The Story of Brown v. City of Oneonta: The Uncertain Meaning of Racially Discriminatory Policing under the Equal Protection Clause

Abstract:     
This article discusses the widely publicized case Brown v City of Oneonta, in which police officers attempted to apprehend a rape suspect described only as a young, black man by stopping and questioning every young black man in the area. The Second Circuit dismissed the equal protection claims filed by those innocent young men who were stopped and questioned. The Oneonta case raises genuinely difficult constitutional questions, and thereby illuminates the character of current equal protection doctrine.

Working Paper Series