Law Commons^™

The Nil Glass Ceiling, Tan Boston

University of Richmond Law Review

Name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) produced nearly $1 billion in earnings for intercollegiate athletes in its inaugural year. Analysts argue that the shockingly high totals result from disproportionate
institutional support for revenue-generating sports.

Although NIL earnings have soared upwards of eight figures to date, first-year data reveals that significant gender disparities exist. Such disparities raise Title IX concerns, which this Article illustrates using a hypothetical university and NIL collective. As such, this Article reveals how schools can facilitate gender discrimination through NIL collectives, contrary to Title IX. Although plainly applicable to NIL transactions in which schools are involved, Title IX’s …

Executive Order 14036: Promoting Competition?, Holly E. Fredericksen

University of Richmond Law Review

Four million Americans left their jobs in July 2021. By the end of that month, the number of open jobs reached an all-time high: 10.9 million. Employees are walking out the door in record numbers as part of a trend so remarkable, we even gave it a name: the Great Resignation. With 4.3 million Americans quitting their jobs in January 2022 and 11.3 million job openings, the Great Resignation is only gaining momentum and showing no signs of slowing down.

And as a consequence of employees exiting in droves, employers are hurting. According to The Work Institute, turnover costs employers …

Prison Housing Policies For Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender-Non-Conforming, And Intersex People: Restorative Ways To Address The Gender Binary In The United States Prison System, John G. Sims

University of Richmond Law Review

“[I]t was the end of the last quarter of 2019 where I was able to drop the lawsuit against the correctional officer who had sexually harmed me when I knew . . . that the carceral state is not the way for me to find healing . . . . I was not going to seek my transformation and restoration through this system.”

Each year, rhetoric and legislation attacking transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming and intersex individuals seemingly grows louder. Many political institutions in the United States perpetuate and enable the oppression of these individuals, one of which is the United …

Acting Cabinet Secretaries And The Twenty-Fifth Amendment, James A. Heilpern

University of Richmond Law Review

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution contains a mechanism that enables the Vice President, with the support of a majority of the Cabinet, to temporarily relieve the President of the powers and duties of the Presidency. The provision has never been invoked, but was actively discussed by multiple Cabinet Secretaries in response to President Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021. News reports indicate that at least two Cabinet Secretaries—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin—tabled these discussions in part due to uncertainties about how to operationalize the Amendment. Specifically, the Secretaries were concerned that the …

Disinformation And The Defamation Renaissance: A Misleading Promise Of “Truth”, Lili Levi

University of Richmond Law Review

Today, defamation litigation is experiencing a renaissance, with progressives and conservatives, public officials and celebrities, corporations and high school students all heading to the courthouse to use libel lawsuits as a social and political fix. Many of these suits reflect a powerful new rhetoric—reframing the goal of defamation law as fighting disinformation. Appeals to the need to combat falsity in public discourse have fueled efforts to reverse the Supreme Court’s press–protective constitutional limits on defamation law under the New York Times v. Sullivan framework. The anti–disinformation frame could tip the scales and generate a majority on the Court to dismantle …

Going The Extra Mile: Expanding The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act, Emily R. Casey

University of Richmond Law Review

The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act (“Act”), introduced in Congress in June 2021 and signed into law six months later, proposes a goal of balancing the disproportionately-high costs of housing and transportation felt by lower-income families by combining these resources in one project: transit-oriented housing developments. Middle-income and wealthy suburbanites have ready access to cities by car, but lower-income urbanites lack access to the suburbs without a private vehicle. While the goal of the Act recognizes this disparate outcome, the Act’s failure to include expansion of mass transit into the suburbs will continue to restrict low-income minorities to urban …

Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Erisa’S Fiduciary Fantasy And The Problem Of Mass Health Claim Denials, Katherine T. Vukadin

University of Richmond Law Review

Over 100 million Americans face healthcare debt. Most of those in debt have health insurance, with the debt often springing from services people thought were covered. Before and even after receiving care, those seeking coverage must run a gauntlet of obstacles such as excessive pre-authorization requests, burdensome concurrent review of care, and retrospective review, which claws back payment after a treatment is pre-authorized and payment made. Increasingly, this procedural tangle leaves people with unwarranted and unexpected medical bills, quickly spiraling them into debt.

Who polices health insurers’ claims practices? What keeps insurance companies from designing overly burdensome pre-authorization requirements or …

Acknowledgements, Matthew L. Brock

University of Richmond Law Review

Each year, in a tradition dating back twenty-three years to Volume 33, the Editor-in-Chief of the University of Richmond Law Review authors acknowledgements to be included in their volume’s final publication. In keeping with tradition, I offer below my gratitude to those who have contributed to this publication and to the overall success of the Law Review, and reflect upon the fifty-seventh volume of our journal.

Letter From The Editor, Carley Ruival

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Benefits And Drawbacks Of No-Drop Policies And Evidence-Based Prosecution, Nancy Simpson

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

In order to combat the massive threat that domestic violence poses to pub-
lic safety, prosecutors’ offices across America have enacted no-drop policies
requiring prosecutors to seek a guilty verdict on all domestic violence cases.
However, for many and varied reasons, victims of domestic violence are often
hesitant to testify against their abusers in court proceedings. Evidence-based
prosecution, sometimes called victimless prosecution, has become the goal
for many prosecutors seeking to hold abusers accountable when the victim
does not want to testify. However, there can be practical barriers to success-
ful evidence-based prosecutions, which, when combined with strict no-drop
policies, …

A Call For Change: Doing More To Protect Black And Brown Victims Of Domestic Violence, Kiana Gilcrist

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Domestic violence (“DV”) disproportionately affects Black and Brown
women. This article examines the tense history of law enforcement
engagement with minority groups, which has caused a strain on that
relationship, leaving minority groups more likely to choose to stay in their
DV situations than seek out law enforcement help. The divide still impacts
these groups today. Additionally, the article highlights several organizations
that have formed to address the needs of minority individuals. Other
organizations have been around, but their ties to law enforcement create an
added barrier for Black and Brown women seeking protection. The article
concludes by briefly examining …

Prefatory Matter

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dobbs In The Context Of Intimate Partner Violence: The Case For A Virginia Constitutional Amendment Protecting Reproductive Choice, Courtenay Schwartz, Caitlin Bradley, Jonathan Yglesias

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Advocates for victims of sexual and domestic violence have long
understood the critical role that reproductive freedom plays in ensuring
victim safety in the aftermath of trauma. Lawmakers, on the other hand, have
used victims of domestic and sexual violence as political footballs, oftentimes
supporting “exceptions” to abortion bans, such as for rape and incest, as a
means of distracting from the actual harms these restrictions cause. These
exceptions fail to meet the needs of victims and are inadequate protections
against the many forms of abuse, such as reproductive coercion and control,
that victims in abusive relationships face. This article …

Symposium Transcript

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Individual Funding: A Policy Solution To Family Abuse In Rural Areas Impacted By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jessica King

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Intimate partner violence is an issue in the United States experienced by
more than one in three women. This article addresses the topic of intimate
partner violence and the factors contributing to the perpetuation of abuse. It
focuses on how these factors manifest in rural areas and in the context of the
COVID-19 pandemic, which increased isolation and economic abuse. This
article explores policies currently used to combat intimate partner violence
in these contexts. The current acts, including the Victims of Crime Act
(VOCA), the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA), and the
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), expressly …

Opioid Litigation Panel, Rick Mountcastle, Paul Farrell, Eric Eyre, Patrick C. Mcginley

University of Richmond Law Review

On February 17, 2023, the University of Richmond Law Review hosted a symposium entitled Overlooked America: Addressing Legal Issues in Rural America. A portion of the event focused on the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States, including the causes and effects of certain actions taken by players in the pharmaceutical industry. The Opioid Litigation Panel, transcribed below, brought together four of the most prominent leaders in the fight for justice in the opioid epidemic: Mr. Rick Mountcastle, Mr. Paul Farrell, Mr. Eric Eyre, and Professor Patrick McGinley. The University of Richmond Law Review was so honored to have …

Rural Bashing, Kaceylee Klein, Lisa R. Pruitt

University of Richmond Law Review

Anti-rural sentiment is expressed in the United States in three major threads. The first is a narrative about the political structure of our representative democracy—an assertion that rural people are over-represented thanks to the structural features of the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College. Because rural residents are less than a fifth of the U.S. population, complaints about this situation are often framed as “minority rule.”

The second thread is related to the first: rural people and their communities get more than their fair share from federal government coffers. The argument, often expressed in terms of “subsidies,” is that rural …

Those Who Need The Most, Get The Least: The Challenge Of, And Opportunity For Helping Rural Virginia, Andrew Block, Antonella Nicholas

University of Richmond Law Review

Rural America, as has been well documented, faces many challenges. Businesses and people are migrating to more urban and suburban regions. The extraction and agricultural economies that once helped them thrive—mining, tobacco, textiles—are dying. And, as we discuss below, residents of rural communities tend to be older, poorer, less credentialed in terms of their education, less healthy, and declining in population.

On a regular basis, political leaders on both sides of the aisle, and on national and state levels, make commitments to rural areas to help improve the quality of life for residents, to listen, and to help. Even with …

Duped By Dope: The Sackler Family’S Attempt To Escape Opioid Liability And The Need To Close The Non-Debtor Release Loophole, Bryson T. Strachan

University of Richmond Law Review

The opioid epidemic continues to rage on in the United States, ravaging its rural populations. One of its main causes? OxyContin. Purdue Pharma (“Purdue”), the maker of OxyContin, aggressively marketed opioids to the American public while racking up a fortune of over $13 billion dollars for its owners,3 the Sackler family. As a result, roughly 3,000 lawsuits were filed against Purdue and members of the Sackler family. Generally, the lawsuits alleged that Purdue and members of the Sackler family knew OxyContin was highly addictive yet aggressively marketed high dosages of the drug and misrepresented the drug as nonaddictive and without …

Enhancing Rural Representation Through Electoral System Diversity, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

Rural Virginians face disparities in outcomes regarding healthcare, access to important infrastructure, and other services. Some disparities may be related to rurality. The sparseness of population in rural areas may limit the sites where people may access services, triggering the need to travel significant distances to obtain goods and services in such areas. Limited access may lead to disparities even when the quality of goods and services in rural areas is high. The disparities affect all rural Virginians, but disproportionately affect rural Virginians of color. The causes of the disparities are complex and myriad, and may be based on race, …

Rural America As A Commons, Ann M. Eisenberg

University of Richmond Law Review

With many ready to dismiss non-urban life as a relic of history, rural America’s place in the future is in question. The rural role in the American past is understandably more apparent. As the story of urbanization goes in the United States and elsewhere, the majority of the population used to live in rural places, including small towns and sparsely populated counties. A substantial proportion of those people worked in agriculture, manufacturing, or extractive industries. But trends associated with modernity—mechanization, automation, globalization, and environmental conservation, for instance—have reduced the perceived need for a rural workforce. Roughly since the industrial revolution …

Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgments, Kelly M. Boppe

University of Richmond Law Review

The University of Richmond Law Review is honored to present its 2023 Symposium Issue: Overlooked America: Addressing Legal Issues Facing Rural United States. Each year, the University of Richmond Law Review hosts a Symposium for scholars and practitioners to engage with a specific area of law. In a time when our country seems more divided than ever, discussions surrounding law and policy frequently diverge not just on political lines, but on regional lines as well. Rural regions of the United States are routinely evoked in the political sphere, but rarely are the problems and disparities that exist in rural …

Foreword: Toward A New Compact With Rural America, Anthony F. Pipa

University of Richmond Law Review

The interpretation of United States laws and policies, and the extent to which they obstruct or support rural places and people to take advantage of opportunity, are at the nexus of our nation’s ability to reweave the social fabric and create a new compact between its rural areas and the rest of the country. It requires recognizing our interdependencies, our mutual interests, and our shared humanity. The Articles contained herein get us started—it is incumbent that we build on these contributions to take their ideas forward and provoke new and constructive policy debates.

With A Wink And A Nod: How Politicians, Regulators, And Corrupt Coal Companies Exploited Appalachia, Patrick C. Mcginley

University of Richmond Law Review

Environmental regulators treated America’s leading coal companies like Wall Street’s mismanaged banks leading to the “Great Recession”—big coal companies that produced millions of tons of coal were simply too big to fail. With a wink and a nod, federal and state regulators ignored a core provision of federal law that was intended to prevent coal companies from continuing their past practices of plundering Appalachia’s mineral wealth while ravaging her environment.

This Article examines how the coal industry successfully evaded compliance with that law. The consequences of this evasion include mass bankruptcies, thousands of acres of mined land laying unclaimed, …

Prefatory Matter

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Redefining Youth: The Case For Applying The Principles Of Miller V. Alabama To Criminal Cases Involving Adults In Late Adolescence, Salua Kamerow

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

In 2012, in Miller v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court held it unconstitutional to impose a mandatory sentence of life without parole on children because such a sentence fails to adequately account for a child’s developmental stage or ability to weigh long-term consequences. Children are fundamentally different from adults, making them more susceptible to lack of self-regulation, poor decision making, and peer pressure. In Miller, the Court found that these aspects of children’s behavior made children less culpable than adults.

Psychological studies have demonstrated that adolescence is more protracted than previously recognized. Profound malleability of the brain characterizes the …

State-Sanctioned Displacement: An Interstate Examination Of Felon Disenfranchisement, Claudia Leonor

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

In his dissent of New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, Justice Louis Brandeis referred to the constituent states of the country as “laboratories for democracy.” He noted that, as sovereign entities within the United States, states are empowered to “try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” In postbellum American society, states have grappled with Reconstruction and the concomitant dismantlement of a caste system hinging on racism. In convening constitutional assemblies, the states experimented with racism and succeeded. In Southern jurisdictions, racial animus enabled the creation of constitutional frameworks and legislation that would have …

Python Patrol: Combatting The Problem Of Evasive Non-Native Snakes In Florida, Jessica Rooke

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

The Florida hotspot of non-native invasive species has long been recognized as a fascinating, yet perplexing environmental issue since the late 1900s. After decades of patchwork efforts by the federal and state government, it has become clear that a more holistic approach must be taken to help eradicate the Burmese Pythons that have overtaken Southern Florida. This article highlights the prior efforts taken federally and state-wide to combat this issue and assesses the current gaps in these efforts and what must be done to achieve a more holistic approach. Other states are used as points of comparison in regard to …