Digital Commons Network^™

Why Legal Attacks On Transgender People Should Concern All Of Us, Kyle C. Velte

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Queering Carceralism, James Gacek

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

This article endeavours to expand the horizons of queer carceral studies, recognizing it is an apt frame of reference for reconsidering empirical research and advocacy which welcomes queerness as a central and fundamental analytic lens to interrogate carceral capitalist logics. As I have argued elsewhere, we find ourselves in quite the carceral age. Despite the fact queer, trans, and gender nonconforming people continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, if not otherwise affected by the carceral system, queer studies has paid scant attention to the prison, while critical prison studies has only somewhat engaged with queerness. Indeed, the historical illegality, costs, and …

Fragmentation Of International Cybercrime Law, Mailyn Fidler

Utah Law Review

Cybercrime is global. But legal approaches to combating cybercrime have been fragmented. The first such multilateral legal mechanism, the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, was launched in 2001 and positioned by its primarily Western drafters as a global instrument. But it has struggled to achieve full international uptake. Instead, many states have used regional organizations to create their own legal mechanisms addressing cybercrime and cybersecurity threats. More recently, the UN Convention on Cybercrime has emerged as an alternative to this fragmented landscape. But the emergence and significance of this “convergent” option cannot be understood without the context of the deep fragmentation …

Sometimes Is Not Enough: A Legislative Solution To The Failures Of The Federal Government In Compensating Civilians Harmed By U.S. Military Action, Olivia Mcquarrie

Utah Law Review

The United States has a large military presence abroad. With that presence has come instances of human rights abuses. This Note highlights the issues of civilian deaths and poisoning at the hands of the U.S. military, focusing specifically on the U.S.’s Middle Eastern theater of operations. It advocates for a comprehensive statutory scheme that requires uniform compensation to civilians while also requiring public disclosures to ensure government accountability. Previous research has focused on the cause of the U.S. military’s human rights violations abroad and methods of addressing physical and environmental harms separately. This Note proposes an approach that encompasses both …

Addressing Housing Insecurity In Pacific Grove: Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Affordable Housing Resources, Melissa Gembe

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The City of Pacific Grove is a beautiful coastal place to live, yet it is difficult to find affordable housing. The housing division works together with other departments in the city and state to carry out its goal of ensuring that residents have access to affordable housing. In previous community housing needs surveys 60% of respondents reported an interest in building an Accessory Dwelling Unit. Similarly, 50% respondents showed an interest in landlord incentive workshops. The purpose of the evaluation was to assess the effectiveness of these two key resources. A study was conducted through in-depth interviews with specialists in …

Illinois’S Latent Disease Transformation: No More Harsh Rulings, Joseph R. Egan

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

Recent amendments to Illinois statutes related to latent diseases have been the topic of current litigation. Traditionally, Illinois has placed a time limit on filing latent disease suits; however, after several self-described “harsh rulings,” the legislature amended this time-barring statute. Additionally, unlike before, plaintiffs are now allowed to go directly after employers. Employers have raised several issues concerning the constitutionality of the amendments to these statutes.

This Comment argues that the recent amendments by the Illinois legislature are constitutional because they do not violate ‘special legislation’ and are not applied retroactively. Trial judges and the Illinois Attorney General have all …

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2025, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• Primary and Professional Identity
• Never Only Two Sides
• In Defense of Zion and Her People
• The Pursuit of Happiness

Teaching The Arc Of Electric Spark: Igniting Curiosity, Creativity, And Innovation Throughout The Law School Curriculum, Jason G. Dykstra

Northern Illinois University Law Review

A heighted velocity of change enveloped the legal profession over the last three decades. From big law to rural practitioners, the traditional law firm model of billing time by the hour proved ripe for disruption. Technological advances automated many once-billable activities; enhanced client sophistication and cost-consciousness restricted law firm revenue by imposing billing guidelines and alternative fee arrangements; clients increasingly retain legal work in-house; and global competition allowed legal services to be disaggregated and outsourced to the lowest cost provider. The net effect of this disruption is reflected in the revenue of the legal services sector, which adjusted for inflation, …

Public Opinion And Judicial Decision-Making: A Relationship Explored Through Interviews With Local, State And Federal Judges Within Mobile County, Alabama, Bella Gin

Honors Theses

Civilians and legal scholars alike often speculate how judges rule and what contributes to their decision-making. Acknowledging this conundrum and combining it with my own interests in the legal field, I attempt to explore how some judges located within Mobile County perceive public opinion and what factors direct their rulings over their respective case dockets. Through seven, semi-structured interviews, I ask each judge a series of questions regarding their backgrounds, decision-making methodologies, thoughts on public opinion relevancy, and application of their approaches to their judgeships. Analysis of the interviewees’ responses reveals data that suggests the judges have a somewhat ambivalent …

Food Inspections: Searching For Contamination (And Solutions) In A Haystack, Abigail Schneider, Benjamin Kelly, Michael S. Sinha

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Food recalls in the United States often reveal serious mismanagement and structural issues in both government and private industry, yet they have become unremarkable and even expected in our modern world. The procedure employed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to monitor food manufacturing is a valuable process which protects every person who lives in the United States. However, the effects of monitoring as a tool for oversight is limited if there is no efficient response when problems arise. FDA inspects pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food manufacturing facilities both domestically and abroad. When those inspections reveal the presence of …

Adopting An International Human Rights Approach In The U.S. To Combat Sizeism And Related Racism And Sexism In Healthcare, Public Health Efforts, And Food Advertising Policy, Kristina Bergman, Denisse Cordova Montes

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Evidence of size stigma in U.S. food and health industries is overwhelming. Many policies affecting consumer and patient health and care look to patient Body Mass Index (BMI), a ratio of patient weight to height that anthropologists describe has roots in eugenics, scientific racism, and sexism, and that even the American Medical Association describes as being used for racist exclusion and not encompassing of sex-based differences. Many healthcare policies, public health messages, and food advertising strategies boast goals of reducing BMI in hopes of improving health status, but, in addition to having abhorrent origins, BMI has been shown to be …

A Critical Look At A New Iowa Law Allowing Minors To Serve Alcohol, Tom Hubbard

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In the never-ending tug-of-war of today’s charged political climate, the child labor discussion has been caught right in the crosshairs. While the Biden administration promised to crack down on child labor law violations (with varying degrees of success), more states continue making it easier for children to work. Because of this, the opportunity to exploit a progressively younger workforce will continue to grow. Amidst this backdrop, this article focuses particularly on a new Iowa law that expands child labor across the state. While there are many states seeking to roll back child labor law protections, Iowa’s new law seems to …

Food For Thought: Funding The National School Lunch Program While Simultaneously Providing Tax Incentives To Farmers, Carter Wade

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This note will focus primarily on the National School Lunch Program (“NSLP”) and propose a solution aimed at reducing the costs of implementing it. It begins with a historical background into how the NSLP came to be and the various adaptations and programs that came out of it. This note then covers current programs and organizations that have arisen to support nutritional education and provide healthy meals to school children. It then compares several contribution-based tax incentive programs, which serve as inspiration for the final proposed tax incentive program for farmers in the closing section. Through the years, rising costs …

Negotiating Food Security, Maria Cudowska

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In the United States and worldwide, nutrition and food emerge as both high-profile public policy targets and as fundamental aspects of the right to self-determination. This Article examines how national security impacts food security in the United States. It explores conflicts and synergies between municipal, state, and federal law developments related to the right to food and investigates recent developments in how those commitments have been negotiated. The challenge and nebulous justiciability of the right to food can be in part attributed to existing global and national systems, which include supply chains, welfare programs, and foreign investment in the U.S. …

Legal Protection Efforts For Msme Entrepreneurs Based On Law No. 11 Of 2020 On Job Creation Law, Duhita Driyah Suprapti, Dina Ristanti, Finna Maessy Pangestika, Choirul Fuad, Salman Alfarisi

Indonesia Law Review

Indonesia is the fourth-highest country with a level of population density that will undoubtedly cause many problems, one of which is the problem related to unemployment that is increasingly increasing. Therefore, the Government then took the initiative to issue a law that can pioneer job creation, ease of effort, investment, and empowerment of small micro-businesses. Focus on the actions of youth in making investments then whether this Job Creation Law also provides adequate protection for entrepreneurs, especially MSME entrepreneurs. MSME entrepreneurs need legal protection because most do not understand the Law in Indonesia and cannot afford to hire legal counsel …

Originalism’S Precedent Problem, James Bernstein

Northern Illinois University Law Review

This paper explores the tension between originalism and stare decisis in judicial decision-making. Originalism, which seeks to interpret the Constitution as understood at the time of its ratification, has gained bipartisan acceptance among judges. However, this interpretive approach faces challenges regarding precedent: How should originalist judges handle past decisions that deviate from the original public meaning of the Constitution? The paper examines this issue, particularly in light of originalists’ varied stances on the role of precedent.

Some originalists, like Antonin Scalia and Amy Coney Barrett, acknowledge the need for stare decisis to maintain legal stability, albeit with allowances for overturning …

Medical Device Sterilization As A Public Health Paradox, Paradise, Jordan

Santa Clara Law Review

Medical device sterilization processes are a public health paradox. Sterility is necessary to assure product safety, yet emissions from the most common form of industrial sterilization, ethylene oxide (EtO), cause cancer. The connection between ethylene oxide and health risks has existed for decades, though recent litigation, state legislation, and advocacy efforts have illuminated the risks. This Article explores the large-scale EtO emissions in Willowbrook, Illinois caused by a facility run by Sterigenics, a corporate entity with facilities across the United States. The Sterigenics case study will be utilized to examine the scope of adverse health and environmental effects; the local, …

Constraining The Family Regulation System: The Contribution Of The Restatement Of The Law, Children And The Law, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Advocates, policymakers, and scholars have argued for years that the family regulation system (also known as the child welfare system) fails families. Critics rightly note that the system does far too little to support families proactively and does not address the poverty and structural racism underlying many allegations of child abuse and neglect. The overrepresentation of Black, Native American, and Native Alaskan children in foster care is a stark and disturbing manifestation of these failings.

In response to these concerns, there is an active debate about abolishing or radically reforming the family regulation system to direct government funding to proactive …

Disagreeing With Yourself: Horizontal Stare Decisis In State Intermediate Appellate Courts, Steve Leben

Faculty Works

Some statewide intermediate appellate courts, like those in Kansas, do not follow horizontal stare decisis one panel of the court can disagree with, but not overrule, another. This article reviews how precedential disagreements arise in the Kansas Court of Appeals, what the costs and benefits are of not following horizontal stare decisis, and how attorneys might change their advocacy approach in a state like Kansas. The article concludes that the benefits of the Kansas practice achieving better development of the law and justice in individual cases outweighs the harm of less predictability in precedent

Interpretive Rules Are The New Regulations: Agency Guidance After Loper Bright, Gwendolyn Savitz

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

The Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright to end formal deference under Chevron to administrative agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutes forces agencies into an unprecedented situation. Courts had deferred to agencies’ interpretations of binding rules since before the Administrative Procedure Act was passed. Now, for the first time, agencies are functionally unable to create new regulations with any confidence they will be upheld. This understanding is reinforced by the Court’s pivot to Skidmore deference. The Skidmore case, and Skidmore deference, only arose because the agency at issue in Skidmore had not been given the authority to create binding regulations by …

The Loper Bright Two-Step: A Reply And Comment To Professor Savitz, Darren Bush

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

No abstract provided.

Did The Youth Hiring Act Of 2023 Impact Wages In Arkansas?, Henley S. Queen

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Some believe Arkansas Act 195 may create more problems than it looks to solve; the paper sets out to find if Arkansas is experiencing any benefits from the passing of the law. This paper is an economic analysis of Arkansas Act 195 of 2023 (The Youth Hiring Act of 2023), which removed a work permit requirement for fourteen and fifteen year olds. The paper also observes data from Iowa since the state passed a similar policy. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data on waiters, fast food workers, cashiers, and bartenders from 2017 to 2023 in Iowa and Arkansas, it performs …

The Imposition Of Constitutional Rights, Alvin Padilla-Babilonia

Michigan Law Review

One of the central principles of constitutionalism is that citizenship stands for equal rights under the law. According to this ideal, a U.S. citizen living in Puerto Rico or Guam should have the same constitutional rights as a citizen living on the mainland. However, throughout U.S. history, constitutional rights have been neither uniform nor centralized. While constitutional rights held importance, they coexisted with ideals of democratic self-governance and legal pluralism. Today, Supreme Court justices and legal scholars argue that all constitutional rights should apply in the territories. This view upholds citizenship, equal rights, and the rule of law. But the …

Editorial Forward

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Influence Of The Solicitors General On The Supreme Court: 2011-2023, Maxwell Tobin

Celebrating Scholarship and Creativity Day (2018-)

This project looks at the success rate of the OSG and how the data indicates that the government-more specifically between the executive and judicial- is not getting along. In doing so, this scholarship uses 337 Supreme Court cases where the OSG filed on these cases as an amicus brief. This project aims to fill the research gap since 2014. I argue the salience of this research is in 2020-2022 where SCOTUS has 3 new conservative members and the President during this time was leaning more progressive (even more than Obama). All of this works to explain the low success rate …

Under The Eyes Of The Oppressors: Exploring The Spatial Oppression Of African Nova Scotians, Lorenze L. Cromwell

Dalhousie Law Journal

Spatialization is a theoretical understanding of how space is used to enforce and replicate hierarchical power structures. Nova Scotia has used spatialized processes, such as enslavement, segregation, and panoptical power, to subjugate, oppress, and control African Nova Scotians for over 400 years. These practices of spatialization have been established and perpetuated by the law and legal mechanisms, creating a complex spatialized system of oppression against African Nova Scotians. This article defines spatialization, explores the historical and contemporary uses of spatialization, and analyzes the actuarial and symbolic effects created by spatialization. The author concludes by proposing remedial and reparative action that …

Development And Practice Of Tribal Community Planning: Ensuring Indigeneity In The Planning Process, Jared E. Munster, Ph.D.

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

الحماية الجنائية للبيانات الجينومية (دراسة تحليلية مقارنة), ميثاء حارب العميمي

Theses

Criminal Protection of Genomic Data

This research examines the criminal protection of genomic data through a comparative study between the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America, with the aim of analyzing how each legal system addresses these sensitive data and the associated risks، Genomic data, which relates to individuals' genetic information, is crucial in various fields such as medicine, insurance, and employment, making its protection essential to ensure individuals' privacy and to safeguard them from genetic discrimination or unlawful exploitation.

The UAE legislature is showing an increasing interest in regulating aspects related to genetic data and genomics, …

An Unfair Chance For The Formerly Incarcerated: Yim V. City Of Seattle And The Commercial Speech Doctrine, Emilee Kaminski

Cardozo Law Review

Formerly incarcerated persons face disproportionately challenging barriers to housing upon reentry; criminal records are used as a basis to deny otherwise suitable prospective tenants. In 2017, the City of Seattle passed the "Fair Chance Housing Ordinance," prohibiting landlords from relying on criminal history when evaluating prospective tenants. In 2023, the Ninth Circuit struck this provision down on the grounds that this complete ban violated Seattle landlords' constitutionally protected free speech rights. The circuit court held that the ordinance implicated commercial speech and failed to pass intermediate scrutiny review under the four-part test outlined in Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. …

Airlines, Sick Time, & Interstate Commerce: The Dormant Commerce Clause And Its Impact On State And Municipal Paid Sick Leave Laws, Zachary Mcgarry

Cardozo Law Review

The United Statesis the only industrialized nation lacking a universal paid sick leave law that guarantees employees the right to time off from work to attend to their own or their family's medical needs. Nonetheless, many states and municipalities have created their own paid sickleave laws to fillin the gap left open by the federal government. Following the passage of three state referendums on paid sick leave laws in the 2024 general election, there are now eighteen states, plus the District of Columbia, which mandate that employers provide employees with paid sick leave. Although there continues to be a growing …