Digital Commons Network^™

History And The School Prayer Cases, Mark Storslee

Faculty Publications

In a series of two decisions known as the School Prayer Cases, the Supreme Court famously held that the Establishment Clause forbids state-sponsored prayer in public schools—even where the government provides opt-outs for dissenters. Yet subsequent legal developments have rendered those decisions unstable. And with the Court’s recent turn to “historical practices and understandings,” many question whether the School Prayer Cases can possibly survive.

It is too soon to tell where the Court’s renewed focus on Founding-era history might lead. But this Article contends, contrary to both some originalist Justices and their critics, that a focus on history does …

Multibillion-Dollar Tax Questions, James Alm, Jay A. Soled, Kathleen Delaney Thomas

Faculty Publications

Tax compliance in the United States historically hovers in the 80 percent range, costing the nation approximately half a trillion dollars annually in uncollected tax revenue. To foster greater tax compliance, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) should employ whatever tools are at its disposal. Standard deterrence theory argues that increasing the audit rate and imposing stiffer penalties would foster greater tax compliance. There are political headwinds, however, that strongly suggest that these approaches are not currently viable. Instead, there is a low-cost method that could yield greater tax compliance. Drawing on recent and compelling social science research, the IRS should …

Natural Objects And Testamentary Freedom, Kevin Bennardo

Faculty Publications

This Article explores the tension between inheritance law’s designation of certain beneficiaries as natural and unnatural for certain purposes and its organizing principle of testamentary freedom. Either inheritance law is primarily concerned with effectuating the preference of the decedent or it is primarily concerned with safeguarding the economic health of the family. It cannot be both. Ultimately, one of these two must yield. Either we acknowledge that decedents don’t have the level of dispositional freedom that is advertised or we change the law’s designation of some devises as natural and other as unnatural.

This Article proposes a pathway to relieve …

The Mediating Effect Of Financial Literacy On Blockchain Technology Application And Financial Risk: Insight From Ghanaian Professionals Toward Policy Recommendations, Maxwell Okpoti Mensah, Williams Kwasi Peprah [email protected]

Faculty Publications

This study explores the mediating effect of financial literacy on the relationship between blockchain technology application and financial risk among financial institution professionals in Ghana. Utilizing a correlational research design, data were collected from a sample of 336 professionals through a self-constructed Likert-scale questionnaire. The analysis was conducted using path analysis and mediation techniques. The findings reveal that financial literacy had a significant partial mediating effect between blockchain technology application and financial risk, accounting for 26.0% of the total effect. The direct negative effect of blockchain technology applications on financial risk also remained significant, highlighting the independent contribution of blockchain …

Tribes,States, And Sovereigns' Interest In Children, Emily Stolzenberg

Faculty Publications

Haaland v. Brackeen, the unsuccessful SCOTUS challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), trumpeted a critique made consistently over the statute’s 45-year history: that ICWA harms Indian children by subordinating their interests to their tribes’ interests, unlike State family law, which pursues the “best interests of the child.” This critique is likely to underpin future challenges to ICWA—and it is wrong in both fact and theory. Not only does ICWA generally benefit Indian children. More fundamentally, a tribe’s interest in Indian children corresponds directly to an interest States regularly pursue vis-à-vis all children: the political community’s interest in self-perpetuation. …

Dobbs, Abortion Laws, And In Vitro Fertilization, Kerry L. Macintosh

Faculty Publications

Health Organization1 has upended abortion jurisprudence. The case concerned a Mississippi law barring most abortions when the probable gestational age of the fetus was greater than fifteen weeks.2 Holding that the U.S. Constitution did not protect a right to abortion through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,3 the Court overruled Roe v. Wade4 and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

5 Abortion, it explained, differed from other protected acts because abortion destroyed potential life.6 Deeming rational basis review appropriate,7 the Court concluded that the Mississippi law was rationally related to what the Court accepted as legitimate state …

What I Think I Learned, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii

Faculty Publications

A retrospective review of fifty years of research and development experience showing the connectedness of the author’s theoretical ideas to practical application. An effort to show designers how over the span of a career new ideas begin as work-related insights and discoveries that by problem solving flow together to create a unique personal view of design and designing. Encouragement for individual designers to be willing to experiment with new ideas that may step beyond received practice and to learn from those experiences, even to the extent of testing and adopting new worldviews that may differ from the general view. Encouragement …

Exploring The Associations Between Being Single, Romantic Importance, And Positive Well-Being In Young Adulthood, Nicole K. Watkins, Jonathon J. Beckmeyer, Tyler B. Jamison

Faculty Publications

Objective: The goal was to explore if perceived romantic relationship importance moderated associations between single status and young adults' positive well-being.

Background: Singlehood is often framed within a deficit framework, with the expectation that being single during young adulthood may be costly for well-being. That approach, however, does not account for young adults' romantic goals, which may shape how being single is connected to well-being.

Method: Participants were 909 American young adults, ages 18–35 (M = 26.6, 51% female, 81% heterosexual, 58% White, non-Hispanic), who completed an online survey in December 2019.

Results: Being single, compared to having a romantic …

Contextualizing Singlehood Among Young Adults: Exploring The Meanings And Perceived Reasons For Being Single, Jonathon J. Beckmeyer, Tyler B. Jamison

Faculty Publications

Objective: We explored how young adults discussed their experiences with singlehood and their reasons for being single.

Background: Despite singlehood being normative during young adulthood, less research has focused on the diversity of singlehood compared to that of romantic involvement.

Method: In Study 1, 35 young adults participated in in-depth qualitative interviews about their romantic histories. We explored singlehood meanings and reasons in the context of their relationship histories. In Study 2 we used data from 155 single young adults to explore the factor structure, internal reliability, and initial validity of the Reasons for Being Single (RBS) scale, which we …

Youth Identity And Postsecondary Decision Making In A Rural State: Evidence Of A College For All Master Narrative, Jayson Seaman, Cindy L. Hartman, Andrew D. Coppens, Erin H. Sharp, Sarah Jusseaume, Molly Donovan

Faculty Publications

This study examined the normative messages that inform youth postsecondary decision making in a predominantly rural state in the northeastern U.S., focusing on the institutionalization and circulation of identity master narratives. Using a multilevel, ecological approach to sampling, the study interviewed 33 key informants in positions of influence in educational, workforce, and quality of life domains. Narrative analysis yielded evidence of a predominant master narrative – College for All – that participants described as a prescriptive expectation that youth and families orient their postsecondary planning toward four-year, residential baccalaureate degree programs. Both general and domain-specific aspects of this master narrative …

The Influence Of Body Mass Index On Ready-To-Wear Clothing Preferences Of Young African-American Female Consumers, Jung-Im Seo, Vadel Shivers

Faculty Publications

Although consumers’ body shapes are various, the sizes of bust, waist, and hips of ready-to-wear (RTW) are fairly standardized in the apparel manufactures’ sizing charts, leading to clothing fit issues for many consumers. Body Mass Index (BMI) is an important factor that has an impact on body image perception, but there is little research on the influence of the obesity prevalence on RTW clothing preferences. The purposes of this study are to examine the correlation between African-American women’s obesity prevalence represented by BMI and RTW clothing preferences such as store preference and clothing benefit sought as well as clothing fitting …

Building Resilience To Extreme Weather And Climate Events In The Rural Water And Wastewater Sectors, Nathan P. Kettle, Sarah F. Trainor, Renee Edwards, Donald Antrobus, Curt Baranowski, Tina Buxbaum, Kevin Berry, Michael Brubaker, Kristine L. De Long, Steve Fries, Davin Holen, Barry Keim, Danielle Meeker, Harry Penn, Cheryl Rosa, Rick Thoman, John Walsh, Jian Zhang

Faculty Publications

Extreme weather and climate events pose significant risks to rural water and wastewater systems. We examine the vulnerability of the water sector to weather and climate extremes in rural, predominantly Indigenous and underserved coastal areas and analyze how networks support resilience. Drawing on the analysis of 39 web-based questionnaire responses and 19 interviews with rural water and wastewater managers and service providers in southern Louisiana and western Alaska, this article reports a range of interrelated historical, environmental, and social factors that influence vulnerability to extreme weather events. Formal and informal social networks serve multiple roles in building resilience. These roles …

Personalized Feedback Intervention For Individuals With Low Distress Tolerance Who Smoke Cigarettes: A Randomized Controlled Trial Of A Digital Intervention, Brooke Y. Redmond, Aniqua Salwa, Jonathan B. Bricker, Julia D. Buckner, Lorra Garey, Michael J. Zvolensky

Faculty Publications

Introduction: Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death and disability in the United States and frequently co-occurs with anxiety and depressive symptoms. A novel and integrative, theory-driven approach to address the heterogeneity of mood-related symptoms associated with cigarette use is to focus on transdiagnostic processes, such as distress tolerance, that underpin both mood-related symptoms and smoking behavior. The current study sought to develop and examine the feasibility, acceptability, and initial efficacy of a digitally delivered integrated personalized feedback intervention (PFI) that addresses smoking-distress tolerance relations. Methods: Participants included 121 adults (71.1 % male; Mage = 29.33 years, SD …

Digital Archives: How Western Newspapers Frame Our Remembrance Of The Gezi Park Protest, Nihar Sreepada, Ahmet Aksoy

Faculty Publications

We analyze the coverage of the Gezi Park protests by two major Western newspapers - The New York Times and The Guardian - through the lens of media framing, rhetoric, and collective memory. We argue that these digital archives frame Turkey's Gezi Park protests as a challenge to an authoritarian government by promoting the themes of unrest as a conflict of ideologies, oppression of citizens, and the park as a site of memory. In a concluding section, we focus on the significance of digital archives as repositories of collective memory and the role of media framing in shaping these reconstructions …

Examining Consumers’ Perceptions Of And Attitudes Toward Digital Fashion In General And Purchase Intention Of Luxury Brands’ Digital Fashion Specifically, Yanbo Zhang, Chuanlan Liu, Yanru Lyu

Faculty Publications

Digital fashion may instill transformative power into the fashion industry as it can simultaneously deliver fashionability and sustainability. Renowned for their innovativeness and creativity, luxury brands embrace digital fashion and achieve market success, indicating the future of digital fashion. This research aims to empirically investigate consumers’ general perceptions and evaluations of digital fashion and to specifically examine consumers’ purchase intention of luxury brands’ digital fashion. A total of 214 responses were collected from a U.S.-based research company’s consumer panel. Data were analyzed by using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that the general attitude toward digital fashion is influenced …

A Critical Systematic Literature Review Of Global Inclusive Education Using An Affective, Intersectional, Discursive, Emotive And Material Lens, David Isaac Hernández-Saca, Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Susan Larson Etscheidt

Faculty Publications

We conducted a critical systematic literature review on global inclusive education and law. The critical review questions were: (1) how have scholars theorized, conceptualized, and studied global inclusive education? (2) How do scholars define global inclusive education? (3) And what do scholars cite as prominent international inclusive education law? We ask such questions given the ongoing global crises that situate historically marginalized groups in even more precarious positions—including students with dis/Abilities. Given this framing, we employed a critical systematic literature review that is cognizant of our positionalities, writing from the Global North, so that we can identify lines of inquiry …

Correlations Between Educational Struggle, Toxic Sites By School District And Demographic Variables, With Geographical Information System Projections, Junu Shrestha, Raihan K. Khan, Shane Mcclintock, John Degroote, Catherine L. Zeman

Faculty Publications

This correlational study associated data on children enrolled in individualized educational plans in their K-12 schools (IEP) and an algorithm-calculated score of neurotoxins at contaminated sites located in each school district. The study also mapped and projected the correlations using Geographical Information System (GIS) technology. These data were populated in ArcMap 10.5 (a GIS software) for generating maps and data to conduct geospatial analysis. A total of 1 Superfund site and 39 CERCLA sites were identified as contaminated sites for this analysis. The majority of contaminants were heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium. The mean toxic score …

Laundering Police Lies, Adam Gershowitz, Caroline E. Lewis

Faculty Publications

Police officers—like ordinary people—are regularly dishonest. Officers lie under oath (testilying), on police reports (reportilying), and in a myriad of other situations. Despite decades of evidence about police lies, the U.S. Supreme Court regularly believes police stories that are utterly implausible. Either because the Court is gullible, willfully blind, or complicit, the justices have simply rubber-stamped police lies in numerous high-profile cases. For instance, the Court has accepted police claims that a suspect had bags of cocaine displayed in his lap at the end of a police chase (Whren v. United States), that officers saw marijuana through a …

Under Siege: Battling The Foes Of Emotional And Cognitive Distress, Ronald Coffen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Cism Responder Self-Care: Don't Neglect Engaging In Meaningful Activities, Harvey J. Burnett Jr, David Sherman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Identifying And Supporting Financially Vulnerable Women Experiencing Economic Abuse: A Grounded Theory Approach, Leslie Book, Ann Kayis-Kumar, Youngdeok Lim, Jack Noone, Michael Walpole, Jan Breckenridge

Faculty Publications

This study extends the literature by exploring the role of pro bono tax clinics within the social impact ecosystem with a focus on the experiences of women in financial distress who are otherwise unable to access professional tax advice. Using clinic data derived from a pro bono tax advisory clinic, this article finds that 58 per cent of financially vulnerable women seeking pro bono tax services have experienced domestic and family violence (DFV), confirming again the link between financial stress and economic abuse. Yet only 3 per cent of these women were receiving domestic and family violence-related support, highlighting the …

Therapeutics To Treat Psychiatric And Neurological Disorders: A Promising Perspective From Algerian Traditional Medicine, Farida Larit, Francisco León Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Ancient people sought out drugs in nature to prevent, cure, and treat their diseases, including mental illnesses. Plants were their primary source for meeting their healthcare needs. In Algeria, folk medicine remains a fundamental part of the local intangible knowledge. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive ethnomedicinal investigation and documentation of medicinal plants and the different plant formulations traditionally used in Algeria for the treatment of pain, psychiatric, and neurological disorders. It also intends to improve the current knowledge of Algerian folk medicine. Several scientific databases were used to accomplish this work. Based on this investigation, we identified 82 …

Labeling Effects Of Initial Juvenile Justice System Processing Decision On Youth Interpersonal Ties*, Zachary R. Rowan, Adam Fine, Laurence Steinberg, Paul J. Frick, Elizabeth Cauffman

Faculty Publications

The juvenile justice system can process youth in myriad ways. Youth who are formally processed, relative to being informally processed, may experience more public and harsh sanctions that label youth more negatively as “deviant.” Drawing on labeling theory, the current study evaluates the relative effect of formal justice system processing on the interpersonal dynamics of youth peer networks. Using data from the Crossroads Study, a multisite longitudinal sample of first-time adolescent offenders, the current study applies augmented inverse probability weighting and generalized mixed-effects models to estimate the effects of formal processing on friendship selection processes of homophily and withdrawal and …

On The Trajectory Of Discrimination: A Meta-Analysis And Forecasting Survey Capturing 44 Years Of Field Experiments On Gender And Hiring Decisions, Helen C. Harton, Michael Schaerer, Christilene Du Plessis, My Hoang Bao Nguyen, Robbie C.M.Van Aert, Leo Tiokhin, Daniel Lakens, Elena Giulia Clemente, Thomas Pfeiffer, Anna Dreber, Magnus Johannesson, Cory J. Clark, Eric Luis Uhlmann

Faculty Publications

A preregistered meta-analysis, including 244 effect sizes from 85 field audits and 361,645 individual job applications, tested for gender bias in hiring practices in female-stereotypical and gender-balanced as well as male-stereotypical jobs from 1976 to 2020. A “red team” of independent experts was recruited to increase the rigor and robustness of our meta-analytic approach. A forecasting survey further examined whether laypeople (n = 499 nationally representative adults) and scientists (n = 312) could predict the results. Forecasters correctly anticipated reductions in discrimination against female candidates over time. However, both scientists and laypeople overestimated the continuation of bias against female candidates. …

140 Characters To Justice? The Promise And Perils Of Using Social Media To Reveal Lay Punishment Perspectives, Itay Ravid, Rotem Dror

Faculty Publications

For centuries, penal theorists have debated two key criminal justice questions: justifying state punishment power and determining proper punishment levels. Moral philosophers offered several theories to address these questions. Over time, calls emerged to move beyond theories and to consider community views on punishment rationales in criminal law and policy design, an approach that gained support alongside meaningful critique. Concurrently, social science advancements enabled empirically deepening understanding of public attitudes about punishment, largely through surveys and experiments.

One domain, however, remained untouched by those calling to assess lay intuitions of justice: social media. Such oversight is puzzling in light of …

Law And Its Limits: Ethical Issues In Mary Shelly's Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus, David S. Caudill

Faculty Publications

The law and literature movement is frequently associated with the use of literary images of law as a point of reflection upon the ethical obligations of lawyers. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)—the story of a young scientist whose unorthodox experiments end up creating the famed “monster”—is not, at first glance, a likely candidate for that enterprise. However, Dr. Frankenstein’s ambition and ruthless pursuit of knowledge has become a contemporary image of science out of control and the need for ethical limitations on scientific progress. Consequently, the novel raises currently important issues of regulating science and technology. Given the lawyer’s ethical obligation …

Telling Stories In Noise: The Impact Of Background Noises On Spoken Language For People With Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Brenna Scadden Nelson, Christopher Dromey, Kirsten Dixon Clawson

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Determine how different background noise conditions affect the spoken language of participants with aphasia during a story retell task.

Method: Participants included 11 adults with mild to moderate aphasia and 11 age- and gender-matched controls. Participants retold stories in a silent baseline and five background noise conditions (conversation, monologue, phone call, cocktail, pink noise). Dependent measures of speech acoustics (fundamental frequency, mean intensity), speech fluency (speech rate, disfluent words), and language production (correct information units, lexical errors, lexical diversity, and cohesive utterances) were compared between groups and across conditions.

Results: Background noise resulted in higher fundamental frequency (F_{0 …}

Physiological Arousal, Attentiveness, Emotion, And Word Retrieval In Aphasia: Effects And Relationships, Tyson G. Harmon, Angela Johnson, Vivian Ward, Shawn Nissen

Faculty Publications

Purpose: To (a) compare physiological arousal and attentiveness during a confrontational naming task between participants with aphasia and a control group across four conditions that varied according to emotionality of presented stimuli and (b) explore relationships among physiological arousal, attentiveness, perceived arousal, and naming performance. We hypothesized that participants with aphasia would show lower levels of arousal and attentiveness than control participants and that emotional conditions would lead to increased physiological arousal and attentiveness.

Method: Eight participants with aphasia and 15 control participants completed a confrontational naming task under positive, negative, and neutral conditions and rated their perceived arousal after …

Ready Worker One? High-Res Vr For The Home Office, Anastasia Ruvimova, Felipe Fronchetti, Boden A. Kahn, Luiz Henrique Susin, Zekeya Hurley, Thomas Fritz, Mark Hancock, David Shepherd

Faculty Publications

Many employees prefer to work from home, yet struggle to squeeze their office into an already fully-utilized space. Virtual Reality (VR) seemingly offered a solution with its ability to transform even modest physical spaces into spacious, productive virtual offices, but hardware challenges - such as low resolution - have prevented this from becoming a reality. Now that hardware issues are being overcome, we are able to investigate the suitability of VR for daily work. To do so, we (1) studied the physical space that users typically dedicate to home offices and (2) conducted an exploratory study of users working in …

Examination Of Real-Time Variation In Interpersonal Hopelessness And Suicidal Desire In A College Student Sample Reporting Past-2-Week Suicidal Ideation, Jessica L. Gerner, Emma H. Moscardini, Sean M. Mitchell, Ryan M. Hill, Raymond P. Tucker

Faculty Publications

Introduction: Interpersonal hopelessness (IH), as outlined in the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide, is theorized to include two correlated, distinct constructs: hopelessness about one's thwarted belongingness (IH-TB) and about perceived burdensomeness on others (IH-PB). Few studies have explored IH, and none have explored its temporal stability or prospective prediction of suicidal desire. Methods: Undergraduates (N = 43) selectively recruited for past-2-week suicidal ideation completed five ecological momentary assessment surveys per day for 10-days. Intraclass correlations, root mean square of successive differences, and multilevel models were used to examine the data and test relationships among predictor variables. Results: IH-TB and IH-PB demonstrated …