Law Commons^™

A Necessary Effort: The Construction Of A Binational Immigration Policy For Nicaraguan Immigrants In Costa Rica, Irma Castañeda

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although the experiences of Nicaraguan immigrants to Costa Rica have been well-studied, the investigation of this topic through the lens of the construction of public policies is missing. Through the testimonies of Nicaraguans that emigrated or still live and work in Costa Rica, I learned that immigrants, especially those that are undocumented, are vulnerable to the violation of their rights, for example, through the lack of access to public services or mistreatment by their bosses. Because of these violations, it is necessary to examine the topic of the immigration policies of both countries because they influence the treatment and integration …

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

The Role Of Social Media In Community Colleges, Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, Manuel Sacramento González Canché,, Regina Deil-Amen, Charles H.F. Davis Iii

Charles H.F. Davis III

Over the past decade, there has been a growing public fascination with the phenomenon of connectedness. One of the most important ways in which society is now connected is through social media –such as social networking sites. While both students and higher education institutions seem to be utilizing social media more and more, there still are enormous challenges in trying to understand the new dynamics generated by social media in higher education, particularly for the context of community colleges.

This research report has several purposes. The first is to document and to describe the various ways in which social media …

Gender, Power And Justice: An Ethnographic Study Of A Union Parishad-Led Arbitration Councils In Rural Bangladesh, Zahidul Islam Biswas

Dr. Zahidul Islam

In 2012, I obtained my PhD degree from the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, for my thesis entitled ‘Gender, Power and Justice: An Ethnographic Study of a Union Parishad-led Arbitration Councils in Rural Bangladesh’. This study explores the gender and power aspects in the decision making in a rural justice system in Bangladesh, which has a great impact on the lives of the poor and disadvantaged rural population of the country. Here is chapter six of the thesis, which contains the summary and conclusions of the study. Readers and scholars may …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Thirteenth Amendment Scholars In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellee And Affirmance, William M. Carter Jr., Dawinder S. Sidhu, Alexander Tsesis, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Amici Briefs

In the case of United States v. Hatch, the defendant in a hate crimes prosecution brought the first major challenge to the constitutionality of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. This amicus brief argues that the Act is constitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment.

“Don't Call Me A Student-Athlete”: The Effect Of Identity Priming On Stereotype Threat For Academically Engaged African American College Athletes, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

Academically engaged African American college athletes are most susceptible to stereotype threat in the classroom when the context links their unique status as both scholar and athlete. After completing a measure of academic engagement, African American and White college athletes completed a test of verbal reasoning. To vary stereotype threat, they first indicated their status as a scholar-athlete, an athlete, or as a research participant on the cover page. Compared to the other groups, academically engaged African American college athletes performed poorly on the difficult test items when primed for their athletic identity, but they performed worse on both the …

Of Coyotes, Cooperation, And Capital: Social Capital And Women’S Migration At The Margins Of The State, Anna O. Oleary

Anna Ochoa OLeary

Examined here are some of the tenets of social capital in the context of the migrants’ crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without official authorization. Using this context helps identify how social capital development is weakened by the structural and gendered dimensions of migration, contributing to the rise in undocumented border crosser deaths since 1993.

El Individuo Y La Comunidad. Aeon J. Skoble, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

El Fracaso: Su Utilidad Personal Y Social, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

The End Of The Work As We Know It, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This paper takes a new look at the concept of the work of authorship in copyright, known in other systems as the copyright work. It complements inquiries into authorship and originality, extending earlier scholarship on the origins of legal “things” or objects and on the multi-dimensional character of their borders and boundaries.

Madisonian Fair Use, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This short essay reflects on developments in the law, scholarship, and practice of fair use since the publication in 2004 of an earlier article on patterns in fair use practice and adjudication. It synthesizes many of those developments in the idea of “Madisonian” fair use, borrowing the separation of powers metaphor from James Madison’s work on the US Constitution and applying it, lightly and in a preliminary way, to copyright.

The Arabs In The (Inter)National, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

This essay is a commentary on an article submitted by Professor Lama Abu-Odeh as part of a special symposium edition contained in Volume 10 of the Santa Clara Journal of International Law. In her piece, Professor Abu-Odeh builds on her earlier work respecting Islamic law but adds a new target to her sites, that of the study of national security. That is, we already knew Professor Abu-Odeh’s view of the typical Islamic law scholar. He is one who is focused either on the resurrection of the shari’a in some sort of reconstructed form or involved in a thoroughly misguided search …

Religion As Rehabilitation? Reflections On Islam In The Correctional Setting, Spearit

Articles

This essay is the keynote lecture from the Muslims in the United States and Beyond symposium at Whittier Law School. The work reflects on the state of research into Islam in prison, including the religion's historic role in supporting inmate rehabilitation and providing a means for coping with life as a prisoner and on the outside.

The Persistence Of Proximate Cause: How Legal Doctrine Thrives On Skepticism, Jessie Allen

Articles

This Article starts with a puzzle: Why is the doctrinal approach to “proximate cause” so resilient despite longstanding criticism? Proximate cause is a particularly extreme example of doctrine that limps along despite near universal consensus that it cannot actually determine legal outcomes. Why doesn’t that widely recognized indeterminacy disable proximate cause as a decision-making device? To address this puzzle, I pick up a cue from the legal realists, a group of skeptical lawyers, law professors, and judges, who, in the 1920s and 1930s, compared legal doctrine to ritual magic. I take that comparison seriously, perhaps more seriously, and definitely in …

Entrusting The Commons: Agricultural Land Conservation And Shared Heritage Protection, Angela Labrador

Angela M Labrador

The start of the twenty-first century is marked by new levels of globaliza- tion, environmental degradation, and social conflict that are endangering the cultural landscapes and agrarian heritage of rural areas. In the wake of these threats, heritage profes- sionals are imagining new, holistic models for shared cultural and natural heritage protec- tion that support active community engagement around issues of cultural identity, material and ecological sustainability, and shared ethical values. Agricultural land conservation is fertile terrain in which to theorize how heritage protection can contribute to the mobiliza- tion of social cohesion to restore a balanced human ecology. Agrarian …

Implementing Environmental Justice In Appalachia: The Social And Cultural Context Of Mountaintop Removal Mining As Seen Through The Lenses Of Law And Documentaries, Evan Barret Smith

Evan Barret Smith

Mountaintop removal is a form of mining that has major effects on the ecology and people of central Appalachia. The practice has been gaining increasing attention from the EPA and popular cultural sources as an environmental justice issue. Recent decisions by the EPA incorporate an environmental justice analysis as contextualization, but the perspective provided is problematic. This Article compares the way that the social and cultural context of mountaintop removal has been framed in judicial opinions and EPA documents to understand how legal documents understand and perpetuate the conflicts related to mountaintop removal. To further widen the lens, seven documentary …

Natural Rights To Welfare, Siegfried Van Duffel

Siegfried Van Duffel

No abstract provided.

What Is Law? A Coordination Model Of The Characteristics Of Legal Order, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast

Gillian K Hadfield

Legal philosophers have long debated the question, what is law? But few in social science have attempted to explain the phenomenon of legal order. In this article, we build a rational choice model of legal order in an environment that relies exclusively on decentralized enforcement, such as we find in human societies prior to the emergence of the nation state and inmanymodern settings.Wedemonstrate thatwecan support an equilibrium in which wrongful behavior is effectively deterred by exclusively decentralized enforcement, specifically collective punishment. Equilibrium is achieved by an institution that supplies a common logic for classifying behavior as wrongful or not. We …

Social Media In Higher Education: A Literature Review And Research Directions., Charles H.F. Davis Iii, Regina Deil-Amen, Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, Manuel Sacramento Gonzalez Canche

Charles H.F. Davis III

Social media [technology] has become a growing phenomenon with many and varied definitions in public and academic use. For our purposes, the term social media technology (SMT) refers to web-based and mobile applications that allow individuals and organizations to create, engage, and share new user-generated or existing content, in digital environments through multi-way communication. Despite the widespread use of SMT, little is known about the benefits of its use in postsecondary contexts and for specific purposes (e.g., marketing, recruitment, learning, and/or student engagement). It is critical to begin to examine if and how higher education institutions are incorporating the use …

They (Don’T) Care About Education: A Counternarrative On Black Male Students’ Responses To Inequitable Schooling, Shaun R. Harper, Charles H.F. Davis Iii

Charles H.F. Davis III

Presented in this article is a counternarrative concerning one particular message that is consistently reinforced in academic and public discourse about Black male students: they don’t care about education. Little is known about those who graduate from high school, enroll in college, and subsequently commit themselves to various career pathways in education fields (K-12 teaching and administration, the postsecondary professoriate, education policy, etc.). What compels these men to care so much about education, despite what is routinely reported in the literature regarding their gradual disinvestment in schooling? This question is explored in the article using data from 304 Black male …