Author: Nikita_Srivastava

With Great Discretion Comes Great Responsibility

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 23 Sep 2019
5 Comments on With Great Discretion Comes Great Responsibility

Brady Violations in the Story of Michael Sutton’s Wrongful Conviction.

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

Michael Sutton with his sister, Lucretia Sutton.

Do you remember the day you finished high school? I want you to go back to that time. Imagine, you’re 17 years old again: You’re hanging out with your friends; you’re excited about the end of high school and the start of a new beginning. Days before your graduation, you go out with your closest friends and stay out all night. You dance, laugh, and celebrate the first steps to a bright new future. For most of us, that celebration night ends with hugging good-bye, quietly sneaking into our houses without waking up our parents, and sleeping in the next day. For most of us, it’s a great night. And, for most us, the night does not end with us being arrested for an attempted murder we did not commit. Unfortunately, that is what happened to Michael Sutton.

On the night he celebrated finishing high school, Michael found himself with three of his closest friends being arrested. Instead of hugging their friends goodnight and returning to the comforts of their home, Michael and his best friends spent the night in jail for a crime they did not commit. Instead of going off to college and getting his degree in business, Michael was sentenced to 41 years to life in prison.

Civil Rights Colorblind Critical Race Theory Race Discrimination Racial Equality segregation Social Justice

Playing the “Race Card”: A Contradiction in America’s Colorblind Society.

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 6 Mar 2019
1 Comment on Playing the “Race Card”: A Contradiction in America’s Colorblind Society.

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

Image from HuffPost.

“You can’t play your race card when discussing this issue. Bringing race into this matter will not get us anywhere. I am telling you now, it won’t be a constructive conversation.” John Doe said this to a woman of color while we were discussing the socio-economic effects of government programs in one of my undergraduate classes. He angrily slammed his hands on the table and began chugging his water. I imagined that he grabbed his water to cool himself down as if there was a fire inside of him that he needed to put out. Another classmate stated that our country was founded on racism and I stated, “these policies are supposedly ‘race-neutral,’ but are not. By not considering race, we are disregarding more than half the people in this country.” (I thought to myself: race is a part of everything in this country, ignoring it only makes it worse.) As silence ensued, my professor quickly turned to another portion of our assigned reading. However, I could not focus on anything else. I called my mother after the class and recalled the event to her. She said, “With each generation, things get better, but then you hear someone say something like that. It makes you think: are we better now?”

Civil Rights Colorblind Critical Race Theory Feminism Gender Equality Gender-based discrimination LGBTQ Rights Sex Discrimination sexual harassment Women in the Law

Books, Books, and Books: A Social Justice Reading List

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 18 Jan 2019
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Nikita Srivastava (’19)

Throughout my time working with the Center for Race, Gender and Social Justice, I’ve been exposed to amazing concepts that reflect on issues affecting our society.

I personally love researching for fun, but not everyone shares that love … or the same views I do. If you want to engage your mind, then I recommend the following books:

Dean Verna Williams and Michelle Obama (image from Cincinnati.com)

Becoming by Michelle Obama

In her memoir, the former First Lady takes us on a journey to the White House. Mrs. Obama debunks many false rumors by sharing her life story. She elegantly describes every hurdle, obstacle, failure, mistake, and success she has encountered thus far. And, while describing her White House years, Mrs. Obama gives special thanks to our very own Interim Dean, Verna L. Williams. Check it out!

domestic violence RGSJ Events Social Justice

The Hamilton County Domestic Violence Summit: Collaborating for Safer Communities

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 13 Dec 2018
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Guest Contributor: Professor Kristin Kalsem

Intimate partner abuse is a priority issue for the University of Cincinnati College of Law’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice. Its Domestic Violence and Civil Protection Order Clinic has served more than 1400 survivors and its research and work with community partners has resulted in more than 375 judges and magistrates being trained on best practices in these cases.

Intimate partner abuse is a fact of life in too many homes. The statistics are staggering. Domestic violence hotlines nationwide receive more than 20,000 calls on a typical day. Intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime and one in three female murder victims are killed by intimate partners. The cost of domestic violence to the U.S. economy is between $5.8 and $12.6 billion each year. (Stats provided by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence). In Ohio, between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018, there were ninety-one domestic-violence related fatalities. In 22 percent of those cases, children were involved at the scene and in more than 46 percent of the cases, the victim had ended or was in the process of ending the relationship. (Ohio stats provided by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network.)

Gender Equality Gender-based discrimination Sex Discrimination Sexual assault sexual harassment Supreme Court

Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation: The Dangerous New Narrative.

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 1 Nov 2018
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Nikita Srivastava (’19)

We’re all told at some point the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. A young boy would repeatedly and continuously cry wolf when no wolf was present. His village would panic and run to his rescue but found the boy with no wolf. The villagers always ran to his rescue when no wolf was present. Eventually, the villagers collectively decided that when the boy cried wolf, they would not come to the boy’s rescue. One day, the boy saw a wolf. Scared and alone, he cried wolf – no one showed up. The boy died, eaten by a wolf.

The moral of the story: don’t lie or you’ll die. Women were treated like the boy who cried wolf. When women scream “sexual assault,” they were met with disbelief. However, after the confirmation hearing for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, that narrative changed significantly. Women are no longer met with disbelief, but rather ignorance of their experience. John Oliver said it best on his show Last Week Tonight: “it is not that women aren’t believed, [society] simply does not care.” The narrative now changed to not caring about a woman’s harassment/abuse/assault. Ultimately, this dangerous new narrative will cause more harm to women. By not caring, society will accept that women face sexual harassment, or have been assaulted, but won’t take action against it. By taking this stance, we are basically saying to women, “hey, you got harassed/assaulted/abused? Well, you’re going have to deal with that because you’re a woman. No one is going to help you. Your abuser won’t get punished or reprimanded for it.”

#MeToo Feminism Gender-based discrimination lawyers legal profession Women in the Law

Litigating Sexual Harassment Cases

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 30 Aug 2018
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Guest Contributor: Sandra F. Sperino

Professor Sandra Sperino. Image from UC Law’s Website.

The #metoo movement has increased the focus on sexual harassment cases and how courts analyze them. One way to increase the reach of harassment law is hidden in plain sight: the text of Title VII itself.

Title VII, the federal law that prohibits harassment based on race, sex, and other protected traits, has two main provisions. Under Title VII’s first provision, it is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to do the following:

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Feminism Gender Equality Sexual assault sexual harassment Title IX Women in the Law

The Sex Talk: Campus Sexual Assault Project

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 3 Aug 2018
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Image from Cincinnati Enquirer

Starting Sunday August 5, Kate Murphy and Meg Vogel’s project called The Sex Talk video series will be published by The Cincinnati Enquirer and USA Today. The video series focuses on the conversation that is not happening about campus sexual assault.

The Sex Talk comprises of ten videos that look at the epidemic of campus sexual assault in a new way by creating an honest digital conversation with people who are on the front lines and different sides of the issue.

Civil Rights economic justice Immigration LGBTQ Rights religious freedom Supreme Court

Gays, Bans, and Unions: The Supreme Court’s Eventful Summer

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 20 Jul 2018
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Nikita Srivastava (’19)

The Summer of 2018 gave Americans unpredictable weather, new celebrity romances, and, of course, a lot of Supreme Court decisions. After months of waiting, the Supreme Court released three opinions that will greatly effect American History. These are the major cases that caught American’s attention: Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Trump v, Hawaii, and Janus v. American Federation of State County, and Municipal Employees.

The Supreme Court of the United States in Masterpiece v. Colorado ruled 7-2 in favor of the Colorado Baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. However, the Court made a narrow decision leaving room open for a larger question: whether businesses can discriminate against gay individuals based on the rights protected in the First Amendment.

Colorblind Feminism Gender Equality Intersectionality lawyers legal profession microaggressions Personal Narrative Race Discrimination Sex Discrimination Women in the Law

Psychological Harms of Microaggressions

Post author By Nikita_Srivastava
Post date 25 May 2018
2 Comments on Psychological Harms of Microaggressions

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

Nikita Srivastava (’19) demonstrating how to give a cross-examination at the University of Dayton.

Everyone will have different experiences while working over the summer. Some may find the work load difficult or easy. Some may find the law frustrating or rewarding. At some point, all law school students will experience these feelings, however not everyone will experience the same work environment. Some students will experience microaggressions.

Microaggressions are brief and commonplace — daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities and invalidations, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults to the target person or group or “outsiders”. “Outsiders” are individuals who do not come from the dominant culture. They are women, people of color, and the LGBQT community. Usually, the “well-intentioned” people are the microaggressors–they are the ones who actively say and/or believe they are not racist, sexist, or homophobic; however, their actions or expressions say otherwise.