DOCSLIB.ORG

Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program Final Impacts Evaluation U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development | Office of Policy Development and Research Visit PD&R’s website www.hud.gov/policy or www.huduser.org to find this report and others sponsored by HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R). Other services of HUD USER, PD&R’s Research and Information Service include listservs, special interest and bimonthly publications (best practices, significant studies from other sources), access to public use databases, and a hotline (1-800-245-2691) for help with accessing the information you need. Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program Final Impacts Evaluation Prepared for: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development & Research Prepared by: Lisa Sanbonmatsu Jens Ludwig, Project Director Lawrence F. Katz, Principal Investigator Lisa A. Gennetian Greg J. Duncan Ronald C. Kessler Emma Adam Thomas W. McDade Stacy Tessler Lindau with: Matthew Sciandra Fanghua Yang Ijun Lai William Congdon Joe Amick Ryan Gillette Michael A. Zabek Jordan Marvakov Sabrina Yusuf Nicholas A. Potter National Bureau of Economic Research November 2011 Acknowledgments This report was prepared under HUD Contract C–CHI–00808 to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). For their support, advice, and open-mindedness about the study design, we are grateful to the Government Technical Representative for the study, Todd M. Richardson (Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development), as well as Mark D. Shroder (Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation, and Monitoring), Kevin J. Neary (Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation, and Monitoring), Erika Poethig (Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development), and Raphael Bostic (Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research). Michelle Sternthal, Jennifer Stoloff, and Ronald Wilson at HUD also provided valuable comments on an earlier draft of this report. Additional support for the long-term (10–15 year) MTO follow-up study reported on here came from the National Science Foundation (SES–0527615), the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (R01–HD040404, R01–HD040444), the Centers for Disease Control (R49–CE000906), the National Institute of Mental Health (R01–MH077026), the National Institute for Aging (P20–AG012180, R56–AG031259, P01–AG005842–22S1), the National Opinion Research Center’s Population Research Center (through R24–HD051152–04 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development), University of Chicago’s Center for Health Administration Studies, the U.S. Department of Education/Institute of Education Sciences (R305U070006), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. This study was also supported by a grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to the Urban Institute. Outstanding advice about the design, execution, and interpretation of the MTO study was provided by our Technical Review Panel, which included: J. Lawrence Aber (New York University); Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (Columbia University); Charles Brown (University of Michigan); Thomas Cook (Northwestern University); Kenneth Dodge (Duke University); Felton Earls (Harvard Medical School); Ronald Ferguson (Harvard University); John Goering (City University of New York); Christopher Jencks (Harvard University); Kathleen Mullan Harris (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Edgar Olsen (University of Virginia); Robert Sampson (Harvard University); Eldar Shafir (Princeton University); Laurence Steinberg (Temple University); and Jane Waldfogel (Columbia University). We also thank Larry Orr for feedback, and are particularly grateful to Jeffrey R. Kling for his tireless commitment and sage advice. We also wish to thank numerous other collaborators who assisted in a variety of substantive and methodological components of the MTO study. A research team at the Urban Institute expertly developed the housing and neighborhood module for the long-term survey as well as a new methodology for using survey and administrative data to measure housing assistance receipt. Margery Turner, Susan Popkin, and Jennifer Comey provided feedback and guidance at various stages of design and analysis, and Megan Gallagher, David Price, and Kaitlin Franks supported measurement and analytic work. Numerous useful insights about the design of the long-term MTO study also came from discussions with the research team that has been carrying out qualitative data collection from MTO families, including Kathy Edin of Harvard University, Stefanie DeLuca of Johns Hopkins University, and Susan Clampet-Lundquist of St. Joseph’s University. We thank Debi McInnis and our colleagues at Abt Associates for their hard work tracking MTO families and for developing a method for constructing the participants’ address histories. Important insights about the analysis and interpretation of the medical findings in the long-term MTO data came from conversations with our collaborator Robert Whitaker of Temple University, as well as discussions with James Meigs of Harvard University. Don Rock assisted in developing a strategy for administering math and English achievement assessments to MTO youth, and Michelle Najarian at Educational Testing Service helped create the scaled achievement scores. Nancy Sampson and her research team at the Harvard Medical School constructed the mental health outcomes. William Congdon at the Brookings Institution was instrumental in designing many of the modules for the MTO survey. Outstanding assistance with the development of the survey instruments, data preparation, and analysis was provided by Matthew Sciandra, Fanghua Yang, Ijun Lai, Joe Amick, Ryan Gillette, Michael A. Zabek, Jordan Marvakov, Sabrina Yusuf, and Nicholas A. Potter and former research assistants and analysts Alessandra Del Conte Dickovick, Santhi Hariprasad, Plamen Nikolov, Brandi Coates, and Magali Fassiotto. Janet Stein at NBER, Michael Weis at Northwestern University, and Kari Beardsley, Sabrina Fisher, and Aida Cavalic at the Brookings Institution provided exceptional assistance in managing the numerous grants that supported this study. We thank Dan Feenberg for his technical advice, Mohan Ramanujan and Len McCain for helping to support the technological needs of the project, and Korland Simmons for his administrative support of the project. Barbara Ray, owner of Hiredpen, Inc., helped with editing the report. The study would not have been possible without the incredible efforts of Nancy Gebler at the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center (SRC) in leading the monumental task of directing, launching, and ensuring high-quality administration of the survey interview for thousands of MTO adults and youth. At SRC, we also thank senior project advisor Beth-Ellen Pennell; project manager Barbara Ward; production manager Margaret Hudson; data manager Lisa Wood; financial analyst Mary Kern; sampling statistician James Wagner; programmers James Hagerman and Pamela Swanson; project assistant Hongyu Johnson; the field team leaders Yvonne Ragland, Sima Ballinger, Ana Socarras, Beverly Hight, Susan Brown, Beth Babich, and Charlotte Morley; and the dedicated interviewers for their tremendous efforts. We thank Jerry Yeo and Christine Lee at the University of Chicago for their assistance in carrying out separate analyses that helped validate our dried blood spot measures for health outcomes among MTO participants; John Rickford at Stanford University and Holly Craig at the University of Michigan for their assistance in developing measures of speech patterns; Michael Barr of the University of Michigan for his help designing measures of household savings behavior and access to credit and banking services; John List of the University of Chicago and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University for assistance in developing measures of decision making processes; Heidi Guyer at the Health and Retirement Study for the dried blood spot protocols; Maryann Chandler at Flexsite Laboratories; and Eric Whitsel, leader of the biology core of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, for guidance on dried blood spot measurement and assay. We are also grateful to the large number of local, state, and federal government agencies that were willing to share the administrative data necessary for evaluating long-term MTO impacts. But perhaps most important, we are grateful to the MTO families themselves for their willingness to share their lives with us. We hope that the results of this study, one of the largest ever undertaken by HUD, will help guide government officials in their decisions about how best to improve the lives of some of our nation’s most disadvantaged residents. The contents of this report are the views of the contractor and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Government, or any state or local agency that provided data. The use of South Carolina Department of Social Services and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice records in the preparation of this material is acknowledged, but it is not to be construed as implying official approval of either department of the conclusions presented. New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) provided de-identified arrest data for the study. DCJS is not
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Sir R Wilson Lecture Single Space
    SIR RONALD WILSON LECTURE 19 MAY 2011 THE DELIVERY OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: BUILDING ON THE PAST TO MEET THE CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE INTRODUCTION Mr President, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is a very great honour to have been asked to deliver the Sir Ronald Wilson Lecture this year, although I appreciate that I am very much the second choice, and that I only got the gig because his Honour the Chief Justice is in Europe, attending a Court of the Future Program on courthouse design in the perhaps over-optimistic expectation that what he learns will be useful when, or if, the Supreme Court is provided with new accommodation of an appropriate standard to go with the 1903 Courthouse and to replace our tenancy in the former Royal Commission into WA Incorporated premises in an office building in the city. Of course, the mention of those premises recalls another link to Sir Ronald Wilson who, with the Hon Justice Kennedy, seconded from the Court, and the then recently retired judge, the Hon Peter Brinsden QC, served on that Royal Commission, which made such momentous findings on a wide range of Government activities and the people involved in them. I feel particularly intimidated when I observe that previous presenters of this lecture include people such as Sir Ronald himself, the Rt Hon Lord MacKay of Clashfern, the Rt Hon Sir Ninian Stephen, the Rt Hon Sir Zelman Cowen, Justice Michael Kirby, as he then was, and others, including local luminaries, the Hon Justice Robert French, as he then was, the Hon Justice Carmel McLure, Chief Judge Antoinette Kennedy, and the Hon Justice Michael Barker.
    [Show full text]
  • Situating Women Judges on the High Court of Australia: Not Just Men in Skirts?
    Situating Women Judges on the High Court of Australia: Not Just Men in Skirts? Kcasey McLoughlin BA (Hons) LLB (Hons) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, the University of Newcastle January 2016 Statement of Originality This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University's Digital Repository, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Kcasey McLoughlin ii Acknowledgments I am most grateful to my principal supervisor, Jim Jose, for his unswerving patience, willingness to share his expertise and for the care and respect he has shown for my ideas. His belief in challenging disciplinary boundaries, and seemingly limitless generosity in mentoring others to do so has sustained me and this thesis. I am honoured to have been in receipt of his friendship, and owe him an enormous debt of gratitude for his unstinting support, assistance and encouragement. I am also grateful to my co-supervisor, Katherine Lindsay, for generously sharing her expertise in Constitutional Law and for fostering my interest in the High Court of Australia and the judges who sit on it. Her enthusiasm, very helpful advice and intellectual guidance were instrumental motivators in completing the thesis. The Faculty of Business and Law at the University of Newcastle has provided a supportive, collaborative and intellectual space to share and debate my research.
    [Show full text]
  • Eureka Street Is Published Fortnightly Online, a Minimum of 24 Times Per
    18 October 2007 Volume: 17 Issue: 20 Politics is a team sport John Warhurst ...........................................1 The human rights cost of intelligence activities Bill Calcutt ............................................. 4 A key role for Australia in Burma’s democratisation Tony Kevin .............................................8 Burma’s new generation political activists Carol Ransley and Toe Zaw Latt ............................. 11 Echoes of Calwell in Sudanese refugee cut David Holdcroft ......................................... 15 Building relationships settles refugees Michele Gierck .......................................... 18 Nothing new in cynicism towards politicians Brian Matthews ......................................... 21 Gutted kiwis eat humble pie Peter Matheson ......................................... 25 Kevin Rudd’s political cowardice Scott Stephenson ....................................... 29 Sir Ronald Wilson’s life in compartments Frank Brennan .......................................... 33 Playwrights finger reality missed by politicians Richard Flynn .......................................... 37 Death and birth set cerebral thriller in motion Tim Kroenert ........................................... 40 Perhaps dying isn’t hard after all Peter Matheson and Cassandra O’Loughlin ...................... 43 Keeping families safe from violence Trish McNamara ........................................ 45 Eureka Street is published fortnightly Responsibility for editorial content is online, a minimum of 24 times
    [Show full text]
  • The Accountability of the Courts Year 12 Teacher Resource
    Francis Burt Law Education Programme THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE COURTS YEAR 12 TEACHER RESOURCE This resource addresses the following Year 12 Stage 3 Politics and Law syllabus item: 3B: The accountability of the courts through the appeals process through parliamentary scrutiny and legislation through transparent processes and public confidence through the censure and removal of judges Part A: Introduction, Appeals and Legislation Possible Preliminary Discussion Points a) Discuss what the term ‘the accountability of the courts’ actually means. b) In what ways should judges be held accountable? c) What problems may occur if the accountability of the judiciary was the task of the executive arm of government? Introduction “The independence of the judiciary lies at the heart of the rule of law and hence of the administration of justice itself. The essence of judicial independence is that the judge in carrying out his judicial duties, and in particular in making judicial decisions, is subject to no other authority than the law.... In particular, the judiciary should be free from the control of the executive government or of any department or branch of it.”1 “No judge could be expected to carry out judicial tasks with impartiality if one side in the dispute had the power to dismiss that judge, move the judge out of office or reduce his or her salary or could cause its elected representatives to do so. The issue was put succinctly by Australia’s former Chief Justice, Murray Gleeson, in a Boyer Lecture in December 2000 when he declared: ‘The ultimate test of public confidence in the judiciary is whether people believe that in a contest between a citizen and government they can rely upon an Australian court to hold the scales of justice evenly.’”2 “That the purpose of judicial independence was not to provide a benefit to the judiciary but to enable the judicial system to function fairly with integrity and impartiality”3 was indicated by Western Australia’s Chief Justice, the Honourable Wayne Martin AC, at a conference in New Zealand in 2011.
    [Show full text]
  • Seeing Visions and Dreaming Dreams Judicial Conference of Australia
    Seeing Visions and Dreaming Dreams Judicial Conference of Australia Colloquium Chief Justice Robert French AC 7 October 2016, Canberra Thank you for inviting me to deliver the opening address at this Colloquium. It is the first and last time I will do so as Chief Justice. The soft pink tones of the constitutional sunset are deepening and the dusk of impending judicial irrelevance is advancing upon me. In a few weeks' time, on 25 November, it will have been thirty years to the day since I was commissioned as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. The great Australian legal figures who sat on the Bench at my official welcome on 10 December 1986 have all gone from our midst — Sir Ronald Wilson, John Toohey, Sir Nigel Bowen and Sir Francis Burt. Two of my articled clerks from the 1970s are now on the Supreme Court of Western Australia. One of them has recently been appointed President of the Court of Appeal. They say you know you are getting old when policemen start looking young — a fortiori when the President of a Court of Appeal looks to you as though he has just emerged from Law School. The same trick of perspective leads me to see the Judicial Conference of Australia ('JCA') as a relatively recent innovation. Six years into my judicial career, in 1992, I attended a Supreme and Federal Courts Judges' Conference at which Justices Richard McGarvie and Ian Sheppard were talking about the establishment of a body to represent the common interests and concerns of judges, to defend the judiciary as an institution and, where appropriate, to defend individual judges who were the target of unfair and unwarranted criticisms.
    [Show full text]
  • Imagereal Capture
    PREFACE EMERITUS PROFESSOR ERIC J. EDWARDS Professor Eric Edwards retired from the University of Western Australia Law School on 31 December 1980, after twenty-five years distinguished and loyal service. This volume of the Law Review is dedicated to him by his colleagues as a mark of profound respect and admiration. Professor Edwards was born in Burma in 1915. He attended the Uni- versity of Rangoon, graduating BA with a distinction in economics in 1936 and LL.B in 1939. With the outbreak of war, he volunteered for officer training; he then spent the duration of the war fighting with the British Army in the Burma and India theatres. This is a period of his life about which, being a gentle and modest man, he has always been reticent; suffice it to say that by the time he was discharged he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. For his return to civilian life he chose to be repatriated to Australia. Passing through Fremantle en route to Sydney in 1947, he came up to the University and met Professor Frank Beasley, foundation Professor and first Dean of the Law School. Beasley encouraged him to enrol here to recommence his legal career. Thus there began the long association with the Law School which was to culrninate'in his election to the Dean- ship and appointment to a Chair. His period at the Law School was a vintage one; his contemporaries included such luminaries as Sir Ronald Wilson, Sir Billy Sneddon, Mr Bob Hawke, Mr Justice Bob Jones and Mr Justice John Toohey.
    [Show full text]
  • Judges and Retirement Ages
    JUDGES AND RETIREMENT AGES ALYSIA B LACKHAM* All Commonwealth, state and territory judges in Australia are subject to mandatory retirement ages. While the 1977 referendum, which introduced judicial retirement ages for the Australian federal judiciary, commanded broad public support, this article argues that the aims of judicial retirement ages are no longer valid in a modern society. Judicial retirement ages may be causing undue expense to the public purse and depriving the judiciary of skilled adjudicators. They are also contrary to contemporary notions of age equality. Therefore, demographic change warrants a reconsideration of s 72 of the Constitution and other statutes setting judicial retirement ages. This article sets out three alternatives to the current system of judicial retirement ages. It concludes that the best option is to remove age-based limitations on judicial tenure. CONTENTS I Introduction .............................................................................................................. 739 II Judicial Retirement Ages in Australia ................................................................... 740 A Federal Judiciary .......................................................................................... 740 B Australian States and Territories ............................................................... 745 III Criticism of Judicial Retirement Ages ................................................................... 752 A Critiques of Arguments in Favour of Retirement Ages ........................
    [Show full text]
  • The Toohey Legacy: Rights and Freedoms, Compassion and Honour
    57 THE TOOHEY LEGACY: RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, COMPASSION AND HONOUR GREG MCINTYRE* I INTRODUCTION John Toohey is a person whom I have admired as a model of how to behave as a lawyer, since my first years in practice. A fundamental theme of John Toohey’s approach to life and the law, which shines through, is that he remained keenly aware of the fact that there are groups and individuals within our society who are vulnerable to the exercise of power and that the law has a role in ensuring that they are not disadvantaged by its exercise. A group who clearly fit within that category, and upon whom a lot of John’s work focussed, were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In 1987, in a speech to the Student Law Reform Society of Western Australia Toohey said: Complex though it may be, the relation between Aborigines and the law is an important issue and one that will remain with us;1 and in Western Australia v Commonwealth (Native Title Act Case)2 he reaffirmed what was said in the Tasmanian Dam Case,3 that ‘[t]he relationship between the Aboriginal people and the lands which they occupy lies at the heart of traditional Aboriginal culture and traditional Aboriginal life’. A University of Western Australia John Toohey had a long-standing relationship with the University of Western Australia, having graduated in 1950 in Law and in 1956 in Arts and winning the F E Parsons (outstanding graduate) and HCF Keall (best fourth year student) prizes. He was a Senior Lecturer at the Law School from 1957 to 1958, and a Visiting Lecturer from 1958 to 1965.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hon Justice Michael Kirby
    CITATION FOR HONORARY DOCTORATE OF LAWS THE HON JUSTICE MICHAEL DONALD KIRBY AC CMG Justice Kirby, a Justice of the High Court of Australia since 1996, is an internationally-recognised legal thinker across a broad spectrum of issues, a pioneer particularly in the legal protection of human rights, and a masterly orator and writer on these topics. Justice Kirby attended the University of Sydney, graduating Bachelor of Arts (1959); Bachelor of Laws (1962); Bachelor of Economics (1966); and Master of Laws (First Class Honours) (1967). From 1964 to 1967 he practised as a Solicitor, Supreme Court of New South Wales; and as a Barrister, Supreme Court of New South Wales, High Court of Australia, Supreme Court, Australian Capital Territory, from 1967 to 1974. In 1974, he was elected a Member of the Bar Council of the New South Wales Bar Association. In December 1974, he was appointed as Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, which saw him become the youngest man appointed to federal judicial office in Australia. He held this position for some nine years, concurrently serving as inaugural chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission from 1975 to 1983. In 1983, Justice Kirby became a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. An appointment as President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal followed swiftly in 1984. In 1995, he took up further appointments as President of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands and President of the International Commission of Jurists (Geneva). He resigned from the New South Wales Court of Appeal upon his appointment in February 1996 to the position he currently holds on the bench of the High Court of Australia.
    [Show full text]
  • Joint Standing Committee
    COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE on FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE Human Rights Subcommittee Reference: Public briefing on the work of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission CANBERRA Friday, 20 September 1996 OFFICIAL HANSARD REPORT CANBERRA JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE (Human Rights Subcommittee) Members: Senator Loosley (Chairman) Senator Teague (Deputy Chairman) Senator Bourne Mr Fitzgibbon Senator Denman Mr Gibson Senator Harradine Mr Hollis Senator Reynolds Mr Sinclair Matters referred: To examine and inquire into - Australia’s international efforts to promote and protect human rights. WITNESSES FITZPATRICK, Mr Kieren John, Senior Adviser to Human Rights Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Level 8, Piccadilly Building, 133 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2000 ............................................... 2 SIDOTI, Mr Christopher Dominic, Human Rights Commissioner, Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Level 8, Piccadilly Building, 133 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2000 ............................................... 2 WILSON, Sir Ronald, President, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, GPO Box 5218, Sydney, New South Wales 2001 .......... 2 Friday, 20 September 1996 JOINT FADT 1 JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE (Human Rights Subcommittee) Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (Public Briefing) CANBERRA Friday, 20 September 1996 Present Mr Nugent
    [Show full text]
  • Hit and Myth in the Law Courts
    Dinner Address Hit and Myth in the Law Courts S E K Hulme, AM, QC Copyright 1994 by The Samuel Griffith Society. All rights reserved. Not unexpectedly, in this company, I will talk tonight about only one court; the one on your left as you cross the bridge over the lake. I want to do two things. I want firstly to consider a belief and a practice and a proposal concerning the High Court, in terms of the Court as it is, rather than in terms of the Court as it was. In doing that I want to say something of who used to come to the Court, and how; and who come to the Court now, and how. And secondly I want to share with you some reflections on statements made in recent months by the Chief Justice of the High Court. Where High Court Judges Come From, and Certain Implications of That I turn to the belief and the practice and the proposal I mentioned. I remind you of three things. The first is that one still finds supposedly intelligent commentators making disapproving references to the practical monopoly which the practising Bar has over appointments to the High Court, and suggesting that the field of appointees ought to be extended to include solicitors and academics. The second is that, in line with the constitutional principle that a judge ought to have nothing to fear and nothing to hope for from the government which appointed him, there long existed a general practice of not promoting judges, within a system of courts run by the same government, either from court to court, or within a court, as by promotion to Chief Justice.
    [Show full text]
  • Labor, the External Affairs Power and the Rights of Aborigines
    Labor, the External Affairs Power and the Rights of Aborigines David Lee* Rights of Aborigines The Australian Constitution gave the Commonwealth not a “treaty power” but a vague power over “external affairs,” the precise meaning of which was elusive for most of the twentieth century. From the 1930s, Labor judges and politicians such as H. V. Evatt saw its potential to extend Commonwealth power by legislating interna- tional agreements throughout Australia. The non-Labor parties rejected the idea of using the “external affairs” power to legislate in areas formerly the responsibility of the states but the federal Labor Party continued in the Evatt tradition. After significant uncertainties, the Whitlam government used the external affairs power to pass the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the first significant human rights legislation in the country, which in turn had a profound effect on the law of the land in the country by making the second Mabo Case possible. Keywords: External Affairs; Racial Discrimination; Racial Discrimination Act; Aborigines; Constitution; Australian Labor Party; Whitlam Government; Native Title; Mabo Since the High Court’s overturning of the doctrine of terra nullius in the early 1990s, historians, lawyers and political scientists have given considerable attention to the struggle that led to that landmark decision. Taking a longer view, several historians have charted the struggle for rights for Aborigines in Australia. Constitutional lawyers, too, have demonstrated the importance of the Constitution’s external affairs power in allowing the Australian government to use treaty commitments to override the states in areas such as the environment and human rights. The purpose of this article is to bring together historical and legal scholarship about some of the most important rights for Aborigines.
    [Show full text]