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Full-Text Articles in Law

Conceptualizing Legal Childhood In The Twenty-First Century, Clare Huntington, Elizabeth S. Scott May 2020

Conceptualizing Legal Childhood In The Twenty-First Century, Clare Huntington, Elizabeth S. Scott

Michigan Law Review

The law governing children is complex, sometimes appearing almost incoherent. The relatively simple framework established in the Progressive Era, in which parents had primary authority over children, subject to limited state oversight, has broken down over the past few decades. Lawmakers started granting children some adult rights and privileges, raising questions about their traditional status as vulnerable, dependent, and legally incompetent beings. As children emerged as legal persons, children’s rights advocates challenged the rationale for parental authority, contending that robust parental rights often harm children. And a wave of punitive reforms in response to juvenile crime in the 1990s undermined …


Transparenthood, Sonia K. Katyal, Ilona M. Turner Jan 2019

Transparenthood, Sonia K. Katyal, Ilona M. Turner

Michigan Law Review

Despite the growing recognition of transgender rights in both law and culture, there is one area of law that has lagged behind: family law’s treatment of transgender parents. We perform an investigation of the way that transgender parents are treated in case law and discover striking results regarding the outcomes for transgender parents within the family court system. Despite significant gains for transgender plaintiffs in employment and other areas of law, the evidence reveals an array of ways in which the family court system has systematically alienated the rights and interests of transgender parents. In many cases involving custody or …


Toward A Child-Centered Approach To Evaluating Claims Of Alienation In High-Conflict Custody Disputes, Allison M. Nichols Feb 2014

Toward A Child-Centered Approach To Evaluating Claims Of Alienation In High-Conflict Custody Disputes, Allison M. Nichols

Michigan Law Review

Theories of parental alienation abound in high-conflict custody cases. The image of one parent brainwashing a child against the other parent fits with what we think we know about family dynamics during divorce. The concept of a diagnosable “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (“PAS”) developed as an attempt to explain this phenomenon, but it has been widely discredited by mental health professionals and thus fails the standard for evidentiary admissibility. Nevertheless, PAS and related theories continue to influence the decisions of family courts, and even in jurisdictions that explicitly reject such theories, judges still face the daunting task of resolving these volatile …


A Study In Regulatory Method, Local Political Cultures, And Jurisprudential Voice: The Application Of Federal Confidentiality Law To Project Head Start, Richard C. Boldt Aug 1995

A Study In Regulatory Method, Local Political Cultures, And Jurisprudential Voice: The Application Of Federal Confidentiality Law To Project Head Start, Richard C. Boldt

Michigan Law Review

This article focuses on one particular set of issues raised by the effort to coordinate the activities of Head Start centers with those of substance abuse treatment programs and the introduction of treatment and prevention functions into the daily interactions of Head Start staff and parents. These issues involve the disclosure of potentially damaging information about a Head Start parent's drug or alcohol abuse and the confidentiality considerations that arise when she or he has sought or received treatment for that abuse. Although it is possible to characterize these issues as technical, doctrinal questions of statutory and regulatory interpretation, it …


A Study In Regulatory Method, Local Political Cultures, And Jurisprudential Voice: The Application Of Federal Confidentiality Law To Project Head Start, Richard C. Boldt Aug 1995

A Study In Regulatory Method, Local Political Cultures, And Jurisprudential Voice: The Application Of Federal Confidentiality Law To Project Head Start, Richard C. Boldt

Michigan Law Review

This article focuses on one particular set of issues raised by the effort to coordinate the activities of Head Start centers with those of substance abuse treatment programs and the introduction of treatment and prevention functions into the daily interactions of Head Start staff and parents. These issues involve the disclosure of potentially damaging information about a Head Start parent's drug or alcohol abuse and the confidentiality considerations that arise when she or he has sought or received treatment for that abuse. Although it is possible to characterize these issues as technical, doctrinal questions of statutory and regulatory interpretation, it …


Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum May 1994

Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Dividing the Child: Social and Legal Dilemmas of Custody by Elanor E. Maccoby and Robert H. Mnookin


Black Identity And Child Placement: The Best Interests Of Black And Biracial Children, Kim Forde-Mazrui Feb 1994

Black Identity And Child Placement: The Best Interests Of Black And Biracial Children, Kim Forde-Mazrui

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this Note is to question whether racial matching by courts and child-placement agencies serves the best interests of Black children. The principle that guides this Note's analysis is that racial matching is justified only if such a policy better serves the interests of Black children than a policy in which race is not a factor in a child-placement determination. This Note also questions whether racial matching serves the interests of biracial children and those of Black people as a cultural group.


Law, Science, And History: Reflections Upon In The Best Interests Of The Child, Peggy C. Davis May 1988

Law, Science, And History: Reflections Upon In The Best Interests Of The Child, Peggy C. Davis

Michigan Law Review

A Review of In the Best Interests of the Child by Joseph Goldstein, Anna Freud, Albert J. Solnit, and Sonja Goldstein


The Establishment Clause And Religion In Child Custody Disputes: Factoring Religion Into The Best Interest Equation, Michigan Law Review Jun 1984

The Establishment Clause And Religion In Child Custody Disputes: Factoring Religion Into The Best Interest Equation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines when judges deciding custody disputes may consider potential custodians' religious practices without violating the establishment clause of the first amendment to the Constitution. Although courts agree that they may not prefer one parent to another for religious reasons when both parents are religious and neither parent's religious practices threaten the child's health or safety, some courts believe that they may constitutionally prefer a religious parent to a nonreligious parent. Part I argues that courts violate the establishment clause by preferring religion to nonreligion when there is no showing that the child has personal religious convictions. Part II …


Illegitimacy: An Examination Of Bastardy, Michigan Law Review Mar 1983

Illegitimacy: An Examination Of Bastardy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Illegitimacy: An Examination of Bastardy by Jenny Teichman


Cults, Deprogrammers, And The Necessity Defense, Michigan Law Review Dec 1981

Cults, Deprogrammers, And The Necessity Defense, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note considers the applicability of the necessity defense in criminal prosecutions of parents and deprogrammers. Part I explores the conflicting policies that underlie the traditional necessity defense, and suggests that courts replace their unitary approach to necessity with a "choice of evils" defense - for actors reasonably attempting to avoid a greater evil - and a "compulsion" defense - for actors reacting understandably to the pressure of circumstances. Part II applies these defenses to deprogramming cases, and concludes that rarely may they be advanced successfully.


Parenting At And After Divorce: A Search For New Models, Carol S. Bruch Mar 1981

Parenting At And After Divorce: A Search For New Models, Carol S. Bruch

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce by Judith S. Wallerstein and Joan Berlin Kelly


Thinking About Public Policy Toward Abuse And Neglect Of Children: A Review Of Before The Best Interests Of The Child, Michael S. Wald Mar 1980

Thinking About Public Policy Toward Abuse And Neglect Of Children: A Review Of Before The Best Interests Of The Child, Michael S. Wald

Michigan Law Review

A review of Before the Best Interests of the Child by Joseph Goldstein, Anna Freud, and Albert J. Solnit


Father In Jail, David C. Baldus Mar 1980

Father In Jail, David C. Baldus

Michigan Law Review

A review of Making Fathers Pay: The Enforcement of Child Support by David L. Chambers


The Emerging Constitutional Protection Of The Putative Father's Parental Rights, Michigan Law Review Aug 1972

The Emerging Constitutional Protection Of The Putative Father's Parental Rights, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Comment will first examine whether the equal protection or due process clauses of the Constitution presently proscribe disparate treatment of the putative father, as compared with other parents, in regard to parental privileges. Attention will then be given to an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed "equal rights" amendment on the putative father's rights in relation to his illegitimate child.


Forcing Protection On Children And Their Parents: The Impact Of Wyman V. James, Robert A. Burt Jun 1971

Forcing Protection On Children And Their Parents: The Impact Of Wyman V. James, Robert A. Burt

Michigan Law Review

This Article will focus on one of the concerns implicated in Wyman: the government's power to force assistance for the protection of children, when they or their parents are unwilling to accept that assistance. The state's protective purposes in insisting that Mrs. James accept its assistance or suffer serious loss of benefits played an important role in the Wyman decision. Only a few years ago, in In re Gault, the Court refused to defer to a state's similarly beneficent motives when it was asked to withhold the imposition of procedural safeguards in juvenile delinquency proceedings. Wyman does not …


Family Courts, Willis B. Perkins Mar 1919

Family Courts, Willis B. Perkins

Michigan Law Review

A great deal has been said, but very little has been authoritatively written upon the subject of Domestic Relations Courts in this country. So far as I know, no such court has yet been successfully established embodying the jurisdiction and powers the advocates of such a court claim it should possess. I am not unaware, however, that courts under the name ef Domestic Relations Courts have been established, notably in New York City and Cincinnati, and that certain Municipal Courts, notably in Chicago, have been given jurisdiction in certain family matters, but none of these courts, as at present organized, …