Digital Commons Network^™

Correlates Of Gang Involvement And Health-Related Factors Among African American Females With A Detention History, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Prior studies have assessed relationships between gang membership and health-related factors. However, the existing literature has largely failed to consider how individual and broader social contextual factors might be related to such gang involvement among African American females. Thus, the aim of the present study was to identify empirically driven correlates of gang involvement and then better understand the relationship between gang membership and health-related behaviors for African American females, after controlling for covariates of gang involvement. Methods: Data were collected from a convenience sample of detained African American adolescents females, between the ages of 13-17, currently incarcerated in …

Dynamic Social Support Networks Of Younger Black Men Who Have Sex With Men With New Hiv Infection, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Rising rates of HIV infection among younger black men who have sex with men (YBMSM) in the USA have generated a public health emergency. Living with HIV requires deep and persistent social support often available only from close confidants. Enlisting endogenous support network members into the care of HIV-infected YBMSM may help shape sustainable supportive environments, leading to long-term improvements in mental and HIV-specific health outcomes. The present study examined trends in support network change over time after new HIV diagnoses among 14 YBMSM. Participants completed a social network survey that utilized sociograms to record support confidants (SCs) preceding HIV …

Legal Education At A Crossroads: Innovation, Integration, And Pluralism Required!, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez, Robert F. Seibel, Peggy Maisel, Karen Tokarz

Faculty Scholarship

We conclude in this Article that expanded practice-based, experiential education will provide foundational learning for the successful transition from law student to law practice, and that clinical education (in-house clinics, hybrid clinics, and externships) is crucial to the preparation of competent, ethical law graduates who are "ready to become professionals." We urge law schools to require each graduate complete a minimum of twenty-one experiential course credits over the three years of law school, including at least five credits in law clinics or externships. Twenty-one required credits (or roughly 25 percent of the eighty-three required credits for graduation from an American …

In Pursuit Of Calmer Waters: Managing The Impact Of Trauma Exposure On Immigration Adjudicators, Kate Aschenbrenner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mediator Ethical Breaches: Implications For Public Policy, Sharon Press

Faculty Scholarship

Court-connected mediation, which includes both court mandated and court encouraged mediation, has become a well-established part of the judicial system in the United States. There are many public policy implications of this phenomenon. These include the underlying goals of the development of court-connection mediation and the responsibility to the public once a court-connected mediation program is established to ensure that the public has access to quality providers of mediation services. Once a court-connected mediation program has established qualifications and ethical standards for mediators, there is a public policy obligation for there also to be a mechanism to educate, reprimand or …

Judicial Leadership In Family Court: A Cautionary Tale, Jane M. Spinak

Faculty Scholarship

For the past 35 years I have been practicing in, teaching, and writing about the Family Court. The problem-solving court movement in the last two decades – with its proliferation of drug courts, mental health courts, and veterans courts, to name a few – renewed my interest in the historical roots of the family court because of the parallels between the original juvenile court and the recent problem solving court movement. One of the key elements – perhaps the defining element – in both is the role of the judge as the leader of the court. That is what I …

Introduction: Law And Neoliberalism, David Singh Grewal, Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

“Neoliberalism” refers to the revival of the doctrines of classical economic liberalism, also called laissez-faire, in politics, ideas, and law. These revived doctrines have taken new form in new settings: the “neo-” means not just that they are back, but that they are also different, a new generation of arguments. What unites the two periods of economic liberalism is their political effect: the assertion and defense of particular market imperatives and unequal economic power against political intervention. Neoliberalism’s advance over the past few decades has reshaped most important domains of public and private life, and the law has been no …

The Growing Power Of Healthcare Ethics Committees Heightens Due Process Concerns, Thaddeus Mason Pope

Faculty Scholarship

Complex ethical situations, such as end-of-life medical treatment disputes, occur on a regular basis in healthcare settings. Healthcare ethics committees (HECs) have been a leading dispute resolution forum for many of these conflicts. But while the function of HECs has evolved from mediation to adjudication, the form of HECs has not evolved to adapt to this expanded and more consequential function.

HECs are typically multidisciplinary groups comprised of representatives from different departments of the healthcare facility: medicine, nursing, law, pastoral care, and social work, for example. HECs were established to support and advise patients, families, and caregivers as they work …

Sotomayer's Supreme Court Race Jurisprudebce: 'Fidelity To The Law', Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

During the Senate confirmation hearings for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, concerns were persistently raised about her ability to be impartial. Conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh and many others railed against her nomination, proclaiming on talk radio broadcasts from coast-to-coast that she is a reverse-racist and nothing less than anti-white. A review of the Supreme Court record of race-related cases demonstrates Justice Sotomayor’s continued commitment to her stated judicial philosophy of fidelity to the law, inasmuch as she has not sought the unilateral imposition of her own personal racial policy preferences but has instead worked as a team player to scrupulously apply legal …

Our Fair City: A Comprehensive Blueprint For Gender And Sexual Justice In New York City, Cindy Gao, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender & Sexuality Law offers this report to aid the de Blasio administration in evaluating the steps it can and should take to eliminate all forms of gender and sexual discrimination, and to assure gender and sexual justice in City policy and programs. After consultation with numerous groups advocating for gender and sexual justice across New York City, the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School has synthesized in this report a set of key recommendations to the de Blasio administration, all designed to eliminate a wide range of disadvantages, invisibility, violence, …

Reaching Backward And Stretching Forward: Teaching For Transfer In Law School Clinics, Shaun Archer, James P. Eyster, James J. Kelly Jr., Tonya Kowalski, Colleen F. Shanahan

Faculty Scholarship

In thinking about education, teachers may spend more time considering what to teach than how to teach. Unfortunately, traditional teaching techniques have limited effectiveness in their ability to help students retain and apply the knowledge either in later classes or in their professional work. What, then, is the value of our teaching efforts if students are unable to transfer the ideas and skills they have learned to later situations? Teaching for transfer is important to the authors of this article, four clinical professors and one psychologist.

The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to some of the …

"Keep Government Out Of My Medicare": The Search For Popular Support Of Taxes And Social Spending, Gillian Lester

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the broad reach of the American welfare state, Americans continue to have conflicted and contradictory attitudes about the role of the state in mediating economic equality through both taxation and social spending. This chapter identifies several key themes that help explain these contradictions. Specifically, information about taxes and spending is complex and hard to understand, cognitive biases and limitations hamper people’s ability to process information in a way that is always consistent, and affective and symbolic factors influence social attitudes about taxes and government benefits. This chapter explores the implications of these insights for public policy, including the possibility …

Testing Pathways Linking Exposure To Community Violence And Sexual Behaviors Among African American Youth, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Exposure to community violence and HIV sexual risks are two major public health concerns among youth. This study tests various pathways linking exposure to community violence and sexual behaviors among African American adolescents. Using a sample of 563 (61 % females) African American youth attending high school we examined whether problematic psychological symptoms, low school engagement, and/or negative perceptions of peer norms about safer sex functioned as pathways linking exposure to community violence and sexual behaviors. Major findings indicated that, for boys, the relationship between exposure to community violence and sexual début and sexual risk behaviors were linked by aggression. …

Social Dynamics In Mixed-Income Developments, Mark L. Joseph, Taryn Gress

Faculty Scholarship

This report, the first “State of the Field Scan” from the newly launched National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities at Case Western Reserve University (NIMC), is the first effort to conduct a data collection effort across a broad set of mixed-income developments nationwide. The goals of these State of the Field Scans are to: 1. generate a comparative description of the landscape of the mixed-income development field, 2. collect and analyze perceptions, experiences and insights from mixed-income practitioners on specific topics of pressing interest to the field, and 3. make contact and build relationships with a network of mixed-income developments and …

Brief Research Report: Sociodemographic Factors Associated With Hiv Status Among African American Women In Washington, Dc, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction: African American women living in Washington, DC have one of the highest Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) incidence rates in the US. However, this population has been understudied, especially as it relates to factors associated with HIV status. Methods: This cross-sectional study examined sociodemographic factors that were associated with having a negative or positive HIV status among a sample of 115 African American women between the ages of 24 and 44 years. We assessed such factors as age, education, sexual orientation, household income, sources of income, number of children, length of residency tenure in Washington, DC, and level of HIV-prevention …

Project Ngage: Network Supported Hiv Care Engagement For Younger Black Men Who Have Sex With Men And Transgender Persons, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Background: Young Black men who have sex with men and transgender persons (YBMSMT) aged 13-29 carry the nation's highest burden of new HIV infections. Studies indicate that YBMSMT have poor retention in care, which is associated with reduced medication adherence and increased virologic failure. Objective: Project nGage is a randomized controlled (RCT) trial evaluating the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a brief, dyadic intervention designed to promote adherence to HIV primary care in safety-net clinics. Network visualization is used to identify and engage a support confidant (SC) from participants' social networks. A social work interventionist then meets with the SC …

Justadvice: Studying Law In Snapshots, Brenda Bratton Blom, Leigh Maddox

Faculty Scholarship

Access to legal services continues to be a critical need in the United States. Clinical programs in law schools are part of responding to the demand for these services, but often face the challenge of filling gaps left by larger programs serving the poor or responding to unique legal needs. JustAdvice was designed to provide limited advice to a broad range of people with legal needs, unbundling those services where possible. The story of the development, implementation and transformation of the program into a teaching, triage and referral system that importantly links multiple organizations and services is the core of …

A Longitudinal Examination Of Risk And Protective Factors Associated With Drug Use And Unsafe Sex Among Young African American Females, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

This study prospectively examined associations among multiple theoretically informed risk (e.g., depression, sexual sensation seeking, and risky peers norms) and protective factors (e.g., social support, STI knowledge, and refusal to have sex self efficacy) on unsafe sex among 715 African American adolescent females aged 15-21 who participated in an STI/HIV prevention intervention. Generalized estimating equation models were used to assess associations between baseline characteristics and sexual risk over a 12-month follow-up period. Overall risk in this population was high: at baseline, nearly a third of women reported sex under the influence of alcohol or substances; ≥ 2 partners for vaginal …

Sixteen And Pregnant: Minors' Consent In Abortion And Adoption, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

A minor girl’s decision about how to handle an unplanned pregnancy is a highly contested issue. Especially contentious is the minor’s ability to consent to an abortion independently of an adult such as her parents or a judge. That issue has received substantial attention from policy makers, scholars, judges, and legislators. Almost no attention has been paid, however, to the decision of a pregnant minor to continue her pregnancy, relinquish her constitutionally protected parental rights, and place a child for adoption. In 37 states, a minor’s abortion decision is regulated differently than an adult’s, while in only 15 states is …

Getting Ready For School: Piloting Universal Prekindergarten In An Urban County, Robert L. Fischer, Tirth Bhatta, Claudia J. Coulton

Faculty Scholarship

Investments in high-quality early care and education have been shown to reap societal benefits across the lives of the children served. A key intervention point is in the lives of 3- to 5-year olds during the period prior to entering kindergarten. Many jurisdictions have developed broad-based prekindergarten initiatives. This study reports on a pilot universal prekindergarten program in 24 sites in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Child assessment data were collected on 204 children from early care classrooms for 3- to 5-year olds across 3 time points by trained observers using 2 standardized instruments. Changes in achievement scores were shown to …

Resistance Is Not Futile: Harnessing The Power Of Counter-Offensive Tactics In Legal Persuasion, Peter Reilly

Faculty Scholarship

A core competency for people working in law or business is the ability to influence and persuade: People need to become expert at getting others to agree, to go along, and to give in. The potential “targets” of one’s influence throughout a given workday are seemingly endless and include clients and customers, co-counsel, opposing counsel, supervisors, direct reports, contractors, subcontractors, consultants, secretaries, judges, juries, witnesses, police officers, court personnel, and others. Moreover, that influence is largely exerted through words spoken and behaviors exhibited within the context of a negotiation. And yet, leading academics have argued that the vast majority of …

Youth In Mixed-Income Communities Replacing Public Housing Complexes: Context, Dynamics And Response, Mark L. Joseph

Faculty Scholarship

Several of the theories that drive the rationale for mixed-income development as a response to urban poverty and the problems of traditional public housing are directly concerned with children and youth. These include assumptions about the possible "role modeling" effects of living among working and middle class people as well as social capital arguments, in which children may act as a kind of "bridge" to foster relationships among adults with children. In spite of these assumptions, young people - particularly older adolescents and young adults - are often at the contentious core of how problems of social control and organization …

A Shattered Looking Glass: The Pitfalls And Potential Of The Mosaic Theory Of Fourth Amendment Privacy, David Gray, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

On January 23, 2012, the Supreme Court issued a landmark non-decision in United States v. Jones. In that case, officers used a GPS-enabled device to track a suspect’s public movements for four weeks, amassing a considerable amount of data in the process. Although ultimately resolved on narrow grounds, five Justices joined concurring opinions in Jones expressing sympathy for some version of the “mosaic theory” of Fourth Amendment privacy. This theory holds that we maintain reasonable expectations of privacy in certain quantities of information even if we do not have such expectations in the constituent parts. This Article examines and explores …

The New Public Housing Stigma In Mixed-Income Development, Mark L. Joseph

Faculty Scholarship

Public housing residents have long experienced stigma as members of an urban “underclass.” By deconcentrating poverty and integrating public housing residents into mixed-income communities where their residences are indistinguishable from those of their higher-income neighbors, some policymakers hope that the stigma these residents have experienced will be reduced or eliminated. Through interviews with relocated public housing residents at three mixed-income developments being built as part of Chicago’s Plan for Transformation, we fnd that this is not the case. While stigma associated with living in public housing has subsided, residents report that their experience of stigma has intensifed in new ways. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

A Shattered Looking Glass: The Pitfalls And Potential Of The Mosaic Theory Of Fourth Amendment Privacy, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron

Faculty Scholarship

On January 23, 2012, the Supreme Court issued a landmark non-decision in United States v. Jones. In that case, officers used a GPS-enabled device to track a suspect’s public movements for four weeks, amassing a considerable amount of data in the process. Although ultimately resolved on narrow grounds, five Justices joined concurring opinions in Jones expressing sympathy for some version of the “mosaic theory” of Fourth Amendment privacy. This theory holds that we maintain reasonable expectations of privacy in certain quantities of information even if we do not have such expectations in the constituent parts. This Article examines and …

The Paths People Take Through Teaching Center Services: A Descriptive Analysis, Kathryn M. Plank, Alvin S. Mares

Faculty Scholarship

Teaching centers offer a variety of services, ranging from teaching orientations and one-time workshops to intensive programs such as learning communities to individual consultations. However, most instructors do not participate in all categories of service a center offers; rather, they create their own paths through various combinations and sequences of programs. What do we know about these pathways, and what can we learn from the patterns of use? This article shares findings from an analysis of several years of data to learn more about the sequence in which instructors experience educational development and to discuss the implications of these findings.