Digital Commons Network^™

After Smith Falls: Corporate Free Exercise Lochnerism, Daniel J.H. Greenwood, Nicholas E. Tramposch

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

While the Supreme Court has extended many constitutional privileges to business corporations, it has not held that they have a full constitutionally protected right to practice religion comparable to that of citizens. Employment Division v. Smith long served as a barrier to Free Exercise claims for special exceptions to neutral and generally applicable laws. But as the Court moves away from Smith, the issue of corporate Free Exercise rights must be confronted. The freedom of religion is a critically important individual right in a free country. But individual rights often conflict with collective religious practice; religious freedom is the opposite …

Police Mistakes Of Law, Heien V. North Carolina And Significant Fourth Amendment Interpretive Cases: An Empirical Examination Of Officer Perception, Knowledge And Performance, Christopher D. Totten, Gang Lee, Michael De Leo

Missouri Law Review

This empirical study examines legal aspects of policing in relation to the landmark Fourth Amendment United States Supreme Court case of Heien v. North Carolina. In Heien, the Court found that objectively reasonable mistakes of law by police can support traffic stops. By doing so, Heien extends the permissible margin of error for these stops by law enforcement officers. Due to the potential far-reaching implications of Heien for law enforcement conduct and Fourth Amendment privacy protections, this study aims to empirically examine officer perception and knowledge regarding Heien, including officers’ decision-making behavior with respect to Heien and its core concept …

Mass Accommodations: Signposts To A Hidden Jurisprudence, Shirley Lin

Emory Law Journal

In the early years of COVID-19, our willingness to swiftly modify workplaces, classrooms, and other commons generated access at unprecedented scale. These de facto accommodations belied conventional thought about whether institutions can dismantle environments, structures, and practices known to exclude or harm. Decision-makers nationwide improvised under traditional disability law—even if unevenly—generating mass accommodations that represented tens of millions of people problem-solving, experiencing structural access and safety, and intensively collaborating on organizational design over a concerted period. This Article’s argument is two-fold. First, by applying an experiential analysis, legal and non-legal audiences may understand them as disability-informed phenomena that spanned diverse …

Awards And Prizes, University Of Notre Dame

Commencement Programs

The University's listing of Awards and Prizes for 2024, including the full descriptions of each award, could not be printed and included in the Commencement Program for 2024. [It was later included in the Official Program posted by the University Archives.]

Thirty-Five Years Of Inaction: The Unfulfilled Promise Of The Medicaid Equal Access Provision, Delaram Takyar

Minnesota Law Review Headnotes, Vols. 107 onward (2022-present)

No abstract provided.

Hablando Sobre Inmigración: How Members Of The House Of Representatives In 118th Congress Frame The Issue Of Immigration, Guadalupe Castañeda Martinez

History and Political Science | Senior Theses

Historically, Immigration has played a critical role in forming the nation’s identity, economic prosperity, and promoting cultural diversity. Considering that the issue of Immigration has been in the news and is considered by many to be important and in need of policy solutions, little progress has been made on passing comprehensive immigration reform since the 113 th Congress in 2013. How members of Congress talk about Immigration is important because framing can influence public opinion, shaping perceptions of the issue and affecting policy decisions. Members may use their platform to communicate how they think about policy issues. Research has been …

Extending The Prediction Of Fear Of Crime, Doreen Boateng

Theses

This study aims to expand what we know about fear of crime to reveal the different levels of fear among genders. Although there exists extensive research on the subject matter, the current work examines how different each gender perceives crime given the predictors as vulnerability, disorder and social integration. This study therefore addresses these gaps by assessing gender differences in crime fear and how these models separately influence each gender. To do that, crosstabulations and logistic regression analysis was used in analyzing the relationship between gender, perceptions of neighborhood disorder (street graffiti/litter), social integration (family ties), to determine the relationship …

Abolition Of What?, Christopher Lewis, Adaner Usmani

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

This Article defends a structural theory of the brutality of the carceral state. We argue that American penal systems are destined to be inhumane, barring sweeping changes to the social and economic order of the United States; and that prison and police abolition are neither sufficient nor necessary to bring these kinds of changes about.

This theory stands on two premises. First, we defend The Principle of Less Eligibility, which holds that it is politically infeasible for capitalist democracies to permit the incentives to defy the law to exceed those to obey it. As we show, the Principle of Less …

Beyond Bars: Exploring Alternative Possibilities To Address Sexual And Gender Based Violence, Rachel Ensign Habliston

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Many people agree that the United States carceral system is flawed. However, it can be difficult to discuss alternative ways to address violence that do not involve incarceration. Aside from the carceral system, there are other pathways to accountability and healing. Exploring these pathways for perpetrators of heinous crimes, such as sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), is an overwhelming and under-reviewed endeavor. This Comment seeks to broaden perspectives about how society can hold people accountable for committing acts of SGBV by surveying progressive prosecution, restorative justice, and transformative justice as potential alternatives to the current carceral system. Part I provides …

Categorical Declinations & Democracy, Brenner M. Fissell

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The most contentious action taken by reform prosecutors has been the issuance of categorical declination policies. Opponents decry this as bureaucratic nullification of democratically enacted offenses, while the prosecutors themselves counter that they are responding to the will of their local electorate. Democracy claims, it appears, have taken center stage in this debate, and they are deployed by both sides. How should we think about democracy and categorical declinations? The most comprehensive scholarly work on this subject is a 2021 article by Professor Kerrel Murray. In this essay, I hope to continue the work begun by Murray, offering additional insights …

Health Consequences Of Racial Disparity In Access To Abortion: A Systematic Review, Lacy M. Frye, Calvin Odhiambo

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

Prior to the 2022 Dobbs decision, Black women already experienced negative maternal health outcomes at an alarmingly disparate rate in comparison to White women. Given that the Dobbs decision emboldens state power to enforce abortion restrictions or protections, there has been significant strides made in both directions. Nonetheless, within states where reproductive rights have been significantly eroded, the heightened abortion restrictions may compound the limited access that Black women previously had before Dobbs. This, in turn will exacerbate the already disparate negative maternal outcomes that Black women experience. However, research on the relationship between the lack of access to abortion …

Upstream Lawyering: A Framework For Poverty Law, Kate Mitchell

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article introduces an upstream lawyering framework within the context of the history of poverty law and impact lawyering. While there have been several theories promoting systems change work, the upstream framework, stemming from public health theories and championed by medical-legal partnerships, offers a model for promoting and informing systemic policy. Using the public health concept of upstreaming, this Article explores lawyering practices that can be utilized to address the root causes of social and legal drivers of health inequity, poverty, and oppression. Part I of this Article provides a refreshed overview of the history of poverty law and civil …

The Myth Of The Guilty Suspect: Confession, Narrative, And Political Assent, Susan L. Tanner

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Emerging Strategies And Considerations To Address Racial Housing Disparities, Domenica Cevallos

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Police Vigilantism, Nadia Banteka

Scholarly Publications

This Article uncovers a critical yet unexplored dimension of policing: the strategic oscillation of police officers between their roles as state actors and private individuals, and its significant implications for police accountability frameworks. As officers toggle between these two roles to their legal advantage, they exploit a deep, systemic flaw in the structural design of policing. Tracing the trajectory of policing from its vigilante origins to its institutionalized form today, this Article argues that contemporary policing merges state-sanctioned power with vestiges of vigilantism to blur the public-private divide. This duality enables a form of state-sanctioned vigilantism through which officers exploit …

Resilience Amidst Barriers: Understanding The Plight Of Undocumented Filipino Tnts In The Broken Us Immigration System, Eileen Linchangco

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the plight of undocumented Filipino immigrants, referred to as “TNT” or “tago nang tago” (hiding and hiding), within the context of an increasingly restrictive US immigration system. I argue that two key factors have driven more Filipinos to pursue unauthorized entry into the US since the 1980s despite heightened risks. First, US immigration policy changes enacted in the 1980s and 1990s implemented stricter numerical caps that severely limited available visas for Filipino immigrants to use legal immigration pathways into the United States. Second, enduring sociocultural constructs propagate the notion that Filipinos represent immigrant desirability for US citizenship. …

Resilience Amidst Barriers: Understanding The Plight Of Undocumented Filipino Tnts Navigating Restrictive Us Immigration Laws From 1986 To The Present, Eileen Linchangco

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the plight of undocumented Filipino immigrants, referred to as “TNT” or “tago nang tago” (hiding and hiding), within the context of an increasingly restrictive US immigration system. I argue that two key factors have driven more Filipinos to pursue unauthorized entry into the US since the 1980s despite heightened risks. First, US immigration policy changes enacted in the 1980s and 1990s implemented stricter numerical caps that severely limited available visas for Filipino immigrants to use legal immigration pathways into the United States. Second, enduring sociocultural constructs propagate the notion that Filipinos represent immigrant desirability for US citizenship. …

The Innocence Standard: Supreme Court Nominees And Sexual Misconduct, Lisa Avalos

Journal Articles

Should the United States Senate allow judicial nominees who have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct to be seated on the Supreme Court? How should we handle these allegations when they arise during the vetting process? Despite the importance of these questions, lawmakers have failed to address them.

The contentious Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991 featured testimony from Professor Anita Hill and did much to raise Americans' awareness about the prevalence of sexual misconduct in the workplace. Although ProfessorHill subsequently calledfor the Senate to implement aprocess for addressing future sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominees, her calls have gone …

From The Fox To Onlyfans: The Changing Landscape Of Property Law, Vicenc Feliu

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Instagram To Infowar: The Weaponization Of Social Media And Its Consequences, Grayson Shade Walker

Emory International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Power Dynamics And Oppression: Analyzing Structural Control In Suzanne Collins’S The Hunger Games, Hannah Micciolo

Capstone Showcase

The Hunger Games is a popular novel universe that describes a totalitarian dictatorship through the lens of the oppressed. Through the book, the viewer is given insight into how Panem operates the way it does even though the majority of its citizens are oppressed by the minority in a much more obvious manner. However, within modern society, the tactics used by the oppressors are much more ambiguous and distorted. This essay will explore the structures put in place by the Capitol in tandem with modern examples to mirror each other and increase awareness of the the tactics governments use both …

The Fairness Model Of Legal Institutions, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Books and Chapters

If any group is to endure over time, individual frustrations, while inevitable, must be usually experienced as acceptable, or at least tolerable. Failing that, little would prevent the losers in these conflicts from leaving or revolting, which would be cumulatively debilitating to the group. As opposed to holding law’s job to impose order and police infringers, the second approach suggests that finding the balance between group and individual desires is the ‘major difficulty of all law—the problem of really getting a fresh start in relations between litigants after disposition of a trouble-case. This is the problem not only of keeping …

A Critical Race Theory Analysis Of Critical Race Theory Bans, Caroline Mala Corbin

Articles

A majority of state legislatures have introduced bills prohibiting public schools from teaching certain "divisive concepts" attributed to critical race theory (CRT), with at least fifteen states successfully enacting them. This Article applies a critical race theory analysis to these critical race theory bans, finding that the bans embody white privilege and especially its companion, white fragility.

After providing a primer on critical race theory, Part I explains how the state bans profoundly misunderstand critical race theory, which focuses on how systems and institutions reproduce racial inequality. These bans, however, assume that racism is individual, intentional, and rare, and that …

Administering A Democratic Industrial Policy, Joel Michaels, Amy Kapczynski

Center for Law and the Economy

In Washington today, we are witnessing what many call the “return of industrial policy.” Some argue that a new political economic paradigm is emerging, departing from the neoliberal order of the last several decades. High-stakes questions about how to administer industrial policy have followed, for good reason: industrial policy necessarily involves a great deal of administrative discretion. Yet we have no adequate literature discussing how that discretion should be deployed. Administrative law scholarship has largely ignored the distinctive tools of industrial policy, such as grantmaking, lending, government contracts and ownership stakes. These tools require flexibility and discretion, and often cannot …

The Violence Of Numbers: A Critical Appraisal Of The Justice Capabilities Framework, Abhineet Maurya

Socio-Legal Review

Systems of indicators and international rankings have today become a new mode of evaluating social, political, and economic life. In the context of measuring the rule of law and justice delivery systems at a local as well as a global level, such indicators enable empirically grounded solutions to justice reform issues. However, scholars like Siddharth Peter de Souza argue that the existing discourse concerning the rule of law and access to justice indicators promote a specific vision of a well functioning justice system grounded in western normative considerations. de Souza, in his book Designing Indicators for a Plural Legal World …

Cultivating Legalism From Paper Proofs: Analysing Everyday Forms Of Claim Making By Van Gujjar Pastoralists In Uttarakhand, Mohammad Meer Hamja, Pranav Menon

Socio-Legal Review

Scholarship from South Asia has often highlighted how subaltern peoples partake in social movements as figures of resistance but rarely analyse their techniques of working the law in their favour to negotiate citizenship with the state. Such modes of articulating claims through affective gestures and vernacular legalese foster plural meanings to otherwise rigid legal categories and dogmatic bureaucratic interpretation. This paper draws upon socio-historical and ethnographic accounts of Van Gujjars to highlight how these pastoralists utilise myriad forms of paper proofs and documentary evidence to engage in claim making across the forests of Uttarakhand. Through an articulation of everyday tactics …

Politicizing Antisemitism Amidst Today's Educational Culture Wars, Lili Levi

Articles

The traditional narrative of American Jewry emphasizes American exceptionalism with respect to antisemitism. But there have been clear signs of a resurgence of public antisemitism in the United States even before the massive rise in antisemitic expression and incidents associated with the Israel-Hamas war of fall 2023.

One of the notable aspects of the rise and normalization of antisemitic expression is the deployment of antisemitism as a political tool. For example, in addition to Democrats and Republicans accusing each other of complicity in antisemitism, both federal policy since the Trump era and state anti-antisemitism legislation have targeted campus antisemitism in …

U.S. Judiciary Syllabus: True True Crime Zines, Jason Leggett

Open Educational Resources

An experimental, open education syllabus for a pilot zero textbook cost course, U.S. Judiciary using zines and true crime.

After Smith Falls: Corporate Free Exercise Lochnerism, Daniel J. H. Greenwood, Nicholas E. Tramposch

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Author Biographies

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.