Family Law for the Underclass: Underscoring Law's Ideological Function

Abstract

Law School; Ph.D. in American Studies, University of Michigan. The author thanks Richard Delgado, Edward Fallone, Lisa Ikemoto, Elise Papke, and Jessica Slavin for critical readings of earlier versions of this Article and Martin Price, Marquette University Law School Class of ’08, for valuable research assistance. 1. Lawrence M. Friedman, Law, Lawyers, and Popular Culture, 98 YALE L.J. 1579, 1585 (1989). 2. In launching a new law and humanities journal, a miffed Owen Fiss noted that law and economics had become “the interdisciplinary method for studying law.” Owen M. Fiss, The Challenge Ahead, 1 YALE J.L. & HUMAN., at viii, ix (1988-89). 3. The Eisenhower Foundation estimated in 2008 that 37 million Americans lived in poverty and the proportion of the poor below half the poverty line had grown from 30% in 1975 to 43% in 2006. The child poverty rate increased from 15% in 1968 to 17% in 2006. EISENHOWER FOUND., WHAT TOGETHER WE CAN DO: A FORTY YEAR UPDATE OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CIVIL DISORDERS 3 (2008), available at http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/kerner.php. 4. See CHRISTOPHER JENCKS, RETHINKING SOCIAL POLICY: RACE, POVERTY, AND THE FAMILY LAW FOR THE UNDERCLASS: UNDERSCORING LAW’S IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTION