Digital Commons Network^™

The Semantics Of Sin: Profanity, Reform, And Cultural Authority In Progressive America, Evan J. Christensen

Roland D. Sawyer Scholarship Papers

During the Progressive Era, language reform movements such as the Anti-Profanity League sought to regulate everyday speech as part of broader efforts to preserve public morality and cultural identity. This paper examines the rhetorical strategies and cultural assumptions underpinning the anti-profanity crusade, focusing especially on Reverend Roland D. Sawyer’s leadership. Using historical sources including league literature, newspaper accounts, personal letters, organizational records, and sermons, it argues that profanity was framed not merely as a religious or moral failure but as a threat to social cohesion, character, and national values. Efforts to suppress swearing reveal how language functioned as a marker …

Insurance Era: Risk, Governance, And The Privatization Of Security In Postwar America: An Essay Review, Katherine Hempstead

Connecticut Insurance Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Us-Mexico-Canada Trade Policy In A Second Trump Administration: Can The Us Maintain Leadership In The World Economy?, Elmore R. Alexander

Bridgewater Review

In April of 2018 in this outlet, I looked at the prospects for NAFTA one year into the first Trump presidency. Trump had campaigned on the premise that NAFTA was the worst trade agreement ever negotiated and vowed to eliminate it. In arguing the merits of a renegotiated NAFTA, I concluded that the net impact of NAFTA had been positive but that the safety net of training and assistance for displaced workers was insufficient to quell populist nationalistic sentiments. In the end, the Trump administration renegotiated NAFTA, creating USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement) which is up for renegotiation in 2026.

Bridgewater Review, Vol.43, No.1, April 2025

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

On The Books In South Carolina Corpus: Acts Passed By The Sc General Assembly, 1868-1968, Identified By Machine Learning As Likely To Be Jim Crow Laws, Kate F. Boyd, Vandana Srivastava, Kristin Harrell, Christopher Frear, Jalen Freeman, Nitin Gupta, Taylor Callahan, Lance Dupre, Rebekah Turnmire, Bobby Donaldson

Faculty and Staff Publications

This corpus was created for a text analysis project, On the Books in South Carolina: Mining for Jim Crow Laws, a collections-as-data and machine learning project by the University of South Carolina Libraries (USC), sub awarded by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for the period of May 2022 - December 2024. On the Books focused specifically on the laws passed during the Jim Crow Era, which is defined for this project as the period between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement (1868-1968).

This corpus is the …

Accommodations For Teachers With Disabilities, Macy Gault

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

Lockdown Lessons: How Remote Proctoring Continues To Discriminate Against Disabled Students In A Post-Covid Era, Abigail Johanson

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

The Dischargeability Of Student Loans Through Bankruptcy: Does The Undue Hardship Standard Adversely Burden Consumer Debtors?, Jitwan Floyd

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The National Teacher Shortage On The Right To An Adequate Education, Anslee Wood

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

Do Political Party Voter Contact & Gotv Efforts Increase Voter Turnout?, Cody Gunsalus

Political Science Theses and Capstones

While the disconnect between potential voters and those who represent them has grown, parties have spent billions of dollars and millions of hours on voter contact. My question is how effective is pre-election voter contact in increasing voter turnout? What party is most effective at voter turnout? Does the impact of voter contact differ based on education? Is it more effective depending upon age or gender? And how has it changed over time? To address these questions, I analyze National Election Studies (NES) data. The NES has surveyed the national electorate in every national election since 1948. Preliminary analysis has …

Archeota, Spring/Summer 2025, Nicholas Haynes, Stacy L. Vandenput, Jesse Jacobs

Archeota

Archeota is a platform for SJSU iSchool students to contribute to the archival conversation. It is written BY students, FOR students. It provides substantive content on archival concerns and issues and promotes professional development in the field of archival studies. Archeota upholds the core values of the archival profession. Contents: Happy 10th Birthday Archeota! Celebrating Archeota's 10 Year Anniversary by Gwendolyn Smith Beyond Survival: The Fragility of Context in Digital Archives by Nicholas Haynes “Records Doulas” and the Case for Patient Records Advocacy: An Emerging Role for Archivists by Stacy L. Vandenput Preserving Play: Memory, Meaning, and the Soul of …

Antiracist Antitrust: Antitrust Enforcement As A Civil Right, Synda Mark

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

“Tryna’ make a dollar out of fifteen cents” is more than a genius hip-hop lyric, it is also a metaphor for a real-life economic problem. It is extremely difficult for Black communities to build wealth in America. While many factors contribute to the lack of economic growth, one overlooked area is the ineffective enforcement of the antitrust laws. Even though race and antitrust law have a history that has intersected since the American Civil War, antitrust enforcement has never prioritized improving the welfare of Black communities or other marginalized groups. This must change!

Instead of focusing solely on regulating tech …

The Law Of Heredity -- Whistelo, Whiteness And Whales, Walter J. Walsh

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article reveals the impact of an early New York case upon science and law, raising questions about heredity that spurred evidentiary progress from maternal imagination to visual resemblance, and later from blood groups to DNA paternity testing. In the Jeffersonian republic, a dark-skinned man was charged with reputedly fathering the infant daughter of a mixed-race woman. However, to most witnesses this light-skinned child appeared to be the offspring of a White man. The trial of Commissioners of the Alms-House, vs Alexander Whistelo, a Black man, being a Remarkable Case of Bastardy (1808) became a cause célèbre in both law …

Gender Apartheid Under The Taliban: Key Elements Of An Ideology Designed To Disempower Afghan Women, Ilias Bantekas, Asiya Karimi

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Despite its frequent use since 2021, the notion of ‘gender apartheid’ is misconceived in terms of existing international law. The type of abhorrent policies pursued by the Taliban regime against women and girls is best conceived as gender-based persecution. Even so, there is no reason why a new and distinct international crime of gender discrimination cannot be established through soft law, domestic law, or treaty-making in order to preserve the plight of women and girls around the world who are subjected to collective discriminatory practices that deny them fundamental human rights. The crime would arise where the discriminatory practices in …

Censorship As A Cure For The Youth Mental Health Crisis In The United States: Utah's Social Media Ban For Minors, Lora M. Singh

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

On October 1, 2024, Utah’s Social Media Regulation Act was scheduled to go into effect, regulating minors’ access and relationship to social media platforms. The Act will, in part, require minor account holders to obtain parent or guardian consent to maintain a social media account, limit the hours minors can be on social media, and prohibit social media platforms from using “addictive” features with minors’ social media accounts. Utah’s Legislature enacted the Social Media Regulation Act in response to the current mental health crisis among Utah minors, which is part of a larger mental health crisis among youth across the …

New Jersey And Guardians: Perfect Together? Suggested Improvements To Guardianship Laws In New Jersey For Adults With Developmental Disabilities, Caroline H. Osborne

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

New Jersey has a large population of adults with developmental disabilities, and many family members of adults with developmental disabilities will seek guardianship. Guardianships and conservatorships have been gaining widespread media attention and awareness. With celebrities coming forward to discuss their experiences and movies being made about their potential for abuse, there has been a new focus on reforming the systems that are in place to improve outcomes for those being placed under guardianships.

Guardians and conservators have been identifying several problems with the current system, including that it is too difficult to secure guardianship over their loved ones, and …

Exporting Equity: Lessons From The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Shanthi Elizabeth Senthe

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Credit functions as a fundamental gateway to economic mobility; however, questions arise regarding the legal and societal implications when an individual is denied access to such credit. In theory, fair lending principles dictate that equal access to credit is a legal right. The premise is reasonable but becomes convoluted when consumer credit is clouded by lender bias, resulting in credit discrimination. This Article presents a comparative perspective revealing a jurisdictional difference in legislation affecting equal access to credit between the United States and Canada. Specifically, this Article will focus on the American Equal Credit Opportunity Act (hereinafter ECOA) and …

Towards Universal Non-Dimensional Characterization Of The Oscillatory Dynamics Of Wind Turbine Rotors Of Multiple Sizes, North Yates, Fernando L. Ponta, Alayna Farrell

Michigan Tech Publications

One concern in the field of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs) is what control strategies are needed to handle gust pulses in the wind to prevent extreme oscillations of the blades to reduce fatigue stress, prevent blade rupture, and extend the turbine’s operational life. In order to design innovative control strategies to modify the blade’s oscillatory response, it is crucial to establish the fundamental vibrational behavior of the blades when excited by gust pulses of different frequencies and amplitudes present in the fluctuating wind inflow. In a series of previous works, the authors presented a novel Reduced-Order Characterization (ROC) technique …

Estimating Climate Risk In Financial Markets, Olanrewaju Oluwadamilare Olaniyan

Masters Theses

The growing impact of climate change on financial markets necessitates a rigorous approach to climate risk assessment. This thesis examines methods for quantifying climate-related financial risks, with a focus on distinguishing climate risk from broader market movements (represented by S&P 500). Using a factor model, we isolate climate risk factors to better understand sector-specific volatility. The insurance sector is used as a proxy for climate risk exposure, given its sensitivity to climate-related losses and regulatory changes. We apply Extreme Value Theory (EVT); the Block Maxima Method and the Peaks Over Threshold Method, to identify excess risk patterns in financial portfolios. …

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part: The Constitutionality Of Firearm Waiting Periods, F. Lee Francis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article examines the constitutionality of firearm waiting period laws through the lens of the Supreme Court’s evolving Second Amendment jurisprudence. Although such laws are frequently defended as prudent public safety measures, their validity turns not on legislative purpose but on constitutional principle, particularly as framed in District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.

Under those decisions, the scope of the Second Amendment is determined not by judicial balancing of contemporary interests, but by reference to the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Article surveys that tradition and finds no …

Front Matter

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

When Rights Require Permission: The Discriminatory History Of Licensing Laws For Firearm Possession, Bob Barr, Joseph G.S. Greenlee

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

The Wrongly Read Right: Insurrection And The Second Amendment Right To Bear Arms, Aman Mcleod, Jacob M. Jones

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Several judges and scholars have interpreted the Second Amendment as creating a right to bear arms to facilitate armed resistance against the government whenever it threatens to impose tyranny. These arguments have been made in books, scholarly articles, and court decisions. Many of the proponents of the pro-armed insurrection interpretation of the Second Amendment root this point of view in the history of the right to bear arms in the Anglo-American legal tradition. This Article argues that the Second Amendment does not create a right to bear arms to resist government authority because such a right is inconsistent with several …

Familial Fairness: Guaranteeing The Right To Counsel For Indigent Parents In Juvenile Dependency Proceedings, Jake Toth

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Fairness principles enumerated in the seminal case Gideon v. Wainwright stand for the proposition that fundamental fairness and due process require appointment of counsel for indigent litigants. However, this principle has been constrained to criminal contexts. Many other types of litigation are just as impactful as a criminal proceeding, including juvenile dependency proceedings. Nevertheless, indigent parents do not enjoy an unqualified representation right.

This Comment traces the history of the representation right and how it has been treated in a juvenile dependency context, beginning with Gideon itself and examining other cases such as Eldridge and Lassiter. It then examines …

For Patients’ Sake! Can We Get Some Clarity? Defending The Privilege And Confidentiality Of Patient Safety Work Product, Alyssa Boob

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 2000, the Institute of Medicine published To Err is Human: Building a Safe Health System, a report revealing the shocking rate of medical errors plaguing the United States healthcare system. Faced with the horrifying consequences of these medical mishaps, Congress sprang into action. It enacted the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA), which authorized the creation of Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs). Intended to increase transparency and communication amongst healthcare providers, PSOs collect provider medical error data—termed Patient Safety Work Product (PSWP)—and suggest areas of improvement.

The Act grants privilege and confidentiality protections to any information …

Big Business As Gun Control, David B. Kopel, George A. Mocsary, Bhav Ninder Singh

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Gun control increasingly bypasses direct legislative enactments by co-opting the commercial marketplace. Financial institutions and insurers often face regulatory pressures, frequently articulated through vague notions of “reputational risk,” to terminate or restrict services for lawful firearms businesses and advocacy groups. The debanking tactic, seen in initiatives such as Operation Choke Point, can deny essential financial products to firearm owners, merchants, and organizations, curtailing the practical exercise of constitutionally protected rights. Simultaneously, government agencies sometimes pursue warrantless data collection from bank records and merchant category codes, building profiles of lawful purchasers and eroding privacy and due-process norms.

Social media platforms compound …

Dangerous And Unusual: How Heller’S Ahistorical Assumption Violates The Founders’ Original Intent, Oliver Krawczyk, Gilbert Ambler

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

When the U.S. Supreme Court ended its generational silence on the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court held that “a prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society” is “invalid.” In so holding, the Court suggested that the Constitution protects only those weapons “in common use at the time,” a limitation thought to be “fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” The Court defined none of these terms then, and it has not since.

Over a decade of constitutional infidelity ensued. …

Considering The Child’S Wishes—But How? Allowing Children To Speak In Their Custody Matters, Joshua Hanson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the United States, states universally may consider the child’s wishes when determining their custody placement. While their decision or preference is not binding for the judge, it allows the child meaningful participation in decisions that directly affect them. There are many ways courts can ensure a child’s voice is heard: through an interview with the judge, professional evaluations, child advocates, and even child-inclusive mediation. Yet state laws give judges broad discretion when determining how to weigh the child’s wishes.

This discretion will inevitably leave some children behind without having their voices heard. Allowing children meaningful participation in their custody …

Beyond The Concrete Ceiling: Understanding The Unique Experiences Of Black Women Working At Predominantly White Institutions, Linda Hamilton

Theses (2016-Present)

This thesis examines how the treatment of Black women professionals at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) in the United States influences their levels of engagement with coworkers. This study uses rhetorical analysis to explore Black women professionals’ narratives, communication patterns, and lived experiences to understand the dynamics of their workplace interactions in these settings. Utilizing scholarly articles, written accounts, autoethnographies, books, theses, and dissertations, this research analyzes how systemic biases, microaggressions, and exclusionary practices shape the strategies used by Black women to navigate professional, predominantly white workspaces. The findings uncover that the treatment of Black women at PWIs often pressures them …

Interprofessional Education And Collaboration In The Philippines: Current Landscape, Gaps, And Propositions, Arvie Vitente, Michael Sy, Reeva Ann Sumulong, Anna Karerina Causapin, Jocel Regino

Philippine Journal of Physical Therapy

Interprofessional education (IPE) is a forward-looking strategy in healthcare education that unites students and professionals from various disciplines to enhance interprofessional collaboration (IPC). IPE is designed to prepare future health and social care professionals to navigate and address the complexities of modern healthcare systems. In the Philippines, despite being a developing country with a fragmented healthcare system, there have been efforts over the last 15 to 20 years to introduce and institutionalize IPE and IPC in both higher education and healthcare settings. However, significant challenges persist, including the dominance of medical professionals, inadequate regulatory mechanisms, and a lack of strong …