Digital Commons Network^™

Mandatory Sars-Cov-2 Vaccinations In K-12 Schools, Colleges/Universities, And Businesses, Lawrence O. Gostin, Jana Shaw, Daniel A. Salmon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued guidance that fully vaccinated individuals can safely remove masks and end social distancing in most indoor settings. Educational facilities and businesses are faced with whether and how to differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, including requiring proof of vaccination. Mandatory vaccination has historically served as a tool to reach and sustain high immunization coverage and to prevent transmission in K-12 schools, colleges/universities, and health care facilities. Vaccine mandates could extend to workers and customers in businesses to ensure safer environments. This Viewpoint examines the epidemiologic, public health, and legal considerations …

Protecting The Right To Food In The Era Of Covid-19 And Beyond, Ying Chen

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Presumption Junction, What’S That Function: Louisiana Marriage And Parenthood Laws Post-Obergefell, Laura Tracy

Louisiana Law Review

The article proposes that the redrafting of article 185 of the Louisiana Civil Code would ensure that filiation laws are constitutionally sound under the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges and guarantee that children of same-sex couples are given equitable standards under the law.

Moral Truth And Constitutional Conservatism, Gerard V. Bradley

Louisiana Law Review

Conservative constitutionalism is committed to "originalism," that is, to interpreting the Constitution according to its original public understanding. This defining commitment of constitutional interpretation is sound. For decades, however, constitutional conservatives have diluted it with a methodology of restraint, a normative approach to the judicial task marked by an overriding aversion to critical moral reasoning. In any event, the methodology eclipsed originalism and the partnership with moral truth that originalism actually entails. Conservative constitutionalism is presently a mélange of mostly unsound arguments against the worst depredations of Casey's Mystery Passage. The reason for the methodological moral reticence is easy to …

Does Justice Have A Syntax?, Steven L. Winter

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Tempering Glass Armor: A Demand For Improved Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws To Protect Homeless Transgender People, Jack Beasley

Student Scholarship

Homelessness is a nationwide problem that affects hundreds of thousands of people a year. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals face unique, additional issues in their day-to-day lives that heterosexual and cisgender individuals do not. Homeless shelters across the country are full of transgender youth and adults who are subject to more sexual violence, criminal acts, and discrimination than other homeless individuals in the same shelters. The Obama administration’s rule protecting homeless transgender people in shelters is in danger. In essence, Housing Secretary Ben Carson’s proposed rule would put homeless transgender people at a higher risk of discrimination. Agency …

Reimagining Exceptional Events: Regulating Wildfires Through The Clean Air Act, Emily Williams

Washington Law Review

Wildfires are increasing in both frequency and severity due to climate change. Smoke from these fires causes serious health problems. Land managers agree that prescribed burns help mitigate these negative consequences. Prescribed burns are lower-intensity fires that are intentionally ignited and managed for an ecological benefit. They reduce the amount of smoke produced and limit wildfire damage to natural systems and human property.

The Clean Air Act (CAA) is designed to regulate air pollution to protect public health, yet it exempts wildfire smoke through the exceptional events designation while imposing strict regulations on prescribed burns. Congress and the Environmental Protection …

Alkaline Hydrolysis, Victoria J. Haneman

ACTEC Law Journal

Hollywood has developed its own villainous death disposition trope that is often a link in a nefarious narrative chain—disposition of human remains through some form of chemical dissolution. Spanning decades and genre, popular cinema and television have warmly embraced liquification of the dead, including but not limited to The Wizard of Oz, House on Haunted Hill, Thief, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Point of No Return, Palmetto, Walker, Texas Ranger, NCIS, Bones, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Blacklist, Homeland, Elementary, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Ozark, Rick and Morty. The specifics vary dramatically from one work of fiction to the next but the …

Environmental Law Disrupted By Covid-19, Katrina Fischer Kuh, Lissa Griffin, Rebecca Bratspies, Vanessa Casado Perez, Robin Kundis Craig, Keith Hirokawa, Sarah Krakoff, Jessica Owley, Melissa Powers, Shannon Roesler, Jonathan Rosenbloom, J.B. Ruhl, Erin Ryan, David Takacs

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

For over a year, the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns about systemic racial injustice have highlighted the conflicts and opportunities currently faced by environmental law. Scientists uniformly predict that environmental degradation, notably climate change, will cause a rise in diseases, disproportionate suffering among communities already facing discrimination, and significant economic losses. In this Article, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative examine the legal system’s responses to these crises, with the goal of framing opportunities to reimagine environmental law. The Article is excerpted from their book Environmental Law, Disrupted, to be published by ELI Press later this year.

(Re)Framing Race In Civil Rights Lawyering, Anthony V. Alfieri, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Articles

This Review examines the significance of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s new book, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, for the study of racism in our nation's legal system and for the regulation of race in the legal profession, especially in the everyday labor of civil-rights and poverty lawyers, prosecutors, and public defenders. Surprisingly, few have explored the relevance of the racial narratives distilled by Gates in Stony the Roa - the images, stereotypes, and tropes that Whites constructed of Blacks to deepen and ensure the life and legacy of white supremacy-to the practice …

The Trees Speak For Themselves: Nature’S Rights Under International Law, Samantha Franks

Michigan Journal of International Law

This note argues that the United Nations should center nature’s rights in the upcoming Global Pact on the Environment, solidifying the patchwork of international environmental law and encouraging domestic protection of the environment. Part II explores the current state of international environmental law, outlining the ways in which the doctrine remains incomplete. Part III establishes that Earth jurisprudence is an effective method to fill the gaps existing within traditional international environmental law. Part IV emphasizes the importance of soft law in international law. It draws a parallel between the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human’s Rights and a potential …

Inheritance Crimes, David Horton, Reid Kress Weisbord

Washington Law Review

The civil justice system has long struggled to resolve disputes over end-of-life transfers. The two most common grounds for challenging the validity of a gift, will, or trust— mental incapacity and undue influence—are vague, hinge on the state of mind of a dead person, and allow factfinders to substitute their own norms and preferences for the donor’s intent. In addition, the slayer doctrine—which prohibits killers from inheriting from their victims—has generated decades of constitutional challenges.

But recently, these controversial rules have migrated into an area where the stakes are significantly higher: the criminal justice system. For example, states have criminalized …

Contemporary Human Displacement: A Comparative Analysis Of Syria, Yemen, Honduras, And Venezuela, Rav Carlotti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What is causing the surge in human displacement around the world? Large-scale displacement in Syria, Yemen, Honduras, and Venezuela has generated unprecedented humanitarian crises in Latin America and the Middle East as millions of displaced people end up as refugees or immigrants. Humanitarian organizations like the UNHCR and host countries have had their resources overextended by these ongoing crises, and there is no end in sight. This thesis shows that contemporary human displacement is rooted in the increasing inability of governments to manage their societies amid great political demands and socio-economics strains. These causes are difficult to tackle because they …

Anomalous Anatomies: How The Tsa Should Screen For Transgender People, Karissa J. Kang, John M. Kang

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

American Punishment And Pandemic, Danielle C. Jefferis

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Maximizing #Metoo: Intersectionality & The Movement, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Although women of color experience high rates of harassment and assault, the #MeToo movement has largely left them on the margins in terms of (1) the online conversation, (2) the traditional social movement activity occurring offline, and (3) the consequential legal activity. This Article analyzes how race shapes experiences of harassment and how seemingly positive legal strides continue to fail women of color thirty years beyond Kimberlé Crenshaw’s initial framing of intersectionality theory. I discuss the weaknesses of the reform efforts and argue for more tailored strategies that take into account the ineffectiveness of our current Title VII framework and, …

The Elusiveness Of Self-Defense For The Black Transgender Community, Shawn E. Fields

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Too Young For The Crime, Yet Old Enough To Do Life: A Critical Review Of How State Felony Murder Laws Apply To Juvenile Defendants, Stuti S. Kokkalera, Beck M. Strah, Anya Bornstein

Journal of Criminal Justice and Law

The felony murder rule applies when a killing occurs during the commission of a felony offense. Youth under the age of 18 years can be charged with felony murder even if they did not commit the killing or intend the death of the victim, and subsequently sentenced to an adult maximum sentence, including life in prison. This study examines how states enable lengthy sentencing terms for their juvenile defendants charged with felony murder. By reviewing felony murder provisions and state appellate court decisions in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, we identify how juveniles who did not commit …

Rules To Bind You: Problems With The Uspto’S Ptab Rulemaking Procedures, Andrew Dietrick, Jonathan Stroud

New Mexico Law Review

This Article analyzes some of the recent rules, guidance documents, policy-based administrative decisions, and rulemaking procedures used by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and concludes that the USPTO is improperly promulgating substantive rules sub rosa via, inter alia, updates to the Trial Practice Guide (TPG), an ostensibly nonbinding document that controls many broad substantive and procedural aspects of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and in doing so, avoids appellate, Congressional, and stakeholder review of such decisions.

Part I will review the established law of administrative agencies’ rulemaking authority and procedures, specifically reviewing formal rulemaking, “informal” …

Time's Up: A Call To Ban The Use Of Sex As An Investigatory Tactic In Alaska, Kate Goldberg

Alaska Law Review

Sex workers in Alaska are facing sexual violence at the hands of the people whose job it is to protect them: the police. Astonishingly, it is legal in Alaska for undercover police officers to use sexual intercourse and other sexual contact as investigative tools. In 2017, House Bill 112 and Senate Bill 73 were introduced in the Alaska State Legislature to make it illegal for law enforcement officers to have any sexual contact with people under investigation. Upon resistance from the Anchorage Police Department, these bills stalled and were not re-introduced. This Note argues that the use of sex in …

Medicate And Segregate: How Due Process Fails To Protect Mentally Ill Inmates From Medically Inappropriate Confinement And Restraint, Peter J. Teravskis

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Anomalous Anatomies: How The Tsa Should Screen For Transgender People, Karissa J. Kang, John M. Kang

Faculty Scholarship

A transgender person faces obstacles trying to negotiate a gender-binary world. Going through a TSA checkpoint is no different. A substantial number of transgender persons have reported that they were detained and examined because they were transgender.1 Why this situation persists and what policy reforms should be implemented to alleviate it are the subjects of this Essay. This Essay is devoted mainly to the theme of transgender rights, rather than race, a central theme of the symposium in which this Essay appears. Given the relatively small pool of transgender individuals for whom data is available, this Essay is unable to …

Covid-19: A Crisis And An Opportunity To Improve The Emergency Use Authorization Process, Daniel Walsh

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

The Federal Circuit Continues To Grapple With The Question Of Patent Eligibility For Diagnostic Methods, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

This article considers the current state of affairs at the Federal Circuit with regard to the patent eligibility of diagnostic methods. Diagnostics v. Mayo Collaborative Servs. I then look at all of the decision decisions I could find in which the court strikes down diagnostic method claims as patent ineligible under Mayo v. Prometheus, of which there are quite a few. Finally, I turn to the handful of cases, all decided in 2018 or later, in which the Federal Circuit has upheld the patent eligibility of diagnostic claims, the most significant of which I believe to be Vanda Pharmaceuticals v. …

Modernizing Discrimination Law: The Adoption Of An Intersectional Lens, Marisa K. Sanchez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

The Termination Of Parental Rights In Texas: The Long Run Cut Short For Parents In Bexar County, Gabriel A. Narvaez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Understanding The North Atlantic Right Whale Litigation, Gabrielle Benjamin, Read Porter

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

No abstract provided.

(Re)Framing Race In Civil Rights Lawyering, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Anthony V. Alfieri

Faculty Scholarship

A review of Henry Louis Gates, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (Penguin Press, 2019). The Review proceeds in four parts. Part I parses Gates’s analysis of the rise of white supremacist ideology and the accompanying concept of the “Old Negro” during the Redemption era and the countervailing emergence of the concept of a “New Negro” culminating in the Harlem Renaissance. Part II examines the lawyering process as a rhetorical site for constructing racialized narratives and racially subordinating visions of client, group, and community identity through acts of representing, prosecuting, and defending people of …

Environmental Law’S Extinction Problem, Akhtar-Khavari Afshin, Michelle Mei Ling Lim, Katie Woolaston

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The extinction of species and ecological systems is occurring more quickly than any other time in human history. Our social and cultural institutions and the concepts and framings that underpin them are key contributors to modern extinctions. In this paper we ask how engaging explicitly with extinction enables a critical and hopeful rethinking of environmental law. We explore the potential of this question by summarising and categorising the literature that discusses how extinction provides a useful frame and moral compass for interrogating environmental law rules, systems and ambitions. Through an evaluation of biodiversityrelated multilateral environmental agreements we illustrate the potential …

Signs Of Ghost Appearance In Short Stories In Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad (1936-1939): Semiotic Analisys, Rufaida Rufaida, Fajar Muhammad Nugraha

International Review of Humanities Studies

In 2018-2019 the production of the Indonesian ghost story is much in demand and favored, even in 2020 the ghost content on YouTube is still lively and salable in the Indonesian market. The existence of ghosts cannot be separated from the daily lives of Indonesians.The author is interested in exploring further how the signs of the emergence of a ghostly figure believed by the people in the colonial era. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method with an approach using the analysis of language semiotics from the perspective of Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics theory. 5 ghost stories published by the …