Law Commons^™

Linked Fate: Justice And The Criminal Legal System During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Susan P. Sturm, Faiz Pirani, Hyun Kim, Natalie Behr, Zachary D. Hardwick

Faculty Scholarship

The concept of “linked fate” has taken on new meaning in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. People all over the world – from every walk of life, spanning class, race, gender, and nationality – face a potentially deadly threat requiring cooperation and sacrifice. The plight of the most vulnerable among us affects the capacity of the larger community to cope with, recover, and learn from COVID-19’s devastating impact. COVID-19 makes visible and urgent the need to embrace our linked fate, “develop a sense of commonality and shared circumstances,” and unstick dysfunctional and inequitable political and legal systems.

Nowhere is …

Simplified Courts Can't Solve Inequality, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter

Faculty Scholarship

State civil courts struggle to handle the volume of cases before them. Litigants in these courts, most of whom are unrepresented, struggle to navigate the courts to solve their problems. This access-to-justice crisis has led to a range of reform efforts and solutions. One type of reform, court simplification, strives to reduce the complexity of procedures and information used by courts to help unrepresented litigants navigate the judicial system. These reforms mitigate but do not solve the symptoms of the larger underlying problem: state civil courts are struggling because they have been stuck with legal cases that arise from the …

Comment In Response To Proposed Rulemaking: Inadmissibility On Public Charge Grounds, Brittany Thomas, Nahal Zamani, Joann Kamuf Ward

Human Rights Institute

The proposed rule on “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds” would cause irreparable harm to communities across the United States, and immigrants and their families, in particular. The proposed change contravenes globally accepted human rights norms, which aim to ensure an adequate standard of living and prohibit discrimination, including specific human rights obligations and commitments of the United States.

As legal organizations devoted to ensuring justice and human rights accountability in the United States, we submit this joint comment in opposition to the proposed rule, which threatens to destabilize communities, and undermine public health and safety by penalizing individuals who seek …

Beyond Collective Bargaining: Modern Unions As Agents Of Social Solidarity, Gillian Lester

Faculty Scholarship

Trade unions in both North American and Europe have long embraced — at least rhetorically, but often manifestly — participation in the civic and political spheres as part of their mission. In recent years, however, unions — especially in America — have come to be seen by many, rightly or wrongly, as pursuing their own ‘special interests’. Unions possess the technology of social mobilization, but have often (and not unreasonably) focused their resources on grassroots organizing and local bargaining strategies. At a time when unions are seeking levers for revitalization, a promising path is for them to use their mobilization …