Law Commons^™

The Commodification Of Children And The Poor, And The Theory Of Stategraft, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

Across the country, human service agencies, juvenile and family courts, prosecutors, probation departments, police officers, sheriffs, and detention and treatment facilities are churning impoverished children and adults through revenue operations with starkly disproportionate racial impact. Rather than being true to their intended missions of improving welfare and providing equal justice for vulnerable populations, the institutions are mining them with extractive practices that are harmful, unlawful, unconstitutional, and unethical. This Essay considers such commodification schemes under the lens of Professor Bernadette Atuahene’s excellent and important theory of stategraft. The examples discussed provide support for Atuahene’s theory, and this Essay simultaneously urges …

Who Cares Whether A Monopoly Is Efficient? The Sherman Act Is Supposed To Ban Them All, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

Section 2 of the Sherman Act was designed to impose sanctions on all firms that monopolize or attempt to monopolize regardless whether the firm engaged in anticompetitive conductor, and regardless whether the firm is efficient. This conclusion emerges from a textualist analysis of the language of Section 2. This article briefly analyzes contemporaneous dictionaries, legal treatises, and cases, and demonstrates that when the Sherman Act was passed the word “monopolize” simply meant that someone had acquired a monopoly. The term was not limited to monopolies acquired through anticompetitive conduct or monopolies that were inefficient. An attempt to monopolize also had …

Comments Of American Economic Liberties Project On 2023 Draft Merger Guidelines, Robert H. Lande, Erik Peinert

All Faculty Scholarship

The American Economic Liberties Project (“Economic Liberties”) is a nonprofit research and advocacy organization dedicated to understanding and addressing the problem of concentrated economic power in the United States. We submit this comment with Professor Robert H. Lande, the Venable Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Baltimore School of Law, in response to the Draft Merger Guidelines proposed by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (together, “the Agencies”). Economic Liberties and Professor Lande write together in support of the Agencies’ efforts to improve the Merger Guidelines, last updated in 2010, to match the …

Law Without Order, Then Too Much Order, Then Not Enough?, Ronald Weich

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Geography As Due Process In Immigration Court, Valeria Gomez

All Faculty Scholarship

Using the procedural due process framework set forth by the Supreme Court in Mathews v. Eldridge, I argue that the current geographic distribution of immigration courts violates respondents’ rights to procedural due process by inhibiting their ability to appear, present evidence, and secure counsel. In so doing, I highlight the detrimental effects that geography has on remote communities, such as their ability to build pipelines towards access to counsel. Finally, I weigh and propose alternative solutions that balance the government’s interests in efficiency with the respondents’ interests in having a meaningful opportunity to avoid the harsh consequences of deportation.

Commodified Inequality: Racialized Harm To Children And Families In The Injustice Enterprise, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the systemic racialized harm of a vast injustice enterprise, with a focus on the symbiotic operations of agencies and justice systems monetizing vulnerable children and families, including the impact of contractual revenue schemes uncovered in my new book, Injustice, Inc. Our foundational justice systems are permeated by a history of racial injustice, and that history reverberates into factory-like operations that churn children and the poor into revenue. The revenue-generating mechanisms used by juvenile and family courts, prosecutors, probation departments, police, sheriffs, and detention facilities all draw the concerning historical connection—interlinked with the practices of child and …

The Right To Migrate, Matthew J. Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

Since the late-19th century, the Supreme Court has insisted that the preservation of national sovereignty requires a constitutional chasm between immigration law and ordinary law. If the Court is to bridge that chasm, it must reimagine the long-standing premise of the federal immigration power that the presence of noncitizens in U.S. territory menaces the nation’s sovereignty and security. This Article contributes to that reimagining by chronicling a compelling alternative worldview with a venerable historical pedigree—that of a quintessentially American right to migrate.

During the Founding Era, American statesmen described the impoverished subjects of Europe’s monarchies as protagonists in an unfolding …

Menstrual Justice: A Human Rights Vision For Australia, Mike Armour, Dani Barrington, Helen Connolly, Beth Goldblatt, Elizabeth Hill, Danielle Howe, Margaret E. Johnson, Minnie King, Nina Lansbury, Meredith Nash, Linda Steele, Jane M. Ussher

All Faculty Scholarship

In the past year alone, news reports have shown how menstrual injustice is linked to gender inequality, a lack of economic opportunity, poor health outcomes, and human rights violations. Here is a small sampling of the unjust treatment of women and other people who menstruate: locked bathrooms at schools, inadequate supply of free period products, harmful menstruation-avoidance options for athletes, the human and economic costs of the lack of menstruation and menopause employment leave policies, and the mistreatment of people imprisoned who menstruate.

To improve women’s equality, we need menstrual justice. Menstrual justice is the achievement of dignity, liberty and …

An Unreasonable Presumption: The National Security/Foreign Affairs Nexus In Immigration Law, Anthony J. Demattee, Matthew Lindsay, Hallie Ludsin

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Butterfly In Covid: Structural Racism And Baltimore's Pretrial Legal System, Doug Colbert, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Summer of 2020 represented a potentially pivotal moment in the movements against mass incarceration and for racial justice. The authors commenced a study of Baltimore’s pretrial legal system just as the convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and urgent cries of Black Lives Matter appeared to present a once-in-a-generation opportunity for meaningful decarceration. Over forty-four weekdays in June and July, the team observed bail review hearings in 509 cases and collected extensive data from the arguments and recommendations offered by the pretrial agency and prosecuting and defense attorneys. Unfortunately, the hoped-for reform failed to materialize as judges held nearly 62% of …

Beyond Window Dressing: Public Participation For Marginalized Communities In The Datafied Society, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

We live in a datafied society in which our personal data is being constantly harvested, analyzed, and sold by public and private entities, and yet we have little control over our data and little voice in how it is used. In light of the impacts of algorithmic decision-making systems—including those that run on machine learning and artificial intelligence—there are increasing calls to integrate public participation into the adoption, design, and oversight of these tech tools. Stakeholder input is particularly crucial for members of marginalized groups, who bear the disproportionate harms of data-centric technologies. Yet, recent calls for public participation have …

Turning Participation Into Power: A Water Justice Case Study, Jaime A. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers a revamped model of participatory governance—the Constituent Empowerment Model (CE Model)—which affirmatively shifts power to the voices of marginalized constituents so that they can influence governmental policy. The CE Model focuses on three concepts necessary to produce this shift in power to those who are traditionally unheard: operationalized (feasibly realized) participation; constituent primacy; and structural accountability. To illustrate how a CE system might be constructed, this Article examines a model recently adopted in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, that is designed to shift the balance of power between the water utility and its customers. Baltimore offers a …

Expanding Civil Rights To Combat Digital Discrimination On The Basis Of Poverty, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

Low-income people suffer from digital discrimination on the basis of their socio-economic status. Automated decision-making systems, often powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, shape the opportunities of those experiencing poverty because they serve as gatekeepers to the necessities of modern life. Yet in the existing legal regime, it is perfectly legal to discriminate against people because they are poor. Poverty is not a protected characteristic, unlike race, gender, disability, religion or certain other identities. This lack of legal protection has accelerated digital discrimination against the poor, fueled by the scope, speed, and scale of big data networks. This Article …

Empire And Politics In Eastern And Western Civilizations, Mortimer N.S. Sellers

All Faculty Scholarship

To speak of “empire” today is to evoke the history of China and of Rome, two great empires that vastly influenced the culture and development of half the globe. The whole world has been touched by their powerful examples, so that even someone writing, as I do, in a distant corner of North America, feels the history and influence of the Roman and Chinese empires every day. Nor are they unique. Something like “empire” has arisen wherever there was wealth and stability to support it. Rome and China had numerous rivals in the East and West who aspired to empire …

How Algorithm-Assisted Decision Making Is Influencing Environmental Law And Climate Adaptation, Sonya Ziaja

All Faculty Scholarship

Algorithm-based decision tools in environmental law appear policy neutral
but embody bias and hidden values that affect equity and democracy. In effect,
algorithm-based tools are new fora for law and policymaking, distinct from
legislatures and courts. In turn, these tools influence the development and
implementation of environmental law and regulation. As a practical matter,
there is a pressing need to understand how these automated decision-making
tools interact with and influence law and policy. This Article begins this timely
and critical discussion.

After introducing the challenge of adapting water and energy systems to
climate change, this Article synthesizes prior multidisciplinary work …

Me, Myself And My Digital Double: Extending Sara Greene’S Stealing (Identity) From The Poor To The Challenges Of Identity Verification, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

Identity is an essential part of the human condition. When one’s identity is stolen or when a state rejects a citizen’s identity, the consequences can be devastating to one’s notion of selfhood as well as undermine their economic security. In Stealing (Identity) from the Poor, Sara Greene explores the serious harms suffered by low-income people who are victimized by identity theft. She explains that our plutocratic regime of identity theft laws serves the interests of wealthier Americans at the expense of those experiencing poverty.

This Essay extends Greene’s analysis and framing to the harms of identity verification systems, particularly in …

Megacorporations Are Jacking Up Prices 'Because They Can,' Pushing Red-Hot Inflation To Historic Levels, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that corporations may be taking advantages of supply chain bottlenecks and shortages to collude and raise prices illegally. Although price fixing is illegal, the current levels of penalties are far too low. This gives firms an incentive to collude. Before the pandemic, when inflation was low, consumers and the antitrust enforcers would have been more likely to notice any sudden price increases and investigate whether they were caused by collusion. But using bottlenecks and shortages as cover, companies can take advantage of their years of consolidation and collude more easily with less chance of it being detected. …

Discharged And Discarded: The Collateral Consequences Of A Less-Than-Honorable Discharge, Hugh Barrett Mcclean

All Faculty Scholarship

Between 2011 and 2015, 57,141 soldiers, sailors, and airmen were separated from service with less-than-honorable (LTH) discharges for mi­nor misconduct related to mental health problems. These discharges dis­proportionately affected servicemembers of color. These veterans and others like them face daunting reintegration challenges when they return to civilian society, as federal agencies and state governments deny them the benefits that usually facilitate a veteran’s smooth transition to civilian society. This Essay adds to the scholarly discourse on military discharges by comparing these veterans’ plight to that of persons arrested or convicted of criminal offenses, who also suffer from collateral consequences related …

Asking The Menstruation Question To Achieve Menstrual Justice, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

Menstruation is a situs of discrimination, oppression, harassment, and microaggression. Employers fire workers for bleeding and experiencing period pain. Schools control menstruating students’ access to bathrooms, products, and menstrual education. Prisons control their residents’ free access to menstrual products. There are both “obvious and non-obvious relationships” between menstrual discrimination and discrimination on the basis of race, gender, class, gender identity, and disability. This Essay suggests we ask the “menstruation question” as part of our examination of all forms of intersectional oppressions and to achieve menstrual justice. For example, if we see something racist, we should ask “where is the menstrual …

Designing Nonrecognition Rules Under The Internal Revenue Code, Fred B. Brown

All Faculty Scholarship

Nonrecognition rules are a prominent feature of the income tax laws and are a source of considerable complexity and tax planning. Included among the nonrecognition rules contained in the Internal Revenue Code are provisions applying to like kind exchanges, corporate formations, corporate reorganizations, parent-subsidiary liquidations, and partnership formations and distributions. The policies that arguably support the nonrecognition rules include the familiar trio of tax policy concerns—efficiency, equity, and tax administration. None of these policies, however, provide a strong basis for most of the nonrecognition rules as currently formulated. The efficiency case generally lacks evidentiary support. The equity case is complicated …

Menstrual Dignity And The Bar Exam, Margaret E. Johnson, Marcy L. Karin, Elizabeth Cooper

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the issue of menstruation and the administration of the bar exam. Although such problems are not new, over the summer and fall of 2020, test takers and commentators took to social media to critique state board of law examiners’ (“BOLE”) policies regarding menstruation. These problems persist. Menstruators worry that if they unexpectedly bleed during the exam, they may not have access to appropriately sized and constructed menstrual products or may be prohibited from accessing the bathroom. Personal products that are permitted often must be carried in a clear, plastic bag. Some express privacy concerns that the see-through …

The Authoritative Text As Imperative To Comprehensibility Of Legislation, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

The most understandable of texts is of little use as law if it is not clear that it is authoritative. This is the comparative lesson of this essay. American law is—Americans say—indeterminate. American law is indeterminate because American texts, clear as they may be in wording, often are not authoritative; other texts apply too and may be inconsistent. German law is rarely indeterminate in this sense.

This essay identifies in bullet-points some comparative aspects of clarity of American and German law. Why is American law indeterminate? Why is German law not? What, if anything, do these differences …

Climate And Transportation Policy Sequencing In California And Quebec, Sonya Ziaja, Mark Purdon, Julie Witcover, Colin Murphy, Mark Winfield, Genevieve Giuliano, Charles Séguin, Colleen Kaiser, Jacques Papy, Lewis Fulton

All Faculty Scholarship

We compare flexible low-carbon regulations in the transportation sector and their interaction and sequencing with greenhouse gas emissions trading systems in California and Quebec. As momentum builds for greater climate action, it is necessary to better understand how carbon markets and other low-carbon transportation policies influence one another. First, we demonstrate that emissions trading between California and Quebec has been asymmetric, with linking having little influence on carbon prices from California's perspective but leading to a considerable cost reduction from the point of view of Quebec. Second, we present evidence that Quebec has replicated many of California's low-carbon transportation policies …

A More Just, Inclusive Future For Sports, Dionne L. Koller

All Faculty Scholarship

This issue of the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport (JLAS) was dedicated to women in sports law, with a specific emphasis on inclusiveness and new ideas. For decades, the central focus of the law and policy directed to women and sports was Title IX enforcement and securing opportunities for participation. As we approach Title IX’s 50th anniversary, it is clear that the law has greatly expanded participation opportunities for women and powerfully altered the norms around women and sports. Nevertheless, much work remains. Women and girls still do not enjoy the full measure of equality that Title …

My Family Belongs To Me: A Child’S Constitutional Right To Family Integrity, Shanta Trivedi

All Faculty Scholarship

Every day in the United States, the government separates children from their parents based on their parents’ immigration status, incarceration, or involvement in the child welfare system—and the children have no say in the matter. The majority of these families are racial minorities and economically underprivileged.

Under current law, children’s ability to assert a constitutional right to keep their families free from government intrusion is not always apparent. This is in part because a single piece of Supreme Court dicta has muddied an otherwise clear family integrity doctrine, and many federal circuits are silent on the issue. Further, many children’s …

Student Demands: How Should Law Schools And Their Deans Respond?, Ronald Weich

All Faculty Scholarship

Law students are sometimes caricatured as money-hungry careerists, merely punching their ticket to an outsized law firm salary. Those of us in legal education know that stereotype is entirely invalid. In fact, most students come to law school because they want to make the world a better place.

The death of George Floyd in police custody on a Minneapolis street corner in May 2020 shocked the conscience of the nation. Unsurprisingly, many law students were moved to action and inspired to put their nascent legal skills to work in support of racial justice. Much of their advocacy focused on campaigns …

Republicanism: Philosophical Aspects | Republicanismo: Aspectos Filosóficos, Mortimer N.S. Sellers

All Faculty Scholarship

Republicanism is the doctrine that public power should always serve the common good of all those subject to its rule. This raises the question how to do so most effectively, either through particular policies or through constitutional structure (“the republican form of government”). The republican philosophical tradition began with Plato and Aristotle, flowered in the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero, and reappeared with the revival of learning in such authors as Machiavelli, James Harrington, John Adams, and Immanuel Kant. More recently Philip Pettit, Jürgen Habermas, and others have returned to the republican conception of liberty as nondomination, and how to …

The Rule Of Law: A Necessary Pillar Of Free And Democratic Societies For Protecting Human Rights, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay traces the history and development of the concept of the Rule of Law from ancient times through the present. It describes the elements of the Rule of Law and its importance to the protection of human rights in a variety of contexts, including under domestic and international law. From ancient Greece and Rome to the Enlightenment, and from the American and French Revolutions to modern times, the Rule of Law has played a key role in societies around the world. The essay discusses definitions of the Rule of Law, its origins, and its development over time, including in …

Periods For Profit And The Rise Of Menstrual Surveillance, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

Menstruation is being monetized and surveilled, with the voluntary participation of millions of women. Thousands of downloadable apps promise to help women monitor their periods and manage their fertility. These apps are part of the broader, multi-billion dollar, Femtech industry, which sells technology to help women understand and improve their health. Femtech is marketed with the language of female autonomy and feminist empowerment. Despite this rhetoric, Femtech is part of a broader business strategy of data extraction, in which companies are extracting people’s personal data for profit, typically without their knowledge or meaningful consent. Femtech can oppress menstruators in several …

Turning Participation Into Power: A Water Justice Case Study, Jaime Alison Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.