Law Commons^™

Health Insurance And The Undocumented Immigrant, Anja Diercks

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to perform a comparative analysis on how seven different countries (USA, South Africa, Germany, England, Canada, France and Singapore) organize their healthcare system to cope with the issue of undocumented immigrants and whether or not these systems in place were “fair.” The thesis will also explore the possible ways the United States could change to be more inclusive and fairer in the world of healthcare and health insurance for the undocumented immigrant. A study on what fairness means both in ethical and economical terms is done to suggest a new basis of a fair …

Global Privacy Concerns Of Facial Recognition Big Data, Myranda Westbrook

Honors Theses

Facial recognition technology is a system of automatic acknowledgement that recognizes individuals by categorizing specific features of their facial structure to link the scanned information to stored data. Within the past few decades facial recognition technology has been implemented on a large scale to increase the security measures needed to access personal information. This has been specifically used in surveillance systems, social media platforms, and mobile device access control. The extensive use of facial recognition systems has created challenges as it relates to biometric information control and privacy concerns. This concern raises the cost and benefit analysis of an individual’s …

On The Basis Of Sex: Personal Status Law Reforms And Economic Growth, Kylie Bring

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how law reform toward gender equity has an impact on economic growth in Arab countries in the Middle East. Personal status law reform granting women economic, social, and personal freedoms is spreading across the region and showing substantial change. Using case studies of major PSL reforms in Tunisia and Morocco, this thesis outlines qualitative and quantitative evidence to support the case that gender equity benefits the economic growth of the given country.

The Legal Obligation Of The Us Government To Protect Asylum Seekers, Joy Karges

Honors Theses

Immigration has always been an important topic of conversation in the United States and around the globe, but the recent surge of migrants at the US southern border has centered the debate around what is often referred to as “illegal immigration”. Some scholars argue that our detention facilities treat migrants as though they were criminals while others say detention facilities are the best way to keep migrants from making the journey to the US and threatening our national security. The purpose of this study is to untangle some of the misunderstandings surrounding immigration from Central America. By assessing some of …

Out Of The Darkness: Identifying Solutions For The Catholic Diocese Of Dallas Amidst Child Sexual Abuse By Clergy, Alee Corrales

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Caught Between Iraq And A Hard Place: The Legacy Of Governmental (Il)Legitimacy And Contemporary Iraq, Daniele Durkin

Honors Theses

Ever since the U.S.’ 2003 invasion, Iraq’s legal system has been mired by corruption, sectarianism, and deceit. In an effort to allay the negative effects of these things, each iteration of the Iraqi government since 2003 has doubled down on efforts to appear legitimate within the eyes of the public. Government-funded propaganda, secret police, intense censorship, and even campaigns of torture and kidnapping by security forces are just some of the ways in which the government has sought to gain legitimacy. Perhaps understandably, these same efforts have often wound up alienating and upsetting the citizenry further. This thesis analyzes the …

Evaluation Of United States Federal Oil Spill Policies: Deepwater Horizon Vs. Bouchard B120, Quinn Relihan

Honors Theses

ABSTRACT

RELIHAN, QUINN An Evaluation of United States Federal Oil Spill Regulations:

Deepwater Horizon vs. Bouchard B120. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Engineering, June 2020.

Advisor: ILENE KAPLAN

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the background, impacts and treatment of two major oil spills and investigate the appropriateness of existing environmental policies and any need for new and/or different policies. The study traces the growth of relevant policy development and looks at historic and contemporary policy changes and applies this to the in-depth examination of the Bouchard B120 and the Deepwater Horizon spills.

Policy recommendations …

“[Don’T] Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor...” A Study On The Trump Administration’S Unprecedented Reforms To The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program And Their Implications, Savannah Day

Honors Theses

From 2017 to 2020, the Trump administration cut United States refugee admissions tenfold. These reforms come unprecedented to the 40-year-old resettlement program (USRAP). By critically reviewing literature on this topic as well as conducting eight original interviews with five national nonprofits contracted by the Department of State to do refugee resettlement casework, this study sought to identify the implications of the Trump administration’s reforms to the program. Once implications were identified, I used the applied frameworks of program model as well as Michael Worth’s sociological and political science theories of American nonprofit-government relations to better inform and guide the study. …

The 2017 Tax Cuts And Jobs Act: Analyzing Its Financial Impact On Division I Universities, Judge Nash Mcwithey

Honors Theses

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has had a substantial impact in the United States since its inception in 2017. This tax code overhaul has had a profound effect on the way Division I universities operate their athletic department operations and fundraising efforts. By creating new channels of federal tax revenues and eliminating deductions, such as the “80/20” premium seating deduction that has been used by universities, athletic programs have already begun to see a shift in how they must operate. This modification is done in order to avoid any major repercussions from the new tax code. This thesis discusses …

Applying International Law To The Regulation Of Media Incited Genocide: Rwanda And Myanmar, Savannah Whittemore

Honors Theses

The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate the connection between word and action in relation to the media incited genocide. By employing the operational definitions of intent, incitement, genocide, and hate speech from legal texts such as the Genocide Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this thesis shows that there is suitable jurisprudence on the crime of direct and public incitement to genocide with the legal bodies statute mirrors the language of the Genocide Convention. This in conjunction with the language gradient on the changing role of messages before and during genocide shows that regulation …

The Mystery Of Law: A Critical Analysis Of H.L.A Hart’S The Concept Of Law, Stephen Mark Gray Ii

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the role of morality in law through a critical examination of the work of one of the most widely cited and renowned judicial scholars, H.L.A. Hart. His modified theory of positivism, which denotes that law and morality are separable and that legal rules may have any content, has had an enduring impact on the landscape of judicial thought in the last century. As Hart’s work has had an indelible hand in shaping analytical jurisprudence and as it exemplifies the antithesis of my argument, it will serve as a theoretical foil. From it, I hope to articulate my …

Analyses Of Prosecutorial Power And Discretion In Mississippi: Evaluating Proposals To Address Misconduct And Abuse, Lucy Pruitt

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to create a policy proposal in order to address incidences of prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of discretion in the Mississippi criminal justice system. To do so, the author has summarized and analyzed seven criminal cases in which defendants have become victims of prosecutorial misconduct in order to shed light on the lack of prosecutorial accountability in the state’s criminal justice system. In an attempt to solve the problem, the author has developed a novel grading rubric in order to objectively and systematically analyze and evaluate previously proposed policy recommendations by legal experts and justice organizations. The successes …

"The Tyranny Of The Majority" A Framework Proposal To Assess The Moral Justification Of Voter Identification Laws In The United States, Sally Jordan

Honors Theses

One of the most fundamental rights of democratic citizens is the right to vote. As a result, voters are entitled to equal opportunity to access the polls. Yet recently, states have begun instituting policies that impact individual access to polls, such as voter identification laws.

Since the 2013 dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, 35 states across the United States implemented voter identification laws varying in strictness and the forms of identification they accept. Numerous studies and articles have been written regarding the justification of these voter identification laws in conjunction with their disproportionate effects on certain minorities; however, many …

An Overview Of Foster Care, Rachel M. Smith

Honors Theses

If my life were to represent a novel, the beginning chapters would be filled with countless stories of people pouring into and investing in me to ensure that I have a successful future. As I have aged and started to appreciate all that has been done for me, I want to make sure the chapters that finish my novel are filled with stories of me giving back to others and my community.

During my time at Ouachita Baptist University, I have been given incredible opportunities to serve those around me. One example would be through my internship at the Percy …

Terms Of Service: The Use And Protection Of Genomic Information By Companies, Databases, And Law Enforcement, Sophia Kallas

Honors Theses

Private genomic companies have become a popular trend in the last two decades by providing customers with information regarding their ancestry and health risks. However, the profiles received from these companies can also be uploaded to public databases for various purposes, including locating other family members. Both testing companies and public databases have private interests, and both are at risk of law enforcement intervention for the purpose of forensic familial searching. There is little federal legislation protecting the privacy of an individual’s genetic profile. Consequently, it has been up to federal agencies, state laws, and judicial precedents to prevent the …

The Art Of Sore Losing: The Effect Of Outsider Candidates On The Democratic Nomination System, Cassidy Holzer

Honors Theses

Abstract: The 2016 election posed a series of interesting questions about outsider candidates: Who are they? Why do they run? How do they affect the party? What party mechanisms either foster or hinder outsiders? To answer these questions, I look at every election after 1968-- the year the McGovern-Fraser reforms flipped the Democratic nomination system on its head. I classify every competitive candidate in every post-1968 election as an outsider, an establishment-like, or an establishment candidate, evaluating their political experience and reliance on small-donors. I find that Iowa and New Hampshire serve a pivotal point for all candidates, encouraging a …

Transformation As Desistance Inside: Temporality And Identity Reconstruction Among Men With Life Sentences, Richard Stover

Honors Theses

This thesis is an investigation of destistance strategies among men sentenced to life in prison in a medium security prison in Pennsylvania. Desistance here is defined as the process leading to the cessation of formally deviant behavior. Drawing from life narrative interviews conducted among 22 men, I argue that desistance is intrinsically tied to how inmates conceptualize themselves within the institutional context of the prison and can be expanded to include people who are still incarcerated. I build off of Peggy Giordano and colleagues symbolic interactionist perspective on desistance and expand it to chart how men with life sentences order …