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Introduction, David Earl Wietlispach

Nebraska Law Review

What follows in these pages is some of the scholarship that law professors from around the country came to discuss at the fall 2024 Nebraska Law Review Symposium: Democracy Without Trust? Professors Jennifer Breen and Brandon Johnson both tackle the question of whether institutions deserve trust, especially the nation’s courts. Professor Jacob Eisler discusses the role of party politics and gerrymandering. Professor Anthony Gaughan examines the rise and fall of trust in American higher education. The Nebraska Law Review chose this topic—proposed by Professor Johnson—for its timeliness ahead of a consequential presidential election. The Nebraska Law Review would like to …

The Self-Erasure Of The Eeoc In Bostock V. Clayton County, Nicholas B. Mauer

Nebraska Law Review

During the decade before the Supreme Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) interpreted Title VII to prohibit employment discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Through informal adjudication, independent litigation, and nonacquiescence, the EEOC successfully etched its interpretation of Title VII into law without receiving Chevron deference. The agency made arguments about the meaning of Title VII that succeeded in lower courts and eventually at the Supreme Court. However, the majority opinion in Bostock never mentioned the EEOC’s near-decade of work. Thus, the EEOC’s role in Bostock is both a potential model …

Wife, Mother, Worst Of The Worst: America’S Death Penalty Schemes As Gendered And Arbitrary, Abby Slyter

Nebraska Law Review

The legal landscape surrounding capital punishment in the United States has evolved significantly since its inception, and women’s status on death row has not been left untouched by these developments. Following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Furman v. Georgia, the constitutionality of the death penalty as it applies to women has faced increased scrutiny.

This Comment explores the history of capital punishment for women, the status of women on death row as of March 2024, and analyzes capital punishment sentencing as a gendered process through the Chivalry and Evil Woman Theories. An examination of Furman and subsequent cases …

Leadership Academy: Fostering Honors Faculty Growth Through Peer-To-Peer Learning, Chelsea Redger-Marquardt, Doug Stucky, Cindi Mason, Bobby Berry, Samantha Gregus, Kimberly Engber

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Discusses the Lead for Tomorrow program at the Cohen Honors Leadership Academy at Wichita State University, fostering honors faculty growth through peer-to-peer learning.

Keeping Company: Genuine Conversation As A First-Year Honors Seminar Pedagogy, Richard Badenhausen

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Despite the challenges of a conversational approach to the FYS, the pedagogy has become engrained enough in the gateway seminar to the Westminster University Honors College that it would be hard to imagine adopting another strategy. Faculty tend to improve over time at leading such classrooms and regularly focus on the conversation-based features of their classes in their end-of-term self-reflections, as two teaching partners did in the following comments about the honors core course Global Welfare and Justice: “The strength of the class was the group dynamic and constellation of voices. It was an incredibly engaged class. Students challenged and …

West Chester University Of Pennsylvania: Program Profile, Kevin W. Dean, Zachary Wooten

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Founded in 1871, the institution, which eventually became West Chester University (WCU) of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, transitioned in 1927 from a Normal School to a State Teachers College. In 1960, the institution introduced a liberal arts program, turning the one-time academy into a comprehensive college. Finally, in 1983, the institution attained university status. Located in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley in Chester County, WCU sits 25 miles west of Philadelphia and 17 miles north of Wilmington, Delaware. WCU is a public, comprehensive institution offering undergraduate education and graduate programs. In fall 2024, the university enrolled …

Reflection In First-Year Honors Courses: Why We Can’T Take It For Granted, Kevin W. Dean, Zachary Wooten

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Existing scholarship suggests that intentional reflection, during or shortly following an event, can impact future vocational choices and generate memories that participants can recall years after the undergraduate experience. Inspiring accounts of reflection, decades following honors City as Text experiences, demonstrate the influence that reflective experiences played in vocational formation (Daniel; Schock). Given the community focus of an honors FYS, studying the long-term impact of that experience on alums would be interesting.

Bringing The Idea Of Ideas To Life, Christopher J. Syrnyk

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Discusses the development of the First-year Seminar and Honors Program at Oregon Institute of Technology (Oregon Tech).

Metallic Nanoparticles And Cosmetics: The Role Of Mitochondria And Premature Aging, Veronica Montesinos-Cruz, Justin Olmanson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The cosmetic industry has developed and commercialized numerous products using new technologies, making them increasingly appealing to the public. The use of metallic nanoparticles (MtNPs) as key ingredients in cosmetics has become more widespread due to their demonstrated benefits. However, the use of these products remains controversial, as some studies have shown that MtNPs can penetrate the deeper layers of the skin and disrupt homeostatic balance. It has also been demonstrated that the interaction between MtNPs and keratinocytes increases the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can lead to oxidative stress, a condition associated with premature aging. Mitochondria, as …

Masthead & Table Of Contents, Vol. 104, No. 2

Nebraska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Sex Necessary? Or Why You Feel The Way You Do, James Thurber, E. B. White

Zea E-Books Collection

Contents: The Nature of the American Male : A Study of Pedestalism • How to Tell Love From Passion • A Discussion of Feminine Types • The Sexual Revolution : Being a Rather Complete Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene • The Lilies-and-Bluebird Delusion • What Should Children Tell Parents? • Claustrophobia, or What Every Young Wife Should Know • Frigidity in Men • Answers to Hard Questions • Glossary

The year was 1929, the height of the Roaring Twenties and the eve of the Crash and Great Depression. A “Sexual Revolution” was in progress, and two writers from The …

Program And Proceedings: Nebraska Academy Of Sciences 1880–2025, 145th Anniversary Year, One Hundred-Thirty-Fifth Annual Meeting

Nebraska Academy of Sciences: Programs and Proceedings

Program

Aeronautics and Space Science

Biological and Medical Sciences

Biology

Chemistry

Earth Sciences

Science Education

Anthropology

Applied Science and Technology

Physics and Engineering

Forensic Sciences

Ecology, Sustainability, and Environmental Science

Maiben Lecture: Mary Ann Vinton, "State of the Academy"

Friends of Science Awards: David Crouse and Daniel Sitzman

The Impact Of Daybook Reflection Practices In The Honors First-Year Seminar, Michelle Miles, Rita L. Bailey

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The National Collegiate Honors Council contends that an “honors college or program [should provide] opportunities for measurably broader, deeper, and more complex learning-centered and learner-directed experiences for its students than are available elsewhere in the institution.” We feel that this philosophical premise indicates the importance of incorporating semi-structured written reflection practices into first-year honors seminar courses. Furthermore, the primarily affirmative response of both students and instructors to the usefulness of Daybooks, in terms of internal and external course application, indicates that by incorporating written reflection into a course designed to acclimate first-year students to honors methodology, instructors are optimally positioning …

Wrongful Birth After Dobbs And The Limits Of Tort Law In Areas Of Dissensus, E. Travis Ramey

Nebraska Law Review

As the abortion debate has raged in this country, a secondary debate over wrongful birth has accompanied it. Wrongful birth is a medical-malpractice-like claim brought by parents who allege that a medical provider negligently failed to provide accurate information about the fetus and that had they received accurate information they would have terminated the pregnancy. Courts rejected the tort theory until Roe v. Wade was decided. Post-Roe, courts were heavily divided over whether to recognize the claim and what damages were recoverable. Now, after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the continued viability of wrongful birth is …

Absolutely Unnecessary Immunity, Eileen Prescott

Nebraska Law Review

Prosecutors, like judges, cannot be sued for their professional misconduct in most jurisdictions. As long as their actions are sufficiently tied to their job duties, their actual malice does not matter, even if they had demonstrable malice—a prosecutor could bring baseless charges against an ex-spouse specifically to harass them, with absolute immunity from suit. This immunity allows prosecutors to abuse the power of their office without civil recourse. In theory, absolute immunity aims to protect the office by resolving cases simply and quickly, but in reality, courts get bogged down litigating whether a prosecutor’s specific action was sufficiently tied to …

When One Door Closes: Legal Education And Racial Justice After Students For Fair Admissions, Michael I. Meyerson

Nebraska Law Review

In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited colleges and universities from using race as a factor in admissions decisions. Many have feared that this ruling portends the end of racial diversity in higher education. Law schools, however, can choose to treat this decision as creating a fresh opportunity to pursue racial justice in a comprehensive and meaningful way. Most of the early scholarly writing on Students for Fair Admissions focused on either its …

Who’S Afraid Of Little Old Me? The Record Industry: Protecting Creativity And Promoting Artists’ Rights Through A Narrow Scope Of 17 U.S.C. §§ 103 And 114 Rights For Derivative Works, Margaret Fouberg

Nebraska Law Review

This Comment explores the growing conversation surrounding artist rights and music ownership, catalyzed by Taylor Swift’s public dispute with Big Machine Records. Swift’s efforts to reclaim her work have spotlighted the complexities of U.S. copyright law, particularly the distinct rights afforded to sound recordings versus musical compositions under the Sound Recording Act of 1971. By examining derivative works and their required standard of originality, this Comment argues that a narrow interpretation of copyright protections for derivative works, as outlined in 17 U.S.C. §§ 103 and 114, is essential for fostering creativity and safeguarding artists’ rights. Through an analysis of legislative …

The Jurisprudence Of Statutory Interpretation: A Framework For The Logical Restraints Of Legal Positivism And Textualism, K. A. Stenseng

Nebraska Law Review

Since President Donald Trump’s first term in office, the Supreme Court has become increasingly dominated by justices who identify as textualists. In recent years, the Court’s environmental decisions (and the Court itself) have become the center of public scrutiny. As President Trump proceeds through his second term in office, how can legal experts and policymakers better understand the trajectory of the current court? Answering this question is vital as the legal community faces new questions surrounding the Rule of Law.

This Article centers on recent Supreme Court case law, including the Court’s controversial Clean Water Act (“CWA”) decision in Sackett …

Reading Is Dead: Can Law Schools Make Lawyers From Non-Readers?, Elizabeth Ruiz Frost

Nebraska Law Review

Reading is dead. While its death has been widely reported in popular media, this Article contributes to the conversation by connecting the death of reading to core lawyering skills, arguing that the way we teach in law schools must change to account for the loss. Reading fuels critical thinking skills, communication skills, general knowledge, and our ability to understand and empathize with people. Thus, a lifetime of reading builds the foundation for core lawyering skills. But what happens when law students spend their lifetime doing anything but reading? This Article will first explain, briefly, how reading has been taught in …

Lessons From The Vieth Dissents: Partisan Gerrymandering, Party Construction, And The Challenge Of Judicial Intervention, Jacob Eisler

Nebraska Law Review

No topic endured more uncertainty over the past fifty years than the legality of politicized districting. In 1986’s Davis v. Bandemer, the Supreme Court first indicated that sufficiently egregious partisan gerrymanders might be unconstitutional, while offering a test so vague that federal courts virtually never found districtings to be illegal. In 2004’s Vieth v. Jubelirer, a plurality of the bench announced the Supreme Court lacked appropriate constitutional tools to identify such partisan gerrymanders—but Justice Kennedy’s concurrence suggested that while no test had yet been found, one might be found in the future. It was not until 2019’s Rucho …

Not The “Mere Creature” Of Big Tech: The Constitutionality Of Parental Consent Laws For Minors’ Social Media Accounts, Kat Turco

Nebraska Law Review

A growing number of states have passed laws requiring social media platforms to obtain parental consent before granting accounts to minors to combat rising mental health issues, cyberbullying, and screen addiction. Although well intentioned, every such law has been enjoined in the lower courts, and the Supreme Court has yet to address whether laws requiring parental consent for minors’ social‑media accounts violate the First Amendment. This Comment argues that lower courts have miscast such statutes as content‑based speech restrictions requiring strict scrutiny under Brown v. Entertainment Merchants’ Association. Parental consent laws differ from the content-based statute at issue in …

The Rise And Fall Of Public Confidence In Higher Education, Anthony J. Gaughan

Nebraska Law Review

During the 20th century, college came to be viewed as an essential credential on the path to middle-class prosperity. But in the 21st century, a growing percentage of Americans have come to doubt the value of higher education. Consequently, the future for colleges and universities has never been more uncertain.

This Article explores the rise and decline of public confidence in higher education. Part One explores how higher education gained the confidence of the American people. In the 1800s, the idea that higher education would uplift the country became an article of national faith. The 20th century saw further gains …

A Judiciary Without Trust?, Brandon J. Johnson

Nebraska Law Review

Public hand wringing over waning faith in the Supreme Court, this Essay contends, mistakes symptom for cause. The real crisis is not distrust but the Court’s persistent failure to earn trust in the first place. Trust is a feeling; trustworthiness is a record. This Essay adopts a common understanding of trustworthiness that evaluates the demonstrated ability of the trusted party to protect the vulnerable trusting parties, and analyzes the Court’s trustworthiness against that yardstick. From Dred Scott, Plessy, and Korematsu to modern “shadow docket” interventions and undisclosed donor funded travel, the Court has too often shown itself untrustworthy …

Dreamers And The Fda: Article Iii Standing In Immigration Cases After Fda V. Alliance, Madeline Hutchison

Nebraska Law Review

States historically challenge federal executive policy through litigation. One recent example is Texas’ challenge to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) policy for the second time in two years. The validity of DACA was challenged in the Fifth Circuit due to immigration concerns by Texas, where the court ultimately held Texas had Article III standing to sue. However other courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, have begun closing the door on plaintiffs that demonstrate only broad injuries related to government regulations and policies. The June 2024 Supreme Court ruling in FDA v. Alliance may open the door for …

Democracy’S Fundamentals: Efficacy, Equality, And The Supreme Court, Jenny Breen

Nebraska Law Review

When assessing courts in a democratic regime, we must begin by asking substantial questions about what it means for any democratic nation to allocate such important functions to an often unelected branch of government. Courts must fit within a democracy, not democracies within a judicial system. This Essay identifies two fundamental predicates of democratic rule—efficacy and equality—and examines the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in light of both of those key categories, finding that its recent decisions have been consistently undermining both. These observations on the United States Supreme Court are prefaced by overviews of the scholarly literature …

Green Project Finance For Infrastructure And Building Construction: Instruments And Benchmarks, Yunping Liang

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

It is counterintuitive that both the practice and research on green project finance for infrastructure and building construction are ascendant and still have limited precedents, considering that individually, the two parts (i.e., project finance and sustainability in the built environment) are both familiar to the communities. To narrow the gap and facilitate the financing of the built environment’s sustainable transformation, this study systematically reviews the common instruments for financing green infrastructure and building projects. Benchmarking questions distinguishing the profile of green project finance from common construction project finance are developed based on the literature review and then are used for …

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 61, No. 1, Eve M. Brank, David J. Dreyer, Reba Page

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Contents

We Need Cvility Now More Than Ever, Benes Z. Aldana

Bias of Work-Related Psychological Claims, Melissa Lin Jones

An AI Primer for Judges, Joseph Regalia

Editor’s Note

President’s Column, Vincent L. Johnson

Thoughts from Canada: The Supreme Court of Canada Considers the Application of the Common Law “Exigent Circumstances” Doctrine to the Warrantless Searches of Electronic Devices, Wayne K. Gorman

Crossword: Four 38-acrosses, Victor Fleming

Court Review Author Submission Guidelines

The Resource Page

What Judges Can Do about Implicit Bias: Evidence-based Recommendations and Practices, Jerry Kang

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 61, No. 3 & 4, Eve M. Brank, David J. Dreyer, Reba Ann Page

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Contents

Civil Cases in the Supreme Court’s October Term 2024, Thomas M. Fisher

Consensus and Conflict Over Context: Select Criminal Law and Procedure Cases from the Supreme Court’s 2024-25 Term, Eve Brensike Primus and Elena Schultz

Yes, There’s a Public Trust Crisis but Your Daily Efforts Can Reverse It, Emily LaGratta and Tom R. Tyler

Was That Wrong? Spontaneity’s Role in Judicial Discipline Allegations, John W. Valente, Shawn C. Marsh, and Tahliah Ling

Correction: Large Language Models, Newer, More Powerful Large Reasoning Models, and the Courts

Editors' Note, Reba Ann Page and David J. Dreyer

Thoughts from Canada: The Supreme …

Supporting English Language Learners In Agricultural Education: A Document Analysis, Ellie Chitwood

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In Nebraska’s rural agricultural education classrooms, increasing numbers of students learn English as a second language, yet support tailored for these learners remains limited. This study explores how English Language Learner (ELL) resources are organized, accessed, and utilized within Nebraska’s agricultural education system. Drawing on Bandura’s Social Learning Theory and leadership education frameworks, a qualitative document analysis examined state policies, Educational Service Unit (ESU) supports, and professional development materials. Findings reveal a coherent statewide policy overshadowed by uneven regional implementation and limited agricultural contextualization. Despite resource disparities and technological constraints, agricultural educators demonstrate leadership by innovating bilingual supports and fostering …

Examining Trauma And Substance Use Co-Morbidity In African Americans, Breanne Maray Sande Russell

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a profound public health crisis that significantly elevates the risk for substance use disorders (SUDs), including alcohol and opioid misuse. Adolescents exposed to CM are especially vulnerable, often turning to substances as maladaptive coping mechanisms during critical developmental periods. African American youth bear this disproportionate burden, yet research addressing their unique experiences remains strikingly limited. Furthermore, while the co-occurrence of trauma-related disorders and substance use is well documented, racial and ethnic minority groups continue to be underrepresented in this literature. Emotion regulation difficulties are increasingly recognized as a mechanism linking PTSD symptoms with substance use, yet …