Digital Commons Network^™

Separation And Connectedness: Global Norms Of Open Versus Closed Adoption, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

Book Abstract:

Bringing together some of the world’s leading family law scholars, as well as bright and emerging minds in the field of global family law, this book explores the differences and commonalities in the conceptualization and legal treatment of families throughout different legal traditions. Each chapter delves into topics integral to family law jurisprudence and serves as a novel examination into a deep slice of family law. Together, the four parts and sixteen chapters create a melodious and intriguing examination of groundbreaking and cutting-edge areas of law in the realm of the family. The four parts primarily focus upon …

Contract's Covert Meddlers, Sarah Winsberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Asian Americans, Racial Stereotypes, And Elite University Admissions, Vinay Harpalani

Faculty Scholarship

Asian Americans have long occupied a precarious position in America’s racial landscape, exemplified by controversies over elite university admissions. Recently, this has culminated with the Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College case. In January 2022, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case, and it will hear arguments and make a ruling in the next year or so. Students for Fair Admissions (“SFFA”) has attempted to link “negative action,” or discrimination against Asian Americans in admissions in favor of White Americans, with “affirmative action,” or race-conscious admissions policies intended to increase the enrollment of …

Predictors Of Persistence, Retention & Completion For First-Generation Graduate Students, James Hutson, Susan Edele, Roger Mitch Nasser Jr., Gillian Parrish, Christie Rodgers, Scott Richmond, Michael Marzano, Ryan Curtis

Faculty Scholarship

Postsecondary education is still considered key for achieving upward mobility and economic success. While access to higher education has over the past three decades, students whose parents did not complete at least a bachelor’s degree continue to be at a distinct disadvantage. Given that most first-generation college students are from low-income and minority backgrounds, this population faces challenges distinct to them-1) insufficient academic preparation, 2) inadequate financial resources, and 3) deficient support from family members and/or peers that attended college. Yet, while first-generation undergraduate students have been extensively studied with regard to their motivations, challenges, and unique needs for persistence, …

Threat And Emotions: Mobilizing And Attitudinal Outcomes Of A Ballistic Missile Scare, Kelly Bergstrand, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

This study examines the false ballistic missile alert that occurred in Hawaii in 2018, which presented a unique opportunity for assessing the civic and mobilizing outcomes of a threat. In the days that followed the scare, we conducted an online experiment to investigate its effects on willingness to engage in activism and concerns about broader issues. Our results show that emotions serve as an important mechanism for channeling threat experiences into concern about specific causes. Those most emotionally affected by the missile scare in Hawaii thought it more important to engage in activities to control the spread of nuclear weapons, …

Mental Health Care And Intimate Partner Violence: Unasked Questions, Delaney E. Anderson, Richard C. Boldt

Faculty Scholarship

There is significant overlap between the group of people who experience trauma, including domestic or intimate partner violence, and those who are hospitalized for severe mental illness. In recent years there has been a growing awareness in the mental health treatment community of the prevalence of trauma among individuals with behavioral health problems. Despite the strong evidence of elevated rates of exposure to domestic or intimate partner violence among individuals experiencing mental illness (including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder), mental health professionals often do not effectively address this co-occurring factor in assessing and treating their clients or patients. The …

On “The Alt-Right Movement And Us National Security”, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Consumer Law's Equity Gap, Vijay Raghavan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Read Thyself, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Race And Lawyering In The Legal Writing Classroom, Danielle L. Tully

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

20 Years Of Trade Secrets Scholarship (2002-2022), Sharon Sandeen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Survived & Coerced: Epistemic Injustice In The Family Regulation System, Lisa S. Washington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Global Scripts In Transnational Legal Orders And Governance, Susan Block-Lieb

Faculty Scholarship

Global scripts—the rules, norms, and standards in international texts, and the tacit assumptions that surround and give meaning to them—exist on numerous issues (finance, trade, economic development, climate change, education, human rights, and gender equality), at every level of engagement (international, national, local), and at every phase of recursive norm construction and contestation. Case studies involving global scripts appear across a wide range of scholarship—considering sociological, anthropological, or sociolegal perspectives, or on international political economy, international organizations, international relations, or law and development—but because they are focused on one piece of the puzzle at a time, variation exists regarding the …

The Origins Of Supreme Court Question Selection, Benjamin B. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Arbitrary control over its own docket is the hallmark of the modern Supreme Court. While the Court’s power to choose its cases is a frequent subject of study, its practice of preselecting questions for review has received almost no attention. This is particularly surprising since the Court openly adds or subtracts questions in some of its most consequential and politicizing cases. Yet, despite the significance of this practice, its origins are poorly understood. This is the first Essay to uncover the hidden history of the Court’s question-selection powers. It reveals an important---and possibly intractable---conflict between the Court’s legal authority and …

Resuciating Consent, Megan S. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

The scholarly focus on autonomy in healthcare decision making largely has been on information about, rather than consent to, medical treatment. There is an assumption that if a patient has complete information and understanding about a proposed medical intervention, then they will choose the treatment their physician thinks is best. True respect for patient autonomy means that treatment refusal, whether informed or not, should always be an option. But there is evidence that healthcare providers sometimes ignore treatment refusals and resort to force to treat patients over their contemporaneous objection, which may be facilitated by the incapacity exception to informed …

Inside The Black Box Of Prosecutor Discretion, Megan S. Wright, Shima Baradaran Baughman, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

In their charging and bargaining decisions, prosecutors have unparalleled and nearly-unchecked discretion that leads to incarceration or freedom for millions of Americans each year. More than courts, legislators, or any other justice system player, in the aggregate prosecutors’ choices are the key drivers of outcomes, whether the rates of mass incarceration or the degree of racial disparities in justice. To date, there is precious little empirical research on how prosecutors exercise their breathtaking discretion. We do not know whether they consistently charge like cases alike or whether crime is in the eye of the beholder. We do not know what …

Addressing Climate Impacts In Alaska Native Tribes: Legal Barriers For Community Relocation Due To Thawing Permafrost And Coastal Erosion, Lara Fowler, Ekrem Korkut, Kathleen E. Halvorsen, David Holen, E. Lance Howe, Guangqing Chi

Faculty Scholarship

Rural communities is Alaska—predominantly Alaska Native Tribes—are at the forefront of climate change impacts and climate justice concerns in the United States. According to the 2019 Alaska statewide threat assessment report, 29 communities are currently experiencing significant climate change-related erosion. Further, 38 communities faces significant flooding, and 35 have major problems with thawing permafrost. Some Alaska Native communities have explored community relocation to adapt to these impacts. Because federal law does not recognize gradual environmental impacts like thawing permafrost and coastal erosion as disasters, these communities are ineligible for disaster funding and struggling with how to adapt to the very …

The Visibility Trap, Kate Redburn

Faculty Scholarship

Vice Patrol offers a novel history of the visibility trap. It integrates interventions in legal history, history of sexuality, and queer theory with remarkable ease. Lvovsky brings new insight to a question that has puzzled scholars across several fields: Why and how does cultural representation lead to increased state repression? Blending impressive archival research with sophisticated theoretical analysis, Lvovsky follows cultural knowledge into the legal system to offer a fresh diagnosis of the problem and how it develops. In her discovery of “epistemic gaps,” she uncovers a key mechanism of the visibility trap. Disagreements between the police and the courts, …

’Make It More Fun’: Residence Life Employees’ Insights On Hosting And Advertising Outreach Programs For Undergraduate Students, Kristen S. Shuyler

Faculty Scholarship

What can library workers learn about student-centered programming and outreach from student employees who design, advertise, and lead programs for college students as part of their employment in a student housing or residence life department? This study draws on cognitive work analysis to understand how employees of the Office of Residence Life (ORL) at a public research university host outreach programs for students. Fourteen interviews were conducted and analyzed to ascertain the definition and purpose of RA-led programming, challenges in this work, and strategies for overcoming challenges. Findings indicate that as these student employees do their programming work, they build …

Illiberalism And Administrative Government, Jeremy K. Kessler

Faculty Scholarship

Driven by the perception that liberal democracy is in a state of crisis across the developed world, political and legal commentators have taken to contrasting two alternatives: “illiberal democracy” (or populism) and “undemocratic liberalism” (or technocracy). According to the logic of this antinomy, once an erstwhile liberal-democratic nation-state becomes too populist, it is on the path toward illiberal democracy; once it becomes too technocratic, it is on the path toward undemocratic liberalism.

While the meanings of liberalism and democracy are historically and conceptually fraught, the contemporary discourse of liberal democratic crisis assumes a few minimal definitions. Within this discourse, liberalism …

The Democratic (Il)Legitimacy Of Assembly-Line Litigation, Jessica K. Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark

Faculty Scholarship

Millions of debt cases are filed in the civil courts every year. In debt actions, asymmetrical representation is the norm, with the plaintiff almost always represented by counsel and the defendant very rarely so. A number of jurisdictions report that up to ninety-nine percent of defendants in debt cases appear pro se — a figure that calls into question the basic legitimacy of these proceedings.

Professor Daniel Wilf-Townsend’s central contribution to the literature on debt collection, and state civil justice more broadly, is to demonstrate through sophisticated empirics what has long been anecdotally reported: that a cluster of corporate plaintiffs …

A Restatement Of Corporate Criminal Liability’S Theory And Research Agenda, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

This Article, for a collection in which authors were asked to “imagine a world without corporate criminal liability,” specifies the material questions that should be addressed if debate about the doctrine is to progress past longstanding and oft-repeated assertions. The strongest case for corporate criminal liability is based on the potential for its unique reputational effects to contribute to the prevention and deterrence of crime within corporations. Further research should take up a variety of unanswered questions about those effects having to do with mechanisms and audiences. The relevant inquiries are both theoretical and empirical. Answers will lie in further …

Against Bankruptcy Exceptionalism, Jonathan M. Seymour

Faculty Scholarship

Bankruptcy courts conceive of their mission differently than other courts do. For the Supreme Court, bankruptcy cases are ordinary statutory cases to be resolved “clearly and predictably using well established principles of statutory interpretation.” Many bankruptcy judges, though, believe that bankruptcy courts serve a distinctive mission for which ordinary adjudicative methods do not suffice. Often, that mission is characterized using the language of equity. Judges and commentators alike have observed that among the most spoken words in the bankruptcy courts are: “the bankruptcy court is a court of equity.” Others have contended that bankruptcy necessitates “creativity and flexibility,” pursuant to …

The Importance Of Race, Gender, And Religion In Naturalization Adjudication In The United States, Emily Ryo, Reed Humphrey

Faculty Scholarship

This study presents an empirical investigation of naturalization adjudication in the United States using new administrative data on naturalization applications decided by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) between October 2014 and March 2018. We find significant group disparities in naturalization approvals based on applicants’ race/ethnicity, gender, and religion, controlling for individual applicant characteristics, adjudication years, and variation between field offices. Non-White applicants and Hispanic applicants are less likely to be approved than non-Hispanic White applicants, male applicants are less likely to be approved than female applicants, and applicants from Muslim-majority countries are less likely to be approved than …

Margins Of Empire: The Sakhalin Koreans’ Long Saga Home, Timothy Webster

Faculty Scholarship

Migration carries with it many risks, from perilous journeys along risky corridors to hostile environments in one's adopted country. But what happens when migrants cannot return home? This Article examines the difficulties endured by Sakhalin Koreans, a group of ethnic Koreans who emigrated to Sakhalin Island during the Japanese colonial period and found themselves stranded in a foreign country (the Soviet Union) for the next half century. After recounting the migration of Koreans to Sakhalin, and analyzing lawsuits filed in Japan to repatriate them, it analyzes the infirmities of the international human rights system and the challenges of repatriating a …

Do Networks Govern Contracts?, Matthew C. Jennejohn

Faculty Scholarship

An influential literature in private law argues that the legal system interferes with modern markets’ “private ordering.” Private ordering refers to parties relying upon informal institutions, like social norms and reputational sanctions, to enforce legal obligations. This informal governance is made possible by thick networks of social or commercial relationships, which circulate information about parties’ behavior. Social networks, not the state, govern commerce.

This Article argues that the private ordering literature has overlooked a paradox at the heart of its theory. The same networks that circulate reputational information also provide conduits for valuable technical information to leak from one company …

Jurisdiction As Power, Ryan Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fit For Its Ordinary Purpose: Implied Warranties And Common Law Duties For Consumer Finance Contracts, Edward J. Janger, Susan Block-Lieb

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Some Reflections On The Fourth Chilean-German-Tanzanian Legal Talk, James M. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

On December 3, 2021, the Heidelberg Center for Latin America convened a group of academicians from around the world to explore the way legal pluralism contests values (including the protection of universal human rights), disrupts our national legal systems, and provides for self-determination. The transnational webinar was co-sponsored by the University of Heidelberg and University of Bayreuth of Germany, Universidad de Chile, University of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, Faculdades de Campinas in Brasil, as well as California Western School of Law/Proyecto ACCESO in the United States, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

The webinar brought together participants with …

How Experts Have Dominated The Neuroscience Narrative In Criminal Cases For Twelve Decades: A Warning For The Future, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

Phineas Gage, the man who survived impalement by a rod through his head in 1848, is considered “one of the great medical curiosities of all time.” While expert accounts of Gage's post-accident personality changes are often wildly damning and distorted, recent research shows that Gage mostly thrived, despite his trauma. Studying past cases such as Gage’s helps us imagine—and prepare for—a future of law and neuroscience in which scientific debates over the brain’s functions remain fiery, and experts divisively control how we characterize brain-injured defendants.

This Article examines how experts have long dominated the neuroscience narrative in U.S. criminal cases, …