Law and Society Commons^™

The Achievement Gap And Disparate Impact Discrimination In Washington Schools, Sarah Albertson

Seattle University Law Review

In today’s public schools, students designated as “white” and “Asian” consistently outperform students from other ethnic groups in test scores and graduation rates. These disparities, commonly called “the achievement gap,” are a symptom of greater issues, or “opportunity gaps.” Washington State has recently taken a further step to address the achievement gap and racial discrimination in schools. In 2010, the Washington legislature passed the Equal Education Opportunity Law (EEOL), HB 3026, in response to the recommendations in commissioned achievement gap studies. The EEOL authorizes the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to enforce this law through regulations. This …

Snopa And The Ppa: Do You Know What It Means For You? If Snopa (Social Networking Online Protection Act) Or Ppa (Password Protection Act) Do Not Pass, The Snooping Could Cause You Trouble, Angela Goodrum

Angela Goodrum

No abstract provided.

Critical Tax Policy: A Pathway To Reform?, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The Global Recession of 2008 and ensuing austerity measures have renewed the urgency surrounding the call for fundamental tax reform. Before embarking on fundamental tax reform, this Article proposes adding a critical lens to existing US tax policy to ensure that any proposals for change are informed, transparent, and responsive to the needs (and abilities) of individual taxpayers. This Article makes the case for a specific method of inquiry – Critical Tax Policy – that is built on the articulation of difference rather than false assumptions of sameness. Critical Tax Policy incorporates the insights of a growing international tax equity …

The Implausibility Of Secrecy, Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

Government secrecy frequently fails. Despite the executive branch’s obsessive hoarding of certain kinds of documents and its constitutional authority to do so, recent high-profile events—among them the WikiLeaks episode, the Obama administration’s celebrated leak prosecutions, and the widespread disclosure by high-level officials of flattering confidential information to sympathetic reporters—undercut the image of a state that can classify and control its information. The effort to control government information requires human, bureaucratic, technological, and textual mechanisms that regularly founder or collapse in an administrative state, sometimes immediately and sometimes after an interval. Leaks, mistakes, open sources—each of these constitutes a path out …

Do California’S Teacher Tenure Laws Violate California’S Constitutional Right To Education, Allen W. Hubsch

Allen W Hubsch

The accompanying note addresses an important and topical issue. In May 2012, Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General of the United States, and Theodore Boutrous, co-chair of the appellate practice at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court, entitled Vargara v. California, naming the State of California, the California Department of Education, the Los Angeles Unified School District and others as defendants.

The complaint alleges that California’s teacher tenure statutes are unconstitutional under the California constitution because such laws have the effect of preventing school districts from providing a quality education to school age …

Regulating The Family: The Impact Of Pro-Family Policy Making Assessments On Women And Non-Traditional Families, Robin S. Maril

Robin S. Maril

Beginning in the 1980s, pro-family advocates lobbied the Reagan administration to take a stronger, more direct role in enforcing traditional family norms through agency rulemaking. In 1986 the White House Working Group on the Family published a report entitled, The Family: Preserving America’s Future, detailing what its authors perceived to be the biggest threats to the “American household of persons related by blood, marriage or adoption – the traditional . . . family.” These threats included a lax sexual culture carried over from the 1960s, resulting in rising divorce rates, children born “out of wedlock,” and increased acceptance of “alternative …

Dodd-Frank Act And Remittances To Post-Conflict Countries: The Law Of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again, Raymond Natter

Raymond Natter

The Dodd-Frank Act established a new Federal framework for the regulation of international remittance payments that originate in the U.S. However, the statute and implementing regulations may have the unintended consequence of disrupting the flow of remittance funds to post-conflict nations.