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A Matter Of Principle And Consistency: Understanding The Battered Woman And Cultural Defenses, Sharan K. Suri

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

To adequately explain and argue why feminists, as a matter of legal theory, must take both the BWS and cultural defenses seriously, these defenses need further elaboration. Section I details what these defenses are, how they developed, and how they work in the justice system. Section II enlarges the picture by revealing the similarities between the two defenses which share not only the same theoretical and practical goals, but also the same criticisms and flaws highlighted by scholars. Finally, Section III asserts that cultural evidence and evidence of battering must be admitted to show the absence of mens rea. However, …

Growing Environmental Concerns: Is Population Control The Answer, Diane L. Slifer

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Why A Fundamental Right To A Quality Education Is Not Enough, James G. Wilson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article relies upon the political and economic analysis of such great thinkers as Aristotle and Rousseau to understand and normatively evaluate constitutional caselaw in general and education cases in particular. The article's title contains its conclusion: a judicially created right to a quality education is a laudable, but possibly counterproductive and definitely insufficient condition, for creating a humane constitutional system. The rest of society needs to do far more to protect the average citizen and worker from the ever-ravenous ruling class. All the edification in the world will not mean much if there are only a few decent jobs …

The Unconstitutionality Of Eliminating Estate And Gift Taxes, James G. Wilson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The recent proposal to eliminate estate and gift taxes is not only immoral and a poor allocation of resources, but also is unconstitutional. Irrespective of their ideology, virtually all American lawyers will initially dismiss this accusation as frivolous because it conflicts with their tradition of equating conceptions of "constitutionality" with United States Supreme Court opinions. The Court has long been highly deferential to Congress in federal tax law cases. It is inconceivable that the current Court would find anything "irrational" in a facially neutral law eliminating all estate and gift taxes. Indeed, if I sat on that bench, I would …

An Observation And A Strange But True 'Tale': What Might The Historical Trials Of Animals Tell Us About The Transformative Potential Of Law In American Culture?, Paul Schiff Berman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Few would dispute that law and legal procedures lie at the core of American self-identity and are woven deeply into the fabric of our culture. Indeed, our nation's faith in law has frequently been the subject of criticism. Most recently, self-proclaimed "communitarian" commentators have warned that our insistence on legal solutions is encouraging us to become a society of litigants whose attachment to "rights talk" and legal battles is thwarting our ability to reach consensus on social issues or instill shared values in our communities. While there are many possible responses to such a critique, this Essay offers one that …

From Consultation To Reconciliation: Aboriginal Rights And The Crown’S Duty To Consult, Sonia Lawrence, Patrick Macklem

Articles & Book Chapters

The judiciary has repeatedly called on First Nations and the Crown not to tax the institutional competence of the judiciary by excessive litigation of disputes, and instead to attempt to reach negotiated settlements . It has also held that the Crown is under a duty to consult with a First Nation when it proposes to engage in an action that threatens to interfere with existing Aboriginal or treaty rights recognized and affirmed by s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. In this Article, the authors argue that the duty to consult requires the Crown, in most cases, to make good …

Ld 1028 - Protection Of Indian Archaeological Sites : Report To The Standing Committee On Appropriations And Financial Affairs, Maine Historic Preservation Commission

Maine Collection

LD 1028 - Protection of Indian Archaeological Sites : Report to the Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs.

Arthur Spiess, Archaeologist, Maine Historic Preservation Commission with Representative Donald Soctomah, January, 2000.

Contents: Introduction / The Resource / The Problem / Synopsis of Existing Laws / Discussions with Law Enforcement / Site Monitoring or Stewardship / Discussion / Recommendations / Appendix A - Text of 27 MRSA 371-378 as Amended to Date / Appendix B - Written Comments from State Agencies on LD 1028 Consultation / Appendix C - Archaeological Site Monitoring Materials

Mostly Monogamous Moms?: An Essay On The Future Of Lesbian Legal Theories And Reforms, Ruthann Robson

NYLS Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

Cultural Resistance To Global Governance, Joel Richard Paul

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article maps out the terrain in which state actors and legal scholars make claims premised on a cultural exception to justify derogating from international legal norms. The author’s aim is to understand why some of these claimed cultural practices displace international legal norms, while other practices are dismissed as violating international legal norms. Part II will examine this discourse in relation to the rights of women and sexual minorities. This article will show that the international community generally regards gender norms as cultural and the international legal norm of gender equality usually defers to national cultural practices. Part III …

The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara: Contemporary Lessons In The Child Welfare Wars, Bruce A. Boyer, Steven Lubet

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Public Law 280 And The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act: Could Two Wrongs Ever Be Made Into A Right, Daniel Twetten

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

A Reflective Rhetorical Model: The Legal Writing Teacher As Reader And Writer, Linda L. Berger

Scholarly Works

Like most writing teachers, the legal writing teacher believes that his reading and response to student work is the most important thing he does, an importance that is underscored by the amount of time it takes. Yet, despite its importance and the hours it consumes, the rhetoric of teacher reading and writing remains relatively unexplored. This article proposes that we begin to apply what we have learned about student reading and writing to our own reading and writing. Our process of reading and responding to student work should be as reflective and rhetorical as the reading and writing process that …

"We Do Not Preach, We Teach.": Religion Professors And The First Amendment, Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Blackcrit Theory: Human Rights, Hope Lewis

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Democracy, Anti-Democracy, And The Canon, Richard H. Pildes

Constitutional Commentary, Vols 1–36 (1984–2022)

No abstract provided.

Social Norms And The Legal Regulation Of Marriage, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Americans have interesting and somewhat puzzling attitudes about the state's role in defining and enforcing family obligations. Most people view lasting marriage as an important part of their life plans and take the commitment of marriage very seriously. Yet any legal initiative designed to reinforce that commitment generates controversy and is viewed with suspicion in many quarters. For example, covenant marriage statutes, which offer couples entering marriage the option of undertaking a modest marital commitment, are seen by many observers as coercive and regressive measures rather than ameliorating reforms.

The law tends to reflect – and perhaps contributes to – …

The Uses Of History In Struggles For Racial Justice: Colonizing The Past And Managing Memory, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

In this Commentary, Professor Katherine Franke offers an analysis on Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic's California's Racial History and Constitutional Rationales for Race-Conscious Decision Making in Higher Education and Rebecca Tsosie's Sacred Obligations: Intercultural Justice and the Discourse of Treaty Rights. These two Articles, she observes, deploy history for the purposes of justifying certain contemporary normative claims on behalf of peoples of color: affirmative action in higher education for Delgado and Stefancic, and sovereignty rights for native peoples in Tsosie's case. Franke explores the manner in which stories of past conquest and discrimination contribute to contemporary conceptions of racial …

After The "Social Meaning Turn": Implications For Research Design And Methods Of Proof In Contemporary Criminal Law Policy Analysis, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

The social norm movement in criminal justice has received a lot of attention in academic and public policy circles. This essay critically examines social norm writings and explores some of the implications for methods of proof and research design in the social sciences. In the process, the essay offers an alternative theoretical approach. This alternative focuses on the multiple ways in which the social meaning of practices (such as juvenile gun possession, gang membership, or disorderly conduct) and the social meaning of policing techniques (such as juvenile snitching policies, youth curfews, or order-maintenance policing) may shape us as contemporary subjects …

Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism And The Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation, Keith E. Sealing

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article first examines the miscegenation paradigm in terms of a seven-point conceptual framework that not merely allowed but practically demanded anti-miscegenation laws, then looks at the legal arguments state courts used to justify the constitutionality of such laws through 1967. Next, it analyzes the Biblical argument, which in its own right justified miscegenation, but also had a major influence on the development of the three major strands of scientific racism: monogenism, polygenism and Darwinian theory. It then probes the concept upon which the entire edifice is constructed-race--and discusses the continuing vitality of this construct. Next, this article turns to …

Some (Mostly) Theoretical And (Very Brief) Pragmatic Observations On Environmental Alternative Dispute Resolution In America, Robert F. Blomquist

Valparaiso University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Biotechnology And The Legal Constitution Of The Self: Managing Identity In Science, The Market, And Society, Jonathan Kahn

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers how certain ideas underlying the tort of appropriation may enable use more effectively to deal with the problems presented by a case such Moore v. Regents of the University of California which dealt with property rights of Moore’s spleen cells. First, the author explores how the tort of appropriation of identity opens up new approaches to inform and perhaps supplement principles of property law as a guide to managing genetic information or other materials that seem intimately bound up with a particular human subject. Secondly, the author analyzes how the various opinions produced by the Supreme Court …

When Science Is Too Daunting: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Federal Courts, And The Struggling Spirit Of Daubert, Carl H. Johnson

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Professional Values In The Classroom, 34 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1 (2000), Robert Maccrate

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Language Matters, 34 J. Marshall L. Rev. 163 (2000), Jane B. Baron

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unconstitutionality Of Eliminating Estate And Gift Taxes , James G. Wilson

Cleveland State Law Review

This article discusses why the recent proposal to eliminate estate and gift taxes is not only immoral and a poor allocation of resources, but also is unconstitutional. The author argues that the only way to sustain any allegation of unconstitutionality against these tax policy changes is to extend meanings of "constitutionality" beyond the legalistic paradigm of constitutional adjudication. Explaining that to extend notions of constitutionality this additional distance, we would need to resurrect earlier constitutional conceptions from such influential political thinkers as Aristotle, David Hume, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. While pointing out that the United States Constitution embodies a …

A Different Kind Of Sameness: Beyond Formal Equality And Antisubordination Strategies In Gay Legal Theory, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

Gay legal theory is at a crossroads reminiscent of the sameness/difference debate in feminist circles and the integrationist debate in critical race theory. Formal equality theorists take the heterosexual model as the norm and then seek to show that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals - except for their choice of partners - are just like heterosexuals. Antisubordination theorists attack the heterosexual model itself and seek to show that a society that insists on such a model is unjust. Neither of these strategies is wholly satisfactory. The formal equality model will fail to bring about fundamental reforms as long as sexual …

Culture, Nationhood, And The Human Rights Ideal, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Sharon E. Rush

UF Law Faculty Publications

This paper was written as a part of a Symposium on Culture, Nation, and LatCrit (Latina/o Communities and Critical Race) Theory and focuses on the concept of voice and silence. Part I locates the works in the axis of silence and power. Part II explores how critical theory and international human rights norms can be used to develop a methodology to analyze and detect the exclusion or silencing of voices. A paradigm is developed that, by internationalizing voice, serves as a useful tool to explore power-based silencing. In Part III, the article illustrates how the proposed paradigm can focus the …

Preserving The Oneida Nation Culture, Brian Patterson

St. Thomas Law Review

The topic of this symposium - "Sacred Sites and Modem Lives" - is very timely. We often hear news about some building project that has unearthed an ancient village or burial ground. For every building project that is unearthed you also hear great debate about what to do about the building project, or what to do with the artifacts and the human remains. There exists a big struggle - on the one hand, the needs of society and science, and on the other hand, respect for places and things and people that came long before.

The Miami Circle: Teacher Of Respect For Nature, People, History, And Place, Dennis Wiedman

St. Thomas Law Review

Cut into the limestone bedrock shore of the Miami River where it enters Biscayne Bay, the Miami Circle has captured local, state, national and international attention since its discovery in September 1998. This paper captures the information, insight, and cultural values expressed by the various contributors to the conference on "Sacred Sites and Modem Lives: The Miami Circle and Beyond." It highlights the lessons that enable us to better understand the significance of the Miami Circle's past, its present implications for the South Florida community, and visions of its future.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken--The Miami Circle Discovery And It's Significance For Urban Evolution And Protection Of Indigenous Culture, Pamela G. Levinson

St. Thomas Law Review

A mysterious, ancient stone circle carved into limestone bedrock discovered on a downtown Miami bayfront lot has set a legal precedent for the world. The unique formation known as the Miami Circle has been saved by the exercise of the ultimate power of government - eminent domain. Thus its relevance stretches beyond the local struggle to save one ancient archaeological curiosity. Rather, it stands as a model for the preservation of similar archaeological structures and artifacts found on private lands, which up to now have been vulnerable to destruction. It also stands as a model of hope for other sites …