Digital Commons Network^™

The Modest Promise Of Children’S Relationship Rights, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Prescription For Gender: How Medical Professionals Can Help Secure Equality For Transgender People, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

Transgender people have made tremendous legal gains in the last several years. We live in a period of rapid social change, hopefully approaching a time when transgender individuals and our families enjoy the same legal rights and privileges afforded to other members of society. However, we are not there yet. This essay discusses the role medical professionals must play if transgender people are to achieve full humanity in light of legal developments in the areas of employment and family law. Medical professionals are at the heart of directing and implementing policies that have an enormous effect on the lives of …

Domestic Violence And The Maryland Family Violence Option, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Medical Treatment Of Children With Hiv Illness And The Need For Supportive Intervention: The Challenges Of Medical Providers, Families And The State, Deborah J. Weimer

Faculty Scholarship

Human iummuno-deficiency virus (HIV) illness in children poses tremendous challenges to medical providers and families to work together to deliver optimal care. An alternative to filing "neglect" reports with the Department of Social Services is necessary to provide support and appropriate intervention to families and medical providers caring for HIV-positive children.

The creation of a neutral entity that could intervene and identify barriers to treatment and communication between the medical providers and the family would benefit all the parties involved. Knowledgeable mediators could help facilitate communication and identify appropriate support for the child and family.

Intervention would not be delayed …

What's Wrong With A Parenthood Market? A New And Improved Theory Of Commodification, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Yes, No, And Maybe: Informed Decision Making About Divorce Mediation In The Presence Of Domestic Violence, Nancy Ver Steegh

Faculty Scholarship

Divorce mediation in the context of domestic violence is one of the most controversial issues in family law today. Some believe that mediation is never appropriate when domestic violence has taken place, and others believe that it is always appropriate and should be mandatory. These views can be reconciled by taking a third approach, that mediation is sometimes appropriate but that this decision must be made on a case-by-case basis in consultation with the abuse survivor. The central premise of this article is that victims of domestic violence should have the opportunity to make an informed choice about which divorce …

Affairs Of The Heart, Michael T. Flannery

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Placing The Adoptive Self, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

[A]doption law and practices are guided by enormous cultural changes in the composition and the meaning of family. As families become increasingly blended outside the context of adoption – with combinations of blood relatives, step-relatives, de facto relatives, and ex-relatives sitting down together for Thanksgiving dinner as a matter of course – birth families and adoptive families knowing one another may not seem so very strange or threatening at all. There will simply be an expectation across communities that ordinary families will be mixed and multiple. With that in mind, we should hesitate before establishing embeddedness as the source of …

Intimate Affiliation And Democracy: Beyond Marriage?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This article takes up the question: Should family law and policy move beyond marriage? It assesses a spectrum of answers to that question. Rejecting proposals, on the one hand, to shore up traditional marriage, and, on the other, to abolish marriage, it argues that family law and policy should not move wholly beyond marriage, but should support marriage in a way that better fosters greater equality within and among families. The article is part of a symposium on "Marriage, Families, and Democracy," published in 32 Hofstra Law Review 23-421 (2003).

Damage To Family Relationships As A Collateral Consequence Of Parental Incarceration, Philip Genty

Faculty Scholarship

The most obvious and perhaps most serious collateral consequence of incarceration is family separation. Imprisonment undermines families and has a detrimental impact upon children, caretakers, and the communities in which they live. Unlike other collateral consequences, family separation has an irreversible impact upon both parents and children. The time apart is lost forever because a childhood can never be recovered.

This Essay will review the available statistical information about incarcerated parents and their children and discuss the detrimental effects of parental incarceration upon families. The Essay will conclude with some reflections about why the adverse consequences of incarceration for prisoners' …

Self-Definition In The Constitution Of Faith And Family, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Love And Work: A Response To Vicki Schultz's Life's Work, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Parenting In The Face Of Prejudice: The Need For Representation For Parents With Mental Illness, Leigh S. Goodmark

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Basics Of Getting Started - Who, What, When, Where, And How?, Leigh S. Goodmark

Faculty Scholarship

Before you open the doors of your school-based legal clinic, you need to answer some fundamental questions about how your clinic will operate. This section poses those questions and suggests a range of answers based on the experiences of lawyers who have established and/or are currently working in school-based clinics. Consider it a guide to assist you in getting your own clinic started. For further clarification on specific topics, refer to subsequent sections of the book where they are addressed in more detail.

Why They Won't Take The Money: Black Grandparents And The Success Of Informal Kinship Care, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin

Faculty Scholarship

In this note, Ms. Gipson Rankin discusses kinship care as an alternative to placing children into foster care. For generations, particularly in the Black community, grandparents and other older relatives have played a crucial role in raising the children of younger relatives when they have become unable or unwilling to raise the children themselves. This system, known as kinship care, has ensured that thousands of American children are cared for and raised by members of their own families. The note explores the history and nature of the kinship care system, and analyzes federal and state policies that impact the system. …

What Family For The 21st Century?, David D. Meyer, Harry D. Krause

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Marital Commitment And The Legal Regulation Of Divorce, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The question of the appropriate role of law in regulating marriage and divorce is the subject of much controversy in the United States – a raging battle of the “Culture Wars” (Hunter, 1991). On one side are social conservatives, who view divorce and family instability as an important source of societal decline. These advocates of “family values” adopt a somewhat punitive tone, arguing that the family can be saved only if the government restricts divorce, by reinstituting fault grounds and discouraging unhappy spouses from selfishly defecting from their responsibilities. Liberals tend to oppose all restrictions on divorce, partly on the …

Adding Value To Families: The Potential Of Model Family Courts, Jane M. Spinak

Faculty Scholarship

The Harlem Community Justice Center (Justice Center) officially opened in July 2000 with all the fanfare of a major civic event. The Chief Judge of the State of New York, Judith Kaye, and the Mayor of the City of New York, Rudolph Guiliani, were keynote speakers, lauding the combined efforts of private administrators and public officials in reopening a deteriorating but magnificent 1892 court building in the center of Harlem. The ceremony began and ended with gospel sung by the Addicts Rehabilitation Center Choir, a musical reflection of one component of the Justice Center's jurisdiction. The new Juvenile Intervention Court …

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 …

Lochner Redeemed: Family Privacy After Troxel And Carhart, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Florida's Foster Care System Fails Its Children, Timothy L. Arcaro

Faculty Scholarship

This article will attempt to draw attention to the pervasive problem of child sexual abuse in foster care by identifying circumstances that contribute to sexual victimization. Hopefully the discussion will illuminate the plight of child victims of sexual abuse and generate discourse on a new paradigm of protection initiatives for foster children. Part I of the article will explain child protection proceedings and how children enter the foster care system. Part II will describe common characteristics of state foster care systems. Part III will discuss traditional notions of child sexual abuse and their illusory application in the context of sexual …

Constitutional Pragmatism For A Changing American Family, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Constitutional Law Can Learn From The Ali Principles Of Family Dissolution, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ali Child Support Principles: A Lesson In Public Policy And Truth-Telling, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Ali Principles' Approach To Domestic Partnership, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Marriage As A Trade: Bridging The Private/Private Distinction, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Changing The Meaning Of Motherhood, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ethical Judgment And Interdisciplinary Collaboration In Custody And Child Welfare Cases, Deborah J. Weimer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Divorce Education: What Do The Parents Say?, Nancy Ver Steegh, Solveig Erickson

Faculty Scholarship

Between 1994 and 1998, the number of states offering parent education classes for divorcing couples quadrupled. The State of Minnesota participated in this trend with the passage of Minnesota Statutes Section 518.157 requiring that each judicial district implement a parent education program. Parent education at the time of divorce seems to constitute sound public policy. However, no final conclusions can be drawn without asking the question, "What do the parents think about mandatory divorce education?" Part II of this article will examine the societal and legal context of divorce education for parents and the response of the court system. Part …

Care As A Public Value: Linking Responsibility, Resources, And Republicanism, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

I begin this Article with the preceding two statements concerning care for children because they focus on the relationship between resources and responsibility and capture two conflicting approaches to that relationship. The first statement resists a definition of "responsibility" that leaves out the work of social reproduction, that is, of caring for children and preparing them to take their place as responsible, self-governing members of society. Highlighting the lack of resources that poor parents face when tackling the work of social reproduction, the statement also suggests common ground among parents across class lines as to the importance of caring for …