Digital Commons Network^™

Vice, Morality, And Immigration: Critiquing And Examining The Application Of Legal Moralism In The Criminalization Of Immigrants For Vice-Related Crimes, Sofia Garcia

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Reimagining Self-Regulation In Sexual Misconduct Complaints: Trust Through Transfer, Allyson M. Mcbride

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

To increase trust in the judiciary’s ability to self-regulate, any formal complaints about a judge should not be handled by a colleague down the hall, but a judge from a different circuit. In this Comment, I propose automatic transfer out of circuit to improve the handling of sexual misconduct complaints specifically. I first describe the different ways judicial conduct is regulated in the federal system. I then discuss the problem of sexual misconduct in the judiciary. Finally, I outline why it is problematic for judges to adjudicate complaints about their intra-circuit colleagues and recommend that all complaints be automatically transferred …

But Who Are The Victims? Reassessing The 568 Higher Education Cartel, James V. Koch

Economics Faculty Publications

Thirty prestigious independent American institutions of higher education were at some time members of the 568 higher education group (often labeled a cartel). Seventeen of them were sued by the U.S. Government and representative students who alleged that their meetings and deliberations resulted in collusion that caused students to pay higher prices. Twelve of the seventeen institutions subsequently settled their cases and by 2024 collectively had paid $284 million to do so. However, an inspection of these institutions' pricing reveals that the median 568 Group institution lowered its average real net annual cost to its undergraduate students by 19.07% between …

Recentering Creativity In Copyright Law Discourse, Joshua Yuvaraj

IP Theory

Copyright discourse often centers around creativity; as a rationale for copyright, and as a threshold for copyright to subsist in songs, books, art and other creative works. Yet creativity remains an ethereal concept: if we do not know what it means, we cannot evaluate whether copyright law is promoting it, nor can we properly understand what it means for a work to be "creative" where that is required for copyright to subsist. An emerging strand of copyright discourse seeks to respond by examining scientific insights into the cognitive process of creativity to highlight how copyright law should be reshaped to …

Transforming Police Officers To Community Peace Officers: A Scholarly Personal Narrative Addressing The Mental And Moral Conflicts In Community Engagement & Law Enforcement, London S. R. Mcbride

Doctor of Education

This dissertation explores the transformation of police officers into community peace officers by examining the mental and moral conflicts inherent in community engagement and law enforcement. Using scholarly personal narrative (SPN) as my methodology, the study integrates my lived experience as a Black law enforcement officer with broader discussions on race, power, leadership, and institutional culture. Grounded in critical race theory, social justice leadership, and trauma theory, the research investigates how systemic inequities, organizational resistance, and historical trauma influence policing practices and officer identity. The literature review highlights the legacy of racialized policing, the psychological toll of law enforcement work, …

Information Law Pluralism, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Information-intensive activities are reshaping political, social, and economic institutions. As they respond to these shifts, legislators and regulators are embracing information as a regulatory device for tech. Far from limiting themselves to public disclosure, consumer notice, and other traditional mechanisms of fostering transparency and information flows, however, legislators are using other, more nuanced tools to incentivize regulated entities to obtain, generate, and share information.

This Article maps the landscape of the emerging information-based regimes for regulating tech and assesses their conceptual and practical implications. It canvasses an extensive set of recently enacted laws regulating the information economy and shows that, …

Moral Progress In Legal Doctrine, Philip Petrov

Faculty Scholarship

This article integrates the concept of moral progress – here, moral improvement in the thinking and behavior of individuals over time – into the study of legal doctrine. The article first presents a naturalistic account of what moral progress is and describes three of its most historically and analytically important forms: (1) moral circle expansion, (2) moral domain expansion, and (3) increasing sensitivity to proportionality. The article then analyzes three historical developments in U.S. tort law that qualify as instances of moral progress: (1) the partial demise of the “suicide rule” beginning around the 1980s (according to …

Equal Justice & Generative Ai, Milan R. Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has long suffered from unequal access to justice, with countless low-and middle-income Americans forced to navigate the legal system alone. Recently, prominent judges, lawyers, and scholars have seized on generative AI as a potential corrective. These techno-optimists maintain that ChatGPT and other large language models can demystify the law and address unmet legal needs. Chief Justice John Roberts has proclaimed that AI-based tools "have the welcome potential to smooth out any mismatch between available resources and urgent needs in our court system."

Although AI will be an increasingly important source of legal assistance for underserved populations, the …

Behemoth Unbound: An Internal Critique Of Carl Schmitt’S Nazi-State Structure, Zaynamin Murtaza

CMC Senior Theses

This paper offers an internal critique of Carl Schmitt's Nazi-era state theory from the perspective of the counterrevolutionary political-theological tradition to which Schmitt belongs. Using Schmitt's political-theological method which holds that all political theories have a systematic theological structure, the paper argues that Schmitt's 1933 turn to National Socialism contradicts this tradition. The paper proceeds in five sections. The first establishes the political-theological framework that will be utilized throughout the paper. The second develops Schmitt's concept of the katechon—the restrainer of lawlessness drawn from Christian eschatology— which he uses as a model for his theory of the state. The …

Balancing The Scales Of Justice: The Unconstitutionality Of Marital Rape In India, Pallavi Raju

CMC Senior Theses

Marital rape remains an unpunished crime in India, despite decades of dispute and litigation. This thesis explores the question of why the state continues to retain the marital rape exception within the Indian criminal code, even though it commits to combat gender based violence in other areas of justice. The research begins with a broader understanding of privatization of women’s rights in the international sphere and culturally sanctioned violence to protect the institution of marriage. With a focus on the legal justifications and language of Indian court cases, this thesis determines that judges adjudicate on gender justice inconsistently. Attempting to …

Measuring Effective Labour Regulation In The Less Developed World: Recent Advances And Challenges Ahead, Lucas Ronconi, Steven Raphael

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

This article critically reviews the literature on labour enforcement with a focus on less developed countries. Despite measurement limitations, the evidence indicates that enforcement is quite low in poorer countries; there are fewer inspectors and inspections, lower penalties, and less trust in the judiciary compared to richer countries. The lower level of enforcement contributes to higher rates of violations of workers’ rights. More controversial are the effects of enforcement on employment. Moreover, it is unclear how to prompt less developed countries to increase enforcement. This article discusses the scant evidence about the role of trade agreements, labour unions, international organizations, …

Transnational Labour Law And Governance: Advancing Workers’ Rights In Global Value Chains, Judy Fudge, Guy Mundlak

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

TRANSNATIONAL LABOUR GOVERNANCE is a multiscalar assemblage of agents, institutions, instruments, and legal concepts that has emerged to address the governance gap caused by the mismatch between the global nature of production and the territorial format of labour law (Blackett & Trebilcock, 2015; Hepple, 2005; Kolben, 2011; Mundlak, 2024). This special issue investigates some of the key components in this assemblage and identifies features that make a transnational labour law approach distinctive. In this introduction to the special issue, we begin in Section II by describing the governance gap and its impact on the wages and working conditions of supply …

The Problem Of Digital Trade Regulation: Silences Regarding Labour And Their Potential Disruption By A Sustainability Agenda, Tonia Novitz

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

The growing impact of digital trade on work in global supply chains is readily detectable but there are curious regulatory silences on labour-related issues. The key problem identified in digital trade law is national obstruction to the free flow of data needed to promote online ordering and delivery of goods and services. In comparison, the concerns of those whose work is constitutive of digital trade, such as platform workers, are largely overlooked. Arguably, provisions often found in trade agreements relating to digital privacy and the effects of algorithmic management could be utilised by those at work. However, there remain uncertainties …

Legalistic Noncompliance, Daniel Deacon, Leah Litman

Articles

Will the executive branch comply with court orders? That question has garnered a considerable amount of attention over the first few months of the second Trump administration. But what does it mean to comply? And what if a form of noncompliance is already occurring?

This Article documents an emerging practice that has dominated the second Trump administration's approach to unfavorable court rulings, a practice this Article calls legalistic noncompliance. Legalistic noncompliance occurs when the administration uses the language of the law as cover to claim that it is complying with court orders when in fact it is not. Drawing …

Corporatism For The Informal Economy: Democratising The Potential Of The Mathadi Tripartite Board Model, Shelley Marshall, Hila Shamir, Babu P. Remesh, Anjali Sharma

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

This article examines the Mathadi Boards in Pune, India, as a pioneering example of corporatist regulation adapted to the informal economy. These tripartite institutions — comprising workers, employers, and the state — negotiate legally binding agreements on wages and working conditions for informal labourers, offering social protections and formalization without relying on traditional employment contracts. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews, the study explores the Boards’ structure, governance, and impact, highlighting their potential as scalable models for informal labour regulation globally. It also identifies challenges related to representation, enforcement, and social exclusion, offering insights into how corporatist frameworks can be …

System Disparities: Racial Criminalization And The Risk Of Coerced And False Confessions In Youth, Cynthia J. Najdowski

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Black youth may be even more vulnerable than other youth to admitting to crimes they did not commit in the context of police interrogations. In support, analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations indicates that 65% of people who were wrongfully convicted on the basis of false confessions they gave when under 18 years old are Black, whereas only 14% of the U.S. population is Black. In this chapter, I seek to understand the overrepresentation of Black youth in samples of juvenile false confessors by examining the cultural stereotype about Black criminality in relation to both investigators and …

The Forgotten Income-Attribution Power, Alex Zhang

Faculty Articles

Economic inequality stands at record levels, and constitutional law haunts egalitarian reform. In 2024, the Supreme Court decided the latest contest. Moore v. United States rebuffed an attempt to sharply limit the federal taxing power, as a razor-thin majority upheld Congress’s attribution of foreign corporations’ income to domestic shareholders. But four Justices criticized the reasoning of the majority, faulting its use of a fabricated doctrine.

This Feature provides a systematic account of Congress’s income-attribution power. It excavates overlooked litigation materials and case law from the infancy of the current federal income tax. In the 1920s and 1930s, litigants attacked, on …

Disconsents, Daryl J. Levinson, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Consent is an indispensable standard and organizing principle in any liberal legal order that prizes self-directed autonomy, self-identified preferences, and collective agreement. Yet consent’s capacity to advance those values has become increasingly uncertain in a society beset by power imbalances, information asymmetries, and multiple forms of polarization. In this Article, we document how the rise of neoliberalism has led to greater reliance on consent throughout U.S. law, while at the same time leading to greater doubts about its moral efficacy and empirical feasibility. Connecting and generalizing pathologies of consent-based regulation that have been identified within myriad domains, the Article identifies …

Criminal Data Function Creep, Sarah E. Lageson

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Automated, data-driven decision-making can create unfair outcomes and lead to discrimination. This Article considers a relatively ubiquitous part of modern life that is increasingly automated: the criminal background check. This Article, with contributions at the intersection of law and technology, antidiscrimination and consumer protection law, and sociological theory, makes the central claim that criminal record data is characterized by function creep—the unintended use of data for another purpose—which leads to a specific set of harms. This Article makes three central contributions. First, it offers an empirical assessment of contemporary, data-driven background screening using data based on in-depth interviews and systematic …

The Influence Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Female Violent Offending: A Scoping Systematic Review, Alexis M. Wolgemuth

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Female-perpetrated violence has exhibited concerning data trends in recent years. Prior scholarship indicates that past victimization and trauma in childhood, known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), are highly prevalent among women offenders. However, the research concerning ACEs and violent females is scattered. This thesis provides a scoping literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) updated 2020 guidelines. A systematic database search was conducted using Academic Search Complete, SAGE Journals, Springer Nature Link, and HeinOnline to identify relevant peer-reviewed journal articles. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are established, focusing on studies published after January 2015. These …

Sustainable Mobility In International, European And National Law: A Perspective From Europe, Lando Kirchmair

Journal of Law and Mobility

This Article develops a European perspective on sustainable mobility, a concept still underexamined in legal scholarship, and argues that meeting today’s mobility needs while preserving ecological foundations for future generations will not occur without deliberate regulatory intervention. After clarifying the evolution of the core concepts of sustainability, mobility, and sustainable mobility, the Article shows how international, European, and Austrian law have progressively incorporated sustainability goals in the transport sector. It then proposes a taxonomy of financial incentives–from subsidies and tax breaks to behavioral nudges—and evaluates their effectiveness, emphasizing the need for flexible, context-specific regulatory instruments. Applying these insights to self-driving …

Book Review: Automobiles, Cultures And The Question Of Law, Stephen M. Young

Journal of Law and Mobility

Unsettling Colonial Automobilities: Criminalisation and Contested Sovereignties is a compelling interdisciplinary and multileveled study that sits at the intersection of law, criminology, settler colonial studies, and cultural analysis. The authors are well-suited to this task. They include Professors Harry Blagg, with expertise in First Nations community-engaged criminology; Thalia Anthony, from legal and carceral studies; Wiradjuri scholar Juanita Sherwood, who studies Indigenous health and community research; and Kieran Tranter, an expert in cultural legal theory. Together, they offer a layered interrogation of how the motor vehicle and automobility shape the settler colonial ordering of Australia.

This review is comprised of three …

2025 Cardozo Life (Winter), Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Life Magazine

Table of Contents:

Top News & Events, page 3

Alumni News, page 15

50 Years of Daring to Illuminate, page 18

A Fearless, Undaunted Approach to Building a New Law School, page 26

50 Years of Daring to Innovate, page 42

Faculty in the Media, page 66

Faculty Scholarship, page 70

Retirements, page 76

Student Briefs, page 79

Alumni Signature Events, page 83

Classnotes, page 87

Cardozo in a Word, page 92

Rebalancing The Milk Market: A Shared-Burden Framework For Dairy And Plant-Based Producers, Isabelle Ulrich

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

This Note examines the structural and regulatory differences between traditional dairy products and the rapidly expanding plant-based milk products in the United States. Through analysis of historical Federal Milk Marketing Order policies, mandatory checkoff programs, and contrasting labeling standards in the United States and European Union, this Note reveals how plant-based milk producers enjoy competitive advantages without sharing the financial or regulatory burden that traditional dairy producers face. This Note argues for a shared-burden policy requiring all entities marketing “milk,” whether dairy or plant-based, to contribute to promotional and regulatory funds. This framework will restore market fairness, preserve consumer choice, …

The Criminalization Of Black Friendship, Kinship And Belonging, Reakash Walters

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper posits that the Canadian state's attempt to target organized crime through the Criminal Code's criminal organization provisions has led to the criminalization of everyday expressions of Black life, including the criminalization of Black friendship. The statutory architecture of the regime incentivizes criminal legal actors with limited contiguity to Black culture to conflate bids for connection, association, and friendship within Black communities as gang activity.

Before the criminal organization provisions were enacted, Canada had no legacy of directly criminalizing organized crime. Localized violence in Quebec during the mid-1990s led to rushed amendments to the Criminal Code to target biker …

Transnational Corporate Liability Through The Lens Of Interlegality, Jaye Ellis

Dalhousie Law Journal

Pressure is mounting on courts in Canada, as in other jurisdictions, to address harms generated within global supply chains. These entities have no formal legal personality, so attempts to trace lines of responsibility and liability within them require the development of innovative argumentative strategies. Among the challenges is the integration of a range of sources, including international law, international policy initiatives, and privately constituted standards to promote human and labour rights and environmental protection. Working with the concept of interlegality, I seek to develop approaches for navigating overlapping and intersecting legal orders, and for facilitating interactions among them. Of particular …

Gentrification – Who’S It Really For? The Criminalization Of Communities Of Color To Make Room For Luxury, Joli Doñé

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Recalibrating 47 U.S.C. Section 230 For Algorithmic Feeds: A Mens Rea-Bounded Carve-Out And Statutory Blueprint For Platform Push Recommendations To Minors, Evander Tang

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Censoring History: Florida’S “Stop Woke” Legislation, The Fight Over Critical Race Theory, And The Case For Inclusive Curricula., Chloe Schafer

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Legislative Debate-Attributed Suicidality Among Lgbtq+ Adults: The Buffering Effect Of Community Belongingness, Keith J. Watts, Shawndaya S. Thrasher, Laneshia R. Conner, Nicole Campbell, Louis G. Baser, Dekeitra Griffin, Sydney P. Howard, Missy Spears, Justin X. Moore

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Background: In recent years, the sociopolitical landscape in the United States has shifted due to an increase in state-level legislation regarding LGBTQ+ rights, a trend that has been particularly pronounced in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. While the mental health impacts of enacted laws are increasingly documented, a critical gap remains in understanding the psychological toll of the legislative debates themselves—the prolonged periods of public discourse surrounding the restriction of rights. Methods: Utilizing data from the 2025 Queer Kentucky Survey (N = 817), this exploratory study examined the association between LGBTQ+ community belongingness and acute suicidality attributed specifically to anti-LGBTQ+ legislative …