Law Commons^™

Employment Law In A Changing Workplace, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Raising The Social Security Retirement Ages: Weighing The Costs And Benefits, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Social Security program faces a long-term funding deficit. The Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors and Disability Insurance ("OASDI") Trust Funds predicts that unless corrective action is taken, Social Security benefit payments will exceed dedicated tax revenues by the year 2015, and the Social Security program will become insolvent—unable to pay promised benefits in full-by the year 2037. As a result of this projected deficit, Social Security has become "a lightning rod for far reaching reform proposals."

Proposals range from "traditional" proposals that would maintain the basics of the program's revenue and benefit structure but would …

Legal Accountability In An Era Of Privatized Welfare, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

When the federal welfare system was reformed in 1996, Congress devolved much of the authority over welfare delivery to the states and gave them the option of contracting out administration of their programs to private entities. Moreover, after welfare reform, enacted as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRA), welfare recipients are expected to work to receive benefits. This means that front-line workers must engage in intensive interpersonal counseling rather than simply confirm objective eligibility criteria and dispense checks. As a result, front-line workers have vastly increased discretion. When privatization is layered over this discretionary scheme, issues of …

Florida's Foster Care System Fails Its Children, Timothy L. Arcaro

Faculty Scholarship

This article will attempt to draw attention to the pervasive problem of child sexual abuse in foster care by identifying circumstances that contribute to sexual victimization. Hopefully the discussion will illuminate the plight of child victims of sexual abuse and generate discourse on a new paradigm of protection initiatives for foster children. Part I of the article will explain child protection proceedings and how children enter the foster care system. Part II will describe common characteristics of state foster care systems. Part III will discuss traditional notions of child sexual abuse and their illusory application in the context of sexual …

The New Psychological Contract: Implications Of The Changing Workplace For Labor And Employment Law, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this article, Professor Stone describes the profound changes that are occurring in the employment relationship in the United States. Firms are dismantling their internal labor markets and abandoning their implicit promises of orderly promotion and long-term job security. No longer is employment centered on a single, primary employer. Instead, employees operate in a boundaryless workplace in which they expect to move frequently between firms, and between divisions within firms, throughout their working lives. At the same time, employers and employees have a new understanding of their mutual obligations, a new psychological contract, in which expectations of job security and …

Pro Bono Publico Representation Of The Poor: The Good As Enemy Of The Best, Rob Atkinson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Kinship Care And The Price Of State Support For Children, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Partial Privatization Of Social Security Upon Private Pensions, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Social Security does not provide retirement income in a vacuum. Rather, commentators often refer to our national retirement income system as a three legged stool, with Social Security representing one of the legs and employer sponsored pension plans and individual savings representing the other two legs. Because changes in one leg of the stool are likely to have a direct impact on the other two legs, policymakers must not consider Social Security changes in isolation, but should take account of their effect on employer-sponsored pensions and individual savings. This Article analyzes how one of the most popular proposals, partial privatization, …

Welfare, Children And Families: The Impact Of Welfare Reform In The New Economy, William Julius Wilson

Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture

In 2001, University Professor, William Julius Wilson of Harvard University, delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s twenty-first Annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture: "Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform in the New Economy."

William Julius Wilson is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University. He is one of only 20 University Professors, the highest professional distinction for a Harvard faculty member. After receiving the Ph.D. from Washington State University in 1966, Wilson taught sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 1972. In 1990 he was …

Poverty & Welfare: Does Compassionate Conservatism Have A Heart?, Peter B. Edelman

Georgetown Law Faculty Lectures and Appearances

I am honored to deliver a lecture in memory of Edward Sobota, especially because such distinguished speakers have preceded me.

Our question here is: does compassionate conservatism have a heart? Almost five years have passed since the 1996 welfare law was enacted. So, we might ask, where are we and where are we going, and even more to the point, what are the prospects for better policy and outcomes on poverty generally? One American child in six is still poor, and the number of families in economic difficulty is much larger than that. That is the context in which we …

Lena Olive Smith: A Minnesota Civil Rights Pioneer, Ann Juergens

Faculty Scholarship

Lena Olive Smith and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) created a spirited partnership in the public interest during the 1920s and 1930s. Throughout their long collaboration, this woman lawyer, her clients, and the Minneapolis branch of a national grassroots organization faced similar challenges: to stay solvent, to end segregation and increase equality, and to live with dignity. This article is divided into four sections. The first three roughly correspond with stages in Smith’s life and work. Part II briefly chronicles Smith’s first thirty six years, 1885 to 1921, as a single African-American woman in the …

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 …

The Road From Welfare To Work: Informal Transportation And The Urban Poor, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

Individuals struggling to move from welfare to work face numerous obstacles. This Article addresses one of those obstacles: lack of transportation. Without reliable transportation, many welfare recipients are unable to find and maintain jobs located out of the reach of traditional forms of public transportation. Professor Garnett argues that lawmakers should remove restrictions on informal van or jitney services, allowing entrepreneurs to provide low-cost transportation to their communities. This reform would not only help people get to work, but it could also provide jobs for low-income people.

The Pro Bono Priority: The University Of Michigan's Approach To Instilling Public Service, Robert E. Precht, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

The Pro Bono Priority is a two-part feature on pro bono service in Michigan law schools. in Crossing the Bar, the column of the Legal Education Committee, Dolores M. Coulter discusses how Michigan law schools measure up to the recommendations made in Learning to Serve, the report of the Commission on Pro Bono and Public Service Opportunities from the Association of American Law Schools. In the Access to Justice column, Robert E. Precht and Suellyn Scarnecchia focus specifically on the University of MichiHgan's unique approach to pro bono service.

Competing Frameworks For Assessing Contemporary Holocaust-Era Claims, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

There are many angles from which to perceive the contemporary holocaust-era claims. In 1997, Time magazine quoted Elie Wiesel as saying that, [i]f all the money in all the Swiss banks were turned over, it would not bring back the life of one Jewish child. But the money is a symbol. It is part of the story. If you suppress any part of the story, it comes back later, with force and violence.

Wiesel touches on two perspectives: first, what has been described as litigating the holocaust, with all that that implies about the law's questionable capacity to adjudicate issues …

Child Care For Families Leaving Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, Rebecca L. Scharf, Sujatha Jagadeesh Branch, Cynthia Godsoe, Sherry Leiwant, Roslyn Powell, Cary Lacheen

Scholarly Works

Since Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program in 1996, the welfare rolls have decreased by more than 40 percent. While unemployment and poverty rates have declined, families who leave welfare generally earn low wages and remain below the poverty level. Because families leaving welfare are mostly single mothers with young children, child care is critical to their ability to work outside the home. Low-income parents trying to make ends meet, as well as employers of low-wage workers, emphasize the importance of appropriate, affordable child care in enabling women who leave welfare …

A Reciprocal Welfare Program, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines how social welfare programs should be structured to comport with the principle of conditional reciprocity. A previous paper, Rethinking Welfare Rights, 63 Law & Contemporary Problems 257 (Winter/Spring 2000), drew upon voter survey data to suggest that a powerful cluster of attitudes governs citizens' views on social redistribution. Most people accept collective responsibility for the poor but adhere to a moralistic distinction between deserving and undeserving recipients of public aid. They view entitlement to group resources as conditional on each person's reasonable effort, consistent with ability, to support himself and his family. It was speculated that the …

Unemployment Insurance And Wealth Redistribution, Gillian Lester

Faculty Scholarship

This Article evaluates the merit of liberalizing unemployment insurance eligibility as a means to achieve progressive wealth redistribution-an idea that has recently gained popularity among policymakers and legal scholars. Unemployment insurance (UI) provides temporary, partial wage replacement to workers who suffer unexpected job loss, but it tends to exclude workers who have very low wages or hours of work, or who quit for reasons considered "personal" (for example, to accommodate family demands). Professor Lester argues that while redistribution to workers who are poor or who have caregiving obligations is a desirable goal, expanding UI is a poor way to do …

Poverty, Welfare Reform, And The Meaning Of Disability, Jennifer Pokempner, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Accommodating The Learning Disabled Student On Campus, Oren R. Griffin

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Each year nearly 19 million persons matriculate at American colleges and universities as undergraduate or graduate students. A substantial segment of these students are disabled. For disabled students matriculating through American higher education institutions, a tremendous battle is being waged as to the educational experience afforded those students with learning disabilities." Lawyers, educators and students are embroiled in a complex tug-of war that will have a lasting impact on higher education. This article examines some of the legal issues that will undoubtedly challenge those seeking to strike a balance between hard-line advocates for disabled students and educational professionals required to …

Poverty And Welfare Policy In The Post-Clinton Era, Peter B. Edelman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is an important time to talk about people in need. There have been major changes recently in public policy toward those in need, and we have seen enough of their effect to be able to discuss the next steps. We have a new President and Congress. A recession is looking more probable by the day. And the 1996 welfare law is coming up for reauthorization in 2002. So this is a good time to look at how we are doing and what we need to do.

A Conversation On Federalism And The States: The Balancing Act Of Devolution, Peter B. Edelman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

If you consider whether there might be a national definition of benefit levels in welfare, you might well ask whether there is a state-by-state difference in people's needs. There are some regional differences in cost of living, but, otherwise, you eat, you need shelter, and so on. The history of disability policy is very interesting in this regard because from 1935 until 1972 (apart from the addition of social security disability in the 1950s), disability was handled as a welfare category. There were separate welfare programs for the aged, blind, and the disabled, and they were structured the way Aid …

The Market For Medical Ethics, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

At the core of Kenneth Arrow’s classic 1963 essay on medical uncertainty is a claim that has failed to carry the day among economists. This claim—that physician adherence to an anti-competitive ethic of fidelity to patients and suppression of pecuniary influences on clinical judgment pushes medical markets toward social optimality—has won Arrow near-iconic status among medical ethicists (and many physicians). Yet conventional wisdom among health economists, including several participants in this symposium, holds that this claim is either naïve or outdated. Health economists admire Arrow’s article for its path-breaking analysis of market failures resulting from information asymmetry, uncertainty, and moral …

The Current Life Insurance Crisis: How The Law Should Respond, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

This article explores some of the issues raised by the new evidence of underinsurance. Part I explores the initial theoretical question: why do people buy life insurance? Put differently, what function does life insurance serve? Part II provides some background on the life insurance market as it currently exists. Thus, Part II summarizes the major types of life insurance that are currently offered and summarizes the main elements of the current regulatory regime for life insurance companies. Part III then provides support for the claim that households tend to drastically underconsume life insurance. Section A of that Part summarizes the …

Taking Care, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

Care must be taken when human needs are expressed in the odd dialect of legal rights. This delicate act of translation – from private need to public obligation – demands acute sensitivity to the ways in which public responsibility inaugurates a new and complex encounter with a broad array of public preferences that deprive dependent subjects of primary stewardship over the ways in which their needs are met. Both Martha Fineman and Joan Williams have taken on the difficult project of making the ethical and political case for transforming dependency and care – from private or domestic need to public …