Topic: Public Interest
78 results
Features
Bagenstos on Class-Not-Race
Throughout the civil rights era, strong voices have argued that policy interventions should focus on class or socioeconomic status, not race. At times, this position-taking has seemed merely tactical, opportunistic, or in bad faith. I am more interested in the people who clearly mean it.
Features
Imprisoned, Exonerated — and Now an “Unsecured Creditor”
Dwayne Provience spent almost a decade in prison before the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the U-M Law School won his exoneration in 2010. He filed a civil lawsuit against the city, and a settlement panel proposed a payment of $5 million. Now he's on a list of Detroit’s unsecured creditors.
Briefs
Michigan Innocence Clinic Client Exonerated From Arson Conviction
Victor Caminata, the Michigan Innocence Clinic client whose arson case was featured in the fall 2013 issue of the Law Quadrangle, was exonerated in January.
Cover Story
Civil Rights Act at 50
This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us to go to work in our communities and our states, in our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country.” So said President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964 when he signed the Act into law. Here, we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Act by sharing the stories of alumni who fought for its passage and those who worked to preserve its legacy.
Cover Story
Katy Locker, ’02: Boosting Quality of Life in Detroit
Katy Locker, ’02, likes being part of the conversation about making a difference in her community. And she gets to do just that as the Detroit program director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which provides grants for ideas that promote quality journalism and media innovation, engage communities, and foster the arts.
@UMICHLAW
Sankaran Challenges Michigan’s One-Parent Doctrine
Since his arrival in 2005, Professor Vivek S. Sankaran, ’01, has been working to change Michigan's one-parent doctrine. It states that the court gets jurisdiction over a child based on the finding that one parent is unfit. “My initial reaction was that this is insane, this idea that you can take children away from both parents based solely on findings against one,” he says.
Features
Detroit Center for Family Advocacy: Keeping Families Together
The Detroit Center for Family Advocacy (CFA), founded by Vivek Sankaran, ’01, a clinical professor of law in the Law School’s Child Advocacy Law Clinic, works like this: An attorney from the center partners with a social worker and family advocate to remove legal barriers and safety risks that otherwise might cause a child to be put in the foster care system.
@UMICHLAW
Professor Nicole Appleberry, ’94: Tax Issues and Domestic Violence Survivors
As the director of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC), Professor Nicole Appleberry, ’94, sees firsthand how tax issues affect domestic violence survivors. “Domestic violence is about power and control,” Appleberry says, “and when a woman leaves a domestic violence relationship, she is particularly vulnerable, especially from a financial standpoint.”