Digital Commons Network^™

A Draft Treaty On Crimes Against Humanity Draws More Engagement From States, Leila Nadya Sadat

Scholarship@WashULaw

The world’s first treaty on crimes against humanity inched closer to reality as the U.N. General Assembly’s Sixth (Legal) Committee recently wrapped up the last of a series of “resumed sessions” before States decide this October whether to proceed to formal negotiations on the document. Significantly more States and regional groups intervened during the most recent session, held last month, than in 2023, and the number that support the draft increased. Representatives of civil society also were present in much higher numbers, issuing a “Joint Statement in Support of Progress toward a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty” from more than 400 …

Fragmented Futures: Publication Choices And The Evolution Of International Legal Scholarship, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

How we produce and disseminate international legal scholarship affects can affect how international law itself develops. Fragmentation and siloing of international legal scholarship can diminish the coherence of international law as a shared social practice across national borders. It can also diminish the perceived salience of international law within the United States, contributing to U.S. propensities toward exceptionalism and isolationism. Non-traditional publication formats have equalizing and connecting functions, but there is still room for growth when it comes to aggregating scholarship across regional, linguistic, and disciplinary divides. Finding ways to do that will help international lawyers better accomplish the field’s …

A Regime Of Statutes: Building A Modern President In Gilded Age America (1873-1921), Andrea Scoseria Katz

Scholarship@WashULaw

At a time when the Supreme Court is turning its sights on the administrative state and enhancing the profile and powers of the president, it is worth recalling that behind our national complex of agencies lies a constitutional settlement that has structured government for approximately one hundred and thirty years. Its roots lie in the period from 1873-1921, and its defining values are interbranch cooperation, delegated problem-solving authority, and administrative expertise. This Article proposes to tell its story.

A century and a half ago, America was just healing from its Civil War wounds when a host of new problems descended: …

Less Discriminatory Algorithms, Pauline Kim, Emily Black, John Logan Koepke, Solon Barocas, Mingwei Hsu

Scholarship@WashULaw

Entities that use algorithmic systems in traditional civil rights domains like housing, employment, and credit should have a duty to search for and implement less discriminatory algorithms (LDAs). Why? Work in computer science has established that, contrary to conventional wisdom, for a given prediction problem there are almost always multiple possible models with equivalent performance—a phenomenon termed model multiplicity. Critically for our purposes, different models of equivalent performance can produce different predictions for the same individual, and, in aggregate, exhibit different levels of impacts across demographic groups. As a result, when an algorithmic system displays a disparate impact, model multiplicity …

Criminal Law Minimalisms, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

What is criminal law minimalism? At first blush, it appears to be the sober and sensible cousin of abolition. Where the language of abolition is radical and absolute, the language of minimalism speaks to moderation, pragmatism, and nuance. While I appreciate calls for nuance, I’m not sure that minimalism offers the clarity it promises or answers the hard questions about how to address the ills of the U.S. criminal system.

As a theory or label, minimalism raises two major questions: (1) a question of scope; and (2) a question of scale. On the question of scope, what exactly should be …

The Major Questions Doctrine: Unfounded, Unbounded, And Confounded, Ronald M. Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

As explicated by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, and reaffirmed in Biden v. Nebraska in 2023, the “major questions doctrine” provides that an administrative agency’s rule in a “major” case must rest on “clear congressional authorization.” Many commentators have deplored the major questions doctrine on the basis of its policy consequences. This Article offers a critique of the doctrine from a different angle. It primarily contends that the reasons the Court has given for enforcing the doctrine do not withstand scrutiny, even on their own terms.

In West Virginia and Nebraska, the Court relied heavily …

The Pedagogical Value Of Clinical Amicus Advocacy, Steven J. Alagna

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Essay makes a case for why clinical appellate amicus advocacy is particularly well suited to foster valuable experiential learning in the public interest. First, the Essay explores amicus advocacy in general, including its purposes and effectiveness. The Essay then turns to a survey of the educational benefits of amicus opportunities. Importantly, the process of identifying and pursuing amicus-eligible cases is rife with pedagogical benefits, including maximizing student engagement by broadening the kinds of cases to which students can engage (especially incorporating an element of choice that empowers students to engage with legal questions that carry a personal valence), teaching …

Subjective Costs Of Tax Compliance, Jonathan H. Choi, Ariel Jurow Kleiman

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article introduces and estimates the “subjective costs” of tax compliance, which are costs of tax compliance that people experience directly and individually. To measure these costs, we conducted a survey experiment assessing how much taxpayers would pay to reduce the unpleasantness associated with filing a tax return. The experiment revealed that taxpayers are more concerned about inadvertent mistakes in their tax filings than the time spent on compliance. Respondents also only ascribed meaningful value to eliminating all tax compliance work; they ascribed essentially no value to marginal time savings. Additionally, taxpayers were indifferent between simplification services offered by a …

Lawyering In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence, Jonathan H. Choi, Monahan Amy, Daniel Schwarcz

Scholarship@WashULaw

We conducted the first randomized controlled trial to study the effect of AI assistance on human legal analysis. We randomly assigned law school students to complete realistic legal tasks either with or without the assistance of GPT-4, tracking how long the students took on each task and blind-grading the results. We found that access to GPT-4 only slightly and inconsistently improved the quality of participants’ legal analysis but induced large and consistent increases in speed. AI assistance improved the quality of output unevenly—where it was useful at all, the lowest-skilled participants saw the largest improvements. On the other hand, AI …

Independence Through Judicialization: The Politics Surrounding Administrative Adjudicators 1929-1949, Lawrence J. Liu

Scholarship@WashULaw

One front in today’s battle to define the scope of the administrative state concerns the authority, status, and future of its 10,000-plus administrative adjudicators. Decisions by federal courts and the executive branch to increase the dependence of administrative adjudicators on the executive have sparked strong reactions from observers, with many advocating for measures to increase adjudicator “independence.” But who should administrative adjudicators be independent of, which ought to be independent, and why? Calls for administrative adjudicator independence are not new. This Article draws on primary documents produced by private actors, congressional decisionmakers, and federal executive agents to present a political …

“Fear Of A ‘Scientific-Technological Elite:’ Contemporary Concerns In Light Of Eisenhower’S Initial Conception –A Useful Heuristic Or Obfuscating Rhetorical Device?”, Michael Schaefer

WashU Libraries Publications

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s January 17, 1961 farewell address to the nation is mostly widely known for the former president’s warning of “the unwarranted influence…[of] the military-industrial complex” (hereafter MIC). However, a “less-widely known, seldom quoted, and often poorly understood”– one could add academically under-analyzed - of Eisenhower’s critical phrases from the same speech is “the danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite (hereafter “STE”).”1 This phrase has regained salience in the United States over last few years among a sociopolitical community critical of government COVID-19 protocols, Big Tech censorship, and centralized, top-down, …

Thirty-Sixth Annual Bibliography 2022 (Mike Lützeler Contemporary German Literature Collection), Walter Schlect, Kristian Svane

WashU Libraries Publications

The 36th bibliography of 850 volumes added to Washington University Libraries' Mike Lützeler Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2021, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, graphic novels, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Organized by author or editor, the bibliography includes local call numbers as well as subject and genre descriptors. This Collection serves as the research arm for the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature's Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature. A bibliography of items added the previous year is compiled each year …

Search Strategies For "Community Engagement Definition And Evaluation For Cancer Center: Scoping Review", Heidi Keeler, Brooke Fitzpatrick, Nicole Carritt, Emma Hymel, Josiane Kabayundo, Jordan Mccullough, Krishtee Napit, Regina Idoate, Shinobu Watanabe-Galloway

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For "Characterizing Metastatic Anogenital Squamous Cell Carcinoma In Immunosuppressed Patients: A Systematic Review", Sierra Thomas, Molly Antonson, Megan Wackel, Cynthia M. Schmidt, Ashley Wysong

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For"Analgesic Safety And Efficacy Of Peri-Operative Posterior Cervical Muscle Plane Blocks In Elective Posterior Cervical Spine Surgery: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analyses", Luke J. Weisbrod, Omar I. Ceesay, Cynthia M. Schmidt, Daniel Surdell

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For “Analgesic Safety And Efficacy Of Intrathecal Morphine In Elective Posterior Lumbar Fusion: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analyses”, Luke J. Weisbrod, Jordan M. Rasmussen, Cynthia M. Schmidt, Daniel Surdell

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For "Infection Of A Calcified Cephalohematoma: Case Report, Systematic Review, And Proposed Treatment Algorithm", Courtney Doherty, Cynthia M. Schmidt, Fang Qiu, Afshin Salehi, James D. Vargo

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For "Review Of Financial Hardship In Pediatric Oncology: A Meta Analytic Evaluation", Dana Verhoeven, Shinobu Watanabe-Galloway, Emma Hymel, Josiane Kabayundo, Krishtee Napit, Cynthia M. Schmidt

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For "Efficacy Of Surgical Management For Spontaneous Middle Cranial Fossa Csf Leaks: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analyses", Jordan M. Rasmussen, Daniel Surdell, Geoffrey C. Casazza, Anne K. Maxwell, Cynthia M. Schmidt, Harlan Sayles, Mithun G. Sattur

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For "Review Of The Preference Assessment Literature For People With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities", Brittany H. Loder-Lafferty, Isaac J. Melanson, Samantha J. Bryan, Christopher A. Tullis, Amanda Zangrillo, Lauren Peak, Danielle Westmark

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Search Strategies For 'The Role Of Venous Sinus Stenting In Management Of Spontaneous Csf Leaks: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analyses", Jordan M. Rasmussen, Daniel Surdell, Geoffrey C. Casazza, Anne K. Maxwell, Nicholas Borg, William Thorell, Cynthia M. Schmidt, Mithun G. Sattur

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Assessing Allied Health Student Professional Behaviors: A Scoping Review [Search Strategies], Kate West, Marnie Imhoff, Danielle Westmark, Nancy Krusen

Search Strategies: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

No abstract provided.

Digital Health Literacy, Vaccine Information Sources, And Vaccine Acceptance Among Parents In Ontario: Quantitative Findings From A Mixed Methods Study, Sarah Ashfield, Lorie Donelle Phd, Rn, Fcan, Panagiota Tryphonopoulos, Ève Dubé, Maxwell Smith

Publications

Parents make important vaccination decisions for their children and many variables affect parents' decisions to accept or decline vaccines. Parents are tasked with locating, understanding, and applying information to inform health decisions often using online resources; however, the digital health literacy levels of parents are unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate parents' digital health literacy levels, their sources for vaccine information, and analyze how demographics, digital health literacy, health literacy, parental attitudes and vaccine beliefs, trust, and vaccine information sources predict vaccine acceptance. Quantitative findings of a mixed methods study that examined parental vaccine decision making across …

Exploring The Experiential Journey Of Women With Pcos Across The Lifespan: A Qualitative Inquiry, Pamela J. Wright Phd, Ms, Med, Rn, Cen, Robin Dawson Phd, Rn, Cpnp-Pc, Cynthia F. Corbett Phd, Rn, Faan

Publications

Introduction: Peri-postmenopausal women with the chronic condition polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) remain at cardiometabolic risk and/or subsist with established comorbidity while continuing to manage persistent PCOS signs and symptoms, such as hirsutism. Thus, PCOS transcends the reproductive years, yet there is sparse scientific literature on the peri-postmenopausal years of women with PCOS.

Purpose: To explore how peri-postmenopausal women's perceptions about PCOS have changed over the lifespan since their PCOS diagnosis.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey with one qualitative question was conducted via Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) among women with PCOS aged ≥43 years, who were all recruited …

The Relationship Between Work Engagement, Depression, Anxiety, And Covid-19 Anxiety In Physician Assistant Students, Sydney N. Pepper, Emily T. Farrell, Robin M. Dawson Phd, Rn, Cpnp-Pc, Michael D. Wirth Msph, Phd, Face

Publications

Introduction: Physician assistants (PAs) are subject to high levels of burnout, depressive symptoms, and anxiety, which can negatively impact quality of care and patient outcomes. Learning how to handle stress in the classroom may increase success and engagement in PA programs. The goal of this study was to characterize burnout, depressive symptoms, and anxiety in current PA students and examine the relationship between these factors and work engagement. Methods: This cross-sectional study surveyed PA students (n = 42) via convenience sampling from eighteen different PA programs across North and South Carolina in October, 2021. Questionnaires included the Utrecht Work Engagement …

Green Grass: A Collection Of Short Stories, Julia Wynne

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Within the country club setting, the levels of financial wealth span greatly, from young adults in search of summer employment to businessmen sealing deals on the 18th hole while retired couples vacation in spacious homes situated directly on the course. Often associated with privilege and luxury, golf is much more than just a game, involving defined dress codes, social events, organized leagues, and tournaments. Centered around the lives of staff and members of an Arizona country club, Green Grass is a collection of short stories that uses the game of golf to explore privilege, money, and motivation. Golf is a …

Do High School Students Understand Their Miranda Rights? A Preliminary Investigation, Emma K. Hinds

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Background: Numerous studies have established that the linguistic complexity of the Miranda warning often results in poor comprehension, particularly for adolescents. Several studies have shown that persons with language disorders are overrepresented in U.S. prisons. Additionally, a few studies have shown a strong positive correlation between language scores and scores on Miranda assessments. These findings suggest that individuals with language disorders are at risk for poor comprehension of their Miranda rights, placing them at greater risk of waiving those rights, which can lead to incarceration.

Aims: The goal of this preliminary investigation is to examine how well adolescents with typical …

Understanding The Effects Of Integrated Movement Interventions On Engagement Outcomes In The High School Ela Classroom, Alexis M. Wigdorski

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.

Looking For The Exit Door, Nicole Kowalewski

Honors Senior Capstones and Theses

No abstract provided.

Forced Family Separation At The U.S.-Mexico Border Examined Through Narrative Theory, Emily Ulhman

Theses

An essential argument in grasping the negative impacts of forced family separation, a border policy upheld during the Trump Administration, follows this idea: to better understand the damage of the approaches taken during the Trump Administration's zero-tolerance policy, scholars must look at the narratives of those who experienced it.In my thesis, I use narratology to examine 18 nonfictional personal narratives of family separation enforced throughout the Trump Administration.