Digital Commons Network^™

Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates For University Students, Dorit Rubenstein Reiss, John Dipaolo

Faculty Scholarship

Universities and colleges (“universities”) reopening after COVID-19 understandably seek to increase safety on campus and reduce the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak. One approach universities and colleges are considering is requiring vaccines from students. This Article addresses the legal framework behind university vaccine mandates for students. It sets out the general constitutional framework and explains why universities are constitutionally permitted to impose reasonable vaccine mandates. It addresses whether universities need to offer a religious exemption, explaining that under current Supreme Court jurisprudence, universities are likely not required to offer a religious exemption, but that may change, and public universities in …

Time To Panic! The Need For State Laws Mandating Panic Buttons And Anti-Sexual Harassment Policies To Protect Vulnerable Employees In The Hotel Industry, Kristy D'Angelo-Corker

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Practicing The Be Practice Ready: Making Competent Legal Researchers Using The New Process And Practice Method, Jason Murray

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

State Securities Enforcement, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interpreting By The Rules, Rebecca Kysar

Faculty Scholarship

A promising new school of statutory interpretation has emerged that tries to wed the work of Congress with that of the courts by tying interpretation to congressional process. The primary challenge to this process-based interpretive approach is the difficulty in reconstructing the legislative process. Scholars have proposed leveraging Congress’s procedural frameworks and rules as reliable heuristics to that end. This Article starts from that premise but will add wrinkles to it. The complications stem from the fact that each rule is adopted for distinct reasons and is applied differently across contexts. As investigation into these particularities proceeds, it becomes apparent …

The Racial Architecture Of Criminal Justice, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

One of the pleasures of contributing to symposia—especially symposia where each contribution is brief—is the ability to engage in new explorations, test new ideas, and offer new provocations. I do that now in this essay about race, architecture, and criminal justice. I begin by discussing how race is imbricated in the architecture of courthouses, the quintessential place of supposed justice. I then take race and architecture a step further. If we think of architecture expansively—Lawrence Lessig’s definition of architecture as “the physical world as we find it” comes to mind—then it becomes clear that race is also imbricated in the …

Color Of Covid And Gender Of Covid: Essential Workers, Not Disposable People, Catherine Powell

Faculty Scholarship

We live in a viral moment—a moment of interconnected pandemics. The COVID-19 crisis provides a window into the underlying pandemics of inequality, economic insecurity, and injustice. In fact, the viruses of sexism, racism, and economic instability are pre-existing conditions of an unjust legal system—baked into our nation at the Founding in the shadow of chattel slavery, female disenfranchisement, property-based voting rights, and Native American dispossession. COVID-19 has not created these conditions, but instead has amplified the persisting inequalities upon which the nation was built. At the same time, the current viral moment reveals that vulnerability is universal—inherent in being human—making …

Beyond Emissions: Migration, Prisons, And The Green New Deal, Wyatt Sassman, Danielle C. Jefferis

Faculty Scholarship

The Green New Deal is a bold resolution that asks us to envision climate policy beyond emissions reductions and pollution controls. The proposal seeks to reduce environmental impacts, including by dramatically reducing carbon emissions, while supporting domestic manufacturing, unionized labor, sustainable agriculture, and social equity. The Biden Administration has expressed support for the Green New Deal as “a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face,” and the proposal has influenced the Administration’s early actions to reduce carbon emissions. How can the Green New Deal’s framework guide climate policy beyond emissions reductions, and who should be a part of …

Symposium Introduction: A Tribute To Roberta Karmel, James Fanto

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Finding Original Public Meaning, James Macleod

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Racial Transition, Yuvraj Joshi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Skirting The Law: Medicaid Block Grants And Per-Capita Caps In A Pandemic, Laura D. Hermer

Faculty Scholarship

To what extent can an administration abridge Medicaid’s entitlement status by administrative fiat? In the final year of the Trump administration, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sought to push the outer bounds of this question by announcing the Healthy Adult Opportunity (HAO) initiative. It invited states to submit § 1115 demonstration applications to cover individuals not eligible for Medicaid benefits under the state’ s Medicaid plan—meaning, in many cases, the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) Medicaid expansion population. Spending on those populations would be capped, not by purporting to waive federal law regarding …

Mitchell Hamline School Of Law Summer 2020 Covid-19 Legal Response Clinic, Natalie Netzel, Ana Pottratz Acosta, Joanna Woolman, Kate Kruse, Jon Geffen

Faculty Scholarship

This essay is a reflection on lawyering in a time of crisis. It details the Mitchell Hamline School of Law Clinical Faculty’s response to the community needs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic by creating the COVID-19 Legal Response Clinic. It also recounts the impact of the murder of George Floyd and the long overdue national reckoning with systemic racism, sparked in our city. Additionally, against this backdrop, it examines the trauma-informed approach taken in clinical work and the classroom to help students process their own trauma and apply this approach in their work with clients.

Amid these concurrent crises in …

Minority Oppression And The Llc: Manere V. Collins, The Uniform Act, And Comment 701, Daniel S. Kleinberger

Faculty Scholarship

For many decades, the law of closely-held businesses was the law of closely-held corporations. For entrepreneurs and attorneys, the corporate liability shield was the key desideratum, and before the advent of limited liability companies the corporation was essentially the only game in town. Unfortunately, for many decades the liability shield came with a potentially dangerous price for minority owners. The traditional corporate norms of majority rule, coupled with the minority shareholders’ inability to exit the enterprise, empowered majority shareholders to “oppress” minority shareholders or defeat such shareholders’ “reasonable expectations.” The “lock-in” phenomenon compounds the minority’s vulnerability; it is …

Black Livelihoods Matter: Capitalist Myths Of Economic Efficiency In Racist Lending Policies (A Prologue And A Plea), Kim Vu-Dinh

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

[email protected], Bruce A. Green, Carole Silver

Faculty Scholarship

The transformative potential of technology in legal practice is well recognized. But wholly apart from how law firms actually use technology is the question of what law firms say about how they use and relate to technology—in particular, how law firms communicate whether technology matters and has value in what they do. In the past, firms in the BigLaw category, especially at the top echelon, have grounded their reputations on the credentials and achievements of their lawyers. In this paper, we explore whether elite law firms use technology similarly by describing it as an additional tool of inter-firm competition—a sort …

Designing A State Court Small Claims Odr System: Hitting A Moving Target In New York During A Pandemic, David Allen Larson

Faculty Scholarship

When I began helping the New York State Unified Court System design a pilot online dispute resolution (“ODR”) system back in October 2016, I never imagined more than four years would pass before a system was implemented. One reason our journey was so long is because our target kept moving. After completing a detailed credit card debt collection ODR platform, we had to change direction before implementation and focus instead on small claims cases. Then like the rest of the world, we suddenly had to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it took longer than anticipated, we achieved our goal …

And What Of The “Black” In Black Letter Law?: A Blaqueer Reflection, T. Anansi Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

This is a reflective, analytical essay remarking on the role that Blackness has and continues to play in the construction, understanding and application of "black letter law." This essay is written from a Black and BlaQueer perspective and displays how a shift in standpoint--moving from the invisible, standard white "reasonable person"--underscores and illuminates the current legal and sociopolitical crisis we find ourselves in. It is continuation of the discussion began in my earlier articles "Furtive Blackness: On Blackness & Being," "The Strict Scrutiny of Black and BlaQueer Life" and the working paper "Sexual Profiling & BlaQueer Furtivity: BlaQueers On The …

Destruction Of Cultural Heritage As A Violation Of Human Rights: Application Of The Alien Tort Statute, Emily T. Behzadi

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, armed conflicts around the world have occasioned widespread destruction of cultural heritage sites. From the demolition of Palmyra in the Syrian Arab Republic to the destruction of Sufri Shrines in Mali, the intentional despoliation of these important cultural heritage sites is not only an uncontroverted violation of international law but a form of cultural genocide. The destruction of cultural heritage profoundly impacts citizenry on a local, national, and global level. Cultural heritage is an expression of fundamental and universally recognized human rights, including rights to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and religion, and …

Bostock V. Clayton County And The Problem Of Bisexual Erasure, Nancy C. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Information Shortfalls Of Prosecuting Irresponsible Executives, Miriam H. Baer

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay, written for the 2020 Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy, focuses on the prosecution and conviction of three corporate executives under the responsible corporate officer (RCO) doctrine in connection with Purdue Pharma’s misbranding of OxyContin. The RCO doctrine relieves prosecutors of having to demonstrate a difficult-to-prove mental state such as purpose or knowledge and instead holds corporate officers criminally responsible for certain violations that take place on their watch. Although Purdue Pharma’s three executives suffered economic consequences from their 2007 convictions, they received no term of imprisonment. This result elicited a fair amount of criticism, which …

'Act Normal Or Leave': When Law And Culture Collide, Heidi R. Gilchrist

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regents: Resurrecting Animus/Renewing Discriminatory Intent, William Araiza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Conscience Leave, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"Equitable Compensation" As "Just Compensation" For Takings, Brian Angelo Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Roberta Karmel And The "Brooklyn School", Edward J. Janger

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Consumer Bankruptcy And Race: Current Concerns And A Proposed Solution, Edward J. Janger

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fintech And Race-Based Inequality In The Home Mortgage And Auto Financing Markets, Winnie F. Taylor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Are You There, Law? It's Me, Semen, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Professionalization Of Compliance: Its Progress, Impediments, And Outcomes, James A. Fanto

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.