Peggy Cooper Davis, Aderson Francois, and Colin Starger
Content warning: this article quotes a decision that includes the n-word1.
Dixie is a song with a complicated history. Versions of it were sung by both Confederate and Union troops during the Civil War. Historian Karen Cox carefully documented the song’s lingering popularity and its mixed social and racial signaling in Dreaming of Dixie. Over the years – and for reasons that are not entirely clear – “just whistling Dixie,” a slang expression based on the song, came to stand for bravado without follow-through. A seemingly overblown statement might cause listeners to wonder whether the speaker was speaking truth or “just whistling Dixie.” A threat might cause listeners to wonder whether the speaker was actually dangerous or “just whistling Dixie.”
Justice Alito’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey marks a watershed shift in the way that the country treats people who are pregnant versus an “unborn life.” By stripping constitutional protection from the decision to have an abortion, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization equates pregnant people’s right to control their bodies and the state’s interest in protecting prenatal life.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization dismantled the constitutional foundation giving pregnant people the right to choose whether or not to give birth. The decision allows states to ban abortion and criminalize anyone who assists a pregnant person in getting an abortion. 26 states have laws and amendments in place that ban or have a near-total ban on abortion following this decision.
The City University of New York Law Review is committed to addressing the consequences of structural oppression, and to challenging these structures themselves. As such, we denounce the Supreme Court’s holding undoing 50 years of legal precedent that millions have relied on to plan their futures and families. The decision will have far-reaching and devastating legal and practical ramifications on those who can give birth, particularly the poor, people of color, and trans people. Justice Thomas’ concurrence called for the Supreme Court to “reconsider” its past rulings on contraception access, same-sex marriage, and consensual sex in same-sex relations, which implicates consequential constitutional privacy rights. This decision’s reasoning was not grounded in notions of liberty or equality but in a white supremacist, sexist historical period where women, Black people and other people of color, the poor, and queer people had inferior, or no rights at all.
Interested in getting published in CUNY Law Review? We are currently accepting submissions for student-written articles to be published in our Winter 2023 issue (26.1). CUNY Law Review seeks to uplift student authors and welcomes submissions from all law students for the Notes and Comments section. Students are encouraged to see Notes and Comments as a platform to publish their work, along with the Footnote Forum and the CUNY Law Review Blog!
On March 4, 2022, CUNY Law Review hosted our 25th Anniversary Celebration with an event spotlighting our article, Restorative Justice in Cases of Sexual Harm, by Dr. Alexa Sardina and Dr. Alissa Ackerman. The events as co-moderated by Rev. Dr. Yvette Wilson-Barnes, Associate Dean of Student Affairs and former CUNYLaw Review Editorial Board member, and Brittney Frey, CUNY Law Review Executive Articles Editor. Below are the Opening Remarks given by Dean Wilson-Barnes and a video of the event.
The pandemic left many poor and working-class people in precarious financial positions. The federal government attempted to alleviate some of these financial burdens through Economic Impact Payments (“EIP”) providing people with three stimulus checks in 2020 and 2021. As paltry and unrealistic as these payments were (a maximum of $1,200, $600, and $1,400 for households of one, $2,400 for a married couple, and up to $500 additional for each qualifying child) in supporting the financial loss felt by many, it was at least an act meant to mitigate some of that burden. However, this caused some unforeseen damage to recipients of Supplemental Security Insurance (“SSI”).
By Elizabeth Stillman,1 Associate Professor of Academic Support, Suffolk University Law School
Success in law school, like in any form of higher education, requires that students feel a sense of belonging. Belonging “refers to students’ perceived social support on campus, a feeling or sensation of connectedness, and the experience of mattering or feeling cared about, accepted, respected, valued by, and important to the campus community or others on campus such as faculty, staff, and peers.”
By Summer Blaze Aubrey, Esq. LL.M.1(Cherokee/Blackfeet) & Patricia Handlin, Esq.2
Enbridge, Inc. is a Canadian company that moves oil from the Western Canadian oil tar sands through a pipeline from Alberta, Canada across Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior. Line 3 is new construction that will connect Alberta to Lake Superior along a different route. The pipeline’s route snakes through the wild rice fields of Minnesota, called manoomin or psίᶇ, a sacred food of the Anishinaabe, the Ojibwe and Minnesota Chippewa Tribes, and Dakota Tribes, respectively, and is at the center of their cultural identity, spiritual traditions, and physical and economic well-being. The route crosses the headwaters of the Mississippi River as well as hundreds of other rivers, bodies of water, and wetlands in Minnesota and ends on the shores of Lake Superior just across the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.
We are excited to announce the publication of the 25th Anniversary Volume of CUNY Law Review, Volume 25.1! The full journal is available at CUNY Academic Works. Please see below for individual articles:
In anticipation of the launch of Volume 25, Issue 1 of CUNY Law Review, we are excited to invite you to our 25th Anniversary Event! This event will be a very special occasion as we reflect on prior years since the Law Review’s founding to today. We have a rich agenda planned and many names and articles to lift up.
Current Issue Spotlight: Restorative Justice in Cases of Sexual Harm
We are also thrilled to spotlight our article, Restorative Justice in Cases of Sexual Harm, featured in Volume 25.1 and to invite you to a cutting-edge discussion in the social justice arena with authors Alexa Sardina and Alissa R. Ackerman. This discussion and Q&A will be co-moderated by Dean Yvette Wilson-Barnes and CUNY Law Review Executive Articles Editor, Brittney Frey.
Friday, March 4, 2022 6-7 pm ET CUNY Law Review‘s 25th Anniversary Event will be live streamed. Please RSVP here.
Followed by an Intimate Conversation with the Authors
Current CUNY students and staff are invited to stay after the event for an intimate gathering with the authors. The purpose of this session is to provide a smaller, emotionally safe space for sharing and connection among CUNY community members. This space will not be recorded. Separate RSVP to brittney.frey@live.law.cuny.edu required.
The first issue of Volume 25, featuring Alexa and Alissa’s article, will be available on February 22nd. Stay tuned!
Dr. Alissa Ackerman (left) and Dr. Alexa Sardina, authors of Restorative Justice in Cases of Sexual Harm.
Dr. Alissa R. Ackerman is an Associate Professor in the Division of Politics, Administration and Justice at California State University, Fullerton.She has dedicated her career to studying sex crimes policy and practice, the etiology of sexual offending, the effects of sexual victimization, and restorative justice options for those impacted by sexual harm. She is a “survivor scholar”, in that she integrates her personal experience with sexual violence with her professional expertise as a sex crimes researcher. She has worked with over 500 men and women who have perpetrated acts of sexual harm using vicarious restorative justice. Alissa has written extensively on topics related to sexual violence in blogs and magazine articles and has published over 35 peer-reviewed journal articles. She has authored or edited six books and recently served as co-editor on a special edition of the Journal of Sexual Abuse. Her most recent book, Healing from Sexual Violence: The Case for Vicarious Restorative Justice was published in 2019. Alissa has been an invited speaker in venues across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. She has given over fifty national and international talks on her sex crimes work including a TEDx Talk in 2018. With Alexa, she hosts the popular podcast, Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast.
Dr. Alexa D. Sardina, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Sacramento in the Division of Criminal Justice. Her scholarship focuses on female-perpetrated sexual violence, and how restorative processes can be used to address acts of sexual harm. Dr. Sardina has written and presented on research that combines her experience as an expert on sexual violence and rape survivor to encourage the perspective of “survivor scholars”. This brings an important perspective to sex crimes policy, treatment and healing, and aid in communal sexual violence prevention efforts. Dr. Sardina is also a co-founder of Ampersands Restorative Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to using restorative processes to address sexual harm. She also co-hosts the popular podcast, Beyond Fear: The Sex Crimes Podcast.
