Digital Commons Network^™

Originalism, Official History, And Perspectives Versus Methodologies, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper addresses a well-worn topic: originalism, the theory that judges should interpret the Constitution in a manner consistent with the intent of its framers. I am interested in the real-world effects of originalism. The primary effect advanced by originalists is the tendency of the approach to constrain the discretion of judges. However, another effect of originalism that I identify is the creation of official histories, a practice that imposes a hidden tax on society. Another question I consider is whether originalism should be considered a methodology of analyzing the law or a perspective on the law. I argue that …

`Representing And Being Represented In Turn’ – A Symposium On Hélène Landemore’S Open Democracy, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Survived & Coerced: Epistemic Injustice In The Family Regulation System, Lisa S. Washington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Traveling Judges, Alyssa S. King, Pamela K. Bookman

Faculty Scholarship

Around the world, domestic courts focused on commercial disputes hire foreign judges. The practice seems to resemble arbitration, but is also rooted in colonialism. These traveling judges are predominantly retired English judges hired by small, market-dominant jurisdictions, like Hong Kong or Dubai. The judges’ identities reveal efforts to harness business preferences for English common law into domestic court systems. While judges aspire to spread the rule of law, local politics may dictate these courts’ futures. This Article maps the practice of traveling judges and explores its implications.

Mindful Debiasing: Meditation As A Tool To Address Disability Discrimination, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

Antidiscrimination law is at a critical juncture. The law prohibits formal and explicit systems of exclusion, but much bias nonetheless persists. New tools are needed. This Article argues that mindfulness meditation may be a powerful strategy in the battle against disability discrimination. This Article sets out eight reasons that disability bias is particularly intractable. The Article then draws on empirical, philosophical, and scholarly sources to identify mechanisms through which mindfulness meditation can address these dynamics. The Article concludes by presenting concrete doctrinal implications of bringing mindfulness to bear on disability discrimination. This Article thus contributes to the established fields of …

Public Health And The Power To Exclude: Immigrant Expulsions At The Border, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

We are presently in the midst of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, as Courts, and indeed the Biden Administration, are struggling to manage thousands of immigrants waiting to seek asylum in the midst of a global pandemic. Beginning in March of 2020, against the advice of public health experts, the U.S. Government closed the southern U.S.-Mexico border, disproportionately impacting would-be asylum seekers from Central America, who are now immediately expelled from the United States should they reach the border under a process known as “Title 42.” Not only do these expulsions lack a legitimate public health rationale, but they …

Rethinking "Political" Considerations In Investment, David H. Webber

Faculty Scholarship

Five years ago, Professor David H. Webber was invited to deliver an address both to our Delaware Law School community and to the Delaware Bench and Bar as Visiting Scholar in Residence of Corporate and Business Law. Webber's Speech, "Rethinking 'Political' Considerations in Investment," made several predictions about the rise of politicized investment which were quite prescient. As relevant today as when it was delivered, this piece explores the consideration of investment factors outside the traditional realm of shareholder profit maximization, both in its current state and in the future. Webber's analysis of how investors balance the role of capital …

A “Woman’S Best Right”—To A Husband Or The Ballot?: Political And Household Governance In Anthony Trollope’S Palliser Novels, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

The year 2020 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 2018, the United Kingdom marked the one hundredth anniversary of some women securing the right to vote in parliamentary elections and the ninetieth anniversary of women securing the right to vote on the same terms as men. People observing the Nineteenth Amendment’s centenary may have difficulty understanding why it required such a lengthy campaign. One influential rationale in both the United Kingdom and the United States was domestic gender ideology about men’s and women’s separate spheres and destinies. This ideology …

As Seen Through The Eye Of The Camera: A Portrayal Of How Cultural Changes Societal Shifts And The Fight For Gender Equality Transformed The Law Of Divorce, Taylor Simpson-Wood

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Racial Purges, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

In a two-year period, 1885-86, over 168 communities in America forcibly expelled Chinese residents from their midst. This essay, inspired by historian Beth Lew-Williams's book, THE CHINESE MUST GO, investigates the nineteenth-century purges of Chinese residents that occurred throughout the American west. I make three arguments. First, these acts of racial and political terror complicate our understanding of racial violence in America. Many of the actions were denounced, but they were also surprisingly effective in forcing business and political leaders to support the indefinite suspension of Chinese migration. Perpetrators faced almost no legal repercussions, and unlike for freed persons, racial …

Lawful Searches Incident To Unlawful Arrests: A Reform Proposal, Mark A. Summers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

My Teacher, My Friend, Susan P. Koniak

Faculty Scholarship

In 1977, I think it was, the Yale law faculty considered whether to bar recruiters who discriminated against gays and lesbians-most notably the military-from interviewing students on campus. With the faculty then dominated by liberal giants, one might think the ban would have been a matter of little controversy. But the liberals thought the matter complex, so many interests to consider, nuance, nuance everywhere.

Geoff Hazard was not a liberal giant of that faculty. He was a titan and stood in awe of no giant, liberal or conservative-and there were conservative giants on the faculty then too, albeit fewer in …

'‘Male Chauvinism’ Is Under Attack From All Sides At Present': Roberts V. United States Jaycees, Sex Discrimination, And The First Amendment, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Today, many take it for granted that discriminating against women in the marketplace is illegal and morally wrong. Roberts v. United States Jaycees (1984) remains a foundational case on government’s compelling interest in prohibiting sex (or gender) discrimination in public accommodations, even in the face of First Amendment claims of freedom of association and expression. Curiously, Jaycees seems comparatively neglected by legal scholars, if measured by the cases included in the various collections of “law stories” or “rewritten opinions” projects. Looking back at the Jaycees litigation reveals the parties wrestling over the reach of public accommodations law and the force …

The Law Against Family Separation, Carrie F. Cordero, Heidi Li Feldman, Chimene Keitner

Faculty Scholarship

Most commentators assume that, except for the few restrictions expressly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the President's pardon power is unlimited. This Paper suggests that this common view is mistaken in at least one unexpected way. Presidential pardons must satisfy a modest procedural rule: they must list the specific crimes covered by the pardon. The "specificity requirement" means that vague and broadly worded pardons are invalid. This claim bears a significant burden of persuasion, since it runs so counter to accepted opinion. Nonetheless, that burden can be met. This Paper's argument rests on an originalist understanding of the constitutional text, …

State Punishment And Meaning In Life, Youngjae Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Money That Costs Too Much: Regulating Financial Incentives, Kristen Underhill

Faculty Scholarship

Money may not corrupt. But should we worry if it corrodes? Legal scholars in a range of fields have expressed concern about “motivational crowding-out,” a process by which offering financial rewards for good behavior may undermine laudable social motivations, like professionalism or civic duty. Disquiet about the motivational impacts of incentives has now extended to health law, employment law, tax, torts, contracts, criminal law, property, and beyond. In some cases, the fear of crowding-out has inspired concrete opposition to innovative policies that marshal incentives to change individual behavior. But to date, our fears about crowding-out have been unfocused and amorphous; …

Property-As-Society, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

Modern regulatory takings disputes present a key battleground for competing conceptions of property. This Article offers the following account of the three leading theories: a libertarian view sees property as creating a sphere of individual freedom and control (property-as-liberty); a pecuniary view sees property as a tool of economic investment (property-as-investment); and a progressive view sees property as serving a wide range of evolving communal values that include, but are not limited to, those advanced under both the libertarian and pecuniary conceptions (property-as-society). Against this backdrop, the Article offers two contentions. First, on normative grounds, it asserts that the conception …

The Second Amendment & Private Law, Cody Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

The Second Amendment, like other federal constitutional rights, is a restriction on government power. But what role does the Second Amendment have to play—if any—when a private party seeks to limit the exercise of Second Amendment rights by invoking private law causes of action? Private law—specifically, the law of torts, contracts, and property—has often been impacted by constitutional considerations, though in seemingly inconsistent ways. The First Amendment places limitations on defamation actions and other related torts, and also prevents courts from entering injunctions that could be classified as prior restraints. On the other hand, the First Amendment plays almost no …

Hate Speech, Public Assurance, And The Civic Standing Of Speakers And Victims, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Jeremy Waldron and James Weinstein have opened up a promising line of inquiry regarding the legitimacy and propriety of hate speech regulation. In doing so, they have succeeded in reinvigorating a subject that had grown academically formulaic even while becoming alarmingly more salient politically and culturally. Together they have enriched our understanding with their specificity of argumentation, intellectual courage, fairminded attentiveness to critics and counter-arguments, comparative law perspective, and genuine originality of conception. I find that each has shown me at least one significant problem in the other’s analysis, a symmetry that I consider a tribute to both.

Informants & Cooperators, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

The police have long relied on informants to make critical cases, and prosecutors have long relied on cooperator testimony at trials. Still, concerns about these tools for obtaining closely held information have substantially increased in recent years. Reliability concerns have loomed largest, but broader social costs have also been identified. After highlighting both the value of informants and cooperators and the pathologies associated with them, this chapter explores the external and internal measures that can or should be deployed to regulate their use.

Markets And Sovereignty, Joseph Blocher, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The past few decades have witnessed the growth of an exciting debate in the legal academy about the tensions between economic pressures to commodify and philosophical commitments to the market inalienability of certain items. Sex, organs, babies, and college athletics are among the many topics that have received attention. The debates often have proceeded, however, as if they involve markets on one side and the state on the other, with the relevant question being the ways in which the latter can or should try to facilitate, restrict, or rely on the former. In this article, we approach the relationship between …

Designing Systems For Achieving Justice After A Peace Agreement: Northern Ireland's Struggle With The Past, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Leading With Conviction: The Transformative Role Of Formerly Incarcerated Leaders In Reducing Mass Incarceration, Susan Sturm, Haran Tae

Faculty Scholarship

This report documents the roles of formerly incarcerated leaders engaged in work related to reducing incarceration and rebuilding communities, drawing on in-depth interviews with 48 of these leaders conducted over a period of 14 months. These “leaders with conviction” have developed a set of capabilities that enable them to advance transformative change, both in the lives of individuals affected by mass incarceration and in the criminal legal systems that have devastated so many lives and communities. Their leadership assumes particular importance in the era of the Trump Presidency, when the durability of the ideological coalitions to undo the failed apparatus …

On Empathy, Ronald E. Wheeler

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Wheeler discusses the deadly mass shooting of June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida, and his belief that more empathy is needed in the world. Wheeler then relates, through personal anecdotes, his own journey toward empathy. He concedes that there is no recipe for empathy, but believes that sharing personal stories can spur conversation, thinking, and collective action.

The Patent Attorney In Popular Culture, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

Popular culture is filled with lawyers.

Sovereign Debt Restructuring: A Model-Law Approach, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

The existing contractual framework for sovereign debt restructuring is sorely inadequate. Whether or not their fault, nations sometimes take on debt burdens that become unsustainable. Until resolved, the resulting sovereign debt problem hurts not only those nations (such as Greece) but also their citizens, their creditors, and—by posing serious systemic risks to the international financial system—the wider economic community. The existing contractual framework functions poorly to resolve the problem because it often leaves little alternative between a sovereign debt bailout, which is costly and creates moral hazard, and a default, which raises the specter of systemic financial contagion.

Most observers …

The Competing Objectives Underlying The Protection Of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

One topic that has received considerable academic and policy attention concerns the key objectives underlying the establishment of this new framework. To help us develop a better and deeper understanding, this article outlines eight most widely documented objectives. While some of these objectives overlap or conflict with each other, others touch on issues that are of only marginal concern to some constituencies. By focusing on each objective in turn, this article aims to underscore the divergent, and at times competing, interests among the many stakeholders involved in the framework.

Although some readers may find the description of all eight underlying …

Contingent Constitutionality, Legislative Facts, And Campaign Finance, Michael T. Morley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Cases And Case-Lawyers, Richard A. Danner

Faculty Scholarship

In the nineteenth century, the term “case-lawyer” was used as a label for lawyers who seemed to care more about locating precedents applicable to their current cases than understanding the principles behind the reported case law. Criticisms of case-lawyers appeared in English journals in the late 1820s, then in the United States, usually from those who believed that every lawyer needed to know and understand the unchanging principles of the common law in order to resolve issues not found in the reported cases. After the Civil War, expressions of concern about caselawyers increased with the significant growth in the amount …

The European Union: A Comparative Perspective, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter, to be included in the Oxford Principles of EU Law volume, compares the federalisms of Europe and the United States. It argues that Europe can be sensibly viewed from both federal and intergovernmental perspectives, and that particular aspects of the European Union’s structure fit each model. In particular, the EU is federal—that is, integrated to a comparable degree to the U.S.—with respect to its distribution of competences and the sovereignty attributed to EU law and institutions. But it is intergovernmental—that is, it preserves a center of gravity within the individual member states—with respect to the allocation of governmental …