Digital Commons Network^™

Removing White Hoods From The Blue Line: A Legislative Solution To White Supremacy In Law Enforcement, Hope Elizabeth Barnes

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd took his final breaths. His death at the hands of multiple Minneapolis police officers was recorded by witnesses and viewed by millions. The public response to Floyd’s death was immediate and powerful. Americans were demanding change on a greater scale than ever before. The problem with policing is not Derek Chauvin, or the Minneapolis Police Department, but rather with the very institution. White supremacy is alive and well in American policing. This Note begins by examining the historic connection between white supremacist groups and law enforcement agencies. This Note then evaluates existing standards of …

Coca-Cola Curses: Hate Speech In A Post-Colonial Context, Brittan Heller

Michigan Technology Law Review

Hate speech is a contextual phenomenon. What offends or inflames in one context may differ from what incites violence in a different time, place, and cultural landscape. Theories of hate speech, especially Susan Benesch’s concept of “dangerous speech” (hateful speech that incites violence), have focused on the factors that cut across these paradigms. However, the existing scholarship is narrowly focused on situations of mass violence or societal unrest in America or Europe.

This paper discusses how online hate speech may operate differently in a postcolonial context. While hate speech impacts all societies, the global South—Africa in particular—has been sorely understudied. …

How Many More Brazilian Environmental Defenders Have To Perish Before We Act? President Lula's Challenge To Protect Environmental Quilombola Defenders, Sarah Dávila A.

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The Global South has been historically marginalized and continues to suffer from systemic oppression, impeding the realization of their human rights. Afro-descendants and other minority populations in the Global South live in disproportionately environmentally unsafe conditions and are disproportionately more vulnerable to climate change and environmental harm. One of those populations are Quilombolas. Quilombolas are Brazilian Afro-descendant communities who continue to fight to protect their community rights to ancestral lands, natural resources, and survival as a people. The Brazilian government under former Brazilian President Bolsonaro engaged in a persistent and systematic campaign to target, attack, and kill defenders, including Quilombola …

On Electric Vehicles And Environmental Policies For Innovation, A Book Review Of The Global Rise Of The Modern Plug-In Electric Vehicle: Public Policy, Innovation, And Strategy, By John Graham, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

Electric vehicles have been in existence for over a century. Impetus and progress towards commercialization have been uneven. For the most part, government policy on electric vehicle development has consisted of government funding and other support for research and development. The long, meandering path that has now resulted in the emergence of Tesla as an industry leader has been documented carefully in John Graham's The Global Rise of the Modern Plug-in Electric Vehicle. Graham's account is remarkably broad and thorough, leaving few stones unturned, and comprehensively detailing the history of electric vehicle policy in a number of countries, and often …

A Legal Framework For Net Zero Aligned Insurance Products, Franziska Arnold-Dwyer

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

This paper examines how the contractual framework of existing insurance products for consumers and small businesses can be adjusted to help them reduce their net GHG emissions, and thereby facilitate the transition to a sustainable net-zero economy (= Net-Zero Aligned Insurance Products; "NZAIPs"). NZAIPs could give rise to legal and regulatory issues, and this paper considers how these issues could be addressed to create a legal environment that provides safe and fair market conditions for NZAIPs.

Death After Dobbs: Addressing The Viability Of Capital Punishment For Abortion, Melanie Kalmanson

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Pre-Dobbs legislative efforts and states’ reactions in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs indicate the post-Dobbs reality that deeply conservative states will seek to criminalize abortion and impose extremely harsh sentences for such crimes, up to and including death. This Article addresses that reality. Initially, this Article illustrates that abortion and capital punishment are like opposite sides of the same coin, and it is a handful of states leading the counter majoritarian efforts on both topics. After outlining the position of each state in the nation that retains capital punishment on capital sentencing and abortion, the Article identifies the …

The Bitter Ironies Of Williams V. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co. In The First Year Law School Curriculum, Duncan Kennedy

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Accessible Government Data In Advancing Environmental Justice, Frank D. Lomonte, Daniel Delgado

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Part I of this Article sets forth the history and animating principles of the environmental justice movement in the United States during the 1970s, which developed as an adjunct to the larger civil rights movement. Part II then turns to the role of documents and data in exposing where toxins present a risk to public health and where documentation habitually falls short. It discusses how freedom of information laws can unlock access to the documents and data that quantify environmental hazards but also how those laws fail to produce reliable results because of the influence of regulated industries. Part III …

An Analysis Of Juvenile Gun Violence Mitigation In Columbia, South Carolina, Amelia Shook

Senior Theses

Over the past ten years, the United States has been impacted by the increasing frequency of homicides due to gun violence. Juvenile homicides via firearms are examined on a national, state, and county level by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and analyzed to showcase adjusted age and years of potential life lost due to gun violence. Data obtained through a CDC database depicts the geographic areas being examined: United States, South Carolina, and Richland County. South Carolina will be singled out and examined individually as it ranks eighth highest in the United States for gun violence. Richland …

Is Corporate Law Nonpartisan?, Ofer Eldar, Gabriel Rauterberg

Faculty Scholarship

Only rarely does the United States Supreme Court hear a case with fundamental implications for corporate law. In Carney v. Adams, however, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to address whether the State of Delaware’s requirement of partisan balance for its judiciary violates the First Amendment. Although the Court disposed of the case on other grounds, Justice Sotomayor acknowledged that the issue “will likely be raised again.” The stakes are high because most large businesses are incorporated in Delaware and thus are governed by its corporate law. Former Delaware governors and chief justices lined up to defend the state’s …

2023 Research Day Program, Lincoln Memorial University

Research Day

This program contains abstracts and presentation summaries from LMU's 2023 Annual Research Day conference.

Poland And The Ukraine War: A Geopolitical Analysis, Thomas Pitney

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Poland’s geopolitical role has enhanced since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. As such, Poland’s ambitions have increasingly important implications for regional, European, and global security. The paper attempts to address this phenomenon by posing the following research question: how does Poland pursue its interests in the Ukraine War? Employing qualitative methods on data collected from three formal interviews, one virtual interview, one informal interview, four statements from Poland’s leaders, and a variety of secondary sources, the study aims to answer this question modeling Gyula Csurgai’s (2019) geopolitical analysis framework. The research question is addressed in two ways. …

Native American Intellectual Property Protection: Altering Federal Ip Law And The Indian Arts And Crafts Act To Aid Tribal Economic Development, Trey V. Perez

American Indian Law Journal

Native Americans tribes remain subject to an epidemic of poverty. Although tribal gaming has provided relief and a method of economic development for some groups, other tribes are unable to employ gaming to bring in revenue and grow out of poverty. One method to assist tribes that cannot use tribal gaming could be amending federal intellectual property law to better suit tribes needs and allowing them to better exploit the billion-dollar Native American arts and crafts industry.

Moreover, tribes are able to determine which artists qualify as “Indian” under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which leaves individual artists subject …

Reducing Septic-Reliant Households: How A Comprehensive Legal Scheme Could Improve Water Quality, Environmental, And Human Health, Karlin Foor, Anna Bailey

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

Considering the [...] concerns of septic reliance in Virginia, this paper will present and explicate three issues pertaining to the Maryland Sustainable Growth and Preservation Act (the “Septic Law”). Maryland's Septic Law represents an effort at a statewide legal scheme for approaching the issue of rapid development on septic. It may function as a useful starting point for Virginia to approach the danger that failing septic poses to Virginian citizens and the health of the Chesapeake Bay, a vital contributor to the state economy and cultural heritage. Part II opens with an overview of Maryland’s Septic Law. Part III evaluates …

Independent Contractors & Noncompetition Covenants: A Modified Approach, Matthew J. Sandor

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines the way in which noncompetition covenants should be applied to independent contractors. An increasing portion of the American labor force is now employed outside the traditional employer-employee context. Today, nearly sixty million American workers are categorized as independent contractors, with many subject to noncompetition covenants that restrict their ability to participate in the labor market freely. In response to this dramatic change, state courts and legislatures have used a variety of approaches in enforcing noncompetes in the independent contractor context. These approaches run the gamut, with some states liberally construing noncompetes against independent contractors while others have …

Disaster Discordance: Local Court Implementation Of State And Federal Eviction Policies, Lauren Sudeall, Elora L. Raymond, Philip M.E. Garboden

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Eviction sits at the nexus of property rights and the basic human need for shelter-the former benefits from a strong framework of legal protection while the latter does not. In most eviction courts across the country, therefore, the right to housing is unrecognized, while landlords' economic interests in property are consistently vindicated.

The public health crisis unleashed by COVID-19 temporarily upended that (im)balance. Emergency federal and state eviction prevention policies issued in response to COVID-19 prioritized public health-and the need for shelter to prevent the spread of disease-over typically dominant property rights. In doing so, they presented courts with an …

Toward A Tribal Role In Groundwater Management, Alexandra Fay

American Indian Law Journal

This Article considers the Agua Caliente groundwater litigation a decade since its inception. It recounts the most recent developments in the case, notably the move to mediation and the strategic work that brought the water districts to the table. The Article places this monumental case in context: in the history of colonization and tribal-state relations, the present climate crisis, and the State of California’s groundwater management regime. The Article ultimately outlines the present opportunity to reimagine the role of tribes in groundwater management.

Racial Justice And Marijuana, Steven Bender

Faculty Articles

Current legalization approaches for recreational marijuana fall short of performing and delivering racial justice as measured by materiality and outcomes rather than promises of formal legal equality. As a small first step for unwinding the War on Drugs, this Article considers how legalizing recreational marijuana can help move law and society toward true racial justice, measured by material and actual outcomes for systemically subordinated groups. In the same way that criminalization of marijuana was one of the tools for racial control, legalization of marijuana can be a revenue-based tool toward an anti-subordination future of material equality. While recognizing the shortcomings …

The Ties That Bind Us: An Empirical, Clinical, And Constitutional Argument Against Terminating Parental Rights, Vivek S. Sankaran, Christopher Church

Articles

This Article explores the unnecessary termination of a child's relationship with their parent from an empirical, clinical, and constitutional lens. Part I explores administrative data related to TPR, which like many child protection metrics, resembles nothing short of a wild west of practices and policies relating to how often and how fast child protection systems terminate parental rights. These data also reveal how TPR can unnecessarily delay legal permanency for children, particularly those children who are living with extended family, and how a State pursuing TPR can drain its own scarce resources, a system perpetually decrying insufficient resources. Part II …

Armor Or Withdraw? Likely Litigation And Potential Adjudication Of Shoreland Conflicts Along Michigan's Shifting Great Lake Coasts, Richard K. Norton, Guy A. Meadows, Oday Salim, Matthew Piggins, Phillip Washburn, Lauren Ashley Week

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Michigan enjoys along its inland seas, the Laurentian Great Lakes, one of the longest coastlines in the U.S. Much of that shoreline is privately owned. Because of a confluence of development pressures and irrepressible physical dynamics, growing numbers of Great Lakes shoreland properties, built on shifting sandy shores, are at heightened risk of loss from coastal storm surge, inundation, erosion, and shoreline recession. In response, property owners are installing extensive hardened shoreline armoring structures like seawalls and revetments to arrest those erosional processes. Those structures, however, will substantially impair, if not ultimately destroy, the state’s natural coastal beaches and other …

The Future Of Roe And The Gender Pay Gap: An Empirical Assesment, Itay Ravid, Jonathan Zandberg

Faculty Publications

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court upheld a Mississippi law that prohibits nearly all abortions after the fifteenth week of pregnancy and overruled the holding in Roe v. Wade. Among the many arguments raised in Dobbs in an attempt to overturn Roe, the State of Mississippi argued that due to “the march of progress” in women’s role in society, abortion rights are no longer necessary for women to participate equally in economic life. It has also been argued that there is no empirical support to the relationship between abortion rights and women’s economic success in society. …

James And Peirce On The Importance Of Individuals: The Differences That Make A Difference, Susan Haack

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Afterlife Of Confederate Monuments, Jessica Owley, Jess Phelps

Articles

As communities increasingly remove Confederate monuments from public spaces, they must decide what to do with these troubled statues. Given the recent wave of monument removal, we consider how property law and other restrictions impact community decisions on the disposition of monuments removed from public spaces on two levels by location and future owner. In considering the fate of removed monuments, we profile potential destinations including museums, battlefields, cemeteries, and even storage. Alongside these examples, we discuss how laws constrain (or fail to constrain) the options for new owners and the restrictions on where monuments can be relocated. Even where …

How Private Enforcement Exacerbates Climate Change, Anna A. Mance

Cardozo Law Review

Private enforcement-the practice of allowing private actors to directly enforce statutes or regulations-has been a fixture of environmental law for the last fifty years. In the absence of comprehensive climate legislation, climate change has been brought under the fold of the environmental regime and its emphasis on private enforcement. Yet climate change presents a distinct global challenge from those harms that the 1970s environmental regime was designed to address. This Article investigates how private enforcement is limiting our ability to respond to the crisis of climate change. The central claim is that private enforcers are using the mantle of environmental …

Rural Bashing, Kaceylee Klein, Lisa R. Pruitt

University of Richmond Law Review

Anti-rural sentiment is expressed in the United States in three major threads. The first is a narrative about the political structure of our representative democracy—an assertion that rural people are over-represented thanks to the structural features of the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College. Because rural residents are less than a fifth of the U.S. population, complaints about this situation are often framed as “minority rule.”

The second thread is related to the first: rural people and their communities get more than their fair share from federal government coffers. The argument, often expressed in terms of “subsidies,” is that rural …

Foreword: Toward A New Compact With Rural America, Anthony F. Pipa

University of Richmond Law Review

The interpretation of United States laws and policies, and the extent to which they obstruct or support rural places and people to take advantage of opportunity, are at the nexus of our nation’s ability to reweave the social fabric and create a new compact between its rural areas and the rest of the country. It requires recognizing our interdependencies, our mutual interests, and our shared humanity. The Articles contained herein get us started—it is incumbent that we build on these contributions to take their ideas forward and provoke new and constructive policy debates.

Rural America As A Commons, Ann M. Eisenberg

University of Richmond Law Review

With many ready to dismiss non-urban life as a relic of history, rural America’s place in the future is in question. The rural role in the American past is understandably more apparent. As the story of urbanization goes in the United States and elsewhere, the majority of the population used to live in rural places, including small towns and sparsely populated counties. A substantial proportion of those people worked in agriculture, manufacturing, or extractive industries. But trends associated with modernity—mechanization, automation, globalization, and environmental conservation, for instance—have reduced the perceived need for a rural workforce. Roughly since the industrial revolution …

Enhancing Rural Representation Through Electoral System Diversity, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

Rural Virginians face disparities in outcomes regarding healthcare, access to important infrastructure, and other services. Some disparities may be related to rurality. The sparseness of population in rural areas may limit the sites where people may access services, triggering the need to travel significant distances to obtain goods and services in such areas. Limited access may lead to disparities even when the quality of goods and services in rural areas is high. The disparities affect all rural Virginians, but disproportionately affect rural Virginians of color. The causes of the disparities are complex and myriad, and may be based on race, …

Robert X House Collection, Dan Bonenberger, Brooke Boyst, Franklin Haywood, Carrie Malas, Jaclyn Panter, Ian Tomashik, Laura Waskiwicz, Taylor Williams, Austin Martin

Digital Heritage Preservation Collection

This collection examines the Robert X House at 18827 Keystone Street in Detroit, Michigan, a significant site in the history of the Nation of Islam and the broader narrative of Black empowerment and civil rights in mid-20th century America. Originally built in 1951 as a modest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) minimum ranch-style home, the property was purchased by Robert Davenport (later known as Robert X), an influential leader in the Nation of Islam. The house became a hub for religious instruction, community-building, and activism.

Robert X, a former boxer and musician, became a prominent figure in Detroit’s Nation of Islam …

U.S. Government Information Resources For Accountability On U.S. Assistance To Ukraine, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides detailed coverage of U.S. Government information resources documenting accountability for U.S. civilian and military assistance to Ukraine. Includes U.S. laws, agencies involved in U.S. arms export policy, Defense Department resources and data, Defense Dept. Inspector General reports, Government Accountability Office reports, congressional committee hearings, a letter from a congressional committee to the Secretaries of Defense and State and U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, congressional debate, and congressional recorded votes.