Digital Commons Network^™

Lived Experiences Of Black Girls In The City Of Richmond, Va, Nakeina E. Douglas-Glenn, Yali Pang, Charity Scott, Morgan Woodle, Craig Dearfield, Mariam Ai-Khafaji, T'Niyah Baylor, Faith Holmes, Jin Dorjderem, Rise

Research Institute for Social Equity

The VCU Research Institute for Social Equity (RISE) partnered with Girls For A Change (GFAC), a nonprofit youth development organization, to explore the lived experiences of Black girls in Richmond, Virginia. The report offers a comprehensive understanding of the lives of Black girls by working closely with them and their communities, including their guardians/parents and Black emerging adult women. The voices of Black girls and emerging adult Black women were heard directly through surveys and focus groups, and their parents and guardians provided further insights through interviews. This approach allows us to understand their lived experiences, individual strengths, and community …

The Budget, Fiscal Year 2026-2027, Tennessee. Department Of Finance And Administration

Budget Volume 1

This document is the final budget for the coming fiscal year.

Geoscience Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale (Geomses) For Majors-Level Undergraduates: Psychometric Data, Michael Coe, Rory Mcfadden, Beth Pratt-Sitaula, Eric Baer

Science Education Resource Center (SERC)

Self-efficacy is often investigated as a key attitudinal component of academic persistence and performance, and self-efficacy surveys can serve in research models as efficient and non-threatening assessment tools to augment or substitute for achievement or performance measures. The Geoscience Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale (GeoMSES) builds on prior work in measurement of self-efficacy for mathematics by focusing specifically on students’ capacity to apply mathematical skills to typical problems encountered in majors-level undergraduate geoscience courses or in professional geoscience settings. The scale was developed as part of program evaluation research for a set of learning modules designed to augment existing geoscience curricula. In …

Beyond Likes And Reposts: Social Media's Role In Warfare, Britney Arteaga

St. Thomas Law Review

Social media has become a double-edged sword in our current digital era, bringing both serious advantages and disadvantages to the forefront of domestic and international discussions. Social media has become a weapon in political, cultural, and even military conflicts due to the spread of unregulated content, despite it enabling people to interact, share information, and voice their opinions. Social media has facilitated the spread of hate speech, propaganda, and false information, which in turn distorts realities and shapes narratives and opinions. Social media's effect on both a domestic and global scale have been catastrophic, ranging from promoting violence to further …

Closing The Open Door: Curbing The Corporate Exploitation Of Tax Loopholes, Michael Fouladi

St. Thomas Law Review

Corporate America has long been the standard for business, serving as a beacon of hope to aspiring pioneers, entrepreneurs, liars, cheats, and frauds. With the rise of consumerism, citizens have become increasingly reliant on goods provided by corporations for their survival, as a result of local and familyowned businesses slowly disappearing due to acquisitions, takeovers, or bankruptcy filings. Subsequently, corporations today are more profitable, accounting for inflation, than ever before in American history. Ironically, however, corporate taxes are contributing less to the United States (U.S.) Gross Domestic Product (“GDP”) than ever before. Through the current system of tax collection, revenue …

Platforms, Power, And The Public Square: The Debate On Editorial Rights In The Age Of Social Media, Donovan Smith

St. Thomas Law Review

Social media has taken a hold on society and continues to tighten its grip; its influence is undeniable. Today, billions of people all over the world use social media for news, weather updates, communication, commerce, and self-expression every day. With the increasing dependence on social media, it is essential that the civil liberties and fundamental rights of social media users remain protected. Over the last decade, censorship of users and content on social media has become a key political talking point, especially when coupled with concurring events like elections and global pandemics. But is any of this censorship even allowed? …

The Direct-Derivative Divide In Florida Shareholder Litigation, Itai Fiegenbaum

St. Thomas Law Review

This Article analyzes the evolving jurisprudence surrounding the classification of shareholder claims in Florida business entity litigation. Shareholder and member lawsuits take one of two forms: direct claims, which allege personal harm to the entity owner, and derivative claims, which seek redress on behalf of the entity. While both aim to deter insider misconduct and ensure accountability, the procedural posture and practical consequences of each are dramatically different. Direct claims allow shareholders immediate access to judicial relief. Derivative claims, by contrast, impose significant procedural hurdles that often preclude review on the merits. The proper classification of a claim is therefore …

Mapping Environmental Justice, Dave Owen, Gaby Salazar Kitner

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

For decades, environmental justice activists have struggled to find legal fixes for the environmental burdens that poor communities and people of color often face. In recent years, government agencies, academic researchers, and activists have developed an innovative new approach: computer-based environmental justice mapping (EJ-mapping) applications. Dozens of these applications have emerged, and, in some circles, enthusiasm is widespread. The applicationsÊ proponents argue that they can be "game changers" for environmental justice, and the applications now help determine regulatory obligations and distribute billions of dollars in funding. But the emergence of EJ-mapping also raises questions about whether computer-driven decisions can achieve …

The Moral Complacency Of Federal Indian Law, Daniel B. Rice

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

For all its association with historical tragedy, federal Indian law remains thoroughly amoral. The field draws little distinction between horrific and laudable traditions. In sharp contrast with the Court's equality doctrines, Indian law continues to rest on explicit structural subordination. Its core precepts treat acts of historical treachery and cultural annihilation as legally generative in the present. This Article identifies Indian law's moral vacuity as an unexplained and unjustified aberration. It urges the Court to speak and theorize about Indian law in a register befitting the subject's moral gravity.

In recent years, Justice Gorsuch has shown that Indian law's moral …

"The Battle Will Not Be Over": 60 Years Of The Voting Rights Act, Annmarie Foy

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Together, the panels at the Minnesota Law Review’s Vol.110 Symposium highlighted a pivotal moment in the trajectory of voting rights in the United States. As the Supreme Court undermines key provisions of the Federal VRA, and the executive branch exerts its might on restrictive measures, scholars and practitioners alike grapple with the implications for voting rights, election law, and democracy writ large. The Articles and Essays in this Issue document this volatile transformation in the law and offer a call to action to safeguard voting rights in the United States—through the Federal VRA, the Federal Constitution, State VRAs, and state …

West Nile Virus Transmission Suitability Modeling For Culex Pipiens Via Temperature And Humidity, Hunter Jones, David Brett-Major, Joseph R. Fauver, Yeongjin Gwon, Jesse E. Bell

Journal Articles: Epidemiology

West Nile Virus (WNV) is the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the United States, yet predicting its transmission remains a significant challenge for public health officials. Many studies use correlative statistical models to predict disease cases using temperature and humidity, but accessible mechanistic approaches that simulate mosquito behavior traits can capture more of the transmission process. This study adapts an existing R-language package, the Mosquito-borne Viral Suitability Estimator (MVSE), which was created to model Aedes aegypti mosquito transmission of dengue, and tunes it to Culex pipiens transmission of WNV. Equations for mortality, biting rate, and incubation period were updated, …

Factors Affecting Detection And Quantification Of Schistosoma Haematobium Eggs In Pooled Urine Samples, Abraham Degarege, Bruno Levecke, Christopher R. Bilder, David Brett-Major, Abebe Animut, Yohannes Negash, M. Jana Broadhurst, Tzeyu L. Michaud, Berhanu Erko

Journal Articles: Epidemiology

BACKGROUND: Building on our previous work showing that pooled urine testing can rapidly detect Schistosoma haematobium infections but has limited sensitivity in low-intensity settings or with large pool sizes, this study evaluated how urine volume, pool size, infection intensity, and diagnostic method affect the detection and quantification of S. haematobium eggs in pooled samples.

METHODS: Between July 2022 and April 2023, 2,134 urine samples from school-age children living in three regional states of Ethiopia were individually examined by deploying urine filtration microscopy (UFM). Subsequently, 5, 10, 20 and 40 individual samples were strategically pooled and examined by deploying UFM and …

Flyer, Public Hearing About Expressway Through Overton Park, 1969

Documents

A flyer advertising a pubic hearig about "Tentative Plans For Proposed Construction Of Expressway Through Overton Park." City Council Chambers, Memphis City Hall, Memphis, Tennessee, 1969 May 19th at 10:30 a.m.

The Crisis In U.S. Cancer Care: Law, Markets, And Privatization, Daniel G. Aaron

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Cancer is surging among youth and young adults in the United States, yet, instead of public regulation addressing its root causes, we have outsourced the management of cancer to the private sector. A suite of laws, embodying faith that corporations will cure cancer, has subsidized the cancer biomedical enterprise and transformed quasi-public institutions into marketized, profit-seeking entities. These changes, across patent law, healthcare law, innovation law, and Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) law, have privatized cancer.

The market failures I describe in U.S. cancer care raise larger questions about who we entrust with managing critical social problems. This …

Bankruptcy As A National Security Risk, Jason Jia-Xi Wu

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Defense contractors lie at the heart of the U.S. national security regime. Each year, over half of the federal defense budget is allocated to contracts outsourcing military operations, projects, and services to private companies. However, defense outsourcing carries a ticking time bomb: mounting private debt. Today, the defense industry is among the nation’s most indebted sectors, fueled largely by the rise of private equity. Over the past two decades, more than 1,500 defense contractors have been acquired by private equity firms through leveraged buyouts (LBOs)—high-risk takeovers funded almost entirely by debt. At any moment, this private debt time bomb could …

Is Labor Preemption Good For Labor?, Benjamin I. Sachs, John Fry

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Labor law has long been the exclusive province of the federal government with state and local policies choked off by the operation of preemption doctrine. But the longstanding rules of labor preemption have been destabilized by recent attacks emanating from both the executive and judicial branches. This Article addresses the question of whether labor preemption is good or bad for union organizing. It aims thereby to enable a wide range of actors·including executive branch officials, congressional representatives, labor movement organizations, and employers·to decide whether federal labor preemption is worth preserving. To this end, the Article illustrates what states and cities …

Preventing Harm At The Source: The Case For Regulatory Justice, Keith Ellison

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

What if the key to reducing crime in our communities was not more prosecution, but smarter regulation? I argue in this Article that consumer law is an underused and powerful addition to traditional criminal law in combating crime. Drawing on six cases brought by my office over the last seven years, I show how consumer protection statutes and civil common law doctrines can be used to hold manufacturers, distributors, and retailers responsible for practices that facilitate criminal harm, like gun violence, car theft, and drug misuse. While not a substitute for all criminal enforcement, this “regulatory justice” approach shifts moral …

Dismantling Disability Segregation, Seth E. Packrone

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Over fifty years ago, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) promised that students with disabilities would attend school alongside their nondisabled peers in the least restrictive environment. Yet today this pro-inclusion educational vision remains unrealized. School districts nationwide continue to place many students with disabilities in segregated educational settings, including disability-only public schools. These schools frequently function as stops along the school-to-prison pipeline or as dumping grounds for low-income students of color who have disabilities that affect their behavior.

Congress originally intended for the IDEA to dismantle this type of disability segregation, but courts have made a series of …

Article Iii And The Recess-Appointed Judge, Alexander Gouzoules

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Roughly three hundred Article III judges have decided cases without life tenure, serving under short-term commissions issued through the Recess Appointments Clause. And yet the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on non-Article III adjudication holds that the Constitution strictly forbids judges without life tenure from exercising the judicial power of the United States.

This Article explores the tension between the nation’s long history of temporary federal judges commissioned through the President’s recess appointment power and the Court’s formalist approach to adjudication by bankruptcy judges, administrative agencies, and other tribunals without lifetime appointments. It uncovers unexamined evidence that early American presidents and judges …

Faith Investors, Amelia Miazad

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

It is the best of times for advocates of religious liberty and the worst of times for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investors. Over the past few decades, the Supreme Court has expanded protections for religious individuals, organizations, and corporations by interpreting the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses evermore expansively. Meanwhile, for ESG investors, times are grim. Conservative lawmakers have vowed to “eradicate this evil pollutant from our markets” and are making good on their promise with a wave of legislation, investigations, and congressional hearings—aimed at preventing investors from incorporating environmental and social issues into investment decisions. The Securities and Exchange …

The Unmaking Of Section Two, Maureen Edobor

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act now stands at a paradoxical crossroads. Though it remains the statute’s central protection against racial vote dilution after Shelby County v. Holder, it is increasingly undermined by a constitutional framework that treats race-conscious remedies as suspect rather than necessary under Section 2. This Essay argues that Section 2 is being quietly unmade—not through direct invalidation, but through the convergence of Equal Protection Doctrine, racial-gerrymandering jurisprudence, and an ascendant commitment to colorblind constitutionalism. Tracing the Fifteenth Amendment’s original design and Congress’s expansive enforcement authority, the Essay situates Section 2 within a constitutional tradition …

State Vras And The State Of The Vra, Michael Pernick, Adam Harper

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

For decades, changes in the interpretation and application of federal election law have limited the reach of hard-won protections for voters of color enshrined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the federal VRA). United States Supreme Court opinions, including Shelby County v. Holder, Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Louisiana v. Callais, have rendered the core provisions of the federal VRA wholly ineffective. Against this backdrop, State Voting Rights Acts (SVRAs) have emerged as a necessary and urgent response to protect the right to vote—not merely filling the gaps left by federal retrenchment, but building the durable, …

One Decade, One Map: State Constitutional Limits On Re-Redistricting, Joshua A. Douglas

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court closed the federal courthouse doors to claims of partisan gerrymandering, effectively permitting states to engage in what it called “constitutional political gerrymandering.” A few years later, several states embraced this invitation, redrawing maps mid-decade for openly partisan ends. State courts must now confront a different and more basic question than in a typical partisan gerrymandering case: When a state engages in re-redistricting, is pure partisanship allowable under the state constitution?

This Essay argues that, in these situations, state courts should adopt a presumption of unlawful partisanship under state constitutions. Virtually all state constitutions say …

Is Multiracial Democracy Constitutional? Some Reflections From The Eye Of The Storm, Wilfred U. Codrington Iii

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

By summer 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court will have finally decided Louisiana v. Callais, which asks whether the state’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district as a remedy for racial vote dilution violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendment. In plainer language, the impending judgment in the case twice argued before the Court will determine the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA)—and with it, the future of legal doctrine governing the use of race in redistricting. Yet that is not the only issue that the case presents nor, crucially, the most important. This Article …

The Poly Problem In Zoning: Redefining "Family" For A Changing Society, Aric Short, Tanya Pierce

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Single-family zoning has long dictated not only where people may live but also with whom. Although extensively critiqued for perpetuating racial and economic exclusion, these laws also privilege relationships defined by blood, marriage, or adoption and marginalize nontraditional families. This Article focuses on a particularly overlooked group: polyamorous families who often face legal uncertainty, social exclusion, and housing discrimination due to restrictive zoning definitions of “family.”

As polyamory gains cultural visibility and increasing legal recognition—through West 49th Street, LLC v. O’Neill and municipal reforms in cities like Somerville and Cambridge—now is the time to examine zoning's role in reinforcing outdated …

Waging The Battle For Society's Soul: The Constitutionality Of Juvenile Transfer Legislation In The Wake Of Jones V. Mississippi, Logan Knutson

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

Trying juvenile defendants as adults is a cruel, yet enduring practice in U.S. criminal law. If convicted, these youthful offenders face brutal conditions in adult prison and a lifelong stigma. Although these devastating consequences of conviction are readily apparent, juvenile transfer is insidious even absent a prison sentence or criminal record.

State-level legislation that mandates or creates a presumption for subjecting juveniles to any degree of proceedings in adult court disregards their unique capacity for rehabilitation—a characteristic of youth that both modern neuroscience and the U.S. Supreme Court have recognized for decades. In the context of sentencing juveniles to life …

Equity In Place, Segregation, And The Phillips Neighborhood, Myron W. Orfield

Articles

This Article describes an existential legal and factual conflict about residential segregation. It is centered in a neighborhood a few blocks north of where George Floyd—and more recently Renee Good—were murdered. Five years before Floyd’s murder, the conflict reached a breaking point, resulting in three lawsuits. One involved federal civil rights and two involved state civil rights claims that housing policy was causing deeper residential and educational segregation. Much of this debate was summarized in a series of articles in the journal Housing Policy Debate before the lawsuits were filed.

On one side were proponents of greater residential and educational …

Possible Reconsideration To The Library Of Congress Classification System’S Liberal Placements Of African American Psychology And African American Social Science, Eddie Hughes

Southern University and A&M College: John B. Cade Library Publications

The Library of Congress Classification (LCC), developed by Herbert Putnam in 1897, remains the predominant system for organizing materials in U.S. academic libraries. By integrating innovations with earlier classification systems by Charles Cutter and Melvil Dewey, the LCC divides human knowledge into 21 classes, each represented by alphabetic codes. While Psychology is classified under BF and social sciences under HQ, materials on African American Psychology and African American Social Science are primarily cataloged under Class E—History of America—specifically E185.625 and E185.86. This placement raises critical questions about the appropriateness of categorizing these subjects as historical rather than disciplinary. Given African …

Why The “Dead Silence” About The Slave Trade In Mansfield Park?, Stewart Justman

Global Humanities and Religions Faculty Publications

Legend has it that Jane Austen excluded the topic of slavery in toto from the text of Mansfield Park even though (or because) the family patriarch, Sir Thomas Bertram, spends the first half of the novel on his estate in Antigua. It is true that Sir Thomas is off-camera. However, in the family circle one evening shortly after his return from the West Indies, the reticent heroine, Fanny Price, attempts to open a discussion of the slave trade—without success. Mansfield Park does not impose silence on the question of the slave trade; rather, it depicts the imposition of silence on …

Neuroaesthetic Frequency Tuning For Neurodivergent Populations: A Network-Informed Theory Of Music For Emotional Memory And Cognitive Regulation, Piper Hutson, James Hutson

Faculty Scholarship

Neuroaesthetic frequency tuning posits that deliberate selection of musical parameters can modulate large-scale neural systems to support emotional memory retrieval and cognitive regulation in neurodivergent populations. Drawing on contemporary evidence from network neuroscience, cognitive musicology, and affective science, the article synthesizes how rhythmic, harmonic, and lyrical structures align with Default Mode (DM), fronto-parietal control, salience, motor, and limbic systems, and how these alignments can be targeted to balance internally oriented mentation with task engagement. The theory further integrates autonomic and cellular mechanisms, describing how tempo and spectral energy shift arousal and heart rate variability, and how astrocytic ensembles contribute to …