[Pages 231-290]
THE SHIFTING RACE-CONSCIOUSNESS MATRIX AND THE MULTIRACIAL CATEGORY MOVEMENT: A CRITICAL REPLY TO PROFESSOR HERNANDEZ
Reginald Leamon Robinson*

In this article, the author posits that race as an idea begins with consciousness that reinforces that race is real and immutable. The Multiracial Category Movement can shift our race consciousness away from traditional ways of thinking, talking, and using race. The Movement moves us beyond binary race thinking, and this new thinking shifts the extant race consciousness matrix. It also frees our consciousness so that we can personally and politically acknowledge our biracial and multiracial identities, and it perforce alters the traditional political meaning of race. Legal scholars like Professor Tanya Hernandez argue for the political meaning of race against a remediating balm against the color-blind jurisprudence, weakening of civil right protections, and pigmentocracy. While these new identities can promote color-blind jurisprudence by conservatives and pigmentocracy by those fleeing the oppressive constraints of traditional racial categories, the author argues against Hernandez and for the Movement’s paradigm shifting possibilities.

[Pages 291-344]
CHRONICLERS IN THE FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION: COURTS, LAW AND THE INTERPRETIVE PROCESS
Larry Catá Backer*

This paper unearths the cultural basis of judicial authority in the project of producing and reproducing cultural norms, that is, the unconscious “common sense” of “things” from which we draw all rules of social conduct. It does so from two perspectives. The first considers authority from the perspective of the sorts of pronouncements of “law” that judges purport to make. The second looks to ingrained and submerged cultural patterns of “hearing” for the model by which individuals and societies in the West submit to and obey the judicial voice. Identification and memorialization provide the key to understanding the weightiness with which judicial speaking is heard. Courts act judicially, and therefore say something worth hearing, only when they engage in acts of identifying and articulating points of social consensus. The very act of pronouncement serves to reinforce and memorialize the consensus articulated. But the weight given to judicial pronouncements also engages the hearer in the more subtle act of repeating and reinforcing basic cultural patterns of speaking and hearing. Courts pronounce in three different cultural voices: the Homeric, the Delphic, and the voices of Job’s companions. The two Greek voices speak with measured tones and single-minded linear confidence; they are transmissions from the divine which must be obeyed. The voices of Job’s companions adds a layer of messiness and conflict to the authority of judicial pronouncement. Biblical patterns of cultural speaking also create within the court the possibility of change. The courts provide a site for the articulation of prophetic voices. These are the voices, within and without the law, that are the harbingers of change.

[Pages 345-392]
FIGHTING GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE CHINESE WORKPLACE
Christine M. Bulger*

This Note analyzes the avenues available to Chinese women in their struggle for workplace equality. While China has enacted a number of laws that appear to afford women equal opportunity in employment, the ineffectiveness of these laws is quite apparent.There are many reasons for this, including the inherent inadequacies of many of China’s statutes and of its Constitution, barriers and failures within the legal and court systems, and the traditional inferior status of women in Chinese society. However, as young Chinese citizens are becoming less dependent upon their government, they are also becoming more willing than earlier generations to challenge the inequalities and failings of the Chinese government and its legal system. This readiness of the new generation in China, coupled with the suggestions and strategies described in this Note, should serve to bring about gradual improvement for women in the Chinese workplace, and eventually in the whole of Chinese society, government, and politics.

[Pages 393-426]
RENEWING THE CALL: IMMIGRANTS' RIGHT TO APPOINTED COUNSEL IN DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS
Beth J. Werlin*

Deportation is a significant deprivation of liberty—both scholars and courts have likened it to criminal punishment. In fact, with the passage of the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigration Reform Act in 1996, Congress expanded the grounds for deportation while narrowing the avenues for relief. Moreover, immigration law is notoriously complex, as are the deportation proceedings themselves. These adjudicatory hearings incorporate many of the formal procedural protections adopted by courts of law. Yet non-citizens, who often have little understanding of the American legal system, have no right to appointed counsel. In light of the significant interests at stake, the complexity of the process, and the evolving nature of the law, the right to appointed counsel is necessary to ensure that the dictates of due process are satisfied.

[Pages 427-446]
PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS: PURSUING CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR LABOR RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ABROAD THROUGH THE ALIEN TORT CLAIMS ACT
Douglas S. Morrin*

In their book, Corporate Predators: The Hunt For Mega-Profits and The Attack on Democracy, Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman expose the pervasiveness of rights violations committed by corporations both domestically and abroad. However, while the authors alert their readers to and educate them about the dangers of globalization, they fail to provide many clear solutions. Fortunately, evidence suggests that the United States judicial system is already being used to pursue corporate accountability in the global marketplace. The Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), adopted by the first Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789, provides foreigners who suffer human rights injuries outside the United States a federal forum through which to pursue their claim. Recently, decisions have extended the ATCA’s jurisdiction into the realm of labor rights as well. Through an analysis of the ATCA’s case law, the current lawsuit filed against eighteen United States clothing designers and manufacturers for labor violations in Saipan factories can be better examined. In turn, this analysis will show how the ATCA, while not yet a panacea for the ills of the global economy, has become an increasingly powerful tool in promoting corporate accountability abroad.

[Pages 447-471]
WHICH BODIES COUNT WHEN THEY ARE BASHED?: AN ARGUMENT FOR THE INCLUSION OF TRANSGENDERED INDIVIDUALS IN THE HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT OF 1999
Kara S. Suffredini*

On average, one transgendered individual is reported murdered every month. This high statistic does not account for hate crimes against transgendered individuals that are either not reported or are misrecorded as crimes motivated by sexual orientation bias. In this Book Review, the author explores this epidemic of violence against transgendered individuals. Juxtaposing two prominent hate crimes—the murders of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming and Brandon Teena in Nebraska—the author exposes the critical differences between hate crimes against transgendered individuals and hate crimes based on sexual orientation and the disparity between the institutional responses each receives. The author argues that these differences warrant the conclusion that hate crimes against transgendered individuals should not be left to fall under the “actual or perceived sexual orientation” provision of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999, but can and should receive express, individualized attention under the Act’s “actual or perceived gender” provision.