Digital Commons Network^™

Private Religious Schools And Disability Discrimination, Kevin Timpe

Touro Law Review

In the lead-up to the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), religious institutions and organizations lobbied to be exempt. Because they were successful in securing an exemption to most of the ADA’s requirements, religious private schools maintain the legal right to refuse admission to disabled students or to fail to give them various legal protections. After considering the arguments given in its favor, the paper critiques this exemption on moral grounds. It then suggests that these considerations should lead to a reexamination of the legal right such schools have to discriminate against disabled individuals, especially in those cases …

In Too Deep: Navigating An Unpredictable Algorithm, Anthony J. Ranieri

Touro Law Review

This note explores the intersection of deepfakes, a newfound and seemingly ubiquitous technology, and the protections granted by the Free Speech Clause under the First Amendment. At this juncture, society has failed to develop an infallible form of deepfake detection technology despite persistent and diligent efforts by individuals and entities alike. Hyper realistic deepfake technology has and will continue to be utilized by bad actors as a tool for advancing their nefarious goals, resulting in cognizable harm to individuals and society at large. This note evaluates the current state of deepfake technology and the potential obstacle that traditional First Amendment …

The False Evidence Ploy: A Coercive, Not Just Deceptive, Police Tactic, Alexa D. Sondey

Touro Law Review

Why would people confess to a crime they did not commit? It may seem hard to imagine that an innocent person would confess but as this Note will show, false confessions are a real and serious issue. One cause of false confessions is the False Evidence Ploy - a police interrogation tactic where police falsely tell a suspect they have some sort of incriminating evidence against them. This Note argues that the Ploy is psychological coercion, as it may cause innocent suspects to believe they actually committed the crime and then confess. N.Y. Bill S324A presented a solution, banning the …

Tort Law As A Remedy For Terrorism, Boaz Segal

Touro Law Review

This article examines two basic questions. First, can tort law suits against operatives in various circles of the world of terrorism be added to the toolkit of deterrence? Second, assuming that the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, how can tort law be structured to effectively deter terror operatives? With respect to the first question, despite the intuitive assumption that the relevant branches of the law in such cases are criminal, international, and counter-terrorism law rather than the various branches of private law, this article argues that tort law is capable of serving as a significant deterrent …

Depraved Indifference Murder In New York State: Proving Depravity In Vehicular Homicide Cases, Jolie Bodner Zangari

Touro Law Review

Depraved indifference murder is one of the most complex theories of proving criminal liability for causing the death of another person. New York’s depraved indifference murder statute exists in Article 125 of the Penal Law of the State of New York, under section 125.25(2) as the second subdivision of Murder in the second degree. Its definition in the Penal Law is as follows: “A person is guilty of murder in the second degree when . . . Under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another …

America’S Turning Point: Religious & Free Speech Rights Transcend The Authority Public School Districts Think They Possess, Robert L. Coleman

Touro Law Review

What is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the First Amendment? I would argue that most people either say “Religion” or “Free Speech.” Arguably two of the most important and humane values inherent in a functioning democratic society are safeguarded by the First Amendment. But are they? Imagine this situation. You and your spouse have a child and send him to the local public school. One day, he comes home and says that his fourth grade teacher instructed the class that each student must refer to classmates by the pronouns of that student’s choice. Your child …

The Forgotten Victims: A Case For Children’S Compensation Amidst Parental Wrongful Incarceration, Mackenzie Crabbe

Touro Law Review

Wrongful incarceration is a tragedy that occurs far more often than most would care to admit. However, it is not only the wrongfully convicted person who suffers from this phenomenon. Most innocent people who are incarcerated have a family who is then affected and suffers immensely. Many wrongfully incarcerated individuals have children who then grow up without their parents, or with a significant barrier hindering their relationship with their parents. Typically, incarceration, and the separation of families that comes along with it, is justified by the need to regulate crime and keep communities safe. How[1]ever, when innocent people are serving …

And The Oscar For Best “Original” Screenplay Goes To . . . Chatgpt: Does The Use Of Ai In Scriptwriting Devalue Hollywood Writers?, Harrison Stern

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gravitational Property Theory, Monika U. Ehrman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein defined and redefined the field of physics. Their theoretical work on gravity is still considered a monumental discovery of their respective times. Although born centuries apart, the theory of gravity each advanced is still essential. Newton’s theory is applied on Earth and even throughout much of the solar system, while Einstein’s theory is used in special environments, such as near black holes. Neither theory is discarded, but instead used where appropriate. Likewise, gravitational property theory proposes that simple property theory—the ad coelum doctrine—is still appropriate for simple property, like stationary or vertical objects. And complex …

Symposium Transcript, In Re Opioid Litigation: The Trial Phase, Rodger D. Citron

Touro Law Review

In October 2023, Touro Law Center held a two-day conference on “The Past and Future of Opioid Litigation.” The inspiration for the conference was an extraordinary five-month jury trial in Suffolk County presided over by Hon. Jerry Garguilo. The trial, which was the first in the United States to include all parties in the pharmaceutical supply chain, from manufacturers to wholesale distributors to retail sellers, began in the summer of 2021. Ultimately, in 2022, the case settled. This allowed Judge Garguilo and attorneys from the case – Jayne Conroy, who represented one of the plaintiffs, Suffolk County, and Harvey Bartle, …

Local Development Councils: Baseline And Recommendations For Optimizing Participatory Processes, Czarina Medina-Guce, Lawrence G. Velasco, Anne Marie T. Rey

Development Studies Faculty Publications

The Local Development Council (LDC) plays a critical role in local governance through its integrative and participatory planning and budget policymaking functions mandated by the 1991 Local Government Code. The LDC’s participatory governance goal, stemming from the Code’s requirement for civil society organization (CSO) membership, has been gradually problematized over the years to extend beyond the operational functionality of formalized activities and mechanisms toward participation that empowers citizen influence in policymaking in local government units (LGUs). Drawing from a national baseline survey of LDCs, this study examines CSO participation through the lens of compliance with mandated mechanisms and practices that …

Philippines, Maria Sabrina Erica M. Carlos, Leslie V. Advincula-Lopez

Development Studies Faculty Publications

Philippine civil-military relations (CMR) have long tipped towards the military despite established constitutional and legislative frameworks ensuring civilian supremacy. The Philippines’ COVID-19 pandemic response, characterized by war metaphors, strong police and military presence, and the appointment of retired military generals in key posts, highlighted the need to revisit the country’s unique CMR dynamics. This chapter explores the military’s expanded role in the COVID19 pandemic response and its implications for an already tenuous Philippine CMR. The military’s expanded role put it in a prominent position to further redefine and recalibrate its position with broader civil society. It breached the traditional institutional …

A Tribute To The Life And Work Of Jess Chua, James J. Chrisman, Zhenyu Wu, Alfredo De Massis, Pramodita Sharma, Lloyd P. Steier, Franz W. Kellermanns, Josip Kotlar, Emanuela Rondi, Bingbing Ge, Chevy-Hanqing Fang

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Jess Chua was a leading scholar in the field of family business and a major contributor to Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice both as an author and editor. His significant contributions to the field were acknowledged by the Web of Science, which listed him among the world's most highly cited researchers in Economics and Business in 2017, 2019, and 2020. In this memorial editorial, we pay tribute to him by discussing his influence on the field through his academic work, mentoring, long-term collaborations with other scholars, and the kindness he and his wife, Eva Kan, showed to his colleagues and students.

Electrochemical Observation And Ph Dependence Of All Three Expected Redox Couples In An Extremophilic Bifurcating Electron Transfer Flavoprotein With Fused Subunits, Debarati Das, Wassim El Housseini, Monica Brachi, Shelley D. Minteer, Anne Frances Miller

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Bifurcating enzymes employ energy from a favorable electron transfer to drive unfavorable transfer of a second electron, thereby generating a more reactive product. They are therefore highly desirable in catalytic systems, for example, to drive challenging reactions such as nitrogen fixation. While most bifurcating enzymes contain air-sensitive metal centers, bifurcating electron transfer flavoproteins (bETFs) employ flavins. However, they have not been successfully deployed on electrodes. Herein, we demonstrate immobilization and expected thermodynamic reactivity of a bETF from a hyperthermophilic archaeon, Sulfolobus acidocaldarius (SaETF). SaETF differs from previously biochemically characterized bETFs in being a single protein, representing a concatenation of the …

Discontent In The World City Of Singapore, Gordon Tan, Jessie P. H. Poon, Orlando Woods

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

A burgeoning literature on ‘left behind’ places has emerged that captures the backlash against globalisation and highlights the locales that lag world cities. This paper integrates the ‘left behind’ and world cities literatures through the lens of discontent in the context of Singapore, using sentiment analysis and topic modelling as well as interviews with local professionals to unpack the multidimensional aspects of discontent. Focusing on the Singapore–India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement that spurred discontent directed at foreign Indian professionals, we show that the worlding generated by transnational flows has accentuated intra-urban inequality through racialisation and spatialisation of financial business and …

Natural Capital Credit Risk Assessment In Agricultural Lending: An Approach Based On The Natural Capital Protocol, Francisco Ascui, Theodor Florian Cojoianu

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

It is increasingly recognised that financial institutions have significant impacts and dependencies on natural capital – defined as the stock of the world’s renewable and non-renewable natural resources and ecosystems that yield flows of environmental goods and services, which directly and indirectly underpin the global economy and human wellbeing. Historically, many of these impacts and dependencies have been overlooked. The value of goods and services that nature provides ‘for free’ has often been ignored, and resources have typically been priced at their cost of extraction, rather than the cost of their replacement or substitution, which would promote more sustainable long-term …

Oxidation Behavior Of Silicon Carbide, Matrix Graphite, And Refractory Multi-Principal Element Alloy, Visharad Jalan

Doctoral Dissertations

"The present study focuses on the investigation of the oxidation behavior of silicon carbide, matrix graphite in a water vapor environment. It also examines the oxidation behavior of refractory multi-principal element alloys when exposed to air. The oxidation behavior of silicon carbide and matrix graphite were investigated in conditions pertaining to off-normal incidents in high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactors. Understanding this is crucial for the prediction of their performance in such accidents and ensuring that the nuclear reactor is accident tolerant. Upon exposure to water vapor, the two A3-based matrix graphite exhibited different behaviors. The A3-27 type showed oxidation in all …

Leveraging Deep Learning Models And Social Media Data For Enhanced Situation Awareness In Disaster Management, Ademola Abdulganiyu Adesokan

Doctoral Dissertations

"In recent years, social media has become a crucial source of real-time data for disaster management, supporting emergency responses when traditional channels like 911 are overcrowded and overwhelmed. It offers authorities valuable data for developing effective strategies, especially when swift actions are essential to save lives. However, the informal language, ambiguous meanings, and irrelevant content on social media pose challenges to accurate classification and hinder the efficient extraction of disaster-relevant information, leading to inefficiencies in emergency response efforts.

This research focuses on seven key questions: i) How can we detect, classify, and analyze hate and offensive tweet emotions during large-scale …

Mitigating Frost Heave And Thaw Weakening In Roads Using Wicking Geotextile, Javad Galinmoghadam

Doctoral Dissertations

"Excess water is known to be the primary cause of soil and foundation problems. In cold regions, water-related problems are exacerbated by seasonal freezing and thawing cycles. Frost heave and thaw weakening is the leading cause of premature pavement failure and consume considerable budgets of the Department of Transportations in cold regions. The first step to designing mitigation measures is the ability to predict frost heave under different conditions. This study aims to introduce a new method for quantifying frost heave using a prediction model based on the state surface approach. This proposed model addressed many inconsistencies and limitations of …

International Law, African Courts, And Protection Of The Rights Of Refugee Children, John Mukum Mbaku

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Defining Forced And Free Labor, 1930–1957, Christopher M. Roberts

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Collateral Damage And Individual Rights In Armed Conflict, Charles P. Trumbull Iv

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reciprocation And Redistribution: The Emergence Of The Trade-Development Fault Line In The Contemporary Wto, Tana Johnson

Fordham International Law Journal

This Article argues that: 1) trade and development reflect different mindsets and policy implications; 2) both are deeply embedded in the legal past of the World Trade Organization (WTO); and 3) tensions between them jeopardize the WTO’s policymaking future. At the argument’s core is the contrast between “reciprocation” and “redistribution.” Trade is associated with reciprocation (bargaining and two-way concessions), while development is associated with redistribution (assistance and one- way concessions). The WTO’s predecessor—the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)—initially insisted on reciprocation but relaxed that insistence over time, eventually merging with redistribution-related elements of the defunct Havana Charter to …

Reframing Reparations: Sovereign Unjust Enrichment Claims As A Private Law Model For Reparatory Justice, Britta Redwood

Fordham International Law Journal

Over the past ten years, states in the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) have called on European states to make reparations for transatlantic chattel slavery (TCS). CARICOM states have suggested that if former colonial powers were unwilling to adequately respond to their demands for reparations, they would pursue them through judicial means before international tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ). If brought, these claims would face major jurisdictional challenges that would make it unlikely that they would be adjudicated on the merits. This Article proposes a novel approach to reparations claims. It demonstrates how these claims …

International Law Of Cyber Warfare: Analysing States And Ios' Legal Positions, Shiran Shahaf

Fordham International Law Journal

This Article examines the development of Customary International Law (CIL) and soft norms through the positions and interpretations of states and International Organizations (IOs) regarding the application of international law to cyber operations. The study presents a comprehensive dataset comprising the positions of thirty-four states and three prominent IOs: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the African Union (AU). Through an analysis of this dataset, this Article argues that these positions and interpretations hold significant weight as opinio juris, reflecting the beliefs and intentions of states on the application of international …

The Re-Criminalization Of Sexual Minorities As A Testing Ground For International Human Rights Law In Africa, Matteo M. Winkler & Ilias Bantekas

Fordham International Law Journal

This Article scrutinizes the recently enacted statutes that re- criminalize sexual minorities in Africa from the standpoint of international human rights law (IHRL). These statutes are currently justified under cultural relativism, that is, the idea that African culture abhors homosexuality, which represents a malicious import from the Western world. We argue that the re-criminalization statutes violate IHRL in multiple stances and that in no way are these violations justifiable under cultural relativism. This does not mean that there is no virtue in cultural relativism, but a limit must be fixed to the dehumanization of minorities which is the intended purpose …

Banking On Empire: Citibank, Haiti, And The Fight For Corporate Accountability, Nell W. Fitzgerald

Fordham International Law Journal

For over a century, Citibank has exerted profound influence over Haiti’s financial system, embedding itself in the country’s economy through coercive debt structures and strategic alliances with the US military. This Note examines Citibank’s historical role in Haiti’s financial subjugation, from its facilitation of the 1915 US occupation to its monopolization of Haiti’s banking system and its abrupt departure in 2024. Through a legal analysis of potential avenues for redress—such as the Alien Tort Statute and unjust enrichment—the Note reveals how existing frameworks fail to hold corporations such as Citibank accountable for historical economic exploitation. While international law provides only …

That's One Small Sale For Man: On The Merits Of American Unilateralism In The Evolution Of International Space Law, Sam Grossman

Fordham International Law Journal

In 2020, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded four contracts to commercial companies to collect lunar resources as part of its Artemis program. This contract was the culmination of a controversial shift in global space policy, as it came shortly after an executive order from President Donald J. Trump. That executive order articulated America’s policy to encourage “public and private recovery and use of resources in outer space,” and to seek international support in doing so. Further, it reaffirmed the 2015 U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (the “Space Act”), which entitled American individuals and corporations …

Economic Sanctions And The Law, Andrew Kent, Thomas H. Lee And Harlan Cohen

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Challenges To Economic Sanctions In The U.S. Courts, Christine Abely

Fordham International Law Journal

The start of the new Trump term has made more salient calls to amend the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)1 to place limitations on the use of economic sanctions by the executive branch. Though the first Trump administration and the Biden administration both used sanctions in large numbers, they did so in very different manners. This Essay explores the use of sanctions by President Biden and President Trump. It also details the grounds upon which sanctions may be subject to challenges in US courts, and the limits of the US judiciary to impose meaningful restraints on the executive’s use …