Digital Commons Network^™

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

Denying Freedom Rather Than Securing The Country: National Security Is Undermined By Laws Governing Battered Immigrants, Eve Tilley-Coulson

Eve Tilley-Coulson

Relief for battered immigrants is not an obvious national security matter per se, yet remedies are enacted in conjunction with stringent interpretations of immigration law, as though victims pose a security threat. Discrepancies exist between the immigration laws themselves—which attempt to secure the United States from disease, violence, and illegal activity—and the loopholes within remedies under these laws, unnecessarily removing victims and perpetuating a cycle of fear and abuse. By displacing the victim, rather than the abuser, the government allows the cycle of violence to continue, while simultaneously breaking up families and creating disorder and instability. The economic and societal …

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission And Structural Reform Of The American Workplace, Margo Schlanger, Pauline Kim

Margo Schlanger

In 2011, the United States Supreme Court struck down a class action suit alleging that Wal-Mart stores discriminated against female employees in pay and promotion decisions, making it more difficult to obtain certification of private employment discrimination class actions. As a result, the role of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in seeking structural reform of the workplace, always of substantial influence, has gained in comparative importance. Yet there is remarkably little written about the EEOC’s large-scale injunctive cases. This Article addresses this major gap in scholarship. Using both qualitative case studies and a new quantitative dataset, we test existing theories …

2 Standards 1 Cup: How Geotargeting Will End The Battle Between National And Local Obscenity Standards, Joseph Mason Kjar

J. Mason Kjar

The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech—but that protection is not absolute. Some speech is banned outright, such as child pornography. Other speech is nearly fully protected, such as erotic speech. Caught in the middle of the two is obscene speech, which can be owned in the privacy of one’s home, but cannot be disseminated publicly.

The line between obscenity and eroticism is hard to pinpoint, and varies from community to community. In general, the process of analyzing whether a work is obscene includes asking whether the content violates the community standards of the local geographic area where …

The First Amendment In The Multicultural Climate Of Colleges And Universities: A Story Ending With Christian Legal Society V. Martinez, Blake M. Lawrence

Blake M Lawrence

This article argues that the “limited public forum” analysis used by the United States Supreme Court in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez correctly addresses the competing concerns of students and university administration when approaching free speech and association on college and university campuses. It extensively analyzes the creation of the “limited public forum” analysis, explains why that particular analysis is ill-equipped for limiting high-school speech, and comprehensively addresses the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez opinion. Further, weaknesses in the dicta of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez are analyzed and points made by dissenting Justices are critiqued.

The Times They Are A-Changin’: The “Sexting” Problem And How The Intrusiveness Of A Cell Phone Search Determines The (Un)Constitutionality Of Suspicion-Based And Suspicionless Searches In The Public School Setting, Andrew T. Moore

Andrew T Moore

In the past decade cell phone use amongst teenagers has gone from luxury to perceived necessity. With the expanded abilities of modern cell phones, students are able to easily participate in social sexual behavior such as sending explicit images of themselves or others to other cell phone users, an activity known as “sexting.” While schools may want to do all they can to eradicate this behavior, school administrators must not violate the constitutional rights of their students in the process of doing so. When a school administrator comes to suspect “sexting” behavior, he or she must follow existing Fourth Amendment …

The Invisible Man: How The Sex Offender Registry Results In Social Death, Elizabeth B. Megale

Elizabeth B. Megale

This Article establishes that overcriminalization serves to marginalize unwanted groups of society, and particularly regarding the sex offender registry, it results in social death. The author relies upon the notion of crime as a social construct to establish that the concept of “sex offense” changes over time as society and culture evolve. From there, the author incorporates the work of Michele Foucault involving the relationship of power, knowledge, and sexuality to show how the trend toward more repressive social controls over sex-related activity is related to a shift in this relationship. The Author identifies three characteristics and the associated traits …

Dreams Deferred – Why In-State College Tuition Rates Are Not A Benefit Under The Iirira And How This Interpretation Violates The Spirit Of Plyler, Laura A. Hernandez

Laura A Hernandez

A legal barrier to education. The concept is distinctly un-American. We are well acquainted with the narrative. No matter how humble your childhood circumstances, if you studied hard, dreamed big and worked even harder, access to the United States’ finest universities would be yours. A college degree would provide employment opportunities, the chance to form bonds with scions of the privileged and well connected, and with any luck, a direct entree into that world of financial security.

Because this particular tale of manifest destiny has such a strong hold on the American psyche, it is understandable why the number of …

Electronic Discovery: A Survey Of E-Discovery, Its Effect On Corporate Constitutional Rights And Why Corporations May Receive The Fifth Amendment Privilege Against Self-Incrimination During Parallel Civil And Criminal Litigation, Percy Arnell King

Percy Arnell King Esq.

Advancing technology has created more places to seek out relevant information than ever before which, has created a burden for corporations tasked with retaining this information to comply with applicable laws and the prospect of civil or criminal litigation. This article explores how the modern trend of storing information electronically and subsequent electronic discovery allowed in parallel civil and criminal trials is inherently unfair to corporations. Furthermore, corporations have been granted several rights derived from the Bill of Rights, and should also receive the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Freezing Assets In The War On Terror: Ofac And The Fourth Amendment, Rebecca Kagan Sternhell

Rebecca Kagan Sternhell

In 2001, President Bush issued Executive Order 13224 declaring a state of national emergency and triggering an array of emergency powers. Chief among these powers was the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”), which permits the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) to freeze the assets and accounts of suspected terrorists and their affiliates. Recently OFAC has gone after U.S. charities. Three US charities filed suit alleging Fourth Amendment violations. Each organization received a different judicial determination on the Fourth Amendment question. The paper discusses these three cases and demonstrates no consensus on the Fourth Amendment issue. There …

The Fetish For Authentic Race In American Law, Christopher A. Bracey

Christopher A Bracey

This article offers an interdisciplinary and transhistorical account of race authentication as it has evolved over the past two centuries within American law and culture. As 21st century Americans, we find ourselves in the midst of an authenticity revival – a reaction to the increasingly vapid and digitized world in which we live. We generally crave authentic items and experiences, and this impulse has gained increased traction in the racial context. Most commentators agree that American society has become increasingly multiracial, and that race now takes on diminished significance as a determining factor of one’s life chances. Yet there are …

The Cost Of Democratization: Beyond Economists' Explanations Of Credit Card Debt, Andrea Freeman

Andrea Freeman

The credit card industry’s business model relies on the payment of fees and high interest rates by the poorest consumers to generate profits and subsidize credit card use by the richest. Industry studies indicate that African Americans and Latinos pay higher interest rates and more penalty fees than whites. Compounding credit card debt disparities are recent census statistics revealing that whites now have a median wealth twenty times higher than African Americans and eighteen times higher than Latinos. Despite the high social costs of deepening inequalities, law and economics and behavioral economics have largely ignored their contribution to market failure …

Advisory Adjudication, Girardeau A. Spann

Girardeau A Spann

"Advisory Adjudication" uses the recent Supreme Court decision in Camreta v. Greene as a takeoff point to discuss the way in which inconsistent demands make our conception of judicial review incoherent. In Camreta, the Supreme Court paradoxically issued an advisory opinion in the process of holding that it did not have jurisdiction to issue advisory opinions. I argue that this illustrates the manner in which we want the Supreme Court to act as a prospective policymaking body in a tricameral legislative process, while simultaneously insisting that the Court pretend merely to be engaged in the process of retrospective dispute-resolution. I …

Gelding The Lily: How The Bankruptcy Code's Promotion Of Marriage Leaves It Impotent, Tiffany R. Redding

Tiffany R. Redding

This Article challenges benefits in the Code that are reserved for married debtors as limiting the Code's power and ability to achieve its primary objective – providing all honest debtors with a fresh start. As the institution of marriage continues to evolve and marriage rates in America steadily decline, economic laws such as the Bankruptcy Code can no longer rely on marriage as an indicator of financial interdependence. This Article suggests several ways that the Code may be revised to eliminate marriage and restore power to the Code.

From Proving Pretext To Proving Discrimination: The Real Lesson Of Miller-El And Synder, Joshua Polster

Joshua Polster

In determining whether prosecutors have discriminated in their use of peremptory challenges, courts generally focus on whether defendants are able to prove that the nondiscriminatory reasons that prosecutors proffer for their challenges are pretextual. This focus is a natural result of the McDonnell Douglas framework, which the Supreme Court adopted for peremptory challenges from employment discrimination law. This Article argues that because of differences between jury selection and employment, the methods that employees use to prove pretext are not suited to peremptory challenges. Accordingly, while lower courts generally have interpreted two recent Supreme Court cases—Miller-El v. Dretke and Snyder v. …

United States V. Arizona: The Support Our Law Enforcement And Neighborhoods Act Is Preempted And Discriminatory, Melissa D. Goolsarran

Melissa D Goolsarran

In this paper I argue that S.B. 1070 should be not be upheld for two reasons. First, in ways that will be explicated below, S.B. 1070 directly conflicts with federal immigration law; thus it is preempted according to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Second, the law is unconstitutional because it allows for discrimination by police officers on the basis of race or national origin. This Note contends that the Ninth Circuit correctly affirmed the decision of the lower court to find S.B. 1070 preempted by federal immigration law; however the Ninth Circuit should have also found that S.B. 1070 …

Online Investigations And The Americans With Disabilities Act: The Resurgence Of Overbroad And Ineffectual Mental Health Inquiries In Character And Fitness Evaluations, Bernice M. Bird

Bernice M. Bird

Nationally, state board bar examiners’ interest to inquire into mental health has been a hotly contested issue invoking the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for the last two decades. After the enactment of the ADA in 1990 a floodgate of litigation resulted in a litany of publications, all surrounding the issue of whether mental health based inquiries into character and fitness violated the ADA. Consequently, narrowly tailored mental health inquiries into specific disorders emerged as the trend in a majority of jurisdictions. This comment analyzes whether fitness boards' mental health inquiries among social networking profiles may cause the resurgence of …

Corporate Leadership And The Unfinished Diversity Movement, Evan M. Roberts Mr.

Evan M Roberts Mr.

This comment explores topics relating to diversity in the board room. It begins by covering the benefits a diverse board brings to firm, focusing on the business case rationales of saving firms money, strengthening core business concepts and corporate governance and increasing shareholder value. Next, the comment explores why, despite the apparent value a divers e board brings to a firm, corporations remain largely homogenized at the highest levels. Current legal, social and economic principles such as tournament theory and labor market externalities appear to shed light on what specific problems diversity advocates must contend with if they hope to …

The Constitutionality & Ethics Of Licensing Lawyers To Advise Designated Foreign Terror Organizations, Elinor R. Jordan J.D.

Elinor R Jordan J.D.

By design, lawyers play a foundational role in U.S. democracy. In representing their client’s causes, they create a bulwark against repressive government action. What would happen to that role if the government had to issue a license before an attorney could legally present her client’s case? Many scholars have reviewed Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, wherein the Supreme Court held that a statute prohibiting lawyers from giving free legal advice to Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (“DFTOs”) does not violate lawyers’ First Amendment rights of free speech and association. However, neither the Court, nor scholars have directly addressed a statutory window …

Safeguarding The Safeguards: The Aca Litigation And The Extension Of Structural Protection To Non-Fundamental Liberties, Abigail R. Moncrieff

Abigail R. Moncrieff

This article confronts and challenges an emerging scholarly consensus that criticizes the hybridization of substantive and structural arguments in the litigation over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Although there is no doubt that the ACA plaintiffs have requested and the ACA judges have provided a hybrid substantive-structural holding, there is nothing at all unusual about this indirect strategy for protecting constitutional liberty interests; it is a well-known and well-theorized strategy, which one scholar recently termed “semisubstantive review.” The article considers three possible distinctions between the ACA case and the ordinary case of semisubstantive review, and concludes that …

"Not That Smart": Sonia Sotomayor And The Construction Of Merit, Guy-Uriel E. Charles Mr., Mitu G. Gulati Mr., Daniel L. Chen Dr.

Guy-Uriel E. Charles Mr.

The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court in 2009 was criticized as sacrificing merit on the altar of identity politics. According to critics, Sotomayor was simply “not that smart”. For some conservative critics, her selection illustrated the costs of affirmative action policies, in that this particular choice was going to produce a lower quality Supreme Court. For liberal critics, many were concerned that the President, by selecting Sotomayor, was squandering an opportunity to appoint an intellectual counterweight to conservative justices like Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts. Using a set of basic measures of judicial merit, such …

Disentangling "Cohesiveness": The Misapplication Of § 2 In Vote Dilution Cases, Eliot Michael Held

Eliot Held

In Thornburg v. Gingles, the Supreme Court ruled that a state’s refusal to create a proposed majority-minority voting district could in some circumstances violate § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. A proponent of the proposed district must show that the minority population of the proposed district is “politically cohesive” and would constitute a majority of the proposed district’s voting-age population, and that the non-minority (Caucasian) population of the challenged district traditionally votes as a bloc such that it is usually able to elect a candidate not preferred by the minority population. This Article proposes that a proper reading of …

The Dark Side Of The Creed: Stable Values And Constructed Meaning In American Thought, Joseph Margulies

Joseph Margulies

No abstract provided.

Plugging The School To Prison Pipeline By Addressing Cultural Racism In Public Education Discipline, Patrick Metze

Patrick Metze

As timely as today’s headlines, I take a critical look at the failure of the public schools to educate our children by criminalizing and alienating students of color and of economic disadvantage, forcing them out of the schools and into the juvenile justice system as the first step to a life of reduced expectations and productivity. We are failing to prevent these children from becoming disengaged from society and its institutions that were designed for their benefit – the institution of a free public education. It is time we frankly acknowledge that our long stored history of racial conflict has …

The Dialectic Of Obscenity, Brian L. Frye

Brian L Frye

The story of Flaming Creatures and the so-called “Fortas Film Festival” illustrates the dialectic of obscenity. When President Johnson nominated Justice Fortas to replace Chief Justice Warren in 1968, Fortas’s opponents investigated his record, hoping to justify a filibuster. Among other things, they discovered Jacobs v. New York, in which Fortas alone voted to reverse obscenity convictions for showing Flaming Creatures, an obscure art film that featured a transvestite orgy. Senator Thurmond showed Flaming Creatures to several senators, convinced them to join the filibuster, and blocked the Fortas nomination. Under the dialectic of obscenity, art protects pornography and pornography protects …

The Dream Act And The Right To Equal Educational Opportunity: An Analysis Of, Ashley Feasley

Ashley Feasley

Under the current U.S. immigration laws, undocumented children face deportation and are frequently denied access to higher education. The 2011 Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (“DREAM”) Act would provide conditional permanent residency to certain illegal alien applicants who graduate from U.S. high schools, are of good moral character, arrived in the U.S. illegally as minors, and have been residing in the U.S. continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment. The DREAM Act proposes touches on a variety of human rights issues, including the right to education and the right to be free from discrimination. …

The Racial Metamorphosis Of Justice Kennedy, With An Eye Towards The End Of The Second Reconstruction, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

This Essay examines the recent turn in Justice Kennedy’s race jurisprudence. The shift is palpable, from a narrow and uncompromising approach to the use of race by state actors to a more nuanced and contextual understanding of the role that race plays in American society. This is no small change, best explained by Justice Kennedy’s status on the Court as a “super median.” This is a position of power and influence, as any majority coalition must count on Justice Kennedy’s vote; but more importantly, it is also a position of true independence. Justice Kennedy entertains his idiosyncratic and very personal …

The Second-Class Class Action: How Courts Thwart Wage Rights By Misapplying Class Action Rules, Scott A. Moss, Nantiya Ruan

Scott A Moss

Courts apply to wage rights cases an aggressive scrutiny that not only disadvantages low-wage workers, but is fundamentally incorrect on the law. Rule 23 class actions automatically cover all potential members if the court grants plaintiffs’ class certification motion. But for certain employment rights cases – mainly wage claims but also age discrimination and gender equal pay claims – 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) allows not class actions but “collective actions” covering just those opting in affirmatively. Courts in collective actions assume a gatekeeper role as they do in Rule 23 class action, disallowing many actions by requiring a certification motion …

Preserving The Ark Of Our Safety: How A Stronger Administrative Approach Could Save Section 5 Of The Voting Rights Act, Aaron Moore

Aaron M Moore

No abstract provided.

Spatial Diversity, Nicholas Stephanopoulos

Nicholas Stephanopoulos

Why do Supreme Court opinions denounce some districts as political gerrymanders but say nothing about other superficially similar districts? Why does the Court deem some majority-minority districts unnecessary under the Voting Rights Act, or even unconstitutional, but uphold other apparently analogous districts? This Article introduces a concept -- “spatial diversity” -- that helps explain these and many other election law oddities. Spatial diversity refers to the variation of a given factor over geographic space. For example, a district with a normal income distribution is spatially diverse, with respect to earnings, if most rich people live in one area and most …