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At least since the Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, disparate-impact liability has faced a direct constitutional threat. This Article argues that the Court's decision last Term in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., which held that disparate-impact liability is available under the Fair Housing Act, has resolved that threat, at least for the time being. In particular, this Article argues, Inclusive Communities is best read to adopt the understanding of equal protection that Justice Kennedy previously articulated in his pivotal concurrence in the 2007 Parents Involved case--which argued that state actions that do not classify individuals based on their race are not constitutionally suspect simply because they are motivated by the purpose of integrating the races. Applying that understanding, Inclusive Communities makes clear that disparate impact need not surrender to equal protection, but that the Constitution demands some limitations on disparate- impact liability. Although the limitations should make a difference at the margins, they are not nearly as severe as some may have feared. The broader goal of this Article is to offer an account of how the principle that Justice Kennedy articulated in Parents Involved, and that the Court seems to have adopted in Inclusive Communities, fits into prior equal protection doctrine. The Article argues that this interpretation of equal protection represents the most attractive approach consistent with the decided cases. But although the Inclusive Communities approach to equal protection represents the best path available to the Court in light of prior cases, it has substantial drawbacks. In addition to ignoring key normative considerations, the Court's formalistic focus on the existence or nonexistence of a classification as a trigger for strict scrutiny is likely to prove unstable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on conditional federal spending in America and various constitutional challenges to the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) as of January 2014. Various U.S. Supreme Court (USSC) limitations on federal power are addressed, along with Medicaid insurance in America and the legal scope of the U.S. Constitution's Spending Clause. USSC Chief Justice John Roberts and federalism are examined, as well as judicial opinions by American courts.

The article discusses the status of America's Spending Clause in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's (USSC's) ruling in the case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (NFIB) which deals with a constitutional challenge to the nation's Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act. An anti-leveraging principle is addressed in regards to USSC Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion in the NFIB case. Coercion, the U.S. Congress, and the promotion of accountability are mentioned.

Two conflicting stories have consumed the academic debate regard-ing the impact of deinstitutionalization litigation. The first, which has risen almost to the level of conventional wisdom, is that deinstitutionali-zation was a disaster. The second story challenges the suggestion that deinstitutionalization has uniformly been unsuccessful, as well as the causal link critics seek to draw with the growth of the homeless popula-tion. This Article, which embraces the second story, assesses the current wave of deinstitutionalization litigation. It contends that things will be different this time. The particular outcomes of the first wave of deinstitu-tionalization litigation, this Article contends, resulted from the interaction between the political dynamics surrounding that litigation and the legal claims asserted by deinstitutionalization advocates. But both those dynamics and those legal claims have changed significantly. Precisely because the first wave of deinstitutionalization litigation was so successful in moving residents out of large state institutions, the efforts of deinstitutionalization advocates have turned to ensuring the availability of adequate services in the community. This has shifted the fiscal politics of the field in ways that destabilize old political alliances but create the potential for new ones. At the same time, deinstitutionalization advocates have moved from the due process theories on which they relied in the 1970s and 1980s to an anti-discrimination theory relying on the ADA. That theory imposes a powerful incentive on states to create and fund adequate community services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Rehnquist Court's so-called federalism revolution, as the Court cut back on federal power under Article I and the Civil War Amendments, many commentators asserted that the spending power was next to go on the chopping block. But in the last years of the Rehnquist Court, a majority of Justices seemed to abandon the federalism revolution, and in the end, the Rehnquist Court never got around to limiting Congress's power under the Spending Clause. This Article contends that it is wrong to expect the Roberts Court to be so charitable about Congress's exercise of the spending power. But the Court is not likely to limit the spending power in the way some hoped and some feared the Rehnquist Court would-by imposing direct limitations on the kinds of legislation Congress has power to pass under the Spending Clause. Direct limitations such as those proposed by Professors John Eastman, Lynn Baker, and Mitchell Berman are unlikely to find favor in the Roberts Court's cases. Rather, the Court is likely to act indirectly-through doctrines that skew the interpretation and limit the enforceability of conditional spending statutes. Those doctrines are both more analytically tractable and less ideologically problematic for conservative Justices than are the direct limitations that might be imposed on the spending power. In other words, the paradigm case for the Roberts Court's restriction of the spending power is likely to be not United States v. Butler, but rather Arlington Central School District Board of Education v. Murphy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the effect of the limited civil rights remedies in response to the abusive litigation conduct in the U.S. It illustrates the decision of the Supreme Court on the case "Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources" as it rejected the catalyst theory for recovery of statutory attorney's fees. The limitation of remedies for violations will weaken the enforcement of civil rights laws and is critized as abusive.

The article reflects on the decision of a U.S. state court to terminate the feeding and hydration of Theresa Schiavo. The cause for regret offered by the manner in which the federal courts handled the case is mentioned. The failure of the federal courts to provide meaningful consideration to the non-frivolous claims of the parents of Schiavo under the Americans with Disabilities Act is discussed. The reason why the state court ordered the termination of life support is presented.