Plaza A Hilton San Francisco and Towers Lobby Level
Section on Property Law Florence Wagman Roisman, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Chair
Property, Wealth, and Inequality
Moderator:
Reginald Leamon Robinson, Howard University
Speakers:
John C. Brittain, Texas Southern University Martha Mahoney, University of Miami Frank I. Michelman, Harvard Law School Laura Marie Padilla, California Western School of Law
This panel will consider in some depth particular issues related to the unequal distribution of property and wealth. For those who attended the AALS January 4 Workshop on Property, Wealth, and Inequality, this offers an opportunity for further development of these maters; for those who missed the Workshop, this session affords some compensation.
Dean Brittain, who was lead counsel in Sheff v. O'Neill, the Connecticut school desegregation case, will discuss the reflexive relationship between housing and education, attending particularly to the effects that residential racial and economic segregation have on education and the prospects for equality of opportunity to accumulate wealth. Professor Mahoney, also addressing cases dealing with housing and education, will critically examine the concept of "white flight," arguing that the concept tends to make change appear aversive; makes racism and withdrawal appear deceptively as spontaneous and universal; masks white norms by recognizing whiteness only in retreat from the presence of non-whiteness; and provides a flawed but widely believed rational for legal decisions resisting transformation. Professor Michelman will describe and analyze recent developments in South Africa, focusing on the South African Constitution's equality clause and its guarantee of a right to adequate housing. Professor Padilla will address the continuing disabantages of women of color with respect to the right to own manage, and transfer property. She will report on the current status of women of color in the United States relative to the rest of the population with regard to income, property ownership, and other indicators of wealth.