Digital Commons Network^™

Eliminating Prior Pay: Reframing The Equal Pay Act's "Factor Other Than Sex" In Federal Employment, Jack Weilmuenster

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The federal government is the largest employer in the United States, with over 1.5 million General Schedule (“GS”) employees working across various agencies. Under the federal pay system, salaries are determined by the GS, a structured scale that assigns employees to grades and steps based on qualifications and experience. However, agencies may rely on prior salary when setting pay, a practice that risks perpetuating gender-based wage disparities. Given the federal government’s influence on broader employment practices, whether prior pay qualifies as a “factor other than sex” under the Equal Pay Act (“EPA”) is a question with far-reaching implications.

Ice Non-Accountability In The Second Trump Administration, Sabrina Balgamwalla

Saint Louis University Law Journal

By the beginning of the second Trump administration, the tone of Know Your Rights presentations for community members had noticeably shifted. Advocates regularly tell people that they don’t have to open the door to their home to an officer without a judicial warrant and that if they are stopped by law enforcement, they have the right to ask who is conducting the stop and why. But audience members have questions informed by news headlines about various Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) practices: How can you tell definitively if a law enforcement officer is an ICE agent when they aren’t wearing …

Defending Bad Men: Public Perceptions Of Female Advocates In A Post-#Metoo Society, Grace Wallis

Saint Louis University Law Journal

As the dust settled on the heavily publicized, 2022 defamation trial of actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, an unlikely star stepped into the limelight: Johnny Depp’s attorney, Camille Vasquez. Over the span of the seven-week trial, Vasquez gained social media notoriety due to her frequent objections and stern trial demeanor. Vasquez’s cross-examination of Heard on May 16 and 17 of 2022 called into question Heard’s credibility and increased Vasquez’s online celebrity by a significant margin. In fact, according to Google search trends, public interest in the search terms “Camille Vasquez” reached peak popularity on May 18, 2022. Vasquez’s instant …

Filling The Network Gap In Research Ethics: Analyzing Ethical Issues At Scale In Big Team Science, Susan Wolf, Gillian H. Roehrig, Timothy L. Pruett, Korkut Uygun, Claire Colby Mcvan, Evelyn Brister, Shawneequa L. Callier, Alexander M. Capron, James F. Childress, Rosario Isasi, Andrew D. Maynard, Kenneth A. Oye, Paul B. Thompson, Terrance R. Tiersch

Articles

Scientific research increasingly involves large, multidisciplinary teams networked across multiple institutions to develop new technologies. Despite the rise of complex research networks and big team science, there has been too little analysis to date of the ethical challenges facing these networks. The extensive literature on the ethical issues confronting individual researchers and small teams (the microlevel) and on the larger societal challenges flowing from research and new technology (the macrolevel) leaves a troubling gap in between, at the mesolevel of the research network involved in big team science. Yet the ability of complex networks to conduct research ethically—which is essential …

Advancing Neurotech Justice In Youth Digital Mental Health: Insights From An Interdisciplinary And Cross-Generational Workshop, Francis X. Shen, Craig W. Mcfarland, Donnella S. Comeau, Leo Anthony Celi, Benjamin C. Silverman, Sepideh Abdi, Mahsa Alborzi Avanaki

Articles

Researchers and clinicians are increasingly looking to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and digital tools to improve psychiatric care. Of particular promise is addressing the youth mental health crisis. Yet, the introduction of AI-enabled digital technologies for psychiatric treatment of young adults raises a host of ethical, legal, and societal issues (ELSI). To provide guidance in addressing these issues, we convened a two-day meeting at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University: Advancing Neurotech Justice in Mental Health: Insights from an Interdisciplinary and Cross-Generational Workshop. The meeting brought together a diverse cohort of 17 experts and 5 students …

A New Framework For Drug Pricing Law And Policy, Rachel E. Sachs

Indiana Law Journal

Scholars and policymakers have expressed concern about the impact of high prescription drug costs on patients and healthcare budgets. This Article presents a new theoretical framework for evaluating both the problem to be addressed by drug pricing reforms as well as the efficacy of potential solutions. In seeking to solve “the drug pricing problem,” our legal system has given primacy to competition rather than regulation to drive down drug prices. This Article disaggregates the broader concept of drug competition into four steps, each of which must be addressed and each of which elevates different institutional actors to key roles. In …

When Death Is Not Binary, Teneille R. Brown

Indiana Law Journal

There are few dichotomies more recognized than the one between life and death. Given the many legal rights that pivot on this distinction, one would think that the law has exceptionally clear standards for diagnosing death. It may surprise you then to learn that the line between legal life and death is no longer so obvious. That is, in a growing number of cases, there is now disagreement about whether someone is legally dead or alive. This is due to two things: the development of medical devices that can breathe for patients with severe brain injuries, and neuroimaging technology that …

The Fiduciary Game, Lauren R. Roth

Indiana Law Journal

Fiduciary duties are supposed to bridge the gap between public and private law. Private actors who engage in “public or quasi-public” functions (e.g., corporate directors and pension administrators) are often subject to fiduciary constraints to protect vulnerable parties who lack power in relationships with these actors. Recently, scholars have argued that both courts and legislatures have inappropriately expanded the use of fiduciary duties to purely private relationships. But what if the problem is not the expansion of fiduciary duties to private relationships, but the increasing delegation of public powers to private actors whose behavior cannot be adequately constrained by fiduciary …

Table Of Contents, Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Ai Deference, Kevin Frazier

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Existing AI tools allow administrative agencies to chart a more aggressive regulatory path. AI can identify which statutes and regulations, if reinterpreted, would further the agency's agenda. AI can also draft new regulations and forecast their likely effects.

No laws explicitly ban agencies from using AI. In fact, successive presidential administrations have encouraged agencies to increase their use of AI. Cities and states have already been integrating AI into ever more substantive governance tasks. Governments around the world are likewise finding novel ways to incorporate AI into drafting, enforcing, and adjudicating laws. In short, it is a matter of when, …

Prison Labor Exploitation, As Easy As “Pie”: Private Industry Exploitation Under Pie Certified Prison Work Programs, Jack Burum

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Schools: Immigration & Customs Enforcement’S Unconstitutional And Inhumane Hunting Ground, Ma Camille Briones

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can We Close The Rhode Island Women’S Prison?, Nick Horton

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Plea Bargaining In The United States Military, Frank Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

This article offers a primer on plea bargaining in the U.S. military justice system. American military justice is like criminal justice in the rest of the country in that the lion’s share of cases are plea bargained. But there are key differences between military and civilian plea bargaining. First, a central factor of negotiations in military plea bargaining is whether the accused will keep his or her job. Second, the military has a wider range of disposition options than traditional penal sanctions, including nonjudicial punishment and administrative sanctions. Finally, the military seemingly permits more discretion and offers less binding guidance …

The Birth Of Modern International Criminal Law: The International Military Tribunal At Nuremberg, Frank Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT), the most famous and arguably most important international criminal trial in human history, almost did not occur. In fact, it might even be an accident of history that the most senior perpetrators of the Nazi regime’s atrocities eventually faced the courtroom instead of summary execution. That their fate was decided by rights over might has shaped the world; helped birth the fields of international criminal law and international human rights law; and become the starting point for conversations about international law, transitional justice, genocide, and human rights.

Health Care Fraud And The End Of Chevron, Joan H. Krause

Faculty Publications

What do the Environmental Protection Agency’s “plantwide” definition of a “stationary” pollution source,” a National Marine Fisheries Service determination of who pays for fishing boat observers, and a Department of Health and Human Services rule governing the marketing of prescription drugs have in common? In short, a government agency’s interpretation of a federal statute. All three cases go to the heart of the administrative state: the ability of an agency, staffed by experts in the field, to interpret static statutory language to offer practical guidance to an ever-evolving industry.

The same is true of health care fraud, although it is …

The Disability History Of Brown V. Board Of Education, Britney R. Wilson

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In 1952, two years before the Supreme Court of the United States decided Brown v. Board of Education, Black deaf students in Washington, D.C., who had been prohibited from attending the local school for white deaf students and forced to go to school in Maryland, won the right to be educated in their hometowns in Miller v. Board of Education of District of Columbia. Brown is heralded as one of the most important racial justice cases of all time. It overturned Plessy v. Ferguson’s longstanding “separate but equal” mandate and ruled that the segregation of students based …

Bad Parenting On Trial: How Gender, Race, And Class Shape Parental Responsibility Prosecutions And Laws For School Shootings, Makayla R. Foust

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In 2021, James and Jennifer Crumbley became the first parents in the United States to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with their son’s school shooting that killed four people and injured multiple others. As school shootings continue to devastate communities across the country, prosecutors are increasingly holding parents criminally liable for their children’s actions. This development raises fundamental questions about justice, accountability, and the limits of criminal liability. While these laws aim to curb gun violence by enforcing parental accountability, they will disproportionately affect marginalized communities, particularly along gender, racial, and socioeconomic lines. As legal precedent expands, …

Dignity By Design: A Human-Centered Framework For Ethical Ai, Armin Tadayon

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 has triggered a global arms race–both among private technology companies and between nation states–for dominance in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). If this nascent technology, which is permeating every aspect of our lives as more companies across multiple sectors deploy it for a variety of functions, malfunctions or behaves in unanticipated ways, it can severely affect individuals in their day-to-day lives with broader consequences for society at large. As such, as AI permeates every aspect of our lives, and in some instances, begins to replace humans and human decision-making, it is imperative …

Chevron Deference, Prospective Gay Parents, And The Need For A Centralized Child Welfare System, Mantas Grigorovicius

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

For over four decades, Chevron deference allowed federal agencies to exercise considerable discretion in interpreting laws, enabling them to implement broad regulatory agendas. This deference was pivotal for administrative agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in shaping public policy. However, in 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn this precedent, shifting power from agencies to courts and potentially reshaping the regulatory landscape. This Article examines the implications of this change within the context of child welfare, focusing on HHS’s role in foster care. As states often rely on taxpayer-funded private child-placing agencies to …

Imprisoned Without A Verdict: The Constitutional Crisis Of Pre-Trial Solitary Confinement, Symone R. Gibbs

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Kalief Browder’s name endures as a chilling reminder of the human cost of pre-trial solitary confinement. His story reveals the constitutional paradox and moral failure at the heart of this practice: Individuals who remain legally innocent are subjected to one of the harshest punishments the state can impose. This practice strips people of their liberty twice over, first through incarceration itself, and again through prolonged isolation that inflicts devastating psychological harm. Despite its severity, the use of solitary confinement against pre-trial detainees remains largely overlooked in legal scholarship and reform, even as it undermines the presumption of innocence, exacerbates systemic …

Bibliography On Indigenous Rights In Canada, 1995-2025, Leslie Haddock, Kent Mcneil

All Papers

No abstract provided.

Toys As Evidence, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This Essay asks and answers a single question, which was posed during a recent symposium at the National Museum of Toys & Miniatures. Could the study of revealed preferences, which is the idea that observed behaviors are the best indicator of one’s beliefs, improve our collective understanding about what constitutes unlawful discrimination in certain U.S. markets? A possible answer, which is informed by the Brown v. Board of Education decision, is the study of revealed preferences may improve our collective understanding for three reasons.

One reason is the study of revealed preferences provides a window into how some producers and …

Frederick Douglass, D.C. Recorder Of Deeds, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Regulating Ai Beyond Product Liability, Shruti Trikanad

Michigan Technology Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used by governments across the world to enforce regulatory mandates, adjudicate benefits and privileges, predict and analyze risks, and much more. Although this has significant potential to increase efficiency and responsiveness, it also comes with several risks of transparency, government accountability, and the amplification of discrimination and bias. It is crucial we oversee and regulate these AI systems effectively. This essay argues against the models that current regulatory frameworks are adopting to govern AI use: those resembling product liability.

Through the lens of the European Union's AI Act and Liability Directive, it highlights the unsuitability …

Health, Patents, And Path Dependence: India's Pharmaceutical Crossroads, Jacie Bissell

Michigan Technology Law Review

This paper examines how India’s historical commitment to affordable medicine and public health continues to shape its pharmaceutical patent regime, even as the country aspires to become an innovation-driven economy. Through the lens of path dependence, the paper explores how India’s legal and institutional frameworks have created structural constraints on policy reform. Focusing on key moments such as the Patents Act of 1970, the landmark Novartis decision, and India’s evolving stance on the TRIPS waiver during the COVID-19 pandemic, the paper analyzes the tensions between fostering pharmaceutical innovation and maintaining access to affordable medicines. While recent procedural reforms and judicial …

Conversational Ai And Human-Centered First Amendment, Inyoung Cheong

Michigan Technology Law Review

Human-centered artificial intelligence (AI) is premised on the idea that humans must remain the ultimate locus of agency in technological systems. First Amendment jurisprudence has displaced this commitment. By extending speech protection to algorithmic architectures, the judiciary has forged a doctrinal shield that insulates corporate actors from the consequences of their products. Conversational AI deepens this crisis through intimate incursions into the epistemic and emotional registers of the self. Emerging approaches that anchor First Amendment coverage to the controllability or traceability of AI outputs offer no stable solution. Policy-level design choices such as safety guardrails and alignment processes can readily …

The Dog Days Are (Almost) Over: Pari-Mutuel Betting Laws And State Subsidies’ Roles In Upholding The United States’ Dog Racing Industry, Mary Grace K. Mcnamara

Student Works

No abstract provided.

How Robotics Can Reduce Occupational Injuries In Hospitals: Is Hipaa A Barrier?, Uwa Maher

Student Works

No abstract provided.

The Justice For Victims Of War Crimes Act: A Dangerous Expansion Of Universal Jurisdiction To Non-International Armed Conflicts, Yuyan (Nicole) Zhang

Michigan Journal of International Law

Universal jurisdiction over war crimes committed in noninternational armed conflict (“NIACs”) has yet to develop a firm legal foundation under international law. The Justice for the Victims of War Crimes Act of 2023, however, amended the War Crimes Statute (18 U.S.C. § 2441) and extended universal jurisdiction to NIACs. This overreach risks infringing on the sovereignty of NIAC-affected states and destabilizing their ongoing peace processes. Many such states prioritize reconciliation through mechanisms like truth commissions over retributive justice through criminal trials. The prosecution of their nationals under U.S. law could undermine their sovereign decisions and unravel delicate efforts toward peace. …