Save the Cheerleader: Employees or Independent Contractors?
“They think it’s a joke, ‘Oh, these little cheerleaders.’ ” Lacy Thibodeaux Recent accounts of life as a professional cheerleader in the NFL have been anything but glamorous. As a former Oakland Raider cheerleader explained , she was paid $125 a game at the end of the season while being expected to pay for cosmetics, expensive hair treatments, and travel costs out of pocket. Court documents from a 2009 case included a Baltimore Ravens handbook requiring cheerleaders to maintain “warm skin tones” with possible suspensions based on weight viol…
Understanding Immigration Means Understanding Family
Like many others, I was profoundly affected by the images of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi found dead on a Turkish shoreline. You may see and read more about the story here and here but do note that it is highly disturbing . The migrant crisis today in Europe is massive, with 4 million Syrians having fled their homes, Aylan included. Concerning Aylan, the New York Times wrote: [I]t is not the sheer size of the catastrophe — millions upon millions forced by war and desperation to leave their homes — but a single tragedy that has clarified the m…
Casting with a Broader Net: A Classroom of Stereotypes
The third in a series of three about the use of race in affirmative action. Having found that classroom diversity is a compelling government interest, the court battle going forward seems to center on the “narrowly tailored means” used to implement a diversity objective. To achieve diversity that is not centered in race requires an admission processes that looks at a diverse set of signifiers. If race is used as a factor, it must be done so only after making a good faith effort to achieve diversity with race-neutral methods.[1] The Fisher …
Casting with a Broader Net: Diversity in the Classroom as a Compelling Government Interest
The second in a series of three about the use of race in affirmative action. Building upon the rulings in Bakke and Grutter , the Fisher Court made it clear that achieving a diverse student body is a compelling government interest and a constitutionally permissible goal for a university. In analyzing a university’s pursuit of diversity, the Court has given a liberal amount of deference to the educational institution’s own judgment, though such decisions do need to be within reason.[1] This deference includes not only recognizing a need fo…
Casting with a Broader Net: Race-Neutral Diversity in Higher Education
The first in a series of three about the use of race in affirmative action. In 1978 Justice Blackmun wrote “I suspect that it would be impossible to arrange an affirmative-action program in a racially neutral way and have it successful.”[1] He went on to reason that “[i]n order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way.”[2] The Court’s ruling on college admissions affirmative action in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin attempts to walk a nonexistent line between Justice Blackmun’s ideas.[3] By find…
