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Full-Text Articles in Law

Blatant Discrimination Within Federal Law: A 14th Amendment Analysis Of Medicaid’S Imd Exclusion, J. Michael E. Gray, Madeline Easdale May 2023

Blatant Discrimination Within Federal Law: A 14th Amendment Analysis Of Medicaid’S Imd Exclusion, J. Michael E. Gray, Madeline Easdale

University of Massachusetts Law Review

A discriminatory piece of Medicaid law, the institution for mental diseases (IMD) exclusion, is denying people with serious mental illness equal levels of treatment as those with only primary healthcare needs. The IMD exclusion denies the use of federal funding in psychiatric hospitals for inpatient care. This article discusses the history and collateral implications of the IMD exclusion, then examines it through the lens of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, argues that people with severe mental illness constitute a quasi-suspect class, and that application of intermediate scrutiny would render the IMD exclusion unenforceable.


From Nucleotides To Nuanced Law: The Value Of An Incremental Approach To Experimentation In State-Level Genetic Anti-Discrimination Legislation, Katelyn Fisher Jun 2021

From Nucleotides To Nuanced Law: The Value Of An Incremental Approach To Experimentation In State-Level Genetic Anti-Discrimination Legislation, Katelyn Fisher

University of Massachusetts Law Review

A person’s genetic information tells a detailed story of what someone looks like, who her relatives are, and even what illnesses she may develop. This information, as enlightening as it may be, can be especially damaging when utilized in a discriminatory way. This Note explores how the protections under the Genetic Non Discrimination Act of 2008 will no longer be sufficient for protecting individuals from genetic discrimination as the use of genetic information becomes more commonplace. The questions become: Where do we start? How and where should protections that extend to circumstances not covered by GINA be created in a …


The First Sale Doctrine And Foreign Sales: The Economic Implications In The United States Textbook Market, Garry A. Gabison Oct 2020

The First Sale Doctrine And Foreign Sales: The Economic Implications In The United States Textbook Market, Garry A. Gabison

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This Article investigates the impact of the Kirtsaeng decision. After discussing the first sale doctrine, this Article presents the issues around implementing a worldwide first sale doctrine. International treaties attempt to ensure that authors can benefit from their work by affording them similar protections in different jurisdictions. But a worldwide first sale exhaustion limits the ability of copyright holders to profit from their work because it allows the author to compete with its own work that had been priced differently in different jurisdictions. Finally, this Article tests whether, in the United States, the price of textbooks has been affected by …


Babies Aren't U.S., Zachary J. Devlin Aug 2017

Babies Aren't U.S., Zachary J. Devlin

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Parental leave has been an on-going issue in the political process, most recently during this presidential election. This is because upon the birth or adoption of a child, many in the United States cannot afford to take time off from work to care for and integrate children into their families. This is especially true for the contemporary family. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) was Congress’s attempt to strike equilibrium between employment and family and medical needs. The FMLA put legal emphasis on the family unit in an effort to neutralize gender discrimination while promoting gender equality …


Affirmative Confusion: A Proposed Paradigm Shift In Higher Education Disciplinary Proceedings, Kendal Poirier Nov 2016

Affirmative Confusion: A Proposed Paradigm Shift In Higher Education Disciplinary Proceedings, Kendal Poirier

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This Note examines the codification of affirmative consent statutes in New York and California as well as the language of Title IX of Education Amendments of 1972, with the ultimate goal of demonstrating that the two statutory constructions cannot co-exist without jeopardizing accused students’ due process rights. During the course of a college or university disciplinary proceeding in an affirmative consent jurisdiction, the potential exists for a burden shift onto the accused student to affirmatively prove consent was obtained. Such a shift directly conflicts with Title IX mandates for prompt and equitable treatment. This Note proposes that in order to …


The Law Of The Groves: Whittling Away At The Legal Mysteries In The Prosecution Of The Groveland Boys, William R. Ezzell Nov 2016

The Law Of The Groves: Whittling Away At The Legal Mysteries In The Prosecution Of The Groveland Boys, William R. Ezzell

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This Article tells the legal story of one of the South’s most infamous trials – the Groveland Boys prosecution in central Florida. Called “Florida’s Little Scottsboro,” the Groveland case garnered international attention in 1949 when four young black men were accused of the gang rape of a white woman in the orange groves north of Orlando. Several days of rioting, Ku Klux Klan activity, three murders, two trials, and three death penalty verdicts followed, in what became the most infamous trial in Florida history. The appeals of the trial reached the United States Supreme Court, with the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall …


Back To Blood: The Sociopolitics And Law Of Compulsory Dna Testing Of Refugees, Edward S. Dove Apr 2014

Back To Blood: The Sociopolitics And Law Of Compulsory Dna Testing Of Refugees, Edward S. Dove

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Since October 2012, certain family members of refugees seeking reunification through the United States Refugee Admissions Priority Three program must undergo DNA testing to prove they are genetically related. The putative purposes of the policy include fraud prevention, enhanced national security, and greater efficiency in refugee claims processing. Upon close inspection, however, the new policy generates significant sociopolitical and legal concerns. The notion of what constitutes a family is significantly narrowed. Required DNA testing may violate domestic laws and international human rights instruments regarding voluntary informed consent, privacy, and anti-discrimination. Traditional legal solutions insufficiently remedy these concerns and cannot prevent …


Weather Permitting: Incrementalism, Animus, And The Art Of Forecasting Marriage Equality After U.S. V. Windsor, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2014

Weather Permitting: Incrementalism, Animus, And The Art Of Forecasting Marriage Equality After U.S. V. Windsor, Jeremiah A. Ho

Faculty Publications

Within LGBT rights, the law is abandoning essentialist approaches toward sexual orientation by incrementally de-regulating restrictions on identity expression of sexual minorities. Simultaneously, same-sex marriages are become increasingly recognized on both state and federal levels. This Article examines the Supreme Court’s recent decision, U.S. v. Windsor, as the latest example of these parallel journeys. By overturning DOMA, Windsor normatively revises the previous incrementalist theory for forecasting marriage equality’s progress studied by William Eskridge, Kees Waaldijk, and Yuval Merin. Windsor also represents a moment where the law is abandoning antigay essentialism by using animus focused jurisprudence for lifting the discrimination against …


Parading The First Amendment Through The Streets Of South Boston, Dwight G. Duncan Jan 1996

Parading The First Amendment Through The Streets Of South Boston, Dwight G. Duncan

Faculty Publications

The real question that presented itself about this case is why all this litigation was necessary, if the legal principle was so clear? The fact is that GLIB was interested in the confrontation, and while it takes two to make a fight, it only takes one to start one. GLIB wanted to make a statement similar to the one made by ILGO. GLIB filed the original suit. The Veterans, on the defensive, simply kept appealing, all the way to the United States Supreme Court. By then, GLIB may have preferred to walk away, but the battle lines had already been …