Tagged: competition

“More expansively, the Freedman’s Bureau Act of March 3, 1865, pursuant to the Southern land confiscation acts of 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864, had an explicit racial land redistribution provision. Again, ‘not more than 40 acres’ of land was to be provided to refugee or freedman male citizens at three years’ annual rent not exceeding 6 percent of the value of the land based on appraisal of the state tax authorities in 1860. At the end of the three years, the occupants could purchase the land and receive title. Similar provisions were included in the postwar Southern Homestead Act of 1866; freedmen were to receive land in the southern states at a price of $5 for 80 acres. Neither of these Acts were implemented on behalf of the ex-slaves with any degree of vigor given the fierce opposition of President Andrew Johnson. By the end of 1865, Johnson also had ordered the removal of former slaves from the coastal lands they had settled under the conditions of Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15. The lands ultimately were restored to the former slave owners.”

Source: William Darity, Jr. Forty Acres and a Mule in the 21st Century. Social Science Quarterly, Volume 89, No. 3, September 2008.

“It has been pointed out that ‘[h]ospital appointments are crucial for successful medical practice,’ and that where a doctor has served his internship is an economic factor of great importance. But hospital internships and appointments have not been freely made available to Jews and have been largely barred to Negroes. In the nation’s capital and in most southern states, Negro doctors have been widely denied the use of hospital facilities. In Washington, D.C., until very recently, there was only one hospital whose facilities were open to Negro physicians, and most are still closed to them. Many hospitals, moreover, do not take Negro patients at all, or only on a segregated basis.”

Source: Philip Marcus. Civil Rights and the Anti-trust Laws. 18 U. Chi. L. Rev. 171, 199 1950-1951.

“The primary concern of the anti-trust laws is, of course, the protection of economic rights. But these ‘economic rights’ are themselves generally ‘civil rights.’ The anti-trust laws do not cease to apply when the immediate effect of their application is more apparent in fields other than that of anti-trust, in fields other than economic. In the world in which we live social discrimination is intimately connected with economic discrimination and a repression of ‘social’ liberties is likely to have important economic consequences. Gunnar Myrdal has pointed out that ‘[t]here is a fundamental flaw in that distinction between what is purely social and all the rest of discrimination against Negroes. Social discrimination is powerful as a means of keeping the Negroes down in all other respects….The interrelations between social status and economic activity are particularly important.’ Social and economic liberties are part of our best known single definitions of liberty.”

Source: Philip Marcus. Civil Rights and the Anti-trust Laws. 18 U. Chi. L. Rev. 171, 173-4 1950-1951.

The Case of Monopolies and the Act of 21 James I (Statute of Monopolies) “form one of the constitutional landmarks of British liberty, like the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus act and other great constitutional acts of Parliament. They established and declared one of the inalienable rights of freemen which our ancestors brought with them to this country. The right to follow any of the common occupations of life is an inalienable right; it was formulated as such under the phrase ‘pursuit of happiness’ in the Declaration of Independence, which commenced with the fundamental proposition that, ‘all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ This right is a large ingredient in the civil liberty of the citizen. To deny it to all but a few favored individuals by investing the latter with a monopoly is to invade one of the fundamental privileges of the citizen, contrary not only to common right, but, as I think, to the express words of the Constitution.”

Source: Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111  U.S. 746, 762 (1884).

“The Report of the President’s [Harry S. Truman] Committee on Civil Rights emphasized four basic rights and recognized that many serious restrictions on the exercise of these rights stem from private rather than government action. It is, of course, within the field of private restraints that the anti-trust laws have peculiar applicability. It is the thesis of this article that the anti-trust laws are applicable to many of the rights referred to in the Report of the President’s Committee, especially ‘The Right to Equal Opportunity.’ Advocacy of this position does not mean that the language of anti-trust statutes compels its acceptance. Judicial recognition of this thesis has been infrequent. But we shall show that here and there civil rights have received strong support from the anti-trust laws; here and there a connection between the two has been recognized. We think we can demonstrate that the anti-trust laws can be made available, in many instances, for the promotion and protection of civil rights. For the most part, anti-trust cases do not use the language of civil rights. Yet some of the most eloquent discussions of civil rights have stemmed from concern over monopolies and restraints of trade. Not uncommonly, moreover, the Declaration of Independence is invoked in restraint cases.”

Source: Philip Marcus. Civil Rights and the Anti-trust Laws. 18 U. Chi. L. Rev. 171, 172-3 1950-1951.

Link to Records of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/pccr.htm.

“[W]hen, if at all, do the anti-trust laws become applicable to an act of social discrimination?”

Source: Philip Marcus. Civil Rights and the Anti-trust Laws. 18 U. Chi. L. Rev. 171, 172 1950-1951.

if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been around for 46 years BEFORE I began employment at William Morris, shouldn’t SOMEONE (e.g. HR, WMA’s in-house counsel and/or Loeb & Loeb LLP) have informed the oldest talent agency in Hollywood that their employment practices, policies and procedures were creating a disparate impact against qualified African Americans and people of color? or do they honestly believe that due to their “superiority,” whites/”Jews” are the ONLY ones qualified enough to be hired and/or promoted to Agent? GTFOH!

“Almost by definition, the precise client in a public interest lawsuit is hard to determine. If the private attorney general speaks for the public, then it would seem that the public is the true client—or that no one in particular is the client. The term deflects attention away from the precise rights or particular interests of the moving party, encouraging instead a focus on the general claims about ‘the law’ or ‘the issue’ which the lawsuit raises.”

Source: Jeremy A. Rabkin, The Secret Life of the Private Attorney General, Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 61, pg. 181. 1998.