Kevin R. Johnson

Cyclodextrin Protects Podocytes in Diabetic Kidney Disease

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) remains the most common cause of end-stage kidney disease despite multifactorial intervention. We demonstrated that increased cholesterol in association with downregulation of ATP-binding cassette transporter ABCA1 occurs in normal human podocytes exposed to the sera of patients with type 1 diabetes and albuminuria (DKD+) when compared with diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria (DKD−) and similar duration of diabetes and lipid profile. Glomerular downregulation of ABCA1 was confirmed in biopsies from patients with early DKD (n = 70) when compared with normal living donors (n = 32). Induction of cholesterol efflux with cyclodextrin (CD) but not inhibition of cholesterol synthesis with simvastatin prevented podocyte injury observed in vitro after exposure to patient sera. Subcutaneous administration of CD to diabetic BTBR (black and tan, brachiuric) ob/ob mice was safe and reduced albuminuria, mesangial expansion, kidney weight, and cortical cholesterol content. This was followed by an improvement of fasting insulin, blood glucose, body weight, and glucose tolerance in vivo and improved glucose-stimulated insulin release in human islets in vitro. Our data suggest that impaired reverse cholesterol transport characterizes clinical and experimental DKD and negatively influences podocyte function. Treatment with CD is safe and effective in preserving podocyte function in vitro and in vivo and may improve the metabolic control of diabetes.

The Face of the Nation: Immigration, the State and the National Identity.

i. Introduction a 2. The Puzzle o ITnmigration Policy and Theories of Policyiaking 22 3. Insuttutions, IPoi ymaking, and Innmigration Policy 54 4. The Development and Expansion of a Sectoral State: Federal Immnigration Policy, 1879-1924 96 5. The Articulation of a Sectoral State: linigration Policy, 1924-41 145 6. The Redefinition of the State: Iinugration Policy During and 7. Aftr World War II 1941- !7P Establishing t oundaes or the Bounris for the Conter pouar Era, 19i -5 o6 8. Conclusions inmmigration, the State aind the National Identity 22a 9

Podocyte-specific GLUT4-deficient mice have fewer and larger podocytes and are protected from diabetic nephropathy.

Podocytes are a major component of the glomerular filtration barrier, and their ability to sense insulin is essential to prevent proteinuria. Here we identify the insulin downstream effector GLUT4 as a key modulator of podocyte function in diabetic nephropathy (DN). Mice with a podocyte-specific deletion of GLUT4 (G4 KO) did not develop albuminuria despite having larger and fewer podocytes than wild-type (WT) mice. Glomeruli from G4 KO mice were protected from diabetes-induced hypertrophy, mesangial expansion, and albuminuria and failed to activate the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. In order to investigate whether the protection observed in G4 KO mice was due to the failure to activate mTOR, we used three independent in vivo experiments. G4 KO mice did not develop lipopolysaccharide-induced albuminuria, which requires mTOR activation. On the contrary, G4 KO mice as well as WT mice treated with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin developed worse adriamycin-induced nephropathy than WT mice, consistent with the fact that adriamycin toxicity is augmented by mTOR inhibition. In summary, GLUT4 deficiency in podocytes affects podocyte nutrient sensing, results in fewer and larger cells, and protects mice from the development of DN. This is the first evidence that podocyte hypertrophy concomitant with podocytopenia may be associated with protection from proteinuria.

Melting Pot or Ring of Fire: Assimilation and the Mexican-American Experience

Introduction ................................................................................... 1262 I. The Myth of Spain and Assimilation Through Denial ................. 1269 II. Race, Ethnicity, and Nationhood for Latinos: Some Assimilation L essons .................................................................................... 12 7 7 A. Assimilation Latino Style .................................................... 1279 1. Latinos Assimilate! ............................. ............................ 1281 2. Limits on Latino Assimilation ........................................ 1281 a. A Diversity of Assimilation Experiences ................. 1283 b. Complications of the Border .................................. 1285 c. The Intersection of Assimilation, Identity Choice, Latino Diversity, and Anglo/Latino Belonging ........ 1286 B. Deciding to Be Latino? ............................ ........................... 1286 C . Latino D iversity .................................................................. 1290

Presumed Incompetent: Important Lessons for University Leaders on the Professional Lives of Women Faculty of Color

Academics have long known that the experiences of women faculty members of color differ in important respects from those of any other faculty members. Adding significantly to that body of knowledge, Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia edited by Professors Angela P. Harris and Carmen Gonzalez in a collection of essays of different voices offers important lessons for scholars, university administrators and leaders, faculty members, and, for that matter, students interested in the experiences of women of color in academia. People of good faith who want to “do the right thing” may find it difficult to read the unsettling stories and pleas for empathy, internalize the lessons as based on common occurrences rather than outlier experiences, and consider how to address and redress the issues. Still, we as a collective have the obligation and responsibility to think about what might be done to improve the day-to-day lives of the next generation of women faculty of color.To that end, this review essay directs attention at one chapter of the volume, which offers invaluable commentary and perspective on the other chapters and provides many lessons for university leaders hoping to make a positive difference. This is terrain where one might expect two minority law school deans (and faculty members) to feel most comfortable. In addition, as people of color with real life experience with these issues, we hope to provide insights that help university leaders to better appreciate, grapple with, and attempt to effectively address the concerns of women faculty of color.In Lessons from the Experiences of Women of Color Working in Academia, Professor Yolanda Flores Niemann ably distills valuable lessons from the preceding chapters of the book (p. 446). She cogently analyzes, synthesizes, and elaborates upon the lessons from the experiences of the diverse group of faculty women of color, who offer different perspectives on the challenges that they have encountered in academia. In this essay, we by necessity narrow our focus to just a few of Professor Flores Niemann’s many insights. In so doing, our hope is to highlight, and expand upon, ten important lessons from her rich chapter. Building on these lessons, we offer relevant experiences both as minority faculty members ourselves and law school deans.The pursuit of equity for women of color faculty members obviously requires consideration of a wide array of academic personnel matters and issues of general university and faculty governance. This short essay, of course, cannot do justice in the analysis of those issues in their entirety. What we instead hope to do is to briefly explain how and why university leaders should be sensitive to the possible diversity consequences of just about every decision that he or she makes and take preliminary steps toward beginning a process that can improve the experiences of faculty members of color. As discussed in this review essay, devotion to a transparent process of decision-making has proven critically important to our success and happiness, as well as to that of many other influential university leaders. In addition, awareness, sensitivity, and commitment are important ingredients to any process aimed at ensuring that the academic workplace is fair, safe, and hospitable to all faculty members. The next steps for academic leaders include concrete and practical action on a variety of fronts.We currently live in a time of considerable tumult in American law schools, with falling numbers of applications, a challenging legal job market, and rising tuitions. Many of the same trends are evident in higher education generally. The pressing concern in the minds of many university leaders involves financial viability, which unquestionably deserves attention. Concerns with the diversity of faculties and student bodies, as well as the experiences of minorities in academia, are secondary at best to most university leaders and not nearly as high a current priority as one would hope.The crisis mentality about the economic trends at many universities makes it all the more important to take to heart the lessons of Presumed Incompetent. We collectively must strive to avoid allowing the turbulent times in modern academia to drown out the voices of women faculty members of color and ultimately distract us from the goals of diversity and social justice in academia.

On the Appointment of a Latina/o to the Supreme Court

The possible appointment of a Latina or Latino Justice to the United States Supreme Court has been on the table for well over a decade. Its emergence as an issue worthy of serious discussion in some ways represents an acknowledgment of the growing Latina/o presence, and a movement away from Latina/o invisibility, in American social life. The much-publicized Census 2000 reveals that Hispanics currently comprise over 12.5 percent of the total U.S. population, or almost 35 million people, roughly approximating the number of African Americans in the country. Significantly higher concentrations of Latina/os live in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Arizona, and New Mexico. In light of the demographics, we should expect - some might say demand - to see a Latina/o on the Supreme Court in the twenty-first century. The possible nomination of a Latina/o, of course, raises a plethora of questions, including perplexing ideological ones. The partisan political issues implicated by a Supreme Court appointment bring to the forefront the diversity of political opinion, correlated to a certain degree with national origin ancestry, among Latina/os in the United States. This essay attempts to steer clear of the heated political questions implicated by a Supreme Court appointment at this time, namely the likely conservativism of a Latina/o nominated by a Republican President. Nor will the relative strengths and weaknesses of possible Latina/o nominees be discussed. Rather, I instead focus on the potential beneficial impact of the appointment of a qualified Latina or Latino to the Court as an institution, the Latina/o community, and the nation as a whole. Although a heterogenous community, Latina/os in the United States share important common experiences. Such commonalities suggest that a Latina/o Justice may bring new perspectives to the Supreme Court. The addition of a Latina/o voice holds the promise of improving the decision-making process on constitutional law, civil rights, and other matters. Moreover, just as Justice Thurgood Marshalls historic appointment in 1967 did for African Americans, a Latina/o appointment would send a powerful message of inclusion to the Latina/o community. In sum, depending on the individual, a Latina/o Justice could make a lasting difference.

Cry Me A River: The Limits of 'A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools'

This article is a response to Richard H. Sanders article, A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools, which recently appeared in the Stanford Law Review. In his article, Professor Sander argues that affirmative action in law schools harms, rather than helps, African American law students by setting up African American students, who are out-matched by their white peers in terms of undergraduate grade point average and LSAT scores, for failure. Specifically, Professor Sander contends that because affirmative action enables African Americans to attend law schools for which they are unqualified, they are more likely to perform poorly in law school, drop out, fail the bar examination, and never become lawyers. In this brief response, we contend that Professor Sanders analysis is misdirected and narrow, and we highlight two shortcomings of the article. First, noting other studies that maintain that Professor Sanders empirical work does not support his conclusions about the effects of affirmative action on African American law students, we raise the important issue of maintaining racial diversity in law schools, a key point relevant to affirmative action, which Professor Sander ignores throughout his article. In so doing, we examine Professor Sanders failure to offer alternatives of what policies might more fully diversify law schools and ensure educational opportunity for all. We also explore Professor Sanders charges of a lack of candor by law schools about the salience of race in admissions decisions, charges that not only mischaracterize the admission process at many law schools but also fail to encourage an open and honest dialogue about the problem of minority underrepresentation in law schools. Second, we critically examine Professor Sanders assumption that relatively lower undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores explain why African-American students fail to fare as well academically in law school as their white peers. In so doing, we highlight Professor Sanders neglect of other significant factors likely to correlate with poor performance, in particular the well-documented hostile environment faced by African American, and other minority, students in law schools and the manner in which such an environment may adversely affect their academic performance. Finally, this article explores steps that law schools may take to improve the experiences of African American and other minority students within their corridors.

Law and Politics in Post-Modern California Coalition or Conflict between African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latina/os?

This article considers the future of relations between African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latina/os in the political process in the United States and evaluates the prospects for social change. To do so, this article focuses on Los Angeles, California, which for a number of years has experienced the demographic change that is beginning to be replicated across the nation. Particular attention is paid to interethnic conflict and the need to redefine the conventional ‘civil rights’ discourse to reflect the changing socio-economic landscape of postmodern California.

The Minority Rights Revolution

In the wake of the black civil rights movement, other disadvantaged groups of Americans began to make headway—Latinos, women, Asian Americans, and the disabled found themselves the beneficiaries of new laws and policies—and by the early 1970s a minority rights revolution was well underway. In the first book to take a broad perspective on this wide-ranging and far-reaching phenomenon, John D. Skrentny exposes the connections between the diverse actions and circumstances that contributed to this revolution—and that forever changed the face of American politics. Though protest and lobbying played a role in bringing about new laws and regulations—touching everything from wheelchair access to women’s athletics to bilingual education—what Skrentny describes was not primarily a bottom-up story of radical confrontation. Rather, elites often led the way, and some of the most prominent advocates for expanding civil rights were the conservative Republicans who later emerged as these policies’ most vociferous opponents. This book traces the minority rights revolution back to its roots not only in the black civil rights movement but in the aftermath of World War II, in which a world consensus on equal rights emerged from the Allies’ triumph over the oppressive regimes of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and then the Soviet Union. It also contrasts failed minority rights development for white ethnics and gays/lesbians with groups the government successfully categorized with African Americans. Investigating these links, Skrentny is able to present the world as America’s leaders saw it; and so, to show how and why familiar figures—such as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and, remarkably enough, conservatives like Senator Barry Goldwater and Robert Bork—created and advanced policies that have made the country more egalitarian but left it perhaps as divided as ever. Table of Contents 1. Introduction: How War and the Black Civil Rights Movement Changed America 2. “This Is War and This Is a War Measure”: Racial Equality Becomes National Security 3. National Security and Equal Rights: Limits and Qualifications 4. “We Were Advancing the Really Revolutionary View of Discrimination”: Designating Official Minorities for Affirmative Action in Employment 5. “In View of the Existence of the Other Significant Minorities”: The Expansion of Affirmative Action for Minority Capitalists 6. “Race Is a Very Relevant Personal Characteristic”: Affirmative Admissions, Diversity, and the Supreme Court 7. “Learn, Amigo, Learn!”: Bilingual Education and Language Rights in the Schools 8. “I Agree with You about the Inherent Absurdity”: Title IX and Women’s Equality in Education 9. White Males and the Limits of the Minority Rights Revolution: The Disabled, White Ethnics, and Gays 10. Conclusion: The Rare American Epiphany

Book Review: The Face of the Nation: Immigration, the State and the National IdentityThe Face of the Nation: Immigration, the State and the National Identity. By FitzgeraldKeith. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. 285.

and the rules of evidence that are employed in the process.Throughout her in-depth analysis, she measures the states modus operandi with the states international obligations under the United Nations Convention relating to the Stateof Refugees (1951), and the 1967 Protocol (whichremovedthe time and geographicallimitations in the 1951 Convention). Dr. Lambert addresses the concept and implementation of protection against refoulement as well as the living conditions of these asylum seekers during the pre-asylum period. Here one gains an insight into the degree of the individuals freedom of movement and social/economic rights, e.g., right of family reunion, accommodations, education, and social assistance. This study also considers asylum seekers who are designated as defactorefugees or refugeesfor humanitarian reasons, that is, persons who are not de jure refugees according to international instruments. In completing her comparative review of national practices concerning this type of refugee, Dr. Lambert advocates an agreement on the harmonization ofhumanitarian status within Europe. Finally, the author considers the minimum standards set out in the 1951 Conventions, and how far each state under review has gone to meet minimal observance or exceed the standard. This work is not an overview. Ofthe three books under review,Dr. Lambert is a path blazer in terms of focus and range. Her work is creative. All three works contribute to a greater understanding than existed before their appearance. Each of the three authors have contributed a bibliography to assist those who would delve further into the topic. The Face ofthe Nation: Immigration, the State and theNationdlIdentity. By Keith Fiugerald. Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 1996. Pp. 285. KEVIN R. JOHNSON University ofCalifornia at Davis