professors and written mostly by lawyers and law professors, the collection has a strong legal flavour. The book begins with the legal case of Mack vs. Attorney General of Canada. However, the book does not provide a succinct summary of the case. In brief, the case involves three Chinese Canadians, Shack Jang Mack, Quen Ying Lee and Yew Lee, filing a statement of claim through their attorney in December, 2000, in a class action on behalf of head tax payers in the Ontario Superior Court. In all, the case went through three courts, and the original ruling dismissing the claim of head tax payers was upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.


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