TY - JOUR
T1 - Public vs. Private Enforcement of Civil Rights
T2 - The Case of Housing and Employment
AU - Selmi, Michael
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2004 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam. All rights reserved.
PY - 1998/6
Y1 - 1998/6
N2 - In this Article, Professor Michael Selmi contends that one important reason civil rights legislation has produced less change than originally expected is that most of the legislation entrusted principal enforcement to the federal government, and that enforcement has been seriously deficient over time. Through a detailed empirical analysis, this Article compares the efforts of public and private attorneys in enforcing fair housing and employment discrimination laws, and demonstrates that the government generally brings far fewer cases and receives substantially less relief than private attorneys. In both housing and employment, the government has concentrated its efforts on individual cases, focusing primarily on family status housing cases and age discrimination employment cases. The discrepancies between the two enforcement groups arise, Professor Selmi argues, from bureaucratic pressures that prod government attorneys to bring easy and noncontroversial cases as a means of avoiding the conflict that so readily accompanies civil rights enforcement.
AB - In this Article, Professor Michael Selmi contends that one important reason civil rights legislation has produced less change than originally expected is that most of the legislation entrusted principal enforcement to the federal government, and that enforcement has been seriously deficient over time. Through a detailed empirical analysis, this Article compares the efforts of public and private attorneys in enforcing fair housing and employment discrimination laws, and demonstrates that the government generally brings far fewer cases and receives substantially less relief than private attorneys. In both housing and employment, the government has concentrated its efforts on individual cases, focusing primarily on family status housing cases and age discrimination employment cases. The discrepancies between the two enforcement groups arise, Professor Selmi argues, from bureaucratic pressures that prod government attorneys to bring easy and noncontroversial cases as a means of avoiding the conflict that so readily accompanies civil rights enforcement.
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M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0347669700
SN - 0041-5650
VL - 45
SP - 1401
EP - 1458
JO - UCLA Law Review
JF - UCLA Law Review
IS - 5
ER -