Law Commons^™

A Review Of What's Wrong With Children's Rights: Still A "Slogan In Search Of A Definition", Justine A. Dunlap

Faculty Publications

The negative side of government intervention on behalf of children is a primary focus of New York University Law Professor Martin Guggenheim's book What's Wrong with Children's Rights. In this interesting book, Professor Guggenheim is always instructive and often provocative. As a consequence, he has written a book worth reading.

This book review essay will begin by offering an overall assessment of the book. It will then analyze two separate components of Guggenheim's book. First, it will evaluate Guggenheim's assertion that, absent a demonstration of parental unfitness, parental decision-making regarding their children is "virtually immune from state oversight." Second, …

How Are You Going To Keep Them Down On The (Collective) Farm After They’Ve Seen Chicago?: A Minor’S Right To Political Asylum Against His Parents’ Wishes, Michael G. Hillinger

Faculty Publications

“Children’s rights” is a nebulous phrase subsuming two very different issues: the extent to which children can assert the same rights against the state as adults, and the extent to which the state can limit a parent’s power over his child. In cases involving the issue of children’s rights , the Supreme Court has defined those rights in a relatively restrictive fashion. On the one hand, the Supreme Court has recognized that children have constitutional rights independent of those enjoyed by their parents. On the other hand, it has frequently held those rights to be either less than those afforded …