Digital Commons Network^™

Limiting “Sugary Drinks” To Reduce Obesity — Who Decides?, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

When a judge struck down the New York City Board of Health's partial ban on selling “sugary drinks” in containers of more than 16 fluid ounces, the reaction was swift. The Portion Cap Rule was widely viewed as a signature accomplishment of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's third term as the “public health mayor,” and he vowed to appeal, saying, “I've got to defend my children, and yours, and do what's right to save lives. Obesity kills.” But the question before the judge was not about the health risks posed by obesity or even the relationship between obesity and access to large …

Removing Removal's Unanimity Rule, Jayne Ressler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Black Kinship Circles In The 21st Century: Survey Of Recent Child Welfare Reforms And How It Impacts Black Kinship Care Families, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin

Faculty Scholarship

The Black American community has been celebrated for the historical success of kinship care. With an eye on the long legal history of attempts to address kinship care families, the federal government created an exploratory program to concentrate on solving the three goals of child welfare. Title IV-E Flexible Waiver program of the Social Security Act implemented in 2005 was designed to address the permanency, wellbeing, and safety of children with the goal of decreasing the number of children in out-of-home care.

• This paper argues Title IV-E Flexible Waivers should be used to address the continued health and economic needs …

2012 Survey Of Juvenile Law, Michael J. Dale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Global Approach To Legal Writing And Legal Research: An Evolutionary Process, Diane Edelman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Global Legal Responses To Prenatal Gender Identification And Sex Selection, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

Over one hundred million women in the world are estimated to be “missing” from the world’s population due to some form of gendercide. Gendercide exists on almost every continent and affects every class of people. Gendercide has traditionally taken the form of sex-selective abortion, infanticide, or death caused by neglect. Sex-selective abortions occur when a pregnancy is terminated due to the sex of the fetus. In the last few decades, technological advances have allowed potential parents to identify the gender of their baby early in the first trimester. Recently, with the advent of newer technology that allows one to choose …

Equality Arguments For Abortion Rights, Neil S. Siegel, Reva B. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

Roe v. Wade grounds constitutional protections for women’s decision wheth­er to end a pregnancy in the Due Process Clauses. But in the four decades since Roe, the U.S. Supreme Court has come to recognize the abortion right as an equality right as well as a liberty right. In this Essay, we describe some distinctive features of equality arguments for abortion rights. We then show how, over time, the Court and individual Justices have begun to employ equal­ity arguments in analyzing the constitutionality of abortion restrictions. These arguments first appear inside of substantive due process case law, and then as claims …

Jack Balkin's Rich Historicism And Diet Originalism: Health Benefits And Risks For The Constitutional System, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

In Living Originalism, Jack Balkin reasons from two points of view — the perspective of the constitutional system as a whole and the perspective of the faithful participant in that system. First, he provides a systemic account of constitutional change, which he calls “living constitutionalism.” Second, he offers an individual approach to constitutional interpretation and construction, which he calls “framework originalism” or “the method of text and principle.” Reasoning from the systemic perspective, Balkin develops a compelling theory of the processes of constitutional change. Balkin may insufficiently appreciate, however, that public candor about — or even deep awareness of — …

Are People Probabilistically Challenged?, Alex Stein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Romer V. Evans To United States V. Windsor: Law As A Vehicle For Moral Disapproval In Amendment 2 And The Defense Of Marriage Act, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers the intertwined fates of Romer v. Evans and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which both date back to 1996. In United States v. Windsor, Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, struck down Section 3 of DOMA, using Romer as a template. This article reflects on Romer as it bears on the use of law as a vehicle to express morality, in particular, “moral disapproval of homosexuality” and moral approval -- and the defense and nurture -- of “traditional, heterosexual marriage.” Proponents of Amendment 2 (struck down in Romer, in an opinion written by Justice Kennedy) and …

Life In The Balance: Judicial Review Of Abortion Regulations, Khiara Bridges

Faculty Scholarship

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, scholars have been preoccupied with the test that ought to be applied to abortion regulations. Debate has swirled around the question of whether laws that burden the abortion right should be reviewed with strict scrutiny, rational basis review, or some other multi-factor or categorical test and at what point during pregnancy these tests are appropriate. Moreover, since Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the Court replaced Roe’s trimester framework with the undue burden standard, commentators have questioned the propriety of this new test. This Article argues that the most important change …

What Would Be The Story Of Alice And Leonard Rhinelander Today?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

On November 8, 2011, I presented this lecture as part of the annual Brigitte M. Bodenheimer Family Law Lecture Series at the University of California, Davis School of Law. I extend sincere thanks to the Bodenheimer family for endowing this special lecture. I feel honored to be a small part of this wonderful lecture series in family law. I feel particularly grateful because the University of California, Davis School of Law was my "birthplace" as a professor. Dean Rex Perschbacher, then Associate Dean Kevin Johnson, and the law school faculty welcomed me into academia by giving me my first job …

Towards The Declassification Of S&P 500 Boards, Lucian A. Bebchuk, Scott Hirst, June Rhee

Faculty Scholarship

This report provides an overview and analysis of the work that the Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) undertook on behalf of a number of institutional investors during 2012 and 2013, the SRP’s first two years of operations. During 2012 and 2013, the SRP worked on behalf of eight SRP-represented investors on board declassification proposals submitted for a vote at the 2012 and/or 2013 annual meetings of 122 S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies, and this work has produced substantial results:
/="/">
/="/">100 Negotiated Outcomes: Negotiated outcomes involving a commitment to board declassification were reached with 100 S&P 500 and Fortune …

Health-Related Resource Use And Costs In Elderly Adults With And Without Mild Cognitive Impairment, Carolyn Zhu, Peter J. Whitehouse, Marian B. Patterson

Faculty Scholarship

Objectives To assess differences in resource use and cost between older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) over time. Design Multicenter, longitudinal study. Setting Sixty-eight Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) sites in the United States. Participants Two hundred fifty-nine individuals diagnosed with MCI and 107 cognitively normal elderly adults followed annually for 3 years. Measurements The Resource Use Instrument (RUI) was used to capture medical and nonmedical care use. Generalized linear latent and mixed models were used to estimate differences in resource use and costs in older adults with and without MCI after controlling for clinical and demographic …

Positive' Gentrification, Social Control And The 'Right-To-The-City' In Mixed-Income Communities: Uses And Expectations Of Space And Place, Mark L. Joseph

Faculty Scholarship

Public policies supporting market-oriented strategies to develop mixed-income communities have become ascendant in the United States and a number of other countries around the world. Although framed as addressing both market goals of revitalization and social goals of poverty deconcentration and inclusion, these efforts at ‘positive gentrifcation’ also generate a set of fundamental tensions — between integration and exclusion, use value and exchange value, appropriation and control, poverty and development — that play out in particular concrete ways on the ground. Drawing on social control theory and the ‘right to the city’ framework of Henri Lefebvre, this article interrogates these …

Enough About The Constitution: How States Can Regulate Health Insurance Under The Aca, Brendan S. Maher, Radha A. Pathak

Faculty Scholarship

Last term, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in a landmark decision. It is a forceful reminder that America’s oldest question — how power should be shared between federal and state sovereigns — retains powerful political salience. Critics have reflexively attacked the decision as an assault on states’ rights, while supporters have celebrated the result. Regrettably, insufficient attention has been paid to how, in actuality, health care regulatory authority has been and will be divided between federal and state governments. In this Article, we fill that gap. To do so, we apply “federalism-in-fact,” …

Making A Deal In Criminal Law, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Alkon describes her experiences using plea bargaining exercises in her first year, first semester, criminal law class.

Growing Inequality And Racial Economic Gaps, Thomas W. Mitchell

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past several decades, economic inequality has grown dramatically in the United States while inter-generational economic mobility has declined, which has challenged the very notion of the "American Dream." In fact, the United States is more economically unequal than most other industrialized countries. Further, there are dramatic and growing racial economic gaps in this country. Despite the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and the various spinoffs it has catalyzed, there has not been any sustained, widespread social movement to address economic inequality in the United States over the course of the past several decades. Furthermore, it is unlikely that a …

The Potential Cost And Value Of Erm, Michelle M. Harner

Faculty Scholarship

The concept of enterprise risk managment (ERM) as a holistic approach to managing a company's risk profile has tremendous appeal. However, companies are frequently skeptical about its value and whether the results will justify the cost, effort, and challenges of implementing a meaningful ERM process. This report considers some of those concerns and highlights the governance, compliance, and cultural value of ERM.

Crime, Survelliance, And Communities, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Longitudinal Examination Of The Relationship Between Sexual Sensation Seeking And Sti-Related Risk Factors Among African American Females, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Sexual sensation seeking has been correlated with STI-related risk factors in numerous cross sectional studies. However, no current studies have examined whether sexual sensation seeking is longitudinally related to a broad spectrum of STI-related factors such as consistent condom use, number of sexual partners, frequency of partner sexual communication, self-efficacy to refuse sex, and fear of condom negotiation. We explored these relationships over a 12-month period among a sample of 715 African American females attending three STI clinics in Georgia that were recruited into a larger randomized clinic intervention study. Utilizing A-CASI technology to assess all self-reported measures and employing …

Quantitative Model For Measuring Line-Drawing Inequity, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Thoughts On The Latest Battles Over Erisa's Remedies, Brendan S. Maher

Faculty Scholarship

It is extraordinarily unlikely that the drafters of ERISA foresaw the effect the statute would have on federal courts and American economic life. It was originally conceived as a "pension bill of rights" designed to ensure that workers received the fixed monthly pension payment (based on tenure and average salary) that they had been promised. It grew, however, into the most litigated statute in the United States Code; to govern increasingly popular individual retirement savings accounts, e.g., 401(k) accounts;4 to be the central statute regulating employment based health insurance, which covers over one hundred and sixty million people; to be …

When Pregnancy Is An Injury: Rape, Law, And Culture, Khiara M. Bridges

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines criminal statutes that grade more severely sexual assaults that result in pregnancy. These laws, which define pregnancy as a “substantial bodily injury,” run directly counter to positive constructions of pregnancy within culture. The fact that the criminal law, in this instance, reflects this negative, subversive understanding of pregnancy creates the possibility that this idea may be received within culture as a construction of pregnancy that is as legitimate as positive understandings. In this way, these laws create possibilities for the reimagining of pregnancy within law and society. Moreover, these laws recall the argumentation that proponents of abortion …

"At The Hospital There Are No Human Rights": Reproductive And Sexual Rights Violations Of Women Living With Hiv In Namibia, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

This report documents the ongoing stigma and discrimination of women living with HIV in Namibia, building on prior findings and investigations on the subject, such as the 2008 research conducted by the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) and the Namibian Women’s Health Network (NWHN). The report, based upon both desk research and a field mission, examines the human rights situation related to sexual and reproductive health of women living with HIV, including the gravity and ongoing nature of forced and coerced sterilizations in Namibia. The report also provides evidence of violations of informed consent in the context …

Exposure To Verbal Parental Aggression And Sexual Activity Among Low Income African American Youth, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

The study examined whether witnessing verbal parental aggression (VPA) was related to sexual activity among mostly low income African American youth, and whether psychological symptoms mediated this relationship. Five hundred and sixty-three African American high school adolescents (ages 13-19) completed self-administered questionnaires, which assessed demographics, psychological problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, aggression and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms), witnessing VPA, and sexual activity. Participants who witnessed high versus no VPA were 2 times more likely to report sexual activity. This relationship was mediated by aggression for males and females, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms for females only. Youth service providers should be …

Community Violence Exposure And Adolescent Delinquency: Examining A Spectrum Of Promotive Factors, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

This study examined whether promotive factors (future expectations, family warmth, school attachment, and neighborhood cohesion) moderated relationships between community violence exposure and youth delinquency. Analyses were conducted using N = 2,980 sixth to eighth graders (Mage = 12.48; 41.1% males) from a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse sample. After controlling for demographic factors, delinquency was positively associated with community violence exposure and inversely associated with each of the promotive factors. When interaction effects between all promotive factors and community violence exposure were examined simultaneously, only future expectations moderated the relationship between community violence exposure and delinquency. Specifically, community violence exposure …

Environmental And Occupational Interventions For Primary Prevention Of Cancer: A Cross-Sectorial Policy Framework, Carolina Espina, Miquel Porta, Joachim Schüz, Ildefonso Hernández Aguado, Robert V. Percival, Carlos Dora, Terry Slevin, Julietta Rodriguez Guzman, Tim Meredith, Philip J. Landrigan, Maria Neira

Faculty Scholarship

Nearly 13 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths occur worldwide each year; 63% of cancer deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. A substantial portion of all cancers are attributable to carcinogenic exposures in the environment and the workplace.

The objective of this study was to develop an evidence-based global vision and strategy for the primary prevention of environmental and occupational cancer.

The study concluded that opportunities exist to revitalize comprehensive global cancer control policies by incorporating primary interventions against environmental and occupational carcinogens.

The Geopolitics Of Strategic Stability: Looking Beyond Cold Warriors And Nuclear Weapons, C. Dale Walton, Colin S. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

“Strategic stability” is a much-used, but under-analyzed, term. Before launching into any discussion of strategic stability in this century, it is necessary first to ask what we actually mean by strategic stability. Game theorists endeavor to define the phrase in very precise mathematical terms, but even among these specialists there is no settled agreement on its proper definition.1 In policy debates, meanwhile, the term is used very loosely to describe anything from rough parity in the sizes of nuclear arsenals to the perceived unlikelihood of an acute political crisis.

The Resistance Defense, Jenny E. Carroll

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores a previously ignored set of defendants — those who choose to rely on a defense of resistance. From Warren Jeffs, the polygamist recently convicted of child rape in Texas, to John Brown, the fiery abolitionist who led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in the hopes of triggering an armed insurrection, these defendants waived their procedural rights and transformed their criminal trials into a commentary on the deficiencies of the law and the system that supports it. Though their belief systems varied, they appear throughout history in moments of social or political crisis and …