Digital Commons Network^™

Second Class For The Second Time: How The Commercial Speech Doctrine Stigmatizes Commercial Use Of Aggregated Public Records, Brian N. Larson, Genelle I. Belmas

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that access to aggregated electronic public records for commercial use should receive protection under the First Amendment in the same measure as the speech acts the access supports. In other words, we view commercial access to aggregated public records as an essential means to valuable speech. For many, however, the taint of the commercial speech doctrine is turning all “information flows” into commercial ones. This, in turn, is threatening the access to government records.

Precious, Worthless, Or Immeasurable: The Value And Ethic Of Water, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

This Article introduces and briefly explores some of the topics related to the value and ethics of water that were considered at the symposium, Precious, Worthless, or Immeasurable: The Value and Ethic of Water, which took place November 2-4, 2006, at the Texas Tech University School of Law. The purpose of the Symposium was to consider how this precious liquid is valued, assessed, and perceived with regard to law and regulations, economics and commerce, people and communities, culture and religion, and others aspects of society that are impacted by water. While far from a comprehensive analysis of the subject matter, …

Newfound Religion: Mothers, God, And Infanticide, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

This essay focuses on cultural constructions of infanticide and psychosis, especially cases in which the mother heard delusional commands to kill her children. Part I examines the background of the Yates, Laney, and Diaz cases. Part II explores whether these mothers can be seen paradoxically as feminist subjects of empowerment rather than as victims. This essay argues that psychotic mothers have been disempowered and silenced, so their acts cannot be seen as subversive feminist gestures. Part III, however, arguest that the legal trials of Laney and Diaz demonstrate a possible subversion through trial strategy. These two trials more fully told …

Introduction: The Power Of Stories: Gloucester Tales, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

For a second year, scholars made a pilgrimage to Gloucester for a three-day academic conference sponsored by Texas Wesleyan Law School, the University of Gloucestershire, and the Central Gloucester Initiative. This year's conference theme, "The Power of Stories: Intersections of Law, Culture and Literature," was inspired by the medieval folktale about Dick Whittington and his cat. While the City of Gloucester planned various events to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the folktale, such as a re-enactment of Dick Whittington's pilgrimage from Gloucester to London, conference organizers in both the United States and England planned a thought-provoking conference.

They did not …

The Role Of Groups In Norm Transformation: A Dramatic Sketch, In Three Parts, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholars, as well as economists, have focused limited attention on the role of coordinated groups of market participants - committees, clubs, associations, and the like - in social ordering generally and in the evolution of norms particularly. One might trace this neglect to some presumptive orientation to state actors (expressive law) and autonomous individuals (norm entrepreneurs) as the sole parties of interest in social change. Yet, alternative stories of social ordering and norm change might also be told. Dramatic recent changes in the contracting practices of the sovereign debt markets offer one such story.

Using the latter by way …

From "Federalization" To "Mixed Governance" In Corporate Law: A Defense Of Sarbanes-Oxley, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Since the very moment of its adoption, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has been subject to a litany of critiques, many of them seemingly well-placed. The almost universal condemnation of the Act for its asserted 'federalization' of corporate law, by contrast, deserves short shrift. Though widely invoked - and blithely accepted - dissection of this argument against the legislation shows it to rely either on flawed assumptions or on normative preferences not ordinarily acknowledged (or perhaps even accepted) by those who criticize Sarbanes-Oxley for its federalization of state corporate law.

Once we appreciate as much, we can begin by replacing …

[N]Ot A Story To Pass On: Constructing Mothers Who Kill, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

Toni Morrison has said in her Nobel acceptance speech, “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” How we “do language” in judicial decisions about infanticide can perhaps be compared to and informed by fiction such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

Beloved provides a fictional account of the life of a historical woman, a slave who escaped to freedom and then attempted to kill all four of her children, successfully killing one when her master came to claim her under the Fugitive Slave Act. In addition to …

Bridging The Digital Divide: Equality In The Information Age, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

The digital revolution has transformed the lives of many, but also has left untouched the lives of many others. As a result, a large segment of the world population misses out on the tremendous political, social, economic, educational, and career opportunities created by the digital revolution. This gap between the information haves and have-nots is commonly referred to as the digital divide.

Although evidence suggested that the digital divide in the United States is closing, the same is not true for the less developed countries. In light of the alarming disparities between the information haves and have-nots, the Howard M. …

Incest In A Thousdand Acres: Cheap Trick Or Feminist Re-Vision, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

This article ultimately argues that the plot changes are not a cheap trick intended to manipulate the reader's emotions, but a feminist re-vision, which succeeds or not depending on the reader's critical feminist perspective. Thus, Part Two delineates several feminist stances, such as liberal feminism, radical feminism, social feminism, and postmodern feminism, and summarizes the plot changes Smiley has imposed on King Lear. Part Three considers one major plot change - the longing for the mother - in terms of patriarchy's suppression of a maternal genealogy and feminine language. This part argues that the novel successfully demonstrates the difficulty in …

Protection Of Traditional Knowledge, Srividhya Ragavan

Faculty Scholarship

Knowledge has been the most coveted possession of mankind since the industrial revolution. The industrial boom after the World Wars has highlighted the importance of the so-called intellectual knowledge. Recently, the importance of knowledge that has been in the public domain (and, therefore, accessible) has come into question. The pattern of evolution of society, has been marked by a process by which the societies in developed countries have moved towards a more technological orientation. Consequentially, some traditional knowledge, including traditional practices, has been left behind and newer practices that are better, or at least considered better, are being used. Knowledge …

Youthbuild, Dorothy Stoneman, Fatma Marouf

Faculty Scholarship

YouthBuild is a comprehensive youth and community development program that simultaneously addresses several core issues facing lowincome communities: education, housing, jobs, and leadership development. It is based on the conviction that the energy and intelligence of young people need to be liberated and enlisted in solving the problems facing our society, and that low income young people are an untapped resource for solving the problems facing their own communities.

YouthBuild engages disconnected young men and women who have no apparent path to a productive future by teaching them basic academic, life, leadership, and employability skills through work on community housing …

Coming Out: Decision-Making In State And Federal Sodomy Cases, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

In 1791, American states were enacting laws against sodomy at the same time they ratified the Bill of Rights, the first ten constitutional amendments meant to safeguard fundamental rights of individuals in a free society. In a March 1789 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson asserted that a bill of rights was necessary to give the judiciary the power to protect such individual rights. Ironically, that which the judiciary gives, it may also take away, since "[t]he legislator is a writer. And the judge a reader."

This Article deconstructs recent sodomy cases in order to challenge judicial adoption or reinscription …

Human Rights Environmentalism: Forging Common Ground, Gabriel Eckstein, Miriam Gitlin

Faculty Scholarship

Since the early 1970s, the international community has widely acknowledged the nexus between human rights and environmental protection. References to this association and even to a human right to some minimal quality of environment, can be found in numerous international instruments. The Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, for example, proclaims that human beings have the "fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being." Similarly, the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights states that "everyone shall have the right to live …

In The Wake Of Thoreau: Four Morden Legal Philosophers And The Theory Of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience, Stephen R. Alton

Faculty Scholarship

This Article opens with a discussion of Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience and then examines the ideas of four modem legal philosophers, Joseph Raz, Kent Greenawalt, John Rawls, and Ronald Dworkin, on the subject. Next, the Article compares the respective thinking of all five men regarding the circumstances that would justify the use of civil disobedience. To facilitate the comparison as well as to make it more relevant to the reader, the Article examines five related contemporary illustrations involving situations in which the use of civil disobedience might arguably be morally justified. This Article concludes with some general thoughts on …