Raymond T. Diamond

Bio: Raymond T. Diamond is an academic researcher from Louisiana State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supreme court & Jurisprudence. The author has an hindex of 6, co-authored 15 publications receiving 203 citations.

The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration

Abstract: © Copyright Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, 1991. This article was delivered as a paper at the 1990 annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History, at the Harvard Legal History Forum, at a faculty seminar at Northwestern University Law School, at the 1991 joint annual meeting of the Law and Society Association and the International Law and Society Association, and at the 1991 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful comments made in those forums. The authors would like to acknowledge the research assistance of Jan McNitt, Boston College Law School, 1991; Richard J. Fraher, Rutgers (Camden) School of Law, 1993; Roderick C. Sanchez, Rutgers (Camden) School of Law, 1992; Adrienne I. Logan, Tulane University School of Law, 1992; and Willie E. Shepard, Tulane University School of Law, 1992. This paper has benefitted from the criticism and helpful comments of Akhil R. Amar, Michael Les Benedict, Barbara Black, Maxwell Bloomfield, Ruth Colker, Michael Curtis, Robert Dowlut, Kermit Hall, Natalie Hull, Don B. Kates, Jr., Barbara K. Kopytoff, Sanford Levinson, Joyce Lee Malcolm, John Stick, and Robert F. Williams. The authors would also like to acknowledge summer research grants from Boston College Law School, Rutgers (Camden) School of Law, and Tulane University School of Law which contributed to the writing of this paper. ** Associate Professor, Rutgers (Camden) School of Law. A.B. 1971, Ph.D. 1978, Yale University; J.D. 1984, Georgetown University Law Center. *** Associate Professor, Tulane University School of Law. A.B. 1973, Yale University; J.D. 1977, Yale Law School. [Copyright © 1991 Georgetown Law Journal, Robert J. Cottrol & Raymond T. Diamond. Originally published as 80 GEO. L.J. 1991, 309-361 (1991). For educational use only. The printed edition remains canonical. For citational use please obtain a back issue from William S. Hein & Co., 1285 Main Street, Buffalo, New York 14209; 716-882-2600 or 800-828-7571.]

The Second Amendment : Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration

Abstract: Many of the issues surrounding the Second Amendment debate are raised in particularly sharp relief from the perspective of African-American history. With the exception of Native Americans, no people in American history have been more influenced by violence than blacks. Private and public violence maintained slavery. The nation's most destructive conflict ended the "peculiar institution." That all too brief experiment in racial egalitarianism, Reconstruction, was ended by private violence and abetted by Supreme Court sanction Jim Crow was sustained by private violence, often with public assistance. If today the memories of past interracial violence are beginning to fade, they are being quickly replaced by the frightening phenomenon of black-on-black violence, making life all too precarious for poor blacks in inner city neighborhoods. Questions raised by the Second Amendment, particularly those concerning self-defense, crime, participation in the security of the community, and the wisdom or utility of relying exclusively on the state for protection, thus take on a peculiar urgency in light of the modern Afro-American experience.

Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution

Abstract: Before 1954, both law and custom mandated strict racial segregation throughout much of the nation. That began to change with Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark decision that overturned the pernicious "separate but equal" doctrine. In declaring that legally mandated school segregation was unconstitutional, the Supreme Court played a critical role in helping to dismantle America's own version of apartheid, Jim Crow. This new study of Brown the title for a group of cases drawn from Kansas, Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware, and the District of Columbia offers an insightful and original overview designed expressly for students and general readers. It is concise, up-to-date, highly readable, and very teachable. The authors, all recognized authorities on legal history and civil rights law, do an admirable job of examining the fight for legal equality in its broad cultural and historical context. They convincingly show that Brown cannot be understood apart from the history of caste and exclusion in American society. That history antedated the very founding of the country and was supported by the nation's highest institutions, including the Supreme Court whose decision in "Plessy v. Ferguson" (1896) supported the notion of "separate but equal." Their book traces the lengthy court litigations, highlighting the pivotal role of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and including incisive portraits of key players, including co-plaintiff Oliver Brown, newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren, NAACP lawyer and future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, and Justice Felix Frankfurter, who recognized the crucial importance of a unanimous court decision and helped produce it. The authors simply but powerfully narrate the obstacles these individuals faced and the opportunities they grasped and clearly show that there was much more at stake than educational rights. Brown not only changed the national equation of race and caste it also changed our view of the Court's role in American life. The dramatic story of the road to and from "Brown," despite the retrenchments of recent years, needs to be heard anew. As we prepare to commemorate the decision's fiftieth anniversary in May 2004, this book invites readers to walk that road again and appreciate the lasting importance of what is indisputably a landmark case. "

"Never Intended to be Applied to the White Population": Firearms Regulation and Racial Disparity -- The Redeemed South's Legacy to a National Jurisprudence?

Abstract: [Copyright (c) 1995 Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology. ChicagoKent Law Review, Vol. 70, No. 3, pp. 1307-1335. For educational use only. The printed edition remains canonical. For citational use please obtain a back issue from http://www.kentlaw.edu/cgi-bin/lawrev-order or Chicago-Kent Law Review, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, 565 West Adams Street, Chicago, Illinois 60661, 312-906-5190.]

The Strange Career of Jim Crow

Abstract: Woodward’s argument proceeds along chronological and thematic lines. Chapter one discusses the ante-bellum era (1789-1860) and Reconstruction (1865-1877). Chapter two examines the era of “forgotten alternatives” in Southern race relations between 1870 and 1900. Chapter three examines what Woodward calls the “capitulation to racism” around the turn of the century. And, finally, chapter four examines the “turning point” in race relations that occurred between the 1920s and 1940s in the South.

The semantics of race

Abstract: I argue that the concept of race assumes specific meanings relative to prevailing historical conditions and discourses in given societies. In analysing these changes in significance, I focus on contemporary cultural conceptions of race. Here, I argue against the prevailing wisdom, that racial reference does not necessarily invoke underlying biological reference. From this I derive a general conception of race as virtually vacuous, reflective of dominant social discourses, forging self‐ and other‐ascriptive identities of anonymity, but at the same time defining inclusions and exclusions in respect of the body politic. The transformations in the spatio‐temporal significance of race reveal the concept to be an inherently political one, assuming significance as it orders membership in and exclusions from the body politic. I conclude by indicating some implications of the analysis for resisting a racialized status quo.

Racial Resentment and Whites’ Gun Policy Preferences in Contemporary America

Abstract: Our study investigates how and why racial prejudice can fuel white opposition to gun restrictions. Drawing on research across disciplines, we suggest that the language of individual freedom used by the gun rights movement utilizes the same racially meaningful tropes as the rhetoric of the white resistance to black civil rights that developed after WWII and into the 1970s. This indicates that the gun rights narrative is color-coded and evocative of racial resentment. To determine whether racial prejudice depresses white support for gun control, we designed a priming experiment which exposed respondents to pictures of blacks and whites drawn from the IAT. Results show that exposure to the prime suppressed support for gun control compared to the control, conditional upon a respondent’s level of racial resentment. Analyses of ANES data (2004–2013) reaffirm these findings. Racial resentment is a statistically significant and substantively important predictor of white opposition to gun control.

Accumulating Disadvantage Over the Life Course: Evidence From a Longitudinal Study Investigating the Relationship Between Educational Advantage in Youth and Health in Middle Age

Abstract: Recent studies suggest the importance of examining cumulative risk or advantage as potential predictors of health over the life course Researchers investigating the cumulative health effects of education, however, have mainly conceptualized education in years or degrees, often disregarding educational quality and access to educational opportunities that may place individuals on divergent academic trajectories We investigate whether educational advantages in youth are associated with an individual's health trajectory We develop a novel index of educational advantage and employ random-intercept modeling using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth A widening health disparity was found in adulthood between respondents with greater and those with fewer educational advantages in youth Furthermore, among respondents with few educational advantages, Blacks experience a greater health burden as they age compared to Whites and Hispanics These results suggest that differential access to education

Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy

Abstract: Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy provides readers with a must-have resource to digital accessibility from both a technical and policy perspective. Inaccessible digital interfaces and content often lead to forms of societal discrimination that may be illegal under various laws. This book is unique in that it provides a multi-disciplinary understanding of digital accessibility. The book discusses the history of accessible computing, an understanding of why digital accessibility is socially and legally important, and provides both technical details (interface standards, evaluation methods) and legal details (laws, lawsuits, and regulations). The book provides real-world examples throughout, highlighting organizations that are doing an effective job with providing equal access to digital information for people with disabilities. This isnt a book strictly about interface design, nor is it a book strictly about law. For people who are charged with implementing accessible technology and content, this book will serve as a one-stop guide to understanding digital accessibility, offering an overview of current laws, regulations, technical standards, evaluation techniques, as well as best practices and suggestions for implementing solutions and monitoring for compliance. This combination of skills from the three authorslaw, technical, and research, with experience in both corporate, government, and educational settings, is unique to this book, and does not exist in any other book about any aspect of IT accessibility. The authors combination of skills marks a unique and valuable perspective, and provides insider knowledge on current best practices, corporate policies, and technical instructions. Together, we can ensure that the world of digital information is open to all users. Learn about the societal and organizational benefits of making information technology accessible for people with disabilities Understand the interface guidelines, accessibility evaluation methods, and compliance monitoring techniques, needed to ensure accessible content and technology. Understand the various laws and regulations that require accessible technology Learn from case studies of organizations that are successfully implementing accessibility in their technologies and digital content