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Weekly litigation report — May 5, 2018

May 05, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Another lawsuit to challenge Seattle’s war on landlords This week, we sued to challenge Seattle’s Fair Chance Housing Ordinance on behalf of several landlords and the Rental Housing Association of Washington in Yim v. City of Seattle. The Fair Chance Housing Ordinance forbids landlords from asking for a criminal background check or deny ...

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Weekly litigation report — August 19, 2017

August 19, 2017 | By JAMES BURLING

Environmentalists warn of catastrophic sun-darkening on Monday! Support for the Supreme Court to toss Michigan’s theft by tax-forclosure scheme Widespread support for “absent frog” case in Supreme Court And widespread concern for unoccupied sage-grouse habitat rules John Duarte settles with the Corps over making mountains out of ...

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Universities hide their use of race in admissions

October 08, 2015 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

No university that uses racial preferences in its admissions process seriously questions whether racial preferences are beneficial — or whether the undeniable costs of its policy outweigh the benefits. Moreover, these discriminating universities refuse to heed the Supreme Court’s repeated command that racial preferences may be used ...

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Fisher : Is the Roberts Court playing the long game?

October 06, 2015 | By WENCONG FA

This week marks the start of another exciting Supreme Court term. One of the biggest cases this year is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, now at the Court for the second time. Two years ago, the Supreme Court held that the Fifth Circuit’s review of the University’s race-based admissions policy was too deferential, and gave the ...

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President's weekly report — March 27, 2015

March 27, 2015 | By ROB RIVETT

Eminent domain — New Jersey Supreme Court abandons precedent In this 3-2 decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the use of eminent domain in 62-64 Main Street v. Mayor and City Council of the City of Hackensack.  The question here is how much blight is just pretext and how much is really enough to justify condemning … ...

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How would you avoid disparate impact liability?

December 16, 2014 | By WENCONG FA

Disparate impact theory tells employers that they have broken the law when a concededly neutral hiring practice produces too many employees of one race and not enough of another. Let’s say you’re an employer looking to hire 20 people from a pool of 100 applicants. You give the same standardized test to all 100 applicants … ...

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Fifth Circuit denies rehearing en banc in Fisher v. University of Texas

November 12, 2014 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

The case of Abigail Fisher may be on its way to the Supreme Court a second time.  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied her petition for rehearing en banc. Judge Garza filed a short dissent reiterating the points he made in his panel dissent.  PLF, joined by our friends at the Center for Equal Opportunity, Reason Foundation, … ...

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PLF files brief in the Supreme Court opposing race-based redistricting

October 16, 2014 | By CHRIS KIESER

We have previously blogged about the latest redistricting controversy to reach the Supreme Court. In these two combined cases, styled Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, the plaintiffs contend that the redistricting plan for the Alabama Senate and House of Representatives is an unconstitutional ...

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President's weekly report — August 15, 2014

August 15, 2014 | By ROB RIVETT

Equality Under the Law — Government discrimination in contracting We filed this brief in Midwest Fence v. United States Department of Transportation.  Midwest Fence has been embroiled in litigation defending its right to bid for government contracts in Illinois on the same basis as everyone else.  The owner of Midwest Fence is a Caucasian ...