Digital Commons Network^™

From Automation To Autonomy: Legal And Ethical Responsibility Gaps In Artificial Intelligence Innovation, David Nersessian, Ruben Mancha

Michigan Technology Law Review

The increasing prominence of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in daily life and the evolving capacity of these systems to process data and act without human input raise important legal and ethical concerns. This article identifies three primary AI actors in the value chain (innovators, providers, and users) and three primary types of AI (automation, augmentation, and autonomy). It then considers responsibility in AI innovation from two perspectives: (i) strict liability claims arising out of the development, commercialization, and use of products with built-in AI capabilities (designated herein as “AI artifacts”); and (ii) an original research study on the ethical practices …

Should Parents Make Martyrs Of Their Children?: An Argument For Private Regulation Of Savior Siblings, Samantha Stoma

Student Works

No abstract provided.

No Payment, No Procreative Liberty: The Case Against Restrictions And Prohibitions On Payment For Gametes, Chloe Nelson

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Religion In Public Schools, Irene Karsos

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Wills & Trusts, Gerry W. Beyer

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in law of wills and trusts from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Integrated Estuary Governance, Mary Jane Angelo, J.W. Glass

UF Law Faculty Publications

Estuaries are complex, dynamic ecosystems that play a critical role in supporting crucial economic industries, such as commercial fishing and tourism, and providing the resources necessary to sustain coastal communities. A range of anthropogenic environmental stressors are threatening the health of estuaries throughout the world. Traditional top-down single resource focused environmental regulatory approaches have proved inadequate to protect and restore estuarine systems. In recent years, scientific and legal academics, as well as policymakers, have called for more holistic participatory approaches to addressing environmental challenges. Drawing on the literature on ecosystem management, integrated water resources management, collaborative governance, and adaptive management, …

The New Parental Rights, Anne C. Dailey, Laura A. Rosenbury

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article sets forth a new model of parental rights designed to free children and families from the ideals of parent–child unity and family privacy that underlie the law’s expansive protection for parental rights. The law currently presumes that parents’ interests coincide with those of their children, creating an illusion of parent–child union that suppresses the very real ways in which children’s interests and identities, even at a young age, may depart from those of their parents. Expansive protection for parental rights also confines children to the private family, ignoring children’s broad range of interests beyond the family and thwarting …

A System For Resilience Learning: Developing A Community-Driven, Multi-Sector Research Approach For Greater Preparedness And Resilience To Long-Term Climate Stressors And Extreme Events In The Miami Metropolitan Region, Abigail L. Fleming, Tiffany G. Troxer, Amy C. Clement, Yoca Arditi-Rocha, Gretchen Beesing, Mahadev Bhat, Jessica Bolson, Carissa Cabán-Alemán, Karina Castillo, Olivia Collins, Mayra Cruz, Alan Dodd, Scotney D. Evans, Carlos Genatios, Jane Gilbert, Alyssa Hernandez, Cheryl Holder, Maria Ilcheva, Elizabeth Kelly, Arturo Leon, Joanna Lombard, Katharine J. March, Diana Moanga, James F. Murley, Amy Knowles, Jayantha Obeysekera, Loren Parra, Jennifer Posner, Arif Sarwat, Rachel Silverstein, John A. Stuart, Michael C. Sukop, Shimon Wdowinski, Elizabeth Wheaton

Articles

There is a growing need for integrated approaches that align community priorities with strategies that build resilience to climate hazards, societal shocks, and economic crises to ensure more equitable and sustainable outcomes. We anticipate that adaptive management and resilience learning are central elements for these approaches. In this paper, we describe an approach to build and test a Resilience Learning System to support research and implementation of a resilience strategy developed for the Greater Miami and the Beaches or the Resilient305 Strategy. Elements foundational to the design of this integrated research strategy and replicable Resilience Learning System are: (1) strong …

Thoroughly Modern Motherhood, Joanna Grossman

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Biology And Illegitimacy, Douglas Nejaime

SMU Law Review

This symposium Essay examines how biological parenthood, which in the twentieth century served as a mechanism by which to repudiate “illegitimacy” and to protect nonmarital parent–child relationships, today serves to justify new forms of illegitimacy and to separate unmarried parents from their children.

In the second half of the twentieth century, courts and legislatures renounced the discriminatory regime of illegitimacy, in which the children of unmarried parents enjoyed few rights to support or inheritance. They did so by raising the legal status of biological parenthood—extending rights to unmarried biological fathers and their children. Today, though, the vindication of biological ties …

What’S In A Name? Strict Scrutiny And The Right To A Public Trial, Stephen Smith

Faculty Publications

The right to a public trial has only rarely been addressed by the Supreme Court, but in Waller v. Georgia, the Court set forth a test for determining when it is appropriate to close a courtroom to the public, despite the general public trial command. The language of the Waller test suggests great rigor. This essay proposes a reconsideration of the test for courtroom closures, rethinking whether traditional strict scrutiny thinking is appropriate in this constitutional and practical context. That said, this essay does not argue with Waller’s broad outlines. Courts making closure decisions should consider reasons and …

How Analogizing Socio-Legal Responses To Organ Transplantation Can Further The Legalization Of Reproductive Genetic Innovation, Myrisha S. Lewis

SMU Law Review

The Nobel Foundation emphasized the significance of genetic innovation to society, science, and medicine by awarding the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to “the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors.” This Article focuses on “reproductive genetic innovation,” a term that includes cytoplasmic transfer, mitochondrial transfer, and germline or heritable gene editing techniques that are all categorized as “experimental” in the United States. These techniques all use in vitro fertilization, a legal and widely available practice. Yet reproductive genetic innovation has resulted in controversy and numerous barriers including a recurring federal budget rider, threats of federal enforcement action, and the unavailability of federal funding. …

Think Again: The Thought Crime Doctrine And The Limits Of Criminal Law, Jordan Wallace-Wolf

Law Faculty Scholarship

According to the thought crime doctrine, neither beliefs nor intentions may be subject to criminal punishment. The doctrine is widely endorsed, but puzzling in its scope. Beliefs have a free speech credential: they play a straightforward role in the sincere exchange of ideas. Moreover, they are harmless, in the specific sense that they do not aim at action and so not at lawbreaking. But intentions are otherwise. They do not necessarily further the exchange of ideas and they may aim at wrongful, illegal conduct.

So why should the thought crime doctrine categorically protect them in addition to beliefs? Why not …

The Unconstitutionality Of State Bans On Marriage Between First Cousins, Rachel Frommer

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

A majority of jurisdictions in the United States severely limit or prohibit the right of first cousins to marry, cohabit, or have intercourse. Yet, unlike regulation of other relationships within close degrees of consanguinity, for instance between parents and children or siblings, these statutes are relatively recent additions to the marriage regulation landscape. These bans are unsupported by the commonly-cited concerns of harmful genetic or societal consequences. First cousin-marriages are, instead, popular and permitted in much of the world—as they once were in the United States. This Article demonstrates that the prohibitions against first-cousin marriages directly contravene right-to-marry jurisprudence and …

Race & Policing In America Symposium Transcript

St. Thomas Law Review

The symposium was moderated by Professor andré douglas pond cummings of University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law.

Public Health Policing And The Case Against Vaccine Mandates, Dr. Tryon Woods

St. Thomas Law Review

There can be no simple reading of a text, be it literary, philosophical or scientific, nor of the social text in the most general sense. Rather, the question must turn upon itself, no less than its putative object, as a matter of interpretation and, more important, as a matter of the forces at work in the interpretative activity under way. There is always the ascription of voice to what is otherwise silent, the attribution of a face or the placement of a mask. Le germe n’est rien, c’est le terrain qui est tout. The microbe is nothing, the soil is …

Sex Discrimination In Healthcare: Section 1557 And Lgbtq Rights After Bostock, Amy Post, Ashley Stephens, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) banned sex discrimination in health care. In June of 2020, however, the Trump administration finalized a rule that explicitly removed sexual orientation and gender identity from Section 1557’s safeguards. That same month, the Supreme Court held that sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are forms of sex discrimination for purposes of Title VII employment discrimination in Bostock v. Clayton County. Following the Court’s decision in Bostock, this Article argues that sex discrimination under Section 1557 necessarily encompasses gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination.

“Equal Outcomes”: A Constitutional Comparison Of Gender Equality Guarantees In The United States And South Africa, Melanie Mcmullen

Missouri Law Review

The evolution of women’s rights throughout history has had significant effects on the cultural and legal climate of the world. Each country has its own approach to gender equality, and each country has an impact on the global mindset on women’s roles in society. South Africa, for example, is a new and growing democracy that provides more equality guarantees than even the oldest established democracy – the United States. The exploration of newer ideas and approaches to equality can only benefit the growth and expansion of equal rights in the United States.

Hiring And Training Competent Title Ix Hearing Officers, Ben Trachtenberg

Missouri Law Review

American colleges and universities are not ready to comply with new Title IX regulations concerning campus hearings. Regulations released in May 2020 by the U.S. Department of Education, effective in August 2020, require that colleges and universities use hearing officers who are “trained on issues of relevance, including how to apply. . .rape shield provisions” and legal privileges. Institutions must conduct “a live hearing” at which the hearing officer “must permit each party’s advisor to ask the other party and any witnesses all relevant questions and follow-up questions, including those challenging credibility.” This “cross-examination … must be conducted directly, orally, …

Uncertain Risk, Science Experiments, And The Courts, Eric E. Johnson

Faculty Articles

Legal scholarship has looked at problems of uncertainty--"unknown unknowns"--in a variety of contexts, from financial regulation to national security. This Article, however, focuses on uncertain risk in what may be its most challenging arena: experimental scientific research. Notably, this context imposes a key conceptual hurdle. In other arenas, law and regulation can work to lessen uncertainty. But with science-experiment risk, uncertainty cannot be sidestepped, since going beyond the current state of human knowledge is the whole point of experimental research. Moreover, science-experiment risk involves the highest possible stakes, since future experiments could plausibly lead to global catastrophe, even human extinction. …

The Paris Agreement Compliance Mechanism: Beyond Cop 26, Jessica Owley, Imad Antoined Ibrahim, Sandrine Maljean-Dubois

Articles

Without an international tribunal or tools like trade sanctions, there is little to coerce or encourage adherence with environmental treaties. The Paris Agreement, the governing global agreement to address climate change, relies on voluntary global cooperation. Countries determine their own commitments by setting nationally determined contributions of greenhouse gases emissions. The main mandatory elements of the agreement are reporting requirements. The success of the agreement turns on whether countries comply with these requirements. Article 15 of the Paris Agreement establishes a Compliance Committee and sets forth the mechanisms to ensure and facilitate compliance with the agreement. Yet, as with the …

Nature's Rights, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Do forests and rivers possess standing to sue? Do mountain ranges have substantive rights? A recent issue of The Judges’ Journal, a preeminent publication for American judges, alerts the bench, bar, and policymakers to the rapidly emerging “rights of nature,” predicting that state and federal courts will increasingly see claims asserting such rights. Within the United States, Tribal law has begun to legally recognize the rights of rivers, mountains, and other natural features. Several municipalities across the United States have also acted to recognize the rights of nature. United States courts have not yet addressed the issue, though in 2017, …

Brain Chips And Whole Brain Emulation Could Ensure Football's Survival: Is It Worthwhile?, James T. Gray

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should Your Wearables Be Shareable? The Ethics Of Wearable Technology In Collegiate Athletics, Sarah M. Brown, Katie M. Brown

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Drug-Free Is The Way To Be Except If You're Transgender: A Constitutional Analysis Of High School Athletic Associations' Transgender Policies, M. Olivia Mcquade

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act: The United States' Response To The Russian Doping Scandal, Genevieve F.E. Birren

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crisis And Cultural Evolution: Steering The Next Normal From Self-Interest To Concern And Fairness, Robert A. Bohrer

Faculty Scholarship

This essay examines the current time of crisis and offers a vision of the way in which our society and our law can evolve in response. Crises of this scale are evolution-forcing events and I argue that the current moment can move us towards a fundamentally different vision of law and justice. It is the first essay or article to show that the autonomous pursuit of self-interest was a common assumption or value in the major intellectual forces of the twentieth century: classical free market economics, behavioral economics, and sociobiology, as well as in the competing visions of a just …

Front Matter

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

No Name, Lawrence M. Friedman

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Fate Of Intercountry Adoptions Following Covid-19, Ambrosia Wilkerson

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.