Digital Commons Network^™

Pedagogy And Policy: A Tribute To Karen Rothenberg’S Contributions To Health Law, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Karen Rothenberg has had a significant influence on my life, impacting my education, my career, and the way I think. Professor Rothenberg has been a pillar in the health law community, but perhaps her most lasting impact for myself was creating the health law program at the University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law. This nationally recognized program grew from her passion, expertise, and recognition of the importance of health, and is the reason I chose to attend the University of Maryland. The curriculum, faculty, and experience made it one of the best decisions of my life …

A Public Health Law Path For Second Amendment Jurisprudence, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

The two landmark gun rights cases, District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, came down in 2008 and 2010, respectively. In the decade that has followed, two things have become abundantly clear. First, these cases provide little clarity about the nature and scope of Second Amendment rights, resulting in chaos and circuit splits in the lower courts. Second, growing empirical evidence has revealed that, in the background of the debate on individual constitutional rights, a serious gun violence epidemic is intensifying around the country. In one corner, gun rights advocates worry that increased firearm regulation will …

State Handgun Purchase Age Minimums In The Us And Adolescent Suicide Rates: Regression Discontinuity And Difference-In-Differences Analyses, Julia Raifman, Elysia Larson, Colleen L. Barry, Michael Siegel, Michael Ulrich, Anita Knopov, Sandro Galea

Faculty Scholarship

Objective To evaluate the association between US state policies that establish age 18 or 21 years as the minimum purchaser age for the sale of handguns and adolescent suicide rate.

Design Regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences analyses.

Setting 46 US states without policy changes between 2001 and 2017; Missouri and South Carolina, which lowered the age for handgun sales in 2007 and 2008, respectively; and West Virginia and Wyoming, which increased the age for handgun sales in 2010.

Participants Adolescents aged 13 to 20 years(554 461 961 from 2001 to 2017) in the regression discontinuity analysis, and adolescents aged 18 …

Core Criminal Procedure, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional criminal procedural rights are familiar to contemporary criminal law scholars and practitioners alike. But today, U.S. criminal justice may diverge substantially from its centuries-old framework when all three branches recognize only a core set of inviolable rights, implicitly or explicitly discarding others. This criminal procedural line drawing takes place when the U.S. criminal justice system engages in law enforcement cooperation with foreign criminal justice systems in order to advance criminal cases.

This Article describes the two forms of this criminal procedural line drawing. The first is a “core criminal procedure” approach, rooted in fundamental rights, that arises in the …

Rethinking The Impact Of Third-Party Funding On Access To Civil Justice, Victoria Sahani

Faculty Scholarship

Third-party funding indisputably puts a gold-weighted thumb on the scales of justice in favor of funded parties for two main reasons: (1) funded cases already tend to be calculable winners on the merits, and (2) third-party funders seeking a profit generally do not fund cases that are demonstrably likely to lose on the merits. Thus, we are left with both the promising potential for winners to be more likely to win with third-party funding and the alarming realization that not all winners are offered this same chance. This provokes a larger, fundamental question: If funders are picking winners among the …

From Trulia To Akorn: A Ride On The Roller Coaster Of M&A Litigation, Pierluigi Matera, Ferruccio M. Sbarbaro

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, M&A litigation has experienced a dramatic increase, culminating with a peak in 2015, when over 96. of publicly announced mergers were challenged in a shareholder lawsuit. A large number of these lawsuits were frivolous and vexatious, since most claims were filed by plaintiffs' attorneys just to extract some fees with little effort. Some abusive practices emerged, signalling an alarming exploitation of the system. One scheme that plaintiffs' attorneys put in place was the disclosure-only settlement. There, the stockholders obtained some modest supplemental disclosures, the plaintiff's attorneys got significant fee awards from the defendant directors and the defendant …

Cyber Mobs, Disinformation, And Death Videos: The Internet As It Is (And As It Should Be), Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Fiction and visual representations can alter our understanding of human experiences and struggles. They help us understand human frailties and suffering in a visceral way. Nick Drnaso’s graphic novel Sabrina does that in spades. In Sabrina, a woman is murdered by a misogynist, and a video of her execution is leaked. Conspiracy theorists deem her murder a hoax. A cyber mob smears the woman’s loved ones as crisis actors, posts death threats, and spreads their personal information. The attacks continue until a shooting massacre redirects the cyber mob’s wrath to other mourners. Sabrina captures the breathtaking velocity of disinformation online …

Is Medicare For All The Answer? Assessing The Health Reform Gestalt As The Aca Turns 10, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

As presidential candidates debate health reform, the expression “Medicare for All” (“M4A”) is on repeat, yet few appear to understand precisely what Medicare is or what M4A would mean. Even more striking is that Americans are vigorously debating health reform when the ACA – President Obama’s signature legislation and a health reform effort on a scale not seen in decades – turns 10 on March 23.

The ACA pioneered universal coverage, but it also ratcheted up health care complexity by building new scaffolding around an old foundation. This fragmented landscape has been exacerbated by a crazy quilt of implementation crafted …

Third Country Deportation, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

The large-scale deportation of noncitizens from the United States is not new. However, the speed, and secrecy, by which many of these deportations are carried out is unprecedented. Deportations are, increasingly, executed not through a legal court process, but rather, extrajudicially—in detention centers and at border crossings, outside the purview of judges or neutral adjudicators. One kind of this “shadow deportation” is what I term “third country deportation”—the removal of noncitizens to a country other than that designated by an Immigration Judge, after relief to the designated country has been granted, and after the court proceeding has concluded.

This article …

The Internet As A Speech Machine And Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Reform, Danielle K. Citron, Mary Anne Franks

Faculty Scholarship

A robust public debate is currently underway about the responsibility of online platforms. We have long called for this discussion, but only recently has it been seriously taken up by legislators and the public. The debate begins with a basic question: should platforms should be responsible for user-generated content? If so, under what circumstances? What exactly would such responsibility look like? Under consideration is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a provision originally designed to encourage tech companies to clean up “offensive” online content. The public discourse around Section 230, however, is riddled with misconceptions. As an initial matter, many …

The Automated Administrative State: A Crisis Of Legitimacy, Danielle K. Citron, Ryan Calo

Faculty Scholarship

The legitimacy of the administrative state is premised on our faith in agency expertise. Despite their extra-constitutional structure, administrative agencies have been on firm footing for a long time in reverence to their critical role in governing a complex, evolving society. They are delegated enormous power because they respond expertly and nimbly to evolving conditions.

In recent decades, state and federal agencies have embraced a novel mode of operation: automation. Agencies rely more and more on software and algorithms in carrying out their delegated responsibilities. The automated administrative state, however, is demonstrably riddled with concerns. Legal challenges regarding the denial …

The Supreme Court Bar At The Bar Of Patents, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past two decades, a few dozen lawyers have come to dominate practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. By many accounts, these elite lawyers—whose clients are often among the largest corporations in the world—have spurred the Court to hear more cases that businesses care about and to decide those cases in favor of their clients. The Supreme Court’s recent case law on antitrust, arbitration, punitive damages, class actions, and more provides copious examples.
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/="/">Though it is often overlooked in discussions of the emergent Supreme Court bar, patent law is another area in which the Court’s agenda has …

Implementation Of A Spine-Centered Care Pathway At A Regional Academic Spine Center., George M Ghobrial, Jefferson Wilson, Daniel Franco, Kristen Vogl, Alexander R Vaccaro, James S Harrop

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

Study Design: Retrospective case series.

Objective: To describe the early implementation of an inpatient spinal surgery unit and measure the impact on cost and length of stay (LOS).

Methods: A retrospective case review was performed for frequent spine-related diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) cared for by a dedicated multidisciplinary team: combined anterior/posterior (AP) spinal fusion with major complicating or comorbid condition (MCC), combined (AP) spinal fusion with CC, combined (AP) spinal fusion without complicating or comorbid (CC)/MCC, cervical spinal fusion with MCC, cervical spinal fusion with CC, and cervical spinal fusion without CC/MCC. Four time periods were compared: historical control, initial pathway …

Proper Conjugation Of Bodies: Chastity, Age, And Care Work In Sri Lankan Migrants’ Families, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Physical and symbolic aspects of bodies limit the migration trajectories of female domestic workers from a Buddhist community in coastal Sri Lanka. Government regulations and family decisions regarding women’s overseas labour draw upon and in turn influence discourses about gender, sexuality, age, health, and class. This ethnographic analysis illustrates that local norms task women with nurturing the brains of babies, preserving the chastity of teenage daughters, caring for frail elders, and preventing their working-class husbands from overindulging in liquor or having sex with other women. Successful social reproduction depends on the proper conjunctions of bodies in the extended family. Corporeal …

“Their Markers As They Go”: Modified Trees As Waypoints In The Dena’Ina Cultural Landscape, Alaska, Douglas Deur, Jamie Hebert

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Inland Dena’ina, an Athabaskan people of south-central Alaska, produce and value Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) in myriad ways. Ethnographic interviews and field visits conducted with Inland Dena’ina residents of the village of Nondalton, Alaska, reveal the centrality of CMTs in the creation and valuation of an Indigenous cultural landscape. CMTs serve as waypoints along trails, as Dena’ina people travel across vast distances to hunt wide-ranging caribou herds and fish salmon ascending rivers from Bristol Bay. CMTs also provide bark and sap used in Dena’ina material culture and medicines, leaving signature marks upon the spruce, birch, and other trees found …

Between “Us” And “Them”: Political Subjectivities In The Shadows Of The 2018 Brazilian Election, Charles H. Klein, Milena Mateuzi Carmo, Alessandra Tavares

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article examines political subjectivities, community engagements and voting practices among residents of São Paulo’s Zona Sul peripheries in the three years preceding Brazil’s 2018 presidential election. Building on a 398-person household survey, 46 in-depth interviews, and extensive participation observation over the course of a fouryear study, we argue that although most residents of our study communities across the political spectrum are disenchanted with institutional politics, many maintain political engagement through their everyday lives, including activism centered on intersectional identities and state-sponsored violence/genocide. Our discussion combines statistical analysis and auto-ethnographic inflected vignettes and is in dialogue with two common themes …

Walking Dena’Ina: A Cultural Landscape Report For The Telaquana Trail, Douglas Deur, Jamie Hebert, John Branson, Tricia Brown

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Telaquana Trail is an ancient pathway ascending from the shores of Qizhjeh Vena, Lake Clark, through tundra and timbered valleys, into a high-elevation expanse of rolling tundra and smaller interior lakes nearly 50 miles north of Lake Clark. The pathway is an ancestral corridor used by Native peoples since the beginning of remembered time. Though the archaeological record of the trail is still coming into focus, it lends us important clues about the trail and how it was used. For example, archaeological evidence at places like Twin Lakes and Snipe Lake suggests that ancestral Native communities occupied and traveled …

Environmental Law, Jocelyn Stacey

All Faculty Publications

In commemoration of their 50th anniversary, this chapter examines the Federal Courts’ role in shaping environmental law in Canada. The chapter uses well-known environmental principles – the precautionary principle, sustainable development and access to (environmental) justice – as focal points for examining environmental law as well as the legal culture of the Federal Courts. The chapter identifies four distinct interpretive roles that the Federal Courts have ascribed to the precautionary principle and it argues that three of these roles have the potential to generate more coherent and transparent doctrine that upholds the rule of law in the environmental context. In …

Responsible Scholarship In A Crisis: A Plea For Fairness In Academic Discourse On The Carbon Pricing References, Stepan Wood, Meinhard Doelle, Dayna Nadine Scott

All Faculty Publications

The Canadian federal government’s carbon pricing legislation has generated substantial public and academic debate. In this paper we argue that academic debate should adhere to standards for responsible conduct of research during crises such as the current climate emergency, and avoid the nastiness and distortion that infect populist political rhetoric and social media. We discuss the norms of responsible scholarship that apply to Canadian legal academics, with a focus on standards that demand scrupulous fairness to other scholars and to the materials one is analyzing. We argue that a recent article by Professor Dwight Newman on the Saskatchewan and Ontario …

The Meaning Of Life: A Study Of The Use Of Parole Ineligibility For Murder Sentencing, Isabel Grant, Crystal Choi, Debra Parkes

All Faculty Publications

A number of legal developments in recent years suggest that murder sentencing may be becoming increasingly punitive. This study examines two aspects of setting parole ineligibility. First, using cases from three two-year time periods spanning the past three decades, the authors explore whether judicial calculations of parole ineligibility for second degree murder have changed over time. Second, the authors examine changes enacted in 2011 to allow parole ineligibility to be imposed consecutively for those who commit more than one murder. The study finds a national trend towards reduced reliance on the minimum 10-year period of parole ineligibility, a slight increase …

Cash On The Table? Imperfect Take-Up Of Tax Incentives And Firm Investment Behavior, Wei Cui, Jeffrey Hicks, Jing Xing

All Faculty Publications

We investigate whether tax incentives are effective in stimulating private investment in less developed countries, by exploiting the introduction of accelerated depreciation for fixed assets investment in China as a natural experiment. In contrast to the large positive impact of similar tax incentives in the U.S. and U.K. found in recent studies, accelerated depreciation appeared ineffective in stimulating Chinese firms’ investment. Using confidential corporate tax returns from a large province, we find that firms fail to claim the tax benefits on over 80 percent of eligible investments. Firms’ take-up of the tax incentive is significantly influenced by their taxable positions …

How Well-Targeted Are Payroll Tax Cuts As A Response To Covid-19? Evidence From China, Wei Cui, Jeffrey Hicks, Max Norton

All Faculty Publications

Numerous countries cut payroll taxes in response to economic downturns caused by COVID-19. This includes China, which completely exempted most firms from making social insurance (SI) contributions, resulting in an average tax cut of 21 percentage points on formal labor costs and approximately 20% of total tax remittances made by firms. We use novel data on 900,000 firms in one Chinese province to document new facts about the structure of SI in China and evaluate payroll tax cuts as a COVID-19 relief measure. We calculate that labor informality causes 54% of tax-registered firms---representing 24% of aggregate economic activity---to receive no …

Disparities In Health Behavior Risks Among Employed And Disparities In Health Behavior Risks Among Employed And Unemployed Black And White Older Adults, M. Courtney Hughes, Tamara A. Baker, Hansol Kim

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Objective: Examine health behavior risk rates and disparities in health behavior risks related to race and employment among older adults.

Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of a representative sample of noninstitutionalized adults aged 65 and older (150,669 in 2015 and 168,011 in 2016) from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Self-reported health behavior risks were measured as well as multiple logistic regression analyses assessing the independent effects of demographic variables on health behavior risks.

Results: Employed older adults have greater health behavior risks than unemployed older adults. Black employed older adults have greater health behavior risks than Black unemployed older adults …

Teaching During The Pandemic? An Opportunity To Enhance Curriculum, M. Courtney Hughes, Beverly W. Henry, Michael R. Kushnick

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

The rapid transition of courses to an emergency remote teaching and learning format at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 created challenges across the university landscape for faculty and students and, inevitably, affects the future of higher education. We drew upon education theory, evidence-based teaching practices, and insights from a rapid-response survey of academics in the fields of public health, health promotion, and health communication about their perspectives on the impact of COVID-19. This article aims to help educators explore potential strategies to incorporate the lessons and reality of the pandemic into their curriculum. Shifting expectations and …

New Teacher Induction: Improving Teacher Self-Efficacy, William Jesse Bacon

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Induction programs are comprehensive initiations or introductions to a position that provides beginning teachers with the necessary tools for starting their teaching careers, as well as specific guidance aimed at helping them meet performance standards. Induction programs may include mentoring, assistance in planning, professional development, and evaluation. Other terms used for induction include support, orientation, training, internship, assistance or assessment programs, retention programs, beginning teacher program, transitional program for existing teacher, cohort program, phase-in, professional development, and workshops. School districts across the country have turned to effective induction programs in response to rising teacher attrition rates. Comprehensive induction programs that …

Responding To Students Experiencing Emotional Distress: An Action Research Study Of Professional Learning Experiences For Faculty And Staff, Christopher Taylor Lakes

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Students entering college are increasingly presenting with complex mental health conditions that negatively affect their college experiences. This mixed methods action research study was designed to assess the current level of faculty and staff member’s abilities with respect to, comfort with, and role in identifying and responding to students who exhibit signs of emotional distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation). Specifically, this study was designed to evaluate faculty and staff understanding of skills, techniques, and resources that can support them in this work, identify an appropriate professional learning experience (i.e., intervention) to increase the level of comfort in this area, …

An Exploratory Case Study: Using Web-Based Micro Videos As A Parent Involvement Tool To Support Families With Preschool Age Children In Early Numeracy Development, Jamie Thompson

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

The United States Federal Government recognized the importance of parent involvement in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Parent involvement has been associated with lower grade retention rates (student repeating a grade level), higher graduation rates, and higher student achievement rates. Reported obstacles to parent involvement include lack of child development knowledge and time constraints. In early childhood, a major focus has been placed on early literacy skills. However, studies that involve early numeracy skills especially in the home environment are lacking. Therefore, this study attempted to fill that void. An instrumental exploratory case study research design …

Is Athlete Activism A Predictor Of Resilience?, Travis Robert Scheadler

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Several athletes have taken personal responsibility to engage in activism, often with hopes of bringing social and political change. While scholars have identified several barriers preventing athletes from engaging in activism (e.g., public criticism, status and job loss, withdrawal of funding, anticipated distress; Cunningham & Regan, 2012), other scholars have identified personal benefits from engaging in activism (e.g., improved confidence, self-concept, belief in change, agency, life meaning; Klar & Kasser, 2009; Rabkin et al., 2019). Distress from the barriers, however, may be prerequisites to enhancing resilience, a theoretical construct that may help explain the benefits of activism. Thus, by applying …

Identifying And Predicting Intention To Quit Using Juul Among Emerging Adults, Jakob W. Hester

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Objectives: (1) Describe intention to quit, (2) identify relationships between sociodemographic factors or social influences and intention to quit, (3) explore if Theory of Planned Behavior-informed constructs can predict intention to quit as well as identify which construct best predicts, and (4) discover if descriptive norms strengthen a predictive model of intention to quit among emerging adults currently using Juul. Participants: Full-time, first-year students currently using Juul, an e-cigarette product, at a large university in the southeastern United States (N = 182). Methods: A November 2018 online survey assessed sociodemographic characteristics, social influences, patterns of use, quit intention, and attitudes, …

A Systematic Review Of Mindfulness Interventions’ Impact On Athlete Emotional Distress & Wellbeing, Trevor Nathan Tierney

Theses and Dissertations--Kinesiology and Health Promotion

Mindfulness-based interventions’ (MBIs) effectiveness for improving wellbeing and reducing emotional distress is well-documented in both clinical and non-clinical sections of the general population (McAlarnen & Longshore, 2017). Although mindfulness has been shown to be effective with these populations, less is known about the specific effects for athletes. The effects of MBI’s for athletes may be different given that the intention for MBIs in the sport context is typically to improve performance, where in most other contexts it is not (Gardner & Moore, 2012). Furthermore, athletes are a distinct population who possess unique factors on which their wellbeing and mental health …