Digital Commons Network^™

Partisanship And Patriotism: How Political Parties Influence Citizen Perceptions Of American Symbols And National Unity, Carl Picerno

Political Science Undergraduate Theses

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in political polarization across the United States. National symbols such as the American flag, the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the military have become disputed markers of unity and identity. This study explores the following research question: How does political party affiliation influence Americans’ perceptions of key symbols of American pride and patriotism, and further, what do these perceptions reveal about national unity and political polarization? This study examines the following hypotheses more specifically: first, Republicans are more likely to associate national symbols with unity and patriotism and therefore …

How Many Supreme Court Justices Can Stand On The Point Of A Needle? Originalist Scholarship, Political Neutrality, And Other Constitutional Nonsense, Stephen M. Feldman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In the 1935 article, "Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach," Felix Cohen compared formalist legal reasoning, as practiced by traditional legal scholars and Lochner-era Supreme Court justices, to the philosophical musings of scholastic theologians. Unconnected to empirical reality, formalist legal reasoning was as nonsensical as a disquisition on “‘[h]ow many angels can stand on the point of a needle?’” Nowadays, originalist scholars are similarly engaged in nonsense. These scholars defend, refine, and practice originalist methods of constitutional interpretation as if the Supreme Court justices truly decided cases in accordance with the theory. Regardless, the justices—even the avowed originalists—do not consistently …

Harmless In Name Only: Prosecutorial Misconduct And The Right To A Fair Trial, Jennifer Brinkman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Prosecutorial misconduct during trial—particularly improper questioning of witnesses and improper argument—occurs in front of the jury and directly shapes its deliberations. Yet appellate courts routinely dismiss such misconduct as “harmless error,” allowing convictions to stand even when prosecutors violate defendants’ rights. This Article contends that the harmless error framework both underestimates the impact of misconduct on jurors and undermines the Constitutional guarantee of a fair trial. It proposes that certain instances of misconduct that occur during trial should be classified as structural error, requiring automatic reversal. This would protect defendants’ right to a fair trial and maintain the integrity of …

Generative Adversarial Discrimination, Josh Fairfield

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Anti-discrimination law assumes that discrimination can be detected and rectified, that the evidentiary burden of the plaintiff can in fact be met. But the evolutionary logic of AI training causes it to target vulnerable groups, lie about reasoning, and above all resist detection. Because of hidden core prompts in generative AI systems, and how those prompts interact with the nature of AI training and deployment, AI will often actively hide discrimination rather than surface and address it. Stopping this will be difficult. At present, neither humans or AI can detect this emergent dark-pattern behavior. Without legal intervention, the broad use …

To Compete Or Noncompete: Lessons On The Impact Of Unenforceable Noncompete Agreements In The Entertainment Industry, Guy Mannick

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Economic and legal literature has increasingly focused on how the American legal system fails workers. One way it does so is through employee noncompetition agreements (“NCA” or “noncompete”) that limit a worker’s ability to join another company, often for better compensation and/or more responsibility. Some states enforce NCAs if they are reasonable in scope, geography, and duration; others either prohibit their application to certain types of workers or (as in California) outright prohibit them in most circumstances. More narrowly, new empirical literature about the behavioral effects of unenforceable noncompete agreements raises new questions about the behavioral impact on workers.

This …

Before The Last Breath: How Alabama’S Nitrogen Execution Adoption Created A Procedural Crisis On Death Row, Caroline E. Penfield

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In 2024 and 2025, Alabama executed eleven people. During this time and in the years leading up to it, the State botched multiple lethal injections. Seeking an ostensibly constitutional way to continue carrying out executions, Alabama introduced death by nitrogen gas suffocation. The problems with lethal injection are not unique to Alabama, but Alabama was the first to adopt and use the novel nitrogen gas method, despite concerns from medical professionals, the public, and inmates themselves. Alabama put little to no protocol in place for inmates to exercise their statutory right to elect this method, leading to confusion and harm. …

Reel It In: Untangling The Circuit Split On The Constitutionality Of Geofence Warrants Under The Fourth Amendment, Kate P. Risser

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note examines geofence warrants and their ongoing threat to constitutionally protected rights such as privacy, speech, and assembly. Part I will provide background information on geofence warrants and examine the prominent justifications for the use of the warrants. Part II will examine how law enforcement’s use of geofence warrants threatens citizens’ constitutionally protected fundamental rights like privacy and reproductive rights. Specifically, Part II addresses how geofence warrants disproportionately target and affect women, people of color, and low-income individuals. Part III will detail the history of the Fourth Amendment tracing its roots to before the Founding Era then exploring applicable …

The Sentience Of The Horse And The Philosophy Of Natural Horsemanship: Implications For Hrd Leadership, Rob E. Carpenter

Human Resource Development Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper advances a biologically grounded philosophy of leadership through the lens of Natural Horsemanship. It reframes leadership as an embodied, sentient process rather than a purely cognitive or behavioral construct. Drawing from neuroscience, affective biology, sociology, and human resource development (HRD), it proposes that the horse–human relationship provides a living model for relational intelligence. The horse’s exquisite attunement to human emotion— mediated through limbic regulation and bio-behavioral synchrony—reveals that influence arises not from authority but from coherence. Leadership, like horsemanship, is a reciprocal act of co-regulation in which trust, safety, and communication are revealed through physiology before language. By …

The Pennsylvania Bar Association Quarterly: A 10-Year History Volumes 87-96 (2016-2025), Joel Fishman

Law Faculty Publications

This article is the second supplement to my previous two articles covering the history of The Pennsylvania Bar Association Quarterly.² For the period of this article, Robert E. Rains, Professor Emeritus, Penn State Dickinson Law, has been the editor, replacing Professor Louis Del Duca, who had served as editor for an amazing 47 years. The January 2016 issue appropriately began with two articles in homage to Prof. Del Duca.³

Water Current, Volume 58, No. 1, Spring 2026

Water Current Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Roadmap On Artificial Intelligence-Augmented Additive Manufacturing, Ali Zolfagharian, Liuchao Jin, Qi Ge, Wei-Hsin Liao, Andrés Díaz Lantada, Francisco Franco Martínez, Tianyu Zhang, Tao Liu, Charlie C.L. Wang, Mohammad Hossein Mosallanejad, Reza Ghanavati, Abdollah Saboori, Alejandro De Blas De Miguel, William Solórzano-Requejo, Yi Cai, Xiangyang Dong, Huangyi Qu, Najmeh Samadiani, Guangyan Huang, Austin Downey, Yanzhou Fu, Lang Yuan

Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence-augmented additive manufacturing (AI2AM) represents a transformative frontier in digital fabrication, where artificial intelligence (AI) is embedded not as a peripheral tool, but as a central framework driving intelligent, adaptive, and autonomous additive manufacturing (AM) systems. The objective of this Roadmap is to present a comprehensive vision of the state-of-the-art developments in AI2AM while charting the future trajectory of this rapidly emerging field. As AM applications continue to expand across diverse sectors, conventional design and control strategies face growing limitations in scalability, quality assurance, and material complexity. AI uses tools like computer vision, generative design, and large language models …

Piercing The Algorithmic Fog Of War: Ai-Enabled Decision-Support Systems And The Responsibility Gap For War Crimes Under The Rome Statute, Karen H. Cho

UC Law SF International Law Review

This article examines how the integration of artificial intelligence-enabled decision-support systems (AI-DSS) into military conflict complicates the attribution of individual criminal responsibility for war crimes under the Rome Statute. Unlike lethal autonomous weapons systems which are intended to supplant human agency, AI-DSS augments human decision-making across the targeting cycle while simultaneously introducing opacity and bias. These characteristics risk facilitating indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, undermining t4he principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law. Through a case study of Israel’s deployment of systems such as “the Gospel,” “Lavender,” and “Where’s Daddy?” in Gaza, this article illustrates how algorithmic mediation obscures …

Physics-Preserving Machine Learning Framework For Cyberattack Detection And Mitigation In Grid-Integrated Bess-Pv Systems., Devin Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

As the global transition towards renewable energy accelerates, the integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) has become increasingly critical for maintaining grid stability and reliability. This thesis presents a physics-preserving machine learning framework designed for the detection and mitigation of cyberattacks in grid-integrated BESS-PV systems. The research addresses the growing concern surrounding cybersecurity threats that can compromise the functionality and safety of energy systems. We develop a comprehensive detection framework rooted in physical models that accurately represent the behavior of PV and BESS technology. Key contributions include the formulation of a dual attack modeling …

Affordable Housing Cooperatives As Shared Equity Homeownership: Part Ii – Organizational Law, Resource Governance And A Corrective-Distributive Approach, Jerome Hughes

Georgia State University Law Review

Part II of this Article deepens the expanded view of organizational law developed in Part I with a focus on its distributive features. Using the analytical framework of entity governance, resource governance, and use and purpose governance, Part II demonstrates how these dimensions of organizational law interact to constrain the development of affordable housing cooperatives. What are commonly framed as financing problems in fact expose fundamental tensions embedded within the organizational law of affordable housing cooperatives. This analysis demonstrates that these challenges arise from the structuring of resource governance in affordable housing cooperatives and their interaction with the personal economic …

Prescribing Drug Advertising Regulations In The Age Of Social Media, Robin Stein

Georgia State University Law Review

Social media has changed from platforms created to share life moments with friends to sharing life moments with nationwide followers—and making money from it. Any post could be an advertisement subtly made to sell a product to consumers, and now, the pharmaceutical industry is investing in this form of advertising as well. The Federal Trade Commission has been ramping up its regulation of endorsements and influencer advertisements on social media, but the Food and Drug Administration still has the authority to oversee prescription drug advertising, and it has been specifically focusing on television and radio advertisements in recent years. With …

Salmonella In Poultry: Tackling An Age-Old Issue In An Evolving Era Of Agency Scrutiny, Samantha Girschick

Georgia State University Law Review

The Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo marks the end of Chevron deference and fundamentally reshapes the administrative law landscape. In its wake, agencies must now defend regulatory action without the benefit of the judiciary’s longstanding presumption in favor of that agency’s statutory interpretations. Against this backdrop, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) attempted to classify certain strains and quantities of Salmonella as adulterants under the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA)—an interpretation that marked a sharp departure from decades of prior agency position. Although the proposed rule was withdrawn before finalization by the Trump Administration, unresolved …

Child Custody Presumptions: From Fault And Gender To Equal Time, Thomas James

Georgia State University Law Review

For most of history, judges have applied fault- and sex-based presumptions to decide the kinds of custody arrangements that are in children’s best interests. Now that those have been eliminated, courts have no clear guidance for deciding the custody of children other than a vague directive to do what is “best.” Legislatures have enacted non-exclusive lists of suggested factors to consider, but these statutes are frequently as vaguely worded as the “best interest” directive. Because precatory words inserted into statutes with the intention of guiding a judge’s discretion are not binding, they do not provide a basis for appellate review. …

Trapped In Time: Georgia’S Juvenile Lifers And The Fight For Real Justice After Miller And Jones, Hannah F. Sanchez

Georgia State University Law Review

In Georgia, a thirteen-year-old child convicted of homicide can be sentenced to die in prison. While most states have retreated from juvenile life without parole, abolishing it through legislation or judicial decision, Georgia has moved in the opposite direction, becoming the nation’s leader in imposing the sentence. A sequence of Supreme Court decisions—four expanding protections and one dismantling them—has produced a volatile legal landscape in which the possibility of relief has been extended and withdrawn.

For children, life without parole is the harshest criminal penalty available, condemning them to spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars without any …

Some Or None? How Ab 1412 Closes The Gap In Interstate Special Education Transfers, Hope Austin

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Securing Safe Transitions: A Policy Argument For Sb 434’S Strengthened Eviction Safeguards, Eric Brown

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Above The Flames: Autonomous Aircraft And The Evolution Of Wildfire Response, Hakela Hapner

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ab 412: A Failed Attempt At Balancing Artificial Intelligence And Copyright, Erin Forger

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Arbitration Vs. Consumer Rights: How Sb 82 Further Diminishes Public Trust And Understanding Of The Arbitration Process, Peter Liu

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ab 446: Why The Answer To “How Much?” Should Never Be “It Depends.”, Dalton Mabery

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Une Com Spring Research Bulletin May 2026, Une Com Research & Scholarship

Osteopathic Student Research Symposia

Bulletin including abstracts from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine’s 2026 inaugural Spring Research Update and Lightning Talk event.

Course Syllabus. Spn 415 Transatlantic Cinema, Álvaro Baquero-Pecino

Open Educational Resources

Course syllabus. SPN 415-Transatlantic Cinema.

This seminar explores the relationship between film, culture, and society in Spain and Latin America through a discussion of representative texts and films, and their historical and political contexts. The course provides an interdisciplinary survey of cinema as an art form, a component of the entertainment industry, and a medium of communication via screenings, lectures, and readings on modern and contemporary Latin American, Spanish, and U.S. Latino cinema. This class will be taught in Spanish

Funded in part by the CUNY OER Initiative.

Look What You Made Me Do: Common-Sense Inferences About Independent Decision-Makers In Standing Law, Eli Bartz

Missouri Law Review

On a rainy evening in 2009, John Coomer was sitting behind the visitor’s dugout at Kauffman Stadium. Between innings, Coomer looked at the scoreboard, and the Kansas City Royals’ mascot Sluggerrr threw a hot dog into the stands, hitting Coomer in the eye and detaching his retina. Coomer sued the Royals for negligence, but the jury found in the Royals’ favor. The Missouri Supreme Court overturned the jury verdict, holding that, while spectators assume the risks of balls and bats flying into the stands, they do not assume the risk of flying hot dogs. The ruling sparked controversy, with one …

Neither Here Nor There: The Small Business Creditor’S Discharge Nightmare Under Subchapter V, Kathleen Zimmerman

Missouri Law Review

A courtroom victory feels sweet, with damages finally awarded after long, exhausting litigation—until small business bankruptcy bounces the check. In 2015, a father and son duo began their small business in rural Wisconsin. They had started their company by selling drinking glasses made fully in the USA, crafted by hand in the family workshop. Years later, a competing company began selling imitations imported from China and falsely marketed as American-made. The knockoff products undercut the duo’s market, placing the family business in distress. The father-son team sued and were able to secure a verdict in their favor for willful and …

Teaching A Social Justice Approach To Leadership In Law Schools, Tamar Ezer

Articles

Leadership is critical for social justice. Our law students have the potential to serve as future social justice leaders, building strong organizations and movements to carry out this work. Drawing on both leadership theory and practical examples from clinical legal education, this piece argues for a broad definition of leadership, embracing diversity and encompassing the counter-cultural values of listening and humility. It further proposes a three-dimensional model of social justice leadership, engaging the mind, heart, and spirit, and suggests teaching practices to strengthen each component. The first dimension focuses on cognitive competencies, including substantive mastery of an area of law …

Beyond Anomaly Detection: Classifying Attacker Automation Level From Ssh Honeypot Behavioral Signatures, Ashley Alt

Theses

The proliferation of AI-assisted offensive tools has introduced a new category of cyber attacker that combines the speed of automation with the adaptive reasoning previously associated only with skilled human operators. Despite the richness of behavioral data captured by SSH honeypots, existing analyses treat interaction logs primarily as evidence of malicious activity rather than as a dataset capable of distinguishing between attacker types. This thesis investigates whether human-driven, traditionally automated, and AI-assisted attackers produce distinguishable behavioral signatures within SSH honeypot interactions, and whether machine learning techniques can reliably classify attacker behavior from session-level features. A controlled experimental architecture was developed …