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Amdip Annual Meeting Of Law School Diversity Professionals: Hosted By Roger Williams University School Of Law: April 23-25, 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

2024 Spring Newsletter, Plaster Creek Stewards

Newsletters

Highlights:

Project GreenER Takes Off

PCS Co-Founders Publish Book About Plaster Creek

Spring Event Brings Hope for Floodplains

Welcoming Jacob Bol and intern Hanna de la Vega

Stakeholders From Multiple Sectors Views And Policy Approaches To Marine Debris Removal: A Qualitative Case Study Of Virginia's Elizabeth River, Robin Rene’ Dunbar

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Marine debris is a wicked problem and there is a call for action for stakeholders from across multiple sectors to address this issue in Virginia. Marine debris can have negative impacts on navigation, aquatic life, recreation, and economies. Research is rapidly growing on ocean debris, but so far, it is limited regarding estuarine river debris in an industrial port and harbor. River systems function as pathways to the sea for the transport of plastic pollution that can be detrimental due to animal ingestion, entanglement, and accumulation. Views and policies about marine debris removal are unknown among stakeholders of Virginia’s Elizabeth …

Digital Footprints: Technology, Race, And Justice, Cassandra Jones Havard

Cardozo Law Review

Data aggregation is ubiquitous. To widen credit access, lenders now use nonconventional sources of personal technological information to measure borrower creditworthiness. Alternative data credit scoring is touted as a useful solution for borrowers with little or no credit history or “thin credit files.” The supposedly neutral algorithm provides a predictive analysis of the borrower’s ability to repay, thus allowing the borrower to obtain credit within the formal banking network.

Alternative data has the potential to expand access to financial services for underserved populations and make credit markets more competitive. Machine learning, or predictive behavioral analytics, collects and sorts the borrower’s …

Ogoni Activism And Access To Remedy: Business And Human Rights From The Bottom Up, Ayodeji Kamau Perrin

Faculty Scholarship

Do court victories result in social change? Can victories in court result in losses outside of court? If victories in court are no guarantee of victory outside of court, how much worse are court defeats? This Article explores these questions in part through analyzing Ogoni litigation against Royal Dutch/Shell. In 2002, Esther Kiobel and several co-plaintiffs tried to hold Royal Dutch/Shell accountable for its role in the death of Kiobel’s husband and for wider corporate abuses and related state human rights violations in Ogoniland. But in 2013, a unanimous United States Supreme Court held that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) …

The Complexities Of Irrigation Efficiency: Groundwater Data, Agro-Hydrology, And Water Decision-Making In Central Oregon, Rebecca Anderson, Alida Cantor

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Irrigation efficiency projects aim to conserve water for in-stream flow and agricultural use by reducing water losses throughout the system. Piping irrigation canals is a common irrigation efficiency method that results in trade-offs: while it increases efficiency of irrigation water conveyance, it reduces incidental groundwater recharge. This paper focuses on the data and decision-making of canal piping, focusing primarily on understanding the potential impacts of reduced canal leakage on shallow wells. By conducting a spatial analysis of shallow wells in the basin at risk of being impacted by canal piping, and combining this with interviews with water managers in central …

Bikeability Disparities In Orange County, California: Intersection Of Place And Demographics, Jeanette Gritton, Maria Cristina Martinez, Georgiana Bostean, Megan Thiele Strong

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Active transportation modes such as walking and biking are gaining popularity for their extensive health and environmental benefits, yet scholars know little about how place-based accessibility varies by area sociodemographic composition. This study is among the first to examine sociodemographic disparities (by both race and socioeconomic status) in bikeability while allowing for heterogeneity in disparities. Consideration of bikeability disparities is particularly critical within the framework of urban planning concepts that promote equitable accessibility and reduced dependency on automobiles, such as the 15-minute city. Geographically Weighted Regressions examined associations between census tract-level bikeability (using an index that combines five components), socioeconomic …

Relational Resources: Moving From Plural To Entangled Extractivisms, James Alejandro Artiga-Purcell

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Increasing studies of extractivisms, in the plural, examine the diverse politics that permeate extractive activities. However useful, this appeal to plurality is problematic. Plurality without relationality risks justifying some extractive activities over others, without addressing how they relate. Drawing on anti-essentialist, decolonial, and political ecological scholarship, this article proposes an ontological reframing of extractivisms that troubles the division and comparison that pervade notions of taxonomic plurality, and emphasizes the mutual constitution articulated within the concept of relationality. Analyses of relational resources are better equipped to illuminate the power-laden associations through which supposedly distinct commodity values, extractive geographies, sectors, and governance …

Responsibilization And Retraditionalization: How Neoliberal Logics Reproduce Gender Inequities Among Women Community Organizers In Chicago, Mary L. Dungy, Amy Krings

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Neoliberal capitalism creates a “crisis of care” in which social reproduction—though necessary for society—is undermined by stripping away support for caregivers, who are disproportionately women. “Social reproduction” refers to the reproduction and maintenance of the labor force via childbirth, child rearing, and caregiving for loved ones more generally. This interpretive phenomenological study examines how a crisis of care manifests for women in the workplace. Drawing upon in-depth, semistructured interviews with Chicago-based women who work as community organizers, our findings demonstrate that sexism in the workplace, coupled with the gendering of care work, creates unique difficulties for these women. By integrating …

It's In The "Weeds" : 'Pesky' Plants As Teachers In Imagining Decolonial Futures, Sofia Ahmad Cook

Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

As a category of plant species, “weeds” are often thought of as ‘pesky’ nuisances and treated with absolute disdain. But what are “weeds” and how did they become “pests” that homeowners, gardeners, and conservationists alike seek to control and/or eliminate? My inquiry into “weeds” reveals that the designation of “weeds” is not scientific so much as it is socially and culturally constructed. The categorization of “weeds,” shaped by evolving notions of place, space, and belonging, provides a window into underlying social and cultural norms that structure our relationships with one another and the more-than-human world. Situated within settler colonial contexts, …

A War On Resistance: Police Repression And Criminalization Of Land Defense Movements, Lydia Macy

Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

Statement of Purpose:

In this paper, I examine the roles and functions of policing in the United States in relation to environmental justice movements and protest. Building upon analyses of the history of policing and their role in enforcing and maintaining racial capitalism, I explore how the police enable and protect the destruction of land and environments. To demonstrate the intersections of policing, racial capitalism, and environmental crises I use three case studies: the protests at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, the movement to Stop Line 3, and the movement to Stop Cop City. I found my …

Urban Farm, Not Toxic Harm: East Phillips Urban Farm And The Indigenous Right To The City, Oli Palmera Tierney

Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

The East Phillips neighborhood in South Minneapolis has been planning to transform an abandoned warehouse into an indoor urban farm for nearly a decade. When the city of Minneapolis announced it would demolish the warehouse–releasing arsenic from the soil into the community–and use the land for a public works facility, a fierce battle over environmental justice and the right to produce space (a theory popularized by Henri Lefebvre) ensued. East Phillips is a geographically significant place: It has the largest urban concentration of Indigenous people in the country, and it is the birthplace of the American Indian Movement. Indigenous land …

Forced To Bear The Burden And Now The Children: The Dobbs Decision And Environmental Justice Communities, Mia Petrucci

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Navigating The First Amendment In School Choice: The Case For The Constitutionality Of Washington’S Charter School Act, Stephanie Smith

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Washington Journal Of Social & Environmental Justice

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Forced To Bear The Burden And Now The Children: The Dobbs Decision And Environmental Justice Communities, Mia Petrucci

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

No abstract provided.

Changing The Culture Of Ecology From The Ground Up, Elsa Abs, Moira Hough

Michigan Tech Publications

We are two early career soil ecologists in academia who entered the field of soil ecology with the goal of studying soil-climate feedbacks to make meaningful contributions to climate change mitigation. Although our training and research extensively focused on the effects of climate change on soil ecosystems, we were not trained during our PhD nor incentivized as postdocs to work on solutions for climate change mitigation. So the question we ask here is: Given the consensus among ecologists about the urgency of the climate crisis, why is our field not promoting more solutions-oriented research in training and practice? In this …

Prelaw Magazine Names Nyls A Top School In Spring 2024 Issue, Allison Gillingham

NYLS Community News

No abstract provided.

The History And Explanation Of Stormwater Ponds In East Tampa, Natasha Sutton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The overall goal of this research was to explore and understand the history of stormwater ponds in the East Tampa Community Redevelopment Area (CRA), a 4,800-acre urban community comprising many different historic African American neighborhoods in Florida's City of Tampa. Seen as one of the most affordable stormwater management solutions in southeastern parts of the United States, stormwater ponds dot the East Tampa landscape. As the manager of CRA funds, the City of Tampa stands out as a main decision maker around the stormwater ponds within the East Tampa CRA. Over the years the stormwater ponds have generated much interest …

U'Wa Indigenous People Vs. Columbia: Potential Applications Of The Escazu Agreement, Ariana Lippi

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Though the case is ongoing, and results are still to be seen, it in many ways sets a precedent for indigenous communities in Latin America seeking redress for environmental and cultural injustices. With Colombia’s recent ratification of The Escazú Regional Agreement (the Agreement herein) in 2022, this case presents a unique opportunity for implementation of the Agreement and greater accountability within existing domestic legislation.

Natural Resources In The Arctic: The Equal Distribution Of Uneven Resrouces, Ganeswar Matcha, Sudarsanan Sivakumar

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

This paper analyses the governance machine in place at the Arctic and examines the application of the principles of “common heritage of mankind” at the Arctic. This paper also offers some tentative propositions aimed at protecting Out Bound investment rights and how the World Trade Organization or other countries, like the U.S., can intercede in the Arctic investment sphere and attempt to regulate along with the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea.

Incentivizing Sustainability In American Enterprise: Lessons From Finnish Model, Vasa T. Dunham

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The disparate climate performances of Finland and the United States, two of the wealthiest countries in the world, bring to light the question of how corporate responsibility has been inspired in each jurisdiction. Having established the urgency of the climate crisis and the importance of corporate behavior in optimizing a given country’s approach to protection of the global environment, an examination of each nation’s legal frameworks may shed light on features of the corporate regime that are effective in advancing sustainability goals and those that are not.22 Part I of this paper establishes a comparative framework by providing background on …

Editor's Note, Shade Streeter, Reagan Ferris

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Physical Science Research Needed To Evaluate The Viability And Risks Of Marine Cloud Brightening, Graham Feingold, Virendra P. Ghate, Lynn M. Russell, Peter Blossey, Will Cantrell, Matthew W. Christensen, Raymond Shaw, Et Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Marine cloud brightening (MCB) is the deliberate injection of aerosol particles into shallow marine clouds to increase their reflection of solar radiation and reduce the amount of energy absorbed by the climate system. From the physical science perspective, the consensus of a broad international group of scientists is that the viability of MCB will ultimately depend on whether observations and models can robustly assess the scale-up of local-to-global brightening in today's climate and identify strategies that will ensure an equitable geographical distribution of the benefits and risks associated with projected regional changes in temperature and precipitation. To address the physical …

Leveraging Systems Thinking For Global Environmental Health, Martha M. Mcalister

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Environmental health inequities such as household air pollution, inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene, and chemical pollution persist globally and have myriad consequences on individual and societal well-being. Unfortunately, while billions of dollars and countless hours of research have been applied towards addressing these issues in development, humanitarian, and environmental justice contexts, attempts to reduce the environmental burden of disease can seem successful at first, but then backslide to pre-intervention conditions (or worse). This is indicative of policy resistance, a tendency of complex systems that makes it very difficult to enact change if the “rules” of the system are misunderstood. There …

Storytelling Through A Critical Positive Youth Development Framework: A Mixed Methods Approach, Maru Gonzalez, Michael Kokozos, Katherine Mckee, Christy Byrd

Journal of Youth Development

No abstract provided.

Minutes From March 20 2024, University Senate

University Senate Minutes

Minutes from March 20 2024 University Senate Meeting

A Fork In The Road: Uncovering The Impact Of Industrial Animal Agriculture On The Physical Health Of Communities Of Color, Mariana Zepeda

Population Health Research Brief Series

Nearly all (99%) farmed animals in the U.S. come from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). CAFOs are industrial agriculture facilities defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as operations where animals are raised in confinement and meet animal size and waste material thresholds. Communities located near CAFOs, which tend to have high shares of low-income and racial/ethnic minority residents, are at risk of exposure to CAFO-related air and water pollutants. This brief summarizes the health risks for communities located near CAFOs. Additionally, it calls for government regulations that improve transparency, management, and consumer empowerment.

Florida History In Publications, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Challenges To Reindeer, Reciprocity, And Indigenous Sami Sovereignty Amidst The Impact Of Green Energy Developments, Lisa Heikka-Huber

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

The Indigenous people of Europe known as the Sami, (also spelled Saami) many of whom live throughout the world, have continued to maintain active nomadic communities today as their ancestors did. A wide spanning region of Northern Europe’s Arctic Zone or Sampi often referred to as Fennoscandia, encompasses four countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula (Roland & Löffler, 2012). The nomadic Sami people follow the migration pathways of their reindeer herds through the wilderness bi-annually. This paper will discuss many perspectives, including the battle Sami people and other Indigenous communities have endured while combating green energy development from …