Digital Commons Network^™

Manipulation And The First Amendment, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Survival Voting And Minority Political Rights, Douglas M. Spencer, Lisa Grow Sun, Brigham Daniels, Chantel Sloan, Natalie Blades

Publications

The health of American democracy has literally been challenged. The global pandemic has powerfully exposed a long-standing truth: electoral policies that are frequently referred to as "convenience voting" are really a mode of "survival voting" for millions of Americans. As our data show, racial minorities are overrepresented among voters whose health is most vulnerable, and politicians have leveraged these health disparities to subordinate the political voice of racial minorities.

To date, data about racial disparities in health has played a very limited role in assessing voting rights. A new health lens on the racial impacts of voting rules would beneficially …

Cheetah Is Now Vitallaw, Michelle Penn

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Multicenter Weighted Lottery To Equitably Allocate Scarce Covid-19 Therapeutics, Govind Persad, Erin K. Mccreary, Chung-Chou H. Chang, Mark Schmidhoffer

Publications

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need. Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oralantiviral Paxlovid.

Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend …

Book Review, Justin Murray

Publications

No abstract provided.

Prosecutorial Nonenforcement And Residual Criminalization, Justin Murray

Publications

In recent years a small but influential group of locally elected prosecutors committed to criminal justice reform have openly refused to enforce various criminal laws—laws prohibiting marijuana possession, sentencing enhancements, laws authorizing the death penalty, and much more—because they see those laws as unjust and incompatible with core reform objectives. Condemned by many on the political right for allegedly usurping the legislature’s lawmaking role and praised by many on the left for bypassing dysfunctional state legislatures in favor of local solutions, these prosecutorial nonenforcement policies are commonly said to have the same effect as nullifying, or even repealing, the laws …

Dose Optimisation And Scarce Resource Allocation: Two Sides Of The Same Coin, Govind Persad, Govind C. Persad, William F. Parker, Srinivas Murthy

Publications

Objective: A deep understanding of the relationship between a scarce drug's dose and clinical response is necessary to appropriately distribute a supply-constrained drug along these lines.

Summary of key data: The vast majority of drug development and repurposing during the COVID-19 pandemic – an event that has made clear the ever-present scarcity in health care systems –has been ignorant of scarcity and dose optimisation's ability to help address it.

Conclusions: Future pandemic clinical trials systems should obtain dose optimisation data, as these appear necessary to enable appropriate scarce resource allocation according to societal values.

Reserve System Design For Allocation Of Scarce Medical Resources In A Pandemic: Some Perspectives From The Field, Govind Persad, Govind C. Persad, Tayfun Sönmez, M. Utku Unver

Publications

No abstract provided.

Errors In Converting Principles To Protocols: Where The Bioethics Of Us Covid‐19 Vaccine Allocation Went Wrong, Govind Persad, Govind C. Persad, Monica E. Peek

Publications

For much of 2021, allocating the scarce supply of Covid-19 vaccines was the world's most pressing bioethical challenge, and similar challenges may recur for novel therapies and future vaccines. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) identified three fundamental ethical principles to guide the process: maximize benefits, promote justice, and mitigate health inequities. We argue that critical components of the recommended protocol were internally inconsistent with these principles. Specifically, the ACIP violated its principles by recommending overly broad health care worker priority in phase 1a, using being at least seventy-five …

Race-Specific, State-Specific Covid-19 Vaccination Rates Adjusted For Age, Govind Persad, Kaitlyn M. Berry, Govind C. Persad

Publications

The authors provide the first age-standardized race/ethnicity-specific, state-specific vaccination rates for the United States. Data encompass all states reporting race/ethnicity-specific vaccinations and reflect vaccinations through mid-October 2021, just before eligibility expanded below age 12. Using indirect age standardization, the authors compare racial/ethnic state vaccination rates with national rates. The results show that white and Black state median vaccination rates are, respectively, 89 percent and 76 percent of what would be predicted on the basis of age; Hispanic and Native rates are almost identical to what would be predicted; and Asian American/Pacific Islander rates are 110 percent of what would be …

Frustration, The Mac Clause, And Covid-19, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

COVID-19's impact on business has been exasperating—but is it Frustrating? The Frustration doctrine of contract law excuses a party from its contractual obligations when an extraordinary event completely undermines the principal purpose of making the deal. This doctrine has long been a marginal player in contract litigation, as parties rarely invoked it—and usually lost when they did.

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, is precisely the type of extraordinary event that Frustration was designed to address, and the courts have been inundated over the past year by a wave of colorable Frustration claims. This timely Article describes the Frustration doctrine and explores …

Realizing Diversity, Sustainability, And Stakeholder Capitalism, Peter H. Huang

Publications

Stakeholder capitalism conceives of capitalism with companies maximizing their long-term value, while considering in addition to the interests of their shareholders, also the interests of all their other stakeholders. Examples of such additional stakeholders include customers, employees, communities, creditors, competitors, society at large, and our planet. America today does not have stakeholder capitalism. Instead, America presently has shareholder capitalism, in which publicly held corporations only maximize their stock value to shareholders.

This Essay analyzes proposals for the United States Securities Exchange Commission to require that all reporting companies make periodic mandatory Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures of comparable, standardized, …

The Case For Data Privacy Rights (Or 'Please, A Little Optimism'), Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

No abstract provided.

Disaster Vulnerability, Lisa Grow, Brigham Daniels, Douglas M. Spencer, Chantel Sloan, Natalie Blades, Teresa Gomez

Publications

Vulnerability drives disaster law, yet the literature lacks both an overarching analysis of the different aspects of vulnerability and a nuanced examination of the factors that shape disaster outcomes. Though central to disaster law and policy, vulnerability often lurks in the shadows of a disaster, evident only once the worst is past and the bodies have been counted. The COVID-19 pandemic is a notable exception to this historical pattern: from the beginning of the pandemic, it has been clear that the virus poses different risks to different people, depending on vulnerability variables. This most recent pandemic experience thus provides a …

Roundtable Two: Environmental Law Education: New Techniques In The Classroom And Beyond, Lincoln Davies, Karrigan Bork, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Truman Show: The Fraudulent Origins Of The Former Presidents Act, Paul F. Campos

Publications

When President Donald Trump was impeached for a second time, many commenters pointed out that, if Trump were to be convicted by the Senate, he would likely lose millions of dollars in future taxpayer-funded benefits. These benefits are provided to ex-presidents by the Former Presidents Act, a 1958 statute of considerable political significance and ongoing controversy, that nevertheless has to this point been ignored completely by the legal academic literature.

This Article represents the first sustained discussion of the FPA in that literature. It concludes that the statute should be revoked — and it centers its critique on the law’s …

Identity By Committee, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

Even in school districts with relatively permissive approaches to defining and embodying gender, the identities of transgender and gender variant students are often governed by complex regulatory protocols. Ensuring that a student is able to live their gender at school can involve input from a host of purported stakeholders including medical providers, mental health professionals, school administrators, the student’s parents, and even the broader community. In essence, trans and gender variant students’ identities are governed by committee, which reduces students’ control over their lives, inhibits self-determination, constricts the scope of permissible gender identities, subjects them to incredible degrees of state …

Essential But Ignored: Covid-19 Litigation And The Meatpacking Industry, Alexia Brunet Marks

Publications

The spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) among meatpacking employees forced closures and slowdowns at many plants across the United States. As the meatpacking giants JBS, Smithfield, and Tyson became hotbeds for COVID-19, national meat production plummeted. To forestall further supply chain disruptions, former President Trump passed an Executive Order compelling plants to continue operating as “essential businesses.” As work continued, employees reported that social distancing and mask-wearing were not being enforced, managers were pressuring sick employees to work and not revealing co-worker’s infections, and an overall lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or training to reduce the risk …

Quantum Technology And Human Rights: An Agenda For Collaboration, Vivek Krishnamurthy

Publications

Quantum technologies have the potential to transform many aspects of our lives as they come into wider use, but how do we ensure that these technologies promote human rights instead of harming them? This article will draw lessons from our collective experience in managing the human rights impacts of internet technologies to help the quantum science and technology community build and develop technologies that respect and promote the fundamental rights of all people.

Addressing Pollution From More Frequent, But Still Exceptional, Wildfires, Jonathan Skinner-Thompson, Kristi M. Smith

Publications

No abstract provided.

Reforming Age Cutoffs, Govind Persad

Publications

This Article examines the use of minimum age cutoffs to define eligibility for social insurance, public benefits, and other governmental programs. These cutoffs are frequently used but rarely examined in detail. In Part I, I examine and catalogue policies that employ minimum age cutoffs. These include not only Medicare and Social Security but also other policies such as access to pensions and retirement benefits, eligibility for favorable tax treatment, and eligibility for discounts on governmentally provided goods and services. In Part II, I examine different rationales underlying eligibility and discuss the imperfect fit between these rationales and the use of …

Fair Access To Scarce Medical Capacity For Non-Covid-19 Patients: A Role For Reserves, Govind Persad, Parag A. Pathak, Tayfun Sönmez, M. Utku Unver

Publications

As hospitals in the US and elsewhere fill again with patients with covid-19, discussions about how to fairly allocate scarce medical resources have come to the fore once again. One frequently voiced concern is that non-covid-19 patients with urgent health needs are facing indefinitely postponed surgeries, long-distance hospital transfers, or even are unable to access medical treatment. In our view, a reserve or categorised priority system could help. It could be used to fairly distribute scarce medical capacity—such as staffing, physical space, and medical treatments—between covid-19 and non-covid-19 patients, just as it has been used or proposed to allocate covid-19 …

Equal Protection And Scarce Therapies: The Role Of Race, Sex, And Other Protected Classifications, Govind Persad

Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic brought debates over the use of age in scarce resource allocation to the fore once again. Initially, particularly in developed countries, debates surrounded the use of older age as an exclusion or lower-priority criterion for receipt of scarce medical interventions such as ICU beds and ventilator therapy. Many advocacy groups for older adults argued that age should not be used as a criterion for access to such interventions.[1] In developed countries and in particular the United States, they were largely successful, at least with respect to formal policy, ensuring that resource allocation policies excluded or minimized the …

Amicus (Fall 2021), University Of Colorado Law School

Amicus

Issue at a glance:

• Introduces the 17th dean of Colorado Law, Lolita Buckner Inniss
• Welcomes the Class of 2024 and new faculty member Doug Spencer
• Highlights the latest research by Associate Professor Kristelia García
• Features interviews with alumnae of color, as interviewed by members of the Women of Color Collective
• Recognizes attendees and sponsors of the 40th annual Alumni Awards Celebration
• Recognizes milestones and successes of Colorado Law alumni

Reimagining What Is Necessary: Using Active Management In Wilderness Areas To Mitigate High-Loss Wildfires, Liam Patton

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Citizen Suits For Mobile Sources: Enforcement Against Incidents Of Emissions Cheating, Paige Lambert

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Blm's Duty To Incorporate Climate Science Into Permitting Practices And A Proposal For Implementing A Net-Zero Requirement Into Oil And Gas Permitting, Jamie Gibbs Pleune, John C. Ruple, Nada Wolff Culver

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Personal Information And Artificial Intelligence: Website Scraping And The California Consumer Privacy Act, Brian Stuenkel

Colorado Technology Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Airline Commercial Use Of Eu Personal Data In The Context Of The Gdpr, British Airways And Schrems Ii, W. Gregory Voss

Colorado Technology Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Organizing A Business Law Department Within A Law School, William J. Carney

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

No abstract provided.