Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Marriage

Description

In 1967, the US Supreme Court ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia. Although this case promotes marital freedom and racial equality, there are still significant legal and social barriers to the free formation of intimate relationships. Marriage continues to be the sole measure of commitment, mixed relationships continue to be rare, and same-sex marriage is only legal in 6 out of 50 states. Most discussion of Loving celebrates the symbolic dismantling of marital discrimination. This book, however, takes a more critical approach to ask how Loving has influenced the 'loving' of America. How far have we come since then and what effect did the case have on individual lives?

Kevin Noble Maillard is an Associate Professor of Law at Syracuse University where he teaches family law, trusts and estates and on the subjects of children and the law, adoption, and popular culture and the law. He has written about and lectured on nontraditional families, racial intermixture, the role of marriage in America, civil liberties within the family, and popular culture and the law. His work has been published in the New York Times, Cardozo Law Review, SMU Law Review, Fordham Law Review and Law and Inequality. He is a frequent presenter at legal and interdisciplinary conferences. Rose Cuison Villazor is an Associate Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of race, citizenship, property and immigration law. Her articles have appeared in the New York University Law Review, California Law Review, Washington University Law Review and Southern California Law Review. In 2011, she received the AALS Minority Section Derrick A. Bell, Jr Award, which is given to a junior faculty member who, through activism, mentoring, teaching and scholarship, has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system or social justice.

"Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World collects the essays of an impressive array of leading scholars analyzing from virtually all angles a monumental U.S. Supreme Court decision that broke down one of the last bastions of de jure segregation in Jim Crow America. Destined to becoming the definitive collection of essays on Loving v. Virginia, the chapters offer deep insights about race and civil rights in the twenty-first century." - Kevin Johnson Dean and Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law, and Professor of Chicana/o Studies University of California at Davis School of Law "Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World helps us see in full relief the curious relationship of marriage to racial freedom and equality. It contains some of the most thoughtful and original essays on race, family, nation and law - it will blow open the field." - Katherine Franke Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law Director, Center for Gender & Sexuality Law Columbia Law School "Maillard and Villazor have brought together a terrific group of thinkers to explore the roots, the modern-day impact, and the unfulfilled promises of the Loving decision. Powerfully written, the essays remind us of the challenges that remain for civil rights law to keep pace with the changing complexion of America and with the marriage equality movement." - Robert S. Chang Professor of Law Executive Director, Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality Seattle University School of Law "Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World is an impressive collection of riveting essays that illuminate and elaborate Loving's position in American culture, history, and law. The essays reflect on Loving's formidable legacy, but importantly, go beyond it, pushing us to consider what this landmark decision has meant and could mean going forward. Thoughtfully structured and wide-ranging in its coverage of the legal regulation of intimacy before and after Loving, this volume will be an important resource of scholars and others wishing to engage the important question of how law shapes--or does not shape--the ways we live and love." - Melissa Murray Professor of Law University of California at Berkeley School of Law