The Shadow Constitution

Download article. The United States Constitution is the foundation of American law and one of the most venerated documents in the American political community. Although most constitutional scholarship focuses on the meaning of the more heavily...

A Model of Targeted Universalism to Advance Equity and Promote the Well-Being of All Children

The Help Me Grow (HMG) Model is an innovative solution that provides an early childhood system of care and utilizes targeted universalism as a framework to advance equity.

Race and Politics

Assistant Director Stephen Menendian investigates the problem of "entanglement" in gerrymandering cases, where race and political identification are so bound-up that it is difficult in many cases to differentiate between motives when evaluating...

Form And Substance

The demand for racial equity has acquired greater intensity and urgency in recent years. Advocacy groups are demanding policies designed to address racial inequality in housing, the criminal justice system, and health care systems, among other areas...

Overcoming Toxic Polarization

This law review article published in the Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality, authored by OBI Director john a. powell, explores the nature of the problem of toxic polarization and what we must do about it. It argues that bridging is necessary but...

The Law and Significance of Plessy

The decision in Plessy v. Ferguson looms large in our nation’s historical memory, but it is both more significant than we generally appreciate and less so.

The Muslim Ban Cases

On January 27, 2017, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that banned individuals from certain Muslim-majority countries from entry into the United States. The district and circuit courts’ subsequent refusals to sanction...

Putting Integration on the Agenda

On October 18, 2019, Stephen Menendian and Richard Rothstein published a review of a landmark new book on racial residential segregation in the United States, examining the policy options to advance the goal of integration. Published in the American...

International Tolerance Day

November 16 th marks the International Day of Tolerance. On September 1, 1995, the Declaration of Principles and Follow-up Plan of Action for the United Nations Year of Tolerance , urgently encouraged member states, “not to fail, upon the...

What Constitutes a Racial Classification? Equal Protection Doctrine Scrutinized

In his new article, "What Constitutes a Racial Classification? Equal Protection Doctrine Scrutinized" for the Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review, Haas Institute Assistant Director Stephen Menendian examines the growing number of anomalies...

Affirmative Action: Where Do We Go From Here?

Othering & Belonging Institute Director john a. powell wrote an article published in the University of San Francisco Law Review about affirmative action and its complexities.

Fisher v. Texas: The Limits of Exhaustion and the Future of Race-Conscious University Admissions

Haas Institute Director john a. powell and Assistant Director Stephen Menendian recently wrote an article published in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform about the Fisher v. Texas case. This article delves into why the Supreme Court's decision in overruling the student was important to race-conscious admissions.

Constitutionalism and the Extreme Poor: Neo-Dred Scott and the Contemporary “Discrete and Insular Minorities”

The circle of human concern is represented institutionally primarily through public space, yet we are in an era in which the public is increasingly suspect and efforts to privatize both government authority and property and to delegate public...

Beyond Public/Private: Understanding Excessive Corporate Prerogative

In this article, john powell and Stephen Menendian explore the underpinnings of excessive corporate power, and the ways in which the private/public distinction has been used to mask and expand those prerogatives.

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Transformative Research Toolkit

Introduction We have seen and participated in transformative research strategies that defeated proposed jail expansions, won millions of dollars for community-prioritized programs, and built new community-led organizations that changed a political...
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Depolarization Day

Want a chance to hear from experts studying the root of what’s driving us apart and how we come back together? Eager to build the skills to listen empathetically, elicit narratives of connection, and interview professionally? Looking for a chance...

Book Talk: Before Gentrification, with Tanya Golash-Boza

Dr. Tanya Golash-Boza's book Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC's Racial Wealth Gap explores how redlining, incarceration, anti-blackness, and gentrification have resulted in DC becoming an extremely unequal city. She presented her book...