Laws banning miscegenation endured in the colonies and the United States for more than 300 years. When the Supreme Court declared all such laws unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967, sixteen such statutes and constitutional provisions were still in effect. Scientific racism determined a hierarchy within the White race that placed the Teutonic at the top, the Anglo-Saxon as the heir to the Teuton, and the American as the current leading branch of that line. Prior to the Darwinian revo

Political Structure Equal Protection can be defined as that strand of protections provided by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which protects independently identifiable groups from denial of equal access to the political process. Political Structure Equal Protection is a valid rule of law promulgated by the Supreme Court while interpreting the Equal Protection Clause-a rule established by precedent which has not been repudiated. Yet two recent cases cast doubt on its cont

In the frenzied rush to stamp out affirmative action in all of its manifestations, courts and legislatures are losing sight of fundamental realities. A key weapon in the destruction of affirmative action is the myth that the Constitution requires a color-blind approach to all but a very narrowly excepted class of race-based problems. Indeed, if the trend in recent state referenda cases continues, we soon will have the mythical color-blind Constitution that Justice Harlan first described in his

U.S. farmers have the capability to grow corn at a much lower cost than their Mexican counterparts, even without the government support that American agribusiness enjoys. In Mexico, corn is grown to some extent by agribusiness, often with ties to corporate America, but corn is also the food crop of the people--the peasant and the indigenous population. The indigenous people of Mexico essentially developed corn and "gave" it to the world. These indigenous people have finally begun to receive s

This article discusses New York real property law developments from 2002 to 2003, and "rounds up the usual suspects" such as easements and covenants and landlord tenant law. These areas of property law tend to change slowly through an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process. But it also addresses two topics that perhaps need a bit of explanation, if not justification. These topics involve recent cases and the focus is on larger issues in the cases that trigger their inclusion. First se

The "State Sponsors of Terrorism" exception to sovereign immunity was an ill-conceived solution to very real problems: ending terrorism and compensating its American victims. In dealing with the latter it placed the burden of deciding the proper compensation of victims in the hands of the courts and thereby made the former more difficult to achieve. This paper argues that the flaws inherent in the terrorism exception before September 11, 2001, were not minimized by the events of that date. Rathe

Many students come into Civil Procedure thinking that the subject is, first, either the hardest course in the first year or, alternatively, tied with Property for that honor, and, second, the most boring course in the first year curriculum. Regardless of whether either of these beliefs is true, Civil Procedure is clearly the course with which 1Ls have the least familiarity. The students' journey to the conclusion that Civil Procedure is not only fascinating, but vitally important begins on day o

A vastly different international landscape greats the thirtieth volume of the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce than the one that greeted the first volume in 1972. But remarkably, in light of recent developments, there is a fascinating - but chilling - link with that first volume. The Syracuse University College of Law and its international law journal have come to be inextricably linked with the modern phenomena of terrorism based upon aircraft hijackings, bombings, and attacks

Following newspaper reports that President Bush's Administration had begun developing a plan for relations with a post-Castro Cuba, I began to wonder - only partially in jest - if Cuba's then seventy-seven year old dictator had responded by developing his own plan for relations with a post-Bush America. As Professor Gordon has pointed out, Castro has remained in power throughout the reigns of ten U.S. Presidents: Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy

Any discussion of food security would, at first blush, seem to focus primarily on world hunger and other threats to the safety of the food supply, whether intentionally man-made (e.g., terrorism), inadvertently man-made (e.g., global warming), made-for-profit by industrial agriculture (referred to as "industrial food" throughout this Article), or "natural" although arguably man-abetted (such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease). And hunger is indeed a problem and likely to be

Any discussion of food security would, at first blush, seem to focus primarily on world hunger and other threats to the safety of the food supply, whether intentionally man-made (e.g., terrorism), inadvertently man-made (e.g., global warming), made-for-profit by industrial agriculture (referred to as "industrial food" throughout this Article), or "natural" although arguably man-abetted (such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease). And hunger is indeed a problem and likely to become more of a problem. However, this Article focuses on the long term threat to world health and world food security caused by the American way of eating; the American way of growing food without regard for its long-term impact on the environment; and, finally, the exportation of the American way of eating and farming to the rest of the world. The Article will focus on two nations with more than a billion people each, China and India, as exemplars of the problems of exporting the American ...

The "State Sponsors of Terrorism" exception to sovereign immunity was an ill-conceived solution to very real problems: ending terrorism and compensating its American victims. In dealing with the latter it placed the burden of deciding the proper compensation of victims in the hands of the courts and thereby made the former more difficult to achieve. This paper argues that the flaws inherent in the terrorism exception before September 11, 2001, were not minimized by the events of that date. Rather, they were magnified and exposed. Perhaps the most obvious flaw in the exception is that the primary sponsor of the terrorists was not even denominated a "State Sponsor of Terrorism" at the time of the attack. There are many other flaws. Inherent in the term "state sponsors of terrorism" are three questions, none of which are as easy as they appear at first blush: (1) What is a "state"? (2) Who is a "sponsor"? and (3) What is "terrorism"?

In the frenzied rush to stamp out affirmative action in all of its manifestations, courts and legislatures are losing sight of fundamental realities. A key weapon in the destruction of affirmative action is the myth that the Constitution requires a color-blind approach to all but a very narrowly excepted class of race-based problems. Indeed, if the trend in recent state referenda cases continues, we soon will have the mythical color-blind Constitution that Justice Harlan first described in his dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson. In Plessy, Justice Harlan stated that "[o]ur Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." The adoption of Harlan's color-blind interpretation of the Constitution would almost certainly eliminate race-based protections and benign racial preferences as unconstitutional. This Article advocates that courts and legislatures should not read the Constitution as a color-blind document. The Framers never intended to ...

The Romer v. Evans colloquy between Justices Kennedy and Scalia over the applicability of the nineteenth century polygamy cases to the more current debate over gay rights and same-sex marriages was of more than academic interest to the estimated 25,000 to 50,000 Fundamentalist Mormon practitioners of polygamy, as well as the nearly 1,000 Christian polygamists, and Islamic and African practitioners of polygamy. The degree to which divergent religious practices will be accommodated is of increasing importance in a nation where the variety of religions is changing and expanding from the once overwhelmingly Protestant Christian colonial era. Part I of this Article first discusses at the Romer v. Evans colloquy. Part II briefly explores the history of the mainstream Mormon Church including its adoption and later repudiation of polygamy. Part II also examines non-Mormon polygamy. Part III considers the scriptural basis for polygamy. Part IV analyzes four nineteenth century cases that ...

The genesis of this article lies in a simple realization I had one day while driving behind a work vehicle in Atlanta, Georgia. The truck in question was pulling a wood chipper, a device which takes large tree branches, runs them through rapidly turning sharpened steel blades, and chips them into pieces small enough to be used as mulch. Obviously, any worker's body part accidentally sucked into this maelstrom would undergo a similar fate. Thus, the chipper had a warning label urging caution and instructing workers to avoid putting their hands into the device while it was operating. However, the warning was in English and only English. I realized that day there was a very good chance that some of the workers operating the chipper could not read English. There has been a surprisingly small number of cases arguing that, where a warning label is required, an English-only warning label is sufficient. In this article I argue that warning labels should be in both English and Spanish at ...

"Property rights serve human values." State v. Shack. Every law student needs to emerge from the crucible of first-year property law with a clear understanding that when "O conveys Blackacre to A for life, remainder to B and his heirs," O has created a life estate in A and a future interest, a vested remainder, in B; or that when "O conveys Blackacre to A and his heirs, but if A ever builds a liquor store on Blackacre, then to B," O has created a fee simple subject to executory limitation and has violated the common law rule against perpetuities. But, every student also needs to learn that property rights serve human values if she is to become a lawyer who understands and appreciates that the law must serve everyone: persons of color, the poor, those of every gender and sexual orientation, and must also be called upon to protect the environment. "O" may be African-American, "A" may be gay and "B" may be living in poverty, but all are affected by property law decisions. In this ...

Many students come into Civil Procedure thinking that the subject is, first, either the hardest course in the first year or, alternatively, tied with Property for that honor, and, second, the most boring course in the first year curriculum. Regardless of whether either of these beliefs is true, Civil Procedure is clearly the course with which 1Ls have the least familiarity. The students' journey to the conclusion that Civil Procedure is not only fascinating, but vitally important begins on day one. But how to start? Most Civil Procedure casebooks provide an introductory overview of civil actions before moving on to topic by topic, in-depth coverage of the material. In many instances, the casebooks use a series of short cases to introduce each topic area. In my view, the weakness of this approach is that the authors must drastically shorten the cases used, and many of them are neither particularly important nor interesting. Further, because of the large amount of material that ...

U.S. farmers have the capability to grow corn at a much lower cost than their Mexican counterparts, even without the government support that American agribusiness enjoys. In Mexico, corn is grown to some extent by agribusiness, often with ties to corporate America, but corn is also the food crop of the people -- the peasant and the indigenous population. The indigenous people of Mexico essentially developed corn and "gave" it to the world. These indigenous people have finally begun to receive some consideration, insufficient though it may be, for their contributions and their discoveries of useful plants that have become mainstays of modern agribusiness and medicine. Although these contributions are of significant economic value, primarily to the developed North, indigenous peoples have not seen any rewards for their centuries-long efforts. Although there is something of a growing movement towards recognition among the indigenous peoples of the world, their story largely remains ...

A vastly different international landscape greats the thirtieth volume of the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce than the one that greeted the first volume in 1972. But remarkably, in light of recent developments, there is a fascinating - but chilling - link with that first volume. The Syracuse University College of Law and its international law journal have come to be inextricably linked with the modern phenomena of terrorism based upon aircraft hijackings, bombings, and attacks, in a continuum that stretches from the time of first volume's debut thirty years ago until today. Briefly, the first volume contained a symposium on the then-current threat of aircraft hijackings. During that phase, hijackers typically diverted passenger aircraft from their intended routes to make political points, and neither the deaths of passengers nor mass destruction were the terrorists' goals. But that changed over the skies of Lockerbie in 1988. Syracuse then lost thirty-five ...

This article discusses New York real property law developments from 2002 to 2003, and "rounds up the usual suspects" such as easements and covenants and landlord tenant law. These areas of property law tend to change slowly through an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process. But it also addresses two topics that perhaps need a bit of explanation, if not justification. These topics involve recent cases and the focus is on larger issues in the cases that trigger their inclusion. First section I examine an issue that, when viewed more broadly, is primarily about real estate finance and the extent to which local governments will go to attract development by offering tax breaks and other concessions. DestiNY USA is a massive mall project that has generated its share of headlines, particularly in Central New York. Most of the debate surrounding the DestiNY proposal has centered around the fairness and efficacy of the state and local incentives and concessions used to ...