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The Violent State: Black Women's Invisible Struggle Against Police Violence, Michelle S. Jacobs Oct 2017

The Violent State: Black Women's Invisible Struggle Against Police Violence, Michelle S. Jacobs

UF Law Faculty Publications

Black women have a very specific history with the state and law enforcement that is not replicated among other women’s communities, and it is that unique situation that is the focus of this Article. Part I of this Article explores the historical roots of Black women’s interaction with the state. Part II of this Article is broken into two sections. The first will cover police killings of Black women. The second part of the section will explore the conditions under which Black women are physically assaulted by the police. Part III of the Article seeks to highlight when the police …


Reckless Discrimination, Stephanie Bornstein Aug 2017

Reckless Discrimination, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

If there are known, easily adopted ways to reduce bias in employment decisions, should an employer be held liable for discriminatory results when it fails to adopt such measures? Given the vast amount we now know about implicit bias and the ways to reduce it, to what extent is an employer who knowingly fails to do so engaging in intentional discrimination? This Article theorizes a “recklessness” model of discrimination under Title VII, arguing for liability where an employer acts with reckless disregard for the consequences of implicit bias and stereotyping in employment decisions. Legal scholars have argued that Title VII …


Debating Employee Non-Competes And Trade Secrets, Sharon K. Sandeen, Elizabeth A. Rowe Apr 2017

Debating Employee Non-Competes And Trade Secrets, Sharon K. Sandeen, Elizabeth A. Rowe

UF Law Faculty Publications

Recently, a cacophony of concerns have been raised about the propriety of noncompetition agreements (NCAs) entered into between employers and employees, fueled by media reports of agreements which attempt to restrain low-wage and low-skilled workers, such as sandwich makers and dog walkers. In the lead-up to the passage of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), public policy arguments in favor of employee mobility were strongly advocated by those representing the “California view” on the enforceability of NCAs, leading to a special provision of the DTSA which limits injunctive relief with respect to employee NCAs.

Through our lens …


A Legal Theory Of Shareholder Primacy, Robert J. Rhee Jan 2017

A Legal Theory Of Shareholder Primacy, Robert J. Rhee

Working Papers

Shareholder primacy is the most fundamental concept in corporate law and corporate governance. It is widely embraced in the business, legal, and academic communities. Economic analysis and policy arguments advance a normative theory that corporate managers should maximize shareholder wealth. Academic literature invariably describes shareholder primacy as a “norm.” But whether the concept is “law” is contested because, remarkably, we still do not have a coherent legal theory. Our understanding of a fundamental tenet of the field is flawed and incomplete. This article presents a positive legal theory of shareholder primacy. It answers the questions: Is shareholder primacy law? What …


Reining In Internet-Age Expansion Of Exemption 7(C): Towards A Tort Law Approach For Ferreting Out Legitimate Privacy Concerns And Unwarranted Intrusions Under Foia, Clay Calvert, Austin Vining, Sebastian Zarate Jan 2017

Reining In Internet-Age Expansion Of Exemption 7(C): Towards A Tort Law Approach For Ferreting Out Legitimate Privacy Concerns And Unwarranted Intrusions Under Foia, Clay Calvert, Austin Vining, Sebastian Zarate

UF Law Faculty Publications

Using the July 2016 federal appellate court decision in Detroit Free Press, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice as an analytical springboard, this article explores the expansion of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Exemption 7(C) in the Internet era. In Detroit Free Press, the Sixth Circuit recognized a privacy interest in mug shots under Exemption 7(C). The practical impact of the decision is to uphold the general policy of the U.S. Marshals Service not to release mug shots. This article illustrates the yawning gap between tort law, which this article argues would deny recovery for the Internet posting of …


Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol Jan 2017

Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Antitrust is an important area of law and policy for most companies in the world. Having divergent rules across antitrust systems means that the same economic behavior may be treated differently depending on the jurisdiction, leading to disparate outcomes in which one jurisdiction finds illegal behavior (but the other does not) when the underlying behavior may be pro-competitive. This disparate set of outcomes creates a world in which the most stringent antitrust system may produce the global standard. As a result, if the antitrust rules applied are too rigid, they threaten to hurt consumers not merely in the jurisdiction where …


Beach Law Cleanup: How Sea-Level Rise Has Eroded The Ambulatory Boundaries Legal Framework, Alyson C. Flournoy Jan 2017

Beach Law Cleanup: How Sea-Level Rise Has Eroded The Ambulatory Boundaries Legal Framework, Alyson C. Flournoy

UF Law Faculty Publications

As the sea level rises, the boundaries between privately owned coastal property and sovereign submerged lands held in public trust are becoming increasingly contested. The common law doctrines that determine these boundaries under conditions of change—primarily accretion, erosion, reliction, and avulsion—have important implications for all those involved in adaptation planning along our coasts. This includes private owners of coastal property, local government officials seeking to develop and implement adaptation strategies, beachgoers seeking to use shrinking beaches, beach-tourism-dependent businesses, and courts facing cases involving boundary disputes at the water’s moving edge. This paper raises the questions of whether and how the …


Honoring Probable Intent In Intestacy: An Empirical Assessment Of The Default Rules And The Modern Family, Danaya C. Wright, Beth Sterner Jan 2017

Honoring Probable Intent In Intestacy: An Empirical Assessment Of The Default Rules And The Modern Family, Danaya C. Wright, Beth Sterner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article provides preliminary analysis of an empirical study of nearly 500 wills probated in Alachua and Escambia Counties in the State of Florida in 2013. The particular focus of the study is to determine if there are noticeable patterns of property distribution preferences among decedents based on their diverse family relationships. Earlier empirical studies of distribution preferences indicated that a majority of married decedents wanted to give all or most of their estates to their surviving spouses. As a result of these studies, most states amended their probate codes to give surviving spouses a sizable percentage of a decedent …


Understanding Online Markets And Antitrust Analysis, D. Daniel Sokol, Jingyuan Ma Jan 2017

Understanding Online Markets And Antitrust Analysis, D. Daniel Sokol, Jingyuan Ma

UF Law Faculty Publications

Antitrust analysis of online markets is a hot topic around the world. In a number of jurisdictions, online markets already have been subject to antitrust review in merger or conduct cases. In other jurisdictions, these issues are in a nascent stage of policy. A number of lessons can be learned from the cases to date involving online markets with regard to optimal antitrust policy. What these cases tend to share are some basic features as to how online markets work. Some jurisdictions understand the particular dynamics of multi-sided online markets. Other competition authorities sometimes may misidentify these markets. This essay …


Owning Groundwater: The Example Of Mississippi V. Tennessee, Christine A. Klein Jan 2017

Owning Groundwater: The Example Of Mississippi V. Tennessee, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Mississippi v. Tennessee, a case currently on the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket, Mississippi claims that it owns all groundwater stored underneath its borders that does not cross into Tennessee under “natural predevelopment” conditions—before the advent of modern well technology. Mississippi seeks more than six hundred million dollars for pumping by Tennessee wells that tap into a geologic formation that underlies both states. This is a remarkable claim that departs from the almost uniformly established proposition that the states do not “own” the water within their borders, but instead are authorized to manage that water for the “use” of …


Mental Health Courts And Sentencing Disparities, E. Lea Johnston, Conor P. Flynn Jan 2017

Mental Health Courts And Sentencing Disparities, E. Lea Johnston, Conor P. Flynn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Despite the proliferation of mental health courts across the United States, virtually no attention has been paid to the criminal justice effects these courts carry for participants. This article provides the first empirical analysis of differential sentencing practices in mental health and traditional criminal courts. Using a case study approach, the article compares how Pennsylvania’s Erie County Mental Health Court and county criminal courts sentenced individuals who committed the same offenses and held the same average criminal history score. Information on the mental health court—including eligibility criteria, plea bargaining and sentencing procedure, sentencing policies, program length, graduation rates, likelihood of …


The Case For Trauma-Informed, Gender-Specific Prevention/Early Intervention Programming In Reducing Female Juvenile Delinquency In Florida, Joan D. Flocks, Emily Calvin, Simone Chriss, Marina Prado-Steiman Jan 2017

The Case For Trauma-Informed, Gender-Specific Prevention/Early Intervention Programming In Reducing Female Juvenile Delinquency In Florida, Joan D. Flocks, Emily Calvin, Simone Chriss, Marina Prado-Steiman

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article describes the statutory recognition of the need for prevention/early intervention juvenile services in Florida that are both trauma-informed and gender-specific. It examines how childhood trauma can impact at-risk children and the gendered aspects of such trauma. The article then describes the PACE Center for Girls, a Florida-based school, currently undergoing a comprehensive evaluation, which attempts to incorporate elements that fulfill statutory recommendations into its programming.


Glocalizing Women's Health And Safety: Migration, Work, And Labor, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol Jan 2017

Glocalizing Women's Health And Safety: Migration, Work, And Labor, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Worldwide, women's equality remains elusive in the social, political, civil, economic and cultural spheres. Such reality presents a challenge in the movement of persons across state borders because, globally, the world is experiencing a feminization of migration. In turn, the feminization of migration effects threats to the health and safety of migrant women, whose well-being is in peril at all stages of the migration journey – from the country of origin, to the transit states, to the receiving state – from smugglers and official actors alike. Because the globalization discourses exclude the movement of persons and focus on the movement …


Student Surveillance, Racial Inequalities, And Implicit Racial Bias, Jason P. Nance Jan 2017

Student Surveillance, Racial Inequalities, And Implicit Racial Bias, Jason P. Nance

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the wake of high-profile incidents of school violence, school officials have increased their reliance on a host of surveillance measures to maintain order and control in their schools. Paradoxically, such practices can foster hostile environments that may lead to even more disorder and dysfunction. These practices may also contribute to the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline” by pushing more students out of school and into the juvenile justice system. However, not all students experience the same level of surveillance. This Article presents data on school surveillance practices, including an original empirical analysis of restricted data recently released by the U.S. Department …


Sharenting: Children's Privacy In The Age Of Social Media, Stacey B. Steinberg Jan 2017

Sharenting: Children's Privacy In The Age Of Social Media, Stacey B. Steinberg

UF Law Faculty Publications

Through sharenting, or online sharing about parenting, parents now shape their children’s digital identity long before these young people open their first email. The disclosures parents make online are sure to follow their children into adulthood. Indeed, social media and blogging have dramatically changed the landscape facing today’s children as they come of age.

Children have an interest in privacy. Yet a parent’s right to control the upbringing of his or her children and a parent’s right to free speech may trump this interest. When parents share information about their children online, they do so without their children’s consent. These …


Fostering Student Authorship, Amy R. Mashburn, Sharon E. Rush Jan 2017

Fostering Student Authorship, Amy R. Mashburn, Sharon E. Rush

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this essay, we suggest that law schools may provide every student with the opportunity to become involved in the process of producing a publishable paper by establishing on-line repositories for student publications. We describe what such a program, which we call "student authorship," might look like and further explore several primary benefits that such a program would confer upon students.


Recent Developments In Federal Income Taxation: The Year 2016, Martin J. Mcmahon Jr., Bruce A. Mcgovern Jan 2017

Recent Developments In Federal Income Taxation: The Year 2016, Martin J. Mcmahon Jr., Bruce A. Mcgovern

UF Law Faculty Publications

This recent developments outline discusses, and provides context to understand the significance of, the most important judicial decisions and administrative rulings and regulations promulgated by the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department during the most recent twelve months—and sometimes a little farther back in time if we find the item particularly humorous or outrageous. Most Treasury Regulations, however, are so complex that they cannot be discussed in detail, and, anyway, only a devout masochist would read them all the way through; just the basic topic and fundamental principles are highlighted—unless one of us decides to go nuts and spend several …


Undignified: The Supreme Court, Racial Justice, And Dignity Claims, Darren Lenard Hutchinson Jan 2017

Undignified: The Supreme Court, Racial Justice, And Dignity Claims, Darren Lenard Hutchinson

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause as a formal equality mandate. In response, legal scholars have advocated alternative conceptions of equality, such as antisubordination theory, that interpret equal protection in more substantive terms. Antisubordination theory would consider the social context in which race-based policies emerge and recognize material distinctions between policies intended to oppress racial minorities and those designed to ameliorate past and current racism. Antisubordination theory would also closely scrutinize facially neutral state action that systemically disadvantages vulnerable social groups. The Court has largely ignored these reform proposals. Modern Supreme Court rulings, however, have invoked the …


John Moore Jr.: Moore V City Of East Cleveland And Children's Constitutional Arguments, Nancy E. Dowd Jan 2017

John Moore Jr.: Moore V City Of East Cleveland And Children's Constitutional Arguments, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

At the heart of Moore v City of East Cleveland is 7 year old John Moore Jr. How would we tell the story of Moore from his perspective, and how might the case have been constructed if his rights and constitutional harms were asserted? The ordinary act of registering John for school was the apparent trigger for efforts to exclude him from school, by mandating his removal from his grandmother’s house, after an earlier effort to deny his entry into school had failed. In this essay I first tell the story of the case from John’s perspective and then construct …


Breaking Energy Path Dependencies, Amy L. Stein Jan 2017

Breaking Energy Path Dependencies, Amy L. Stein

UF Law Faculty Publications

f the many barriers to clean energy development discussed in the literature, the power of the status quo is not normally one of them. Yet beyond the need for more transmission lines, the need to decouple electricity sales from revenue, or the need to amend our environmental laws to more fully capture the externalities of energy, efforts to develop clean energy are faced with over a century of institutional “stickiness” associated with the legal and regulatory framework governing energy. This article explores how path dependency theories can inform the practical legal efforts to overcome such stickiness, identifying the troublesome approaches …


Retributive Justifications For Jail Diversion Of Individuals With Mental Disorder, E. Lea Johnston Jan 2017

Retributive Justifications For Jail Diversion Of Individuals With Mental Disorder, E. Lea Johnston

UF Law Faculty Publications

Jail diversion programs have proliferated across the United States as a means to decrease the incarceration of individuals with mental illnesses. These programs include pre-adjudication initiatives, such as Crisis Intervention Teams, as well as post-adjudication programs, such as mental health courts and specialized probationary services. Post-adjudication programs often operate at the point of sentencing, so their comportment with criminal justice norms is crucial. This article investigates whether and under what circumstances post-adjudication diversion for offenders with serious mental illnesses may cohere with principles of retributive justice. Key tenets of retributive theory are that punishments must not be inhumane and that …


Critical Black Protectionism, Black Lives Matter, And Social Media: Building A Bridge To Social Justice, Katheryn Russell-Brown Jan 2017

Critical Black Protectionism, Black Lives Matter, And Social Media: Building A Bridge To Social Justice, Katheryn Russell-Brown

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article provides a detailed, contemporary examination and critique of the practice of Black protectionism. The discussion focuses on how Black protectionism has evolved over the decades, and whether the changes make it a more useful tool for community empowerment than its applications in previous eras. Its latest iteration, herein labeled Critical Black Protectionism, is assessed and evaluated in light of the increasing use of social media.This Article is divided into five parts. Part I provides an overview of Black protectionism, its roots and evolution. As well, this Part examines how African Americans have used protectionism. Part II sets out …


Situational Ethics And Veganism, Neil H. Buchanan Jan 2017

Situational Ethics And Veganism, Neil H. Buchanan

UF Law Faculty Publications

The debate about vegan ethics frequently devolves into attempts by those opposed to veganism to prove that there are situations in which it is morally acceptable to consume animal products. If they can prove that it is acceptable to be non-vegan in one situation, the thinking seems to be that they have proved that it is acceptable never to be a vegan. Thus, because it is not morally objectionable to eat the carcass of an animal who died of natural causes, we are told that it is acceptable to eat animals full stop. That is absurd, because it is equivalent …


Moonlighting Sonata: Conflicts, Disclosure And The Scholar/Consultant, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Amy R. Mashburn Jan 2017

Moonlighting Sonata: Conflicts, Disclosure And The Scholar/Consultant, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Amy R. Mashburn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Although the impact of conflicting interests is of constant concern to those in legal education and other fields, a recent scholarly article and an extensive analysis in the New York Times suggest the problem is more pressing than ever. In the context of legal scholarship the problem arises when a professor is, in effect, employed by two entities. Disclosure of possible conflicts is the most commonly proposed response. The article argues that disclosure is merely a risk shifting devise that does not fully address the issue of bias. It draws on comparisons with products liability and legal ethics to suggest …


Beyond Trademarks And Offense: Tam And The Justices’ Evolution On Free Speech, Clay Calvert Jan 2017

Beyond Trademarks And Offense: Tam And The Justices’ Evolution On Free Speech, Clay Calvert

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Matal v. Tam , the Supreme Court threw out the “disparagement clause” of the Lanham Act, the federal trademark law, because trademarks are private speech and thus regulating them based on government determinations of offensiveness violates the First Amendment. The solid outcome here contrasts with the narrow, incremental results in some other recent First Amendment cases that reached the Court.


Welfare And Federalism's Peril, Andrew Hammond Jan 2017

Welfare And Federalism's Peril, Andrew Hammond

UF Law Faculty Publications

Recent scholarship on American federalism lacks case studies to inform that scholarship’s trans-substantive insights and claims. This Article examines the last two decades of devolution brought about by the 1996 Welfare Reform Act (PRWORA). It details the history of PRWORA and how the funding mechanism built into Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) — the TANF block grant — guaranteed the program’s deterioration. The Article documents the program’s failure to respond to increased need among poor families after Hurricane Katrina and in the Great Recession, showing how the federal government’s use of TANF in both crises teach us the limits …


Untangling The Market And The State, Wentong Zheng Jan 2017

Untangling The Market And The State, Wentong Zheng

UF Law Faculty Publications

The government plays increasingly active and diversified roles in the modern economy. How to draw the boundary between the market and the state has emerged as a contentious issue in various areas of law, including constitutional law, antitrust, and international trade. This Article surveys and critiques the law’s current approaches to the market-versus-state divide, embodied in four tests based on ownership, control, function, and role, respectively. This Article proposes an alternative market-versus-state test based on the nature of the power being exercised in the challenged action. This power-based test not only better distinguishes between the market and the state, but …


Disciplinary Legal Empiricism, Lynn M. Lopucki Jan 2017

Disciplinary Legal Empiricism, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article reports on an empirical study of one hundred and twenty empirical legal studies published in leading, non-peer-reviewed law reviews and in the peer-reviewed Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. The study is the first to compare studies by disciplinary empiricists – defined as Ph.D. holders – with those by non-disciplinary empiricists – defined as J.D. holders who are not also Ph.D. holders. Three differences identified in the study suggest that Ph.D. hiring is on a collision course with the demands of legal educators, the organized bar, and students that the law schools better prepare students for practice. First, disciplinary …


How Do Llc Owners Contract Around Default Statutory Protections?, Peter Molk Jan 2017

How Do Llc Owners Contract Around Default Statutory Protections?, Peter Molk

UF Law Faculty Publications

Limited liability companies are built on the idea of contractual freedom. Unlike other business organization forms, most owner protections apply only by default to LLCs, which are free to waive or modify them as desired. This freedom promises economic efficiency if parties are sophisticated but raises the potential for opportunism by relatively more sophisticated managers and majority owners. While companies ranging from small landscape firms to Chrysler and Fidelity organize as LLCs, remarkably little is known about whether or how LLCs use this contractual flexibility. I analyze the operating agreements of 283 privately owned LLCs organized under Delaware and New …


Straight Out Of Compton: Developmental Equality And A Critique Of The Compton School Litigation, Nancy E. Dowd Jan 2017

Straight Out Of Compton: Developmental Equality And A Critique Of The Compton School Litigation, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Part I, I set out my developmental equality model in three sections. First, I briefly explore the ecological perspective on child development, a broadly accepted developmental model, and its relation to best interests. Second, I consider the limitations of a ‘neutral’ ecological perspective, using as my example data about the life course of African American boys from birth to age 18. Finally, I suggest how to shift the lens to one of developmental equality, using the theoretical models of Cynthia Garcia Coll and Margaret Beale Spencer. While linked to the experience of children of color in the United States, …