Law Commons^™

Don't Mess With Texans' Rights: Protecting Transgender Youth From The Paternalistic Policies Of State Executives, Mary Franklin

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion in 2022 detailing how gender-affirming care for transgender minors constituted child abuse under the Texas Family Code. As a result of this opinion, multiple families of trans teens engaging in various forms of gender-affirming care were investigated by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. This Article applies the constitutional standards imposed by the equal protection clause, substantive due process, and parental authority to Paxton’s recommendation, using both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. Ultimately, this Article concludes that Paxton’s opinion fails to meet these constitutional standards and recommends action from the …

Child Sacrifices: The Precarity Of Minors’ Autonomy And Bodily Integrity After Dobbs, Teri Dobbins Baxter

Scholarly Works

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court held that there is no constitutional right to abortion. The decision has had a devastating impact on people seeking abortions in many states, and it will have an even more profound effect on the rights and lives of minors. Pregnant minors face greater risks than pregnant adults when they are forced to continue a pregnancy that can harm their physical and mental health and their educational and financial futures. Very young minors are incapable of consenting to the sexual acts that result in pregnancy, but many states require even these …

Opening Remarks, Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Thank you. I am honored to be here. And there is no more fitting way to honor Michael than around the 40th anniversary of Plyler v. Doe.

This case centered on Texas statute § 21.031, which on its face, permitted the local school districts to exclude noncitizen children who entered the United States without immigration status or to charge admission for the same. The questions before the Court were: (1) whether a noncitizen under the statute who is present in the state without legal status is a “person” and therefore in the jurisdiction of the state within the meaning …

"Covid-19 Was The Publicist For Homeschooling" And States Need To Finally Take Homeschooling Regulations Seriously Post-Pandemic, Kristia Hoffman

FIU Law Review

Homeschooling was rapidly growing in the U.S. even before COVID-19. The pandemic accelerated this growth by quickly exposing nearly every American family to homeschooling in some form. The pandemic has ushered in a new age of homeschooling characterized by flexibility, technology, collaboration, and alternative forms of schooling beyond the traditional parent-teaching-child framework. Although the Supreme Court has never recognized a fundamental right of parents to homeschool their children, it has repeatedly recognized that parents have the right to direct their children’s education and to choose to educate them in the way they deem fit. There is debate as to what …

Tinjauan Viktimologis Dan Yuridis Atas Eksploitasi Seksual Terhadap Anak Victimological And Juridical Review Of Commercial Exploitation Against Children, Ananda Kurniawan

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

The International Labor Organization estimates that 30% of 240,000 commercial sex workers in Indonesia in 2017 are children under 18 years. Considering mentioned number, this paper discusses the aspect of victimology and legislation in the hope of being able to answer the question of how protection should be for children in the crime of sexual exploitation. The research method used is the normative legal method in which the writer tries to refer to the norms of criminal law and victimology in general. With the above regulations, the discussion on the principle of systematische specialiteit must be underlined to assess which …

Law School News: A Juneteenth Message From The Dean, Gregory W. Bowman

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Democratizing Education Rights, Joshua E. Weishart

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

If the United States is to reverse its creeping, illiberal descent, generations of youth must emerge from this tribal, post-truth, pandemic-shattered era to mend democracy. Hope for that uncertain future lies in re-engineering how schoolchildren learn democracy-- not from a civics textbook but by experiencing it in the classroom. The sad irony is that we still lack a knowledge base, grounded in research, for that type of democratic education. Nearly two and a half centuries into the republic's existence, our commitment to democratic education is honored more in the breach than in observance. And our uninformed, polarized, and disaffected electorate …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law 06-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Katie Mulvaney

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Private Schools' Role And Rights In Setting Vaccination Policy: A Constitutional And Statutory Puzzle, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

Measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are making a comeback, as a growing number of parents are electing not to vaccinate their children. May private schools refuse admission to these students? This deceptively simple question raises complex issues of First Amendment law and statutory interpretation, and it also has implications for other current hot-button issues in constitutional law, including whether private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students. This Article is the first to address the issue of private schools’ rights to exclude unvaccinated children. It finds that the answer is “it depends.” It also offers a model law that states …

As Pertains To The Criminal Justice System, Is Hindsight 20/20?, Syndie G. E. Molina, Cristina Negrillo

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Disabling Fascism: A Struggle For The Last Laugh In Trump’S America, Madeleine M. Plasencia

Articles

Six years before the start of the Second World War and seven months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the German government instituted the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.” The moral depravity that started as a sterilization program targeting “useless eaters” and lives “unworthy of life” degenerated into a “euthanasia” program that murdered at least 250,000 people with mental and physical dis/abilities as an “open secret” until 1941, when the Bishop of Munster, Clemens August Count von Galen, delivered a sermon protesting the killing of “unproductive people.”2 Although the Trump Administration has not yet driven …

Stopping The Resurgence Of Vaccine-Preventable Childhood Diseases: Policy, Politics, And Law, Hillel Y. Levin, Stacie Patrice Kershner, Timothy D. Lytton, Daniel Salmon, Saad B. Omer

Scholarly Works

Mandatory vaccination programs in the United States are generally successful, but their continued success is under threat. The ever-increasing number of parents who opt their children out of vaccination recommendations has caused severe outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Public health advocates have pushed for changes to state laws, but their efforts have generally been unsuccessful. We suggest that their lack of success is due to public health advocates’ failures to contend with the features of the political system that impede change and to propose reforms that are ethically defensible, efficacious, and politically feasible. Based on our earlier public health studies, ethical …

The Law And Policy Of Child Maltreatment, Frank Vandervort

Book Chapters

Each year in the United States some four million children are reported to child protective services and hundreds of thousands of children are confirmed victims of maltreatment. This chapter provides a brief overview of the civil and criminal law’s response to child abuse and neglect. It summarizes the major federal statutes that provide funding to the states to support both civil and criminal law responses to maltreatment. It discusses the division of responsible for responding to child maltreatment between the federal and state governments (federalism). It also provides a summary of the constitutional framework for handling both civil and criminal …

A Child Litigant's Right To Counsel, Kevin Lapp

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

As the Supreme Court put it a half century ago, the right tocounsel for juveniles reflects “society’s special concern for children” and “is of the essence of justice.” In a variety of legal proceedings, from delinquency matters to child welfare proceedings to judicial bypass hearings, the law requires the appointment of counsel to child litigants. While coherent in the whole, the law regarding counsel for child litigants is a patchwork of state and federal constitutional rulings by courts and statutory grants. Legal scholarship about a child litigant’s right to counsel is similarly fragmented. Predominantly, legal scholars have examined arguments for …

Unpacking Doj’S New Claim That Dhs Can Legally Detain Migrant Children With Their Parents For Longer Than Twenty Days, Deborah Pearlstein, Marty Lederman, Ryan Goodman

Online Publications

The Trump administration recently claimed it could not reunite migrant children with parents who are being held in ICE detention due to a court order requiring the government to release such children from custody within (at most) 20 days. The government now claims, however, that it can legally detain the children with their parents in ICE detention for much longer than 20 days. How did the government come to this position? In this post we’ll answer that question, and address a central flaw in the government’s logic.

Child Separation In The Courts, Deborah Pearlstein

Online Publications

Developments in the ongoing child separation crisis have come so quickly in the past week it is nearly impossible even for experts to keep track. Donald Trump’s executive order requiring an end to the child separation policy, his administration’s subsequent announcement that it would halt its “zero-tolerance” policy of prosecuting the misdemeanor offense of illegal entry, the California federal court’s Tuesday decision halting further separation and requiring currently separated families be reunified — all of these are positive developments for those concerned about the catastrophic effects of the policy on children and families. But the legal battle here is far …

We’Ve Come A Long Way (Baby)! Or Have We? Evolving Intellectual Freedom Issues In The Us And Florida, L. Bryan Cooper, A.D. Beman-Cavallaro

Works of the FIU Libraries

This paper analyzes a shifting landscape of intellectual freedom (IF) in and outside Florida for children, adolescents, teens and adults. National ideals stand in tension with local and state developments, as new threats are visible in historical, legal, and technological context. Examples include doctrinal shifts, legislative bills, electronic surveillance and recent attempts to censor books, classroom texts, and reading lists.

Privacy rights for minors in Florida are increasingly unstable. New assertions of parental rights are part of a larger conservative animus. Proponents of IF can identify a lessening of ideals and standards that began after doctrinal fruition in the 1960s …

A Product Of Childhood: Accounting For Age In The Miranda Analysis, Ariana Rodriguez

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

One of the most polarizing areas of constitutional criminal procedure is that relating to police interrogations and confessions. While the Fifth Amendment guarantees a number of protections from self-incrimination and the inherently coercive nature of criminal investigation, these Constitutional promises are more likely to go unfulfilled when the accused is a child. This Article thoroughly examines the current law’s use of the “totality of the circumstances” test in deciding whether a valid Miranda waiver occurred or whether a juvenile has been taken into custody and, more importantly, explores why this current test remains an inadequate solution for protecting children’s Miranda …

Overawed And Overwhelmed: Juvenile Miranda Incomprehension, Sara P. Cressey

Maine Law Review

Each year approximately one million juveniles in the United States are arrested and read the Miranda warnings. Though studies have shown that the majority of those children do not understand the warnings, most of them must decide alone whether to waive their constitutional rights— and nearly all ultimately make that choice without the help of an attorney. The Supreme Court has recognized that children differ from adults in critical ways, and those differences have important implications for juveniles’ ability to meaningfully waive their Miranda rights. To ensure that juveniles’ constitutional rights are protected, the Supreme Court should take up the …

Moving Beyond Lassiter: The Need For A Federal Statutory Right To Counsel For Parents In Child Welfare Cases, Vivek S. Sankaran

Articles

In New York City, an indigent parent can receive the assistance of a multidisciplinary legal team—an attorney, a social worker, and a parent advocate—to defend against the City’s request to temporarily remove a child from her care. But in Mississippi, that same parent can have her rights to her child permanently terminated without ever receiving the assistance of a single lawyer. In Washington State, the Legislature has ensured that parents ensnared in child abuse and neglect proceedings will receive the help of a well-trained and well-compensated attorney with a reasonable caseload. Yet in Tennessee, its Supreme Court has held that …

Telecommuting: The Escher Stairway Of Work/Family Conflict, Michelle A. Travis

Maine Law Review

According to Working Mother magazine, telecommuting is a “wonderful arrangement for working moms.” Advertisements for telecommuting jobs and related technologies show us pictures of these happy telecommuting moms, who are conducting important business on the telephone or typing busily at their computers, as their smiling toddlers play quietly by their sides or sit contentedly in their laps. Some employers have offered this wonderful experience in direct response to concerns raised by “women's issues” committees. That was probably just what Jack Nilles had in mind when he first coined the term “telecommuting” in the 1970s and described it as a way …

Educational Equality For Children With Disabilities: The 2016 Term Cases, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Book Chapters

One of the most longstanding debates in educational policy pits the goal of equality against the goal of adequacy: Should we aim to guarantee that all children receive an equal education? Or simply that they all receive an adequate education? The debate is vexing in part because there are many ways to specify “equality” and “adequacy.” Are we talking about equality of inputs (which inputs?), equality of opportunity (to achieve what?), or equality of results (which results?)? Douglas Rae and his colleagues famously argued that there are no fewer than 108 structurally distinct conceptions of equality. And how do we …

Child Welfare's Scarlet Letter: How A Prior Termination Of Parental Rights Can Permanently Brand A Parent As Unfit, Vivek S. Sankaran

Articles

In many jurisdictions, once a parent has her rights terminated to one child, the State can use that decision to justify the termination of parental rights to another child. The State can do so regardless of whether the parent is fit to parent the second child. This article explores this practice, examines its origins, and discusses its constitutional inadequacies.

Compulsory Vaccination Laws Are Constitutional, Erwin Chemerinsky, Michele Goodwin

Erwin Chemerinsky

A measles epidemic in California, that then spread to other states, focused national attention on the many children who have been vaccinated against communicable diseases. This Essay focuses on the constitutional issues concerning compulsory vaccination laws and argues that every state should require compulsory vaccination of all children, unless there is a medical reason why the child should not be vaccinated. There should be no exception to the compulsory vaccination requirement on account of the parents’ religion or conscience, or for any reason other than medical necessity. The government’s interest in protecting children and preventing the spread of communicable disease …

Protecting America’S Children: Why An Executive Order Banning Juvenile Solitary Confinement Is Not Enough, Carina Muir

Pepperdine Law Review

Despite its devastating psychological, physical, and developmental effects on juveniles, solitary confinement is used in juvenile correctional facilities across the United States. This Comment posits that such treatment violates the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It likewise argues that that President Obama’s recent Executive Order banning juvenile solitary confinement is simply not a powerful enough remedy and discusses why it must be paired with Congressional legislation or Supreme Court jurisprudence if it is to …

Rethinking Children's Advertising Policies For The Digital Age, Angela J. Campbell

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article describes major changes in how video content and advertising is delivered to consumers. Digital technologies such as broadband allow consumers to stream or download programming. Smart phones and tablets allow consumers to view screen content virtually anywhere at any time. Advertising has become personalized and integrated with other content.

Despite these major changes in the media markets, the framework for regulating advertising to children has not changed very much since the 1990s. This article argues that the existing regulatory framework must be reinvented to protect children in the digital age. It uses Google’s recently introduced YouTube Kids app …

Counteracting Diminished Privacy In An Augmented Reality: Protecting Geolocation Privacy, Diana Martinez

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Thirteenth Amendment At The Intersection Of Class And Gender: Robertson V. Baldwin’S Exclusion Of Infants, Lunatics, Women, And Seamen, James Gray Pope

Seattle University Law Review

In Robertson v. Baldwin, the Supreme Court held that merchant seamen under contract could be legally compelled to work notwithstanding the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude. According to the Court, seamen were “deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults,” and therefore could—along with children and wards—be deprived of liberty. Over the past few years, however, several courts have applied statutory bans on “involuntary servitude” and “forced labor” (a “species of involuntary servitude”) to protect women and children in domestic settings. These cases suggest that Robertson’s categorical exclusion is …

Compulsory Vaccination Laws Are Constitutional, Erwin Chemerinsky, Michele Goodwin

Northwestern University Law Review

A measles epidemic in California, that then spread to other states, focused national attention on the many children who have been vaccinated against communicable diseases. This Essay focuses on the constitutional issues concerning compulsory vaccination laws and argues that every state should require compulsory vaccination of all children, unless there is a medical reason why the child should not be vaccinated. There should be no exception to the compulsory vaccination requirement on account of the parents’ religion or conscience, or for any reason other than medical necessity. The government’s interest in protecting children and preventing the spread of communicable disease …

Think Of The Children: Using Iied To Reformulate Disturbing Speech Restrictions, Richard Lorren Jolly

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Colorado State Court of Appeals recently upheld an injunction restricting public displays of aborted fetuses. The court held that the restriction passed strict scrutiny because the state had a compelling interest in protecting children from the psychological harm of “disturbing images” and the injunction was narrowly tailored. This marked the first time an injunction had been upheld on this rationale. This Note critiques that holding and others. It contends that while some federal and state courts have recognized the interest in protecting the psychological wellbeing of children from disturbing speech as compelling, the interest is not supported by precedent. …