Category Archives: Featured

Getting Real About Race and Class: An Evaluation of the Constitutionality of Class-based, Socioeconomic Affirmative Action Without Grutter

Junis L Baldon – The concept of “racial neutrality” remains omnipresent in our political and judicial discourse about the use of race in college and university admissions.  Proponents of “race neutrality” have advocated for the use of class-based, socioeconomic affirmative action as a possible alternative to the explicit use of race in college and university admissions. Indeed, […]

It’s Not About Race: The True Purpose of the University of Texas’ Holistic Admissions System is to Give Preferences to Well-Connected White Applicants, Not to Disadvantaged Minorities

Jonathan R. Zell – Most elite colleges and universities employ a so-called “holistic”-admissions system to select all of their incoming students.  In contrast, the University of Texas at Austin (“UT”)—one of the parties in the Supreme Court’s Fisher cases—uses holistic admissions to admit only 20% to 25% of its undergraduate students.  The remaining 75% to 80% […]

Lead Article: Pensions or Paintings? The Detroit Institute of Arts from Bankruptcy to Grand Bargain

by Maureen B. Collins This article examines the issues faced by the City of Detroit and the Detroit Institute of Arts when Detroit filed for municipal bankruptcy. Creditors called for the sale of the highly esteemed DIA art collection to pay outstanding municipal pension obligations. The DIA and the Michigan Attorney General viewed the collection […]

Slaying Contingent Beneficiaries

by Kevin Bennardo This Article analyzes what impact, if any, the slaying of one beneficiary by another should have on distribution of a decedent’s property. This issue could arise in a variety of conveyances, such as intestate succession, wills, pay-on-death bank accounts, transfer-on-death securities, or life insurance proceeds. Based on equity, the Restatement (Third) of Restitution […]