Digital Commons Network^™

Dipl 3104 Public International Law, Philip Moremen Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course explores the nature and content of the law governing relations between states and relations between states and non-state actors.  The first part of the course examines the building blocks of international law; the second part applies this knowledge to particular topics, such as the use of force, human rights and international humanitarian law.  By the end of the course, students will possess an understanding of the operation of the international legal system and the role of international law in international affairs.

Students will also develop their critical thinking skills and gain an introduction to legal reasoning and to …

Dipl 4106 Aa Human Rights Law And Policy, Belachew Fikre Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course introduces students to the historical development and emergence of the human rights movement, particularly following World War II and during the consolidating period of the 1970s. This period is often labeled the golden decade of human rights, as the movement that commenced at the end of World War II was consolidated through the adoption of two crucial international instruments. Furthermore, human rights advocacy, which works through victims’ testimony and evidence-based reporting on violations, began to take center stage, departing from the basic rules of humanitarian engagement that include impartiality, neutrality, and independence.

With four interrelated parts, the course …

Dipl 4193 Aa Eastern European And Post-Soviet Politics, Margarita M. Balmaceda Phd

Diplomacy Syllabi

This course provides a systematic introduction to the main issues in Soviet, post-Soviet and post Soviet-Bloc politics. Some of the topics to be considered are the following: (1) the legacy of Soviet nationality policies and the Soviet planned economy system on the creation and development of new political systems in the former Soviet republics after 1991; (2) the political and economic diversity which emerged within the ‘Soviet Bloc” starting in the 1950’s, and its effects on the development of new political systems after the fall of  Communism; (3) the causes and consequences of ethnic conflicts in some of  the countries …

Sb 21-25/26: Resolution Amending Asum Bylaws, Chase O'Brien

Senate Resolutions, 2007-Present

SB21-25/26: Resolution Amending ASUM Bylaws. This resolution passed by a roll-call vote [16-0-0] during the April 1, 2026 meeting of the Associated Students of the University of Montana (ASUM).

The Empty Plinth: Legacies Of Colorado Union Troops In State History Textbooks (1923-2024), Kai A. Moore

History

This research examines Colorado K-12 state history textbooks published between 1923 and 2024 to explore how the legacies of the Colorado Union troops, known both for their victory over Confederate soldiers in New Mexico and their perpetration of the Sand Creek Massacre, have changed over the course of a century. By focusing on the legacy of a specific period within one state for an extended period of time, this thesis demonstrates that state history textbooks can serve as a barometer for a state’s public memory of its own history. The combined impacts of the civilizational continuum and perspective on narratives …

Beyond Algorithmic Equality, Tatiana Dancy

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

Algorithms can predict the risk that a given offender will reoffend, on the basis of statistical observations about the relationship between certain attributes and proxies for criminal behavior (e.g., arrest or conviction). These predictions inform a range of decisions within the realm of criminal justice across the world, including sentencing, security classification, and parole. The variables that can increase an individual’s risk score, which are not widely publicized by those who develop or use risk tools, include financial stress, the criminality of friends or family, parental neglect, and experiences of domestic violence. In this way, algorithms may treat individuals as …

Rewired: Reconceptualizing Legal Services For The Ai Age, Lev E. Breydo

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

The legal profession is at a crossroads, caught between intensifying fears of AI-driven displacement and a generational opportunity for transformation. This Article provides a practical framework for navigating the shifting terrain.

Situating legal innovation within a multi-century arc of technological change, the Article draws on management and strategy scholarship to develop two core organizing models: the Legal Services Value Chain and the Innovation Frontier. The value chain disaggregates the lifecycle of a legal matter into five distinct nodes of activity, providing a map for subsequent analyses.

Building on that foundation, the Innovation Frontier traces LegalTech’s evolution from 2000s-vintage e-discovery to …

Measuring Legal Importance: From Case Citations To Linguistic Shifts, Bao Kham Chau

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

This Article introduces a novel empirical method for measuring judicial importance beyond traditional metrics, such as citation counts, which often undervalue decisions that shape legal practice without generating extensive case law. Drawing on techniques from computational text analysis, it proposes linguistic shifts—systematic changes in the length, language, and structure of legal documents—as an alternative proxy for a judicial opinion’s legal significance.

The Article applies this method to a case study involving Blackboard, Inc. v. Desire2Learn, Inc., 574 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2009), a Federal Circuit decision that has received relatively little attention under conventional citation-based measures. By programmatically analyzing …

2025 Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote Lecture, Madiba Dennie

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Press Freedom As A First Amendment Paradigm, Gregory P. Magarian

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Press, Privacy, Expungement, And Second Chances: Shifting The Paradigm, Brian M. Murray

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Using State Sentencing Enhancements To Protect Journalists From Physical Assault, Anthony L. Fargo

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The View From The Bar: How Media Lawyers Perceive Their Work, Jonathan Peters, Skylar Bandoly

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Voices | Risd Mfa Illustration Anthology 2026, Illustration Department, Illustration Mfa, Jaleen Grove, Minglu Du, Manuela Guzman, Rhea Hu, Faith Huang, Burcu Koleli, Airien Ludin, Ranran Ma, Mervin Miao, Nayyab Naveed, Rhea Pradeep, Pingfan Que, Mot Tuman, Skye Wang

Illustration MFA Anthologies

Illustration has often been dismissed as just a mechanical art, concerned with technique more than intellect. In fact, illustration is a theory of something’s essence, expressed and communicated visually. Craftsmanship – or a playful, mindful lack of it – is always in service to a concept and a purpose. The Masters theses summarized in this book are the result of struggles to give form to more than the tangible world. As writers and visualizers our students picture new meanings and refreshed experiences for the familiar; they define things previously unnamed.

Glioblastoma Multiforme: A Pathologic Breakdown Of One Of Neuro-Oncology's Greatest Challenges, Rosemary Westphal, Ms

Student Papers, Posters & Projects

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common adult primary tumor with a grim median survival time of 14.6 months. It is characterized by rapid progression, diffuse infiltration, and rather poor clinical outcomes. The WHO classifies GBM as a grade 4 diffuse astrocytic tumor with distinctive histopathological features including high mitotic activity, marked cellular atypia, microvascular proliferation, and necrosis. Advances in molecular diagnostics have further classified GMB into IDH-wild type and IDH-mutant subtypes, with important therapeutic and prognostic implications. Key genetic alterations, such as EGFR amplification, PTEN loss, TP53 mutations, TERT promoter mutations, and MGMT methylations, have been identified as contributing to …

Slurry-As-A-Service: A Modest Proposal On Scalable Pluralistic Alignment For Nutrient Optimization, Rachel Hong, Yael Eiger, Jevan Hutson, Os Keyes, William Agnew

Articles

Pluralistic alignment has emerged as a promising approach for ensuring that large language models (LLMs) faithfully represent the diversity, nuance, and conflict inherent in human values. In this work, we study a high-stakes deployment context—mulching—where automated systems transform selected individuals into nutrientrich slurry for the dual purposes of food security and aesthetic population management. Building on recent pluralistic alignment frameworks, we introduce ValueMulch™, a reproducible training, deployment, and certification pipeline for aligning mulching models (MMs) to a wide range of community norms. Through a real-world testbed spanning 32 communities, we show that ValueMulch™ improves distributional agreement with community mulching preferences …

A Qualitative Examination Of Mentoring Practices For First-Generation, Low-Income Stem Students Through A Critical Intersectionality Lens, Christina Torres Garcia, Laura Zamudio-Orozco, Martin Meraz Garcia

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

This study examines the mentoring experiences of first-generation, lowincome, and underrepresented students in STEM through the lens of Critical Intersectional Mentoring (CIM). Drawing on testimonios from McNair Scholars, this study identifies the systemic barriers and power dynamics that shape mentoring relationships and limit academic success. Traditional mentorship models often ignore intersecting identities, leading to experiences of marginalization, mentor absenteeism, and cultural disconnection. The CIM framework integrates Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to reframe mentoring as a social justice practice grounded in equity, empowerment, and relational trust. Using qualitative content analysis of pláticas, the study uncovers three key …

Agglomeration Of Particles Streaming Down A Zigzag, Juan Llamas

Posters - 2026

Zigzags or “letdown ladders” limit the flow speed of dry grains as they flow downward by gravity when loading silos, ships, barges, railcars, or trucks.

• Reduce cracking and shattering of grains.

• Increase grain shelf life.

• Increase grain resale value. • Increase ability of grain to germinate.

• Reduce generation of grain dust, an explosion and environmental hazard.

How can we design a zigzag that we know will not plug?

Cuny Oer Initiative Catalog (Ay 2024-2025), Jahanara Alamgir, Yujin Lee-Hwang, Rachael Nevins, Elliot Galvis, Rebecca Morofsky, Andrew Mckinney, Jojo Karlin

Open Educational Resources

This circulating catalog inventories the reusable teaching objects produced by CUNY campuses in AY 2024-2025! You’ll find textbooks, assignments, syllabi, videos, and more, organized by discipline and with brief descriptions of the resource. This publication (which links to all the resources) is supplemented by a by our online, filterable CUNY OER Initiative Catalog.

The CUNY OLS Research and Publishing Strategy team gathered, described and indexed the work of the campuses. OLS Fellow Hwang-Lee Yujin designed the publication.

“Where Have All Our Children Gone?”: The Detrimental Evolution Of The Juvenile Justice System And The Reform Efforts To Restore Its Original Intent, Sofia Depasquale

Political Science Undergraduate Theses

No abstract provided.

The Entanglement Of Facts And Values: An Overlooked Problem For Legal Positivism, Stephen A. Simon

West Virginia Law Review

Scholars have long been fascinated by the relation between law and morality, and in particular by the question of whether identifying the law requires making moral judgments. H.L.A. Hart and other legal positivists insist that we can identify the law without making moral judgments. By contrast, Ronald Dworkin and other opponents of legal positivism hold that determining law’s meaning necessarily involves moral reasoning. The most prominent contemporary case against legal positivism, developed by Dworkin, argues that interpretation—giving meaning to legal language—inherently requires moral judgments. While Dworkin’s arguments are powerful, the discourse has overlooked another basis for rejecting legal positivism: one …

The Judiciary's Arbitrary And Capricious Problem, Jack D. Malich

West Virginia Law Review

The Supreme Court has not been shy in its efforts to change, and in some cases, overturn long-standing administrative law precedent. Yet in one area, arbitrary and capricious review under Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Ass’n v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Co., the Court has ostensibly not acted to modify any part of the doctrine. Recently, however, the federal judiciary has increasingly used arbitrary and capricious review to invalidate major agency actions over what seem to be somewhat minor procedural flaws. The increased stringency of such review has led to increasing conflict between the executive and judicial branch. Two Supreme Court decisions …

Consent Absent Consensus: A Principles-Based Framework For Institutional Sexual Consent Policies, Tammi Walker

West Virginia Law Review

Title IX requires educational institutions to address sexual misconduct but provides no clear standard for defining consent. In the absence of federal guidance, colleges and universities operate in a regulatory vacuum, producing inconsistent definitions, legal uncertainty, and contested understandings of what consent requires. Without a structured framework, institutions struggle to balance survivor protection, due process, and practical implementation. This Article introduces a principles-based framework that supports clearer, more coherent consent policies. It identifies three interdependent elements of valid sexual consent: (1) Respect for Choices and Autonomy, which requires voluntary agreement free from coercion or pressure; (2) Informed Expectations and Transparency, …

Asarco Delenda Est, John Greabe

West Virginia Law Review

ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish is the most important Supreme Court decision addressing the adjudication in state courts of federal claims that Article III’s case-or-controversy requirements would bar lower federal courts from hearing. But there are two serious problems with the reasoning of ASARCO: one involving an error of omission and the other an error of commission. ASARCO’s error of omission is its apparent assumption that a party barred from asserting a federal claim in federal court because of a lack of redressable Article III injury caused by the conduct complained of should face no barriers to obtaining relief on the …

Drawing Lines In The Substance: Questioning The Inconsistent Application Of West Virginia's Recidivist Statute In Cases Involving Controlled Substance Violations, Patrick Hassen

West Virginia Law Review

For decades, West Virginia’s recidivist statute required courts to sentence repeat felony offenders to life in prison even if their offenses were not violent. Over the years, the statute mandated life sentences for triggering offenses as minor as writing a bad check or failing to register a new phone number with the police. Unsurprisingly, the statute has come under its fair share of constitutional attack for violating the state Constitution’s proportionality principle. In 1981 the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held the state’s proportionality principle requires a strict interpretation of the recidivist statute in favor of the defendant. …

A Damning Doctrine: State-Created Danger, Sierra Dotson

West Virginia Law Review

United States Supreme Court should take to promote uniformity in the correct interpretation of the doctrine and in applying the state-created danger exception.

The Living Architecture Of Law, Joseph R. Goodwin

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Last Human Question: Generative Ai's Existential Threat To Consensus And Law, Joshua Fairfield

West Virginia Law Review

The true risk of artificial intelligence (“AI”) is not that the toasters will rise up. It is that AI will be competent to perform human tasks and indifferent to human welfare. The risk is that we will be outcompeted by generative automated processes that create output similar to ours (although never the same, as this Article explains), but which need none of the outputs of the economy for food, shelter, or human flourishing. Further, a more precise and existential description of the threat is that generative AI will disrupt and crowd out humanity’s evolutionary superpower, our ability to generate agreement …

Ai And Law Milestones: From Top-Down To Bottom-Up Computational Models Of Legal Reasoning (And Back), Kevin Ashley

West Virginia Law Review

This Article introduces five research and development milestones in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Law and then discusses how large language models (“LLMs”) and generative AI (“GenAI”) are affecting each of them. The milestones include legal expert systems, lessons learned in computationally modeling legal rules and statutes, knowledge-based models of legal argument, machine learning models that classify case texts and predict outcomes, and the design and evaluation of legal applications of LLMs and GenAI. These milestones illustrate how top-down knowledge-based computational models of legal expertise have rapidly given way to bottom-up models based on machine learning. Knowledge-based models explicitly …

A View Under The Hood: Duquesne Kline's Law And Computing Program, Wesley M. Oliver, Katherine L.W. Norton, Martin Mckown, David Horrigan

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.