Publications

Since its inception, ECI has honored its commitment to research and scholarship. ECI has published various articles on education, civil/human rights, and criminal justice. In the past seven years – 2005 - 2012, the Institute has sponsored numerous symposia on housing, Texas education, racial segregation, juvenile justice, domestic violence, immigration, voting rights and indigent defense. ECI’s publications include papers ranging from position papers, essays, law review articles, letters to editors, and to an interdisciplinary journal.

The ECI Magazine, Focus On Justice: An Urban Perspective

Summer 2014 Edition

• The Story of Professor Earl Carl
• Taking It to the Streets: TMSL's Street law Program
• Working To Increase African American Wealth: The Opal Mitchell Lee Property Preservation Project
• Indigent Defense: TMSL Innocence Project
• No BLACK Child Left Behind in Disproprtionate School Disciplinary Actions
• Helping Children Today to Have a Better Future Tomorrow
• The 83rd Legislative Session: An Urban Perspective 83rd Legislature Highlights

The State of Black Houston Nw (SOBHN)

The 2010 publication and the pending 2013 update presents facts and figures that reflect the State of Black Houston Now. This publication is designed to serve as a resource for the community and community based organizations as we search for implementable solutions to the issues unveiled by the data in this report. It presents an introduction to the analysis and problem solving that needs to continue to address disproportionality and disparities faced by the urban minority community. It presents an introduction to the analysis and problem solving that will be forthcoming. We recognize that statistics may say different things to different people and this publication reports the statistics without analysis or editorializing. This publication has relied on various sources for data that sometimes conflicted and often varied. We hope that the State of Black Houston Now will serve as a catalyst for ensuring a dynamic and robust future for African Americans in Houston.

The first installment of the State of Black Houston Now 2013 Update is the 2013 SOBHN Criminal Justice Snapshot: HPD Community Interactions & Accountability and is available for download here.

ECI Legislative Updates

The Institute is pleased to once again provide our constituents with highlights from the last legislative session.  We have attempted to cover matters that we believe to be of concern to the urban community, however, many of the highlights cover issues of particular concern to traditionally disenfranchised communities.  The legislation covered in this report falls under such issues as Election, Criminal Justice (Human Trafficking, Criminal Procedure, Wrongful Convictions, Domestic Violence), Juvenile Justice, Family Law, Property, Education, Healthcare, Wills, Estate and Probate, Wealth and Litigation.

The Earl Carl Report on the Texas Legislature, 84th Session: An Urban Perspective published November 2015. The 84th Texas Legislative session convened at noon on January 13, 2015. The Texas Senate ended the 84th Legislative session on June 1, 2015.

The 84th Texas Legislature introduced 11,356 bills, passed 6,083 bills of which 42 were vetoed, and 163 became law without the Governor’s signature. Over 500 bills became effective immediately upon passage and 678 became effective on September 1, 2015. By observation, the 84th legislative session has been described less efficient by filing more bills than the 83rd Legislative Session yet passing fewer bills through both chambers.

The Earl Carl Institute’s Report on the 83rd Legislature – An Urban Perspective was published in August 2013. This comprehensive report distinguishes itself by focusing on legislative actions that directly impact the urban community. This legislative update is organized by the Institute’s key focus areas: education, criminal justice, housing and environment, family and gender, legislative, student development, and wealth and taxation.

THE ECI Interdisciplinary Journal for Legal & Social Policy

ECI Interdisciplinary Journal for Legal & Social Policy/Symposium – is an open-access peer reviewed journal that seeks to make available research and knowledge in the areas of legal and social policy to equip and empower educators and others nationwide with research driven articles that will contribute to their ability to meet the diverse needs of urban populations. Based on a survey of journals there is an absence of interdisciplinary journals that focus solely on legal and social policy issues that impact urban and minority communities in these issue areas. The ECI Journal for Legal & Social Policy seeks to fill that void. ECI seeks to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration by authors through an annual special issues publication.

The Journal publishes papers primarily on issues that impact legal and social policy in the urban community. The ECI Journal is published in an online format annually in November and is double blind peer reviewed via our online journal management program. The online format enables efficient use for potential authors, peer-reviewers and editors. This format also increases accessibility for readers and researchers. In fact, the journal was downloaded 3,596 times in the past year.

The 2013 February special issue symposium and November publication No Child Left Behind: 10 Years in Review focused on the impact and reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. The special issue publication included the following articles:

From Colonization to R.E.S.P.E.C.T.: How Policy Fails Children and Educators of Color 
Christopher B. Knaus and Rachelle Rogers-Ard

How (and Why) NCLB Failed to Close the Achievement Gap: Evidence from North Carolina, 1998-2004 Roslyn A Mickelson, Jason Giersch, Elizabeth Stearns and Stephanie Moller

Education Reform and the Political Safeguards of Federalism 
Elizabeth Jansma Sharma

Getting To Excellence: What Every Educator Should Know About Consequences of Beliefs, Attitudes, and Paradigms for the Reconstruction of an Academically Unacceptable Middle School- The External Environment
James A. Johnson, Jay Cummings, Margaret Stroud, Gatsy Moye' -Lavergne, and Wilbert J. Andrews Jr.

Urban Education Reform Case Study: North Forest Independent School District
Jay K. Aiyer, Michael O. Adams & Subria Lapps

The 2014 special issue symposium will focus on Same Sex Marriage and is tentatively entitled “Legal, Racial and Religious Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage.” The Supreme Court’s recent landmark DOMA and Proposition 8 decisions present an opportunity to open a timely and impactful dialogue concerning the constitutional, legal, political, racial, social and religious issues related to marriage equality, marriage protection and same-sex marriage. ECI is joining the discussions by presenting the symposium on April 17, 2014 and publishing a special edition of our journal, the ECI Interdisciplinary Journal for Legal & Social Policy, in November 2014. To submit an article for consideration go tohttp://ecipublications.org/submit_research.html.

For more information about the ECI Annual Special Issue Symposium and Journal, please contact the Earl Carl Institute at 713.313.1139 or via email at earlcarlinstitute@tmslaw.tsu.edu. To view the journal and submission requirements visit the journal online at www.ecipublications.org.

ECI Policy Advocacy/Student Papers

ECI addresses its core purpose of promoting student development through research and writing by hiring several research students each semester to work on ECI policy or position papers within ECI’s priority research areas. These written products address issues involving legal and social policy that have a disparate impact on minorities through an interdisciplinary approach. ECI generally attempts to engage scholars from other university departments to assist with the social policy aspects of these written products. The targets of these projects are generally academia, the Texas Legislature, and other political actors, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, County and Local Jails, Judges, attorneys and other vested interests, including civil rights and other advocacy groups/brokers, and legal and students from other disciplines as well as the urban community through speaking engagements and media outlets. These papers are distributed through the ECI website, through email blast, by links through social media, and/or the ECI Interdisciplinary Journal.

PENDING PUBLICATIONS:

THE STATE OF BLACK HOUSTON NOW (SOBHN) 2013 UPDATE is an update of the State of Black Houston Now 2010 publication which was originally distributed via a town hall meeting in October 2010. The institute was honored to work with a collaboration of organizations on the 2010 publication and Town Hall Meeting of the State of Black Houston Now. These entities include the Mickey Leland Center for World Hunger and Peace, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)-Houston Branch, the Houston Area Urban League (HAUL), TSU College of Education, TSU School of Public Affairs, and the Thurgood Marshall School of Law.

PAST PUBLICATIONS INCLUDE:

• Paul Orhii, In Search of the Crime Gene
• Marcia Johnson, Texas Revised Juvenile Justice and Educations Codes: Not All Change is Good, 19 J. Juv. L. 1
• Marcia Johnson, Genetic Technology and its Impact on Culpability in Criminal Actions 46 Clev. St. L. Rev. 443
• Marcia Johnson, Juvenile Justice, 17 Whittier L. Rev. 713
• Japaula Kemp and Marcia Johnson, The Effect of Educating Prisoners, Vol. 7 Journal of Law and Social Change at the University of Pennsylvania 1
• The Honorable Gabrielle Kirk McDonald's Remarks during Spring 2005 Genocide Conference
• Marcia Johnson, Addressing Housing Needs in Post Katrina Gulf Coast, Vol. 31 Thurgood Marshall Law Review 327.
• Scott Nagel, Community Preservation and the 79th Texas Legislature
• Marcia Johnson, Converting Walls to Bridges: A Review of the Proposed Zoning Ordinance for the City of Houston, 18 T. Marshall L. Rev. 231
• Jeannine Broadnax and Vy Nguyen, The Revival Of Jim Crow: Modern Subleties Resulting In Disenfranchising The Electorate
• Greg Brown, The Dole Compromise: Revision of Section 2, Voting Rights Act
• Shireen Hayatghaibi, Who Votes in America?
• Students’ Resource Guide to Thurgood Marshall School Of Law And The City Of Houston
• The History of the NAACP in Texas - ECI published the history of the NAACP in Houston in commemoration of the organization’s centennial celebration.
• Lela Aderinboye, Restrictions on Tax Exempt Organizations Conducting Political Activity under IRS Rev. Ruling 2004-6.
• JaPaula Kemp, Anh Nguyen and Marcia Johnson, The Community Reinvestment Act: Expanding Access, 12-Fall Kan.J.L. & Pub. Pol’y
• Marcia Johnson, The Systematic Denial of the Right to Vote to America’s Minorities, 11 Harvard Blackletter Law Journal 61
• Report on the Texas Legislature, 81st Session: An Urban Perspective 2009
• Marcia Johnson, Lucinda Daniels, Amber Boyd, Samuel Gardner, Katherine Bauer, Elizabeth Tagle,Proposal to Reduce Recidivism 2010 Update
• The State Of Black Houston Now Snapshot 2010
• Nicole Clark, Marcia Johnson, Lucinda Daniels And Luckett A. Johnson, The Future Of The Historically Black College And University: Reframing The Debate

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