Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1997
ISSN
0029-3571
Publisher
Northwestern University School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
When the Clinton Administration announced its intention to challenge Proposition 209, the new prohibition on affirmative action in California, the Justice Department declined to say whether the United States would formally intervene in the lawsuit already under way or merely file an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs. Casual observers may have assumed that the Administration considered the form of its participation to raise further political and strategic considerations. That was undoubtedly true. It was also true, however, that Justice Department lawyers faced a legal question as well. According to the precedents on point, the United States required an authorizing statute in order to become a formal party. It was necessary, then, to identify such a statute before turning to the pragmatic question whether to intervene.
Recommended Citation
Larry Yackle,
A Worthy Champion for Fourteenth Amendment Rights: The United States in Parens Patriae
,
in
92
Northwestern University Law Review
111
(1997).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1725
