Law Commons^™

Distributive Justice And Rural America, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

Today’s discourse on struggling rural communities insists they are “dying” or “forgotten.” Many point to globalization and automation as the culprits that made livelihoods in agriculture, natural resource extraction, and manufacturing obsolete, fueling social problems such as the opioid crisis. This narrative fails to offer a path forward; the status quo is no one’s fault, and this “natural” rural death inspires mourning rather than resuscitation. This Article offers a more illuminating account of the rural story, told through the lens of distributive justice principles. The Article argues that rural communities have not just “died.” They were sacrificed. Specifically, distributive justice …

(Under)Enforcement Of Poor Tenants' Rights, Kathryn A. Sabbeth

Faculty Publications

Millions of tenants in the United States reside in substandard housing conditions ranging from toxic mold to the absence of heat, running water, or electricity. These conditions constitute blatant violations of law. The failure to maintain housing in habitable condition can violate the warranty of habitability, common law torts, and, in some cases, consumer protection and antidiscrimination statutes. Well-settled doctrine allows for tenants’ private rights of action and government enforcement. Yet the laws remain underenforced.

This Article demonstrates that the reason for the underenforcement is that the tenants are poor. While the right to safe housing extends to all tenants, …

Barriers Confronting Parents Reunifying With Children In Foster Care, Amy D'Andrade

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Child Protection Law As An Independent Variable, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Publications

Child protection professionals work in a multidisciplinary system in which the law and the family court play central roles and which collects an increasing amount of data. Yet we know little about what impact the law has on whether a child is removed by child protective services, is deemed neglected by a family court, or reunifies with a parent. Do state‐to‐state variations in child protection laws, or changes by individual states to their laws, lead to different outcomes for children and families? The dramatic variations in child welfare practice from one state to another suggest that legal variations do matter. …

Preemption & The Regulatory Paradigm In The Roberts Court, Christina E. Wells, William E. Marcantel, Dave Winters

Faculty Publications

This short article first examines the Court's general preemption doctrine, including relevant criticisms. It then details the rise of the regulatory paradigm in the Supreme Court's cases, especially as it culminates in the Roberts Court's reliance on it. Finally, it examines potential implications of increasing reliance on that paradigm, including manipulation of preemption doctrine by judges, continued deference to agency officials' decisions to preempt, and adverse effects on individual tort plaintiffs.

Medicare Should, But Cannot, Consider Cost: Legal Impediments To Sound Policy, Jacqueline R. Fox

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of The English Poor Laws, 1700-1930, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Privatizing Social Security, Jerry W. Markham

Faculty Publications

The 2000 presidential election focused attention on an idea that has been surfacing for some time--the privatization of Social Security. Although opposition remains fierce, proposals for privatization have been gradually gaining acceptance as the inadequacy of benefits from the present system become more apparent, and bankruptcy becomes certain in the absence of additional onerous funding. Resistance to privatization largely centers on concerns that existing participants will lose their contributions and that private accounts may result in investment losses, which would leave future pensioners penniless. The disability and survivor benefits of the present Social Security system also raise concerns for the …

Charitable Choice And The Critics, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

First, the statute prohibits the government from discriminating with regard to religion when determining whether providers are eligible to deliver social services under these programs. Second, the statute imposes on government the duty not to intrude into the religious autonomy of faith-based providers. Third, the statute imposes on both government and participating FBOs the duty not to abridge certain rights of the ultimate beneficiaries of these programs. I will touch on these three principles below, and do so in reverse order.

Statutory Rape Law And Enforcement In The Wake Of Welfare Reform, Rigel C. Oliveri

Faculty Publications

The recent national efforts at reforming the welfare system and new research on the connection between teen pregnancy and statutory rape have led many states to enact stricter laws against statutory rape and to increase the enforcement of existing laws. Punitive statutory rape laws are being viewed more and more as a mechanism for shrinking the welfare rolls by reducing teen pregnancy. Rigel Oliveri documents the resurgence of statutory rape law and enforcement and explores the ramifications it will have on teen parents. In particular, Oliveri approaches the issue from several analytical frameworks, discussing arguments for consent-based standards, the privacy …

Child Care Policy And The Welfare Reform Act, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

This article sketches the 1996 Welfare Reform Act's major changes with particular attention to federally subsidized child care for low-income families.

Providing An Escape For Inner-City Children: Creating A Federal Remedy For Educational Ills Of Poor Urban Schools, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

Children in impoverished, urban areas attend dangerous and decrepit schools, where they receive low quality education which fails to prepare them for meaningful participation in the community. Many states, however, provide no legislative or judicial remedy for these children, who desperately need vocational and educational skills to enable them to escape from the deprivation of their urban landscape. Meanwhile, federal officials speak

Urban Revitalization And Community Finance: An Introduction, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

"In his 1933 poem Burn the Cities, Nathanael West, the iconoclastic American novelist and urban radical, portrays the city as a focal point of discontent and of anguish for the world's predicament.2 From Jerusalem to Paris and finally to London, the poem winds through distressing urban imagery with scant opportunity for escape. The implicit modicum of hope is an overthrow of the present order. From older cities abroad, West imports an apocalyptic vision of cities at home."

Defending The Low-Income Tenant In North Carolina, Dale A. Whitman

Faculty Publications

The low-income tenant is in a uniquely precarious position under the law. He typically holds under an oral lease, often on an implied periodic tenancy from week to week. Even where a written lease is executed, it is almost invariably on a form prepared by the landlord. The tenant has little bargaining power in today's urban housing markets; moreover, he is usually not represented by counsel and is unable to intelligently exert whatever bargaining power he may possess. The land- lord is generally a professional in the renting business, and knows well how to manipulate the legal rules for his …

Competition In Legal Services Under The War On Poverty, Eric Wright

Faculty Publications

The creation of the legal services programs of the war on poverty has focused attention on the deficiencies in the legal treatment of the poor. Despite general agreement that the poor need legal services, however, there has been a continuous debate over the control of the legal programs and the proper role of the poor in administering them. Behind the dispute over control is a difference of opinion about the goals of the legal services programs. Because these programs were established to help fulfill the policy of the Economic Opportunity Act of I964 "to eliminate the paradox of poverty in …