Human and Civil Rights

The newsletter of the ISBA’s Human and Civil Rights Section

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2002 Articles

Adjudicating the government use of racial slurs—the “Redskins” debate By Matthew W. Beaudet January 2002 The "Redskins" debate being waged both Nationally and here in the State of Illinois has been mistakenly viewed as part and parcel of the general debate involving the use of Native American-based names, symbols and mascots.
Commission on Capital Punishment April 2002 May 2002 Now in private practice with a focus on mediation and arbitration, Judge McGarr served as a federal prosecutor and as the First Assistant Illinois Attorney General before spending 18 distinguished years on -the federal bench. He served as Chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois between 1981 and 1986.
“Economic development” takings restricted By Michael F. O’Brien June 2002 Perhaps signaling a trend toward greater protection of private property rights, the Illinois Supreme Court, in a highly unusual rehearing and reversal of its earlier ruling in the same case, held in Southwestern Illinois Development Authority v. National City Environmental, L.L.C., 199 Ill.2d 225, 768 N.E.2d 1, 263 Ill.Dec. 241 (2002) (SWIDA), that eminent domain cannot be used to take property for what it characterized as "purely private purposes," (768 N.E.2d at 11) even where that may stimulate "economic development." 768 N.E.2d at 9.
Elmer Gertz By Stephen Anderson January 2002 "No book about any man can be complete. In a sense, a man writes only of specimen hours, typical moments, when he does his memoirs. The real man is viewed, if at all, by indirection, through the interstices, so to speak, of the narrative."
Ethnic bar helps prosecutors & community build bridges in combating hate crime By Matthew W. Beaudet September 2002 The validity of hate crime legislation is still being actively debated amongst our colleagues in the legal community.
From the chair By James Stern September 2002 The subjects which the Human Rights Section deal with are matters right from the day's headlines: homeland security, racial profiling, detention without arrest, military tribunals, material witness arrest warrants, ethnic mascots and team names, affirmative actions, achool vouchers, hate crimes, speech codes, death penalty, international courts, the handicapped, family issues, privacy, access to public records, and diversity.
“The future of the section” By Patrick J. Hughes June 2002 By the time this reaches you, the ISBA Annual Meeting will be over and this section Council will have concluded its initial meeting of the new ISBA year (2002-2003).
Hate crime enforcement by private attorney civil action By Richard L. Hutchison December 2002 Hate crime offenses are enforced by criminal prosecutions. In the absence of or in addition to criminal prosecutions, the Illinois Hate Crime Statute (720 ILCS 5/12-7.1) authorizes private civil actions brought by the victim.
Illinois Native American Bar challenges racial school sports name of “redskins” By Richard L. Hutchison January 2002 In the litigation Mathew Beaudet refers to in the last paragraph of his article, the Illinois Native American Bar Association filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Huntley Illinois High and Middle School.
Impact of the September 11th attacks on the freedoms of Arabs and Muslims By William J. Haddad September 2002 The Arab-American and Muslim communities in the United States were severely affected by the criminal attacks upon the United States of America on September 11, 2001 (9/11) by terrorists
In this issue May 2002 As most of our readers know, on April 15, 2002, the long-awaited report of the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment was released.
In this issue April 2002 Although we are not quite yet "back on track" in meeting our newsletter obligations, we have this second issue and with the assistance of the section council members, anticipate meeting our four issue annual obligation.
In this issue January 2002 We begin with an apology to all for this belated first issue. We are working to get back on track in order to meet our annual newsletter obligations and your patience is appreciated.
Judicial campaign speech By Michael F. O’Brien December 2002 Dividing along its customary, 5-4, ideological fault line, the United State Supreme Court held in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, ___U.S. ___, 153 L.Ed.2d 694, 122 S.Ct. 2528 (2002) (Scalia, J), that Minnesota's canon of judicial conduct prohibiting judicial candidates "from announcing their views on disputed legal and political issues" violated the First Amendment. 122 S.Ct. at 2532 & 2542 (emphasis added).
New business for the Illinois Open Meetings Act By Mark E. Wojcik April 2002 The purpose of the Illinois Open Meetings Act is to give citizens advance notice of all meetings at which any business of a public body is discussed or acted upon in any way.
Protecting every Illinois family By Kenneth Dobbs December 2002 Imagine that you are a seven-year-old boy. Your parents rent a summer cottage at a campground for a vacation.
War crimes tribunals— 1948 revisited By James Stern June 2002 Before rushing to embrace any International Courts or Military Tribunals in dealing with "war criminals," it would be worthwhile to examine how these proceedings have performed in the past.
When are an employer’s “legitimate expectations” pretextual? By Mark E. Wojcik April 2002 To establish a prima facie case of employment discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employee must prove four things:
Where have all the liberals gone? Have they been tribed? By Thomas W. Simon April 2002 Politics and debate go together. Yet, despite the many political decisions made and actions taken in response to the events of September 11th, they have generated relatively little debate.