Evaluating the Role of Brown vs. Board of Education in School Equalization,

ORLEY C. ASHENFELTER et al. — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:22:14 PDT

In this paper we study the long-term labor market implications of school resource equalization before Brown and school desegregation after Brown. For cohorts born in the South in the 1920s and 1930s, we find that racial disparities in measurable school characteristics had a substantial influence on black males’ earnings and educational attainment measured in 1970, albeit one that was smaller in the later cohorts. When we examine the income of male workers in 1990, we find that southern-born blacks who finished their schooling just before effective desegregation occurred in the South fared poorly compared to southern-born blacks who followed behind them in school by just a few years.

Judicial Globalization in the Service of Self-Government

Martin S. Flaherty — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 11:21:49 PDT

This working paper considers potential justifications for the democratic legitimacy of what Anne-Marie Slaughter has termed, “judicial globalization” – the reliance by U.S. judges on international and foreign legal materials in the interpretation of domestic law. Toward this end the paper offers two and a half tentative answers, one distinctive to the U.S., the other(s) with general applicability. The distinctively American response, however conservative in theory, suggests that the original understanding of the Constitution supports a strong presumption that the Constitution, and Federal law generally, be interpreted in a way that is consistent with international law, particularly with regard to fundamental rights. The more general and adventurous response, which argues that courts, in their capacity as democratic institutions charged with the responsibility of rendering principled judgments, may consult at least international law: a) to exercise a distinctive type of foreign affairs authority as well, and; b) to better discern the fundamental commitments of the American people. The balance of the paper defines the project with greater precision, then fleshes out the American and more general ways forward.

Princeton Law and Public Affairs Research Paper Series

Evaluating the Role of Brown vs. Board of Education in School Equalization,

Judicial Globalization in the Service of Self-Government