Law Commons^™

Questioning Deference, Christina E. Wells

Missouri Law Review

Part I of this Article discusses executive branch actions in the crises discussed earlier and identifies a pattern of response to certain perceived threated. Part II assesses this historical pattern in light of a psychological understanding of risk assessment, concluding that the pattern is consistent with predictably skewed risk assessment. Part III discusses the psychology of accountability and the possibility that judicial review can serve as a mechanism of accountability and improve executive decision making.

War Fever Symposium:, Geoffrey R. Stone

Missouri Law Review

As Justice Robert Jackson observed more than half a century ago, “[i]t is easy, by giving way to the passion, intolerance and suspicion of wartime, to reduce our liberties to a shadow, often in answer to exaggerated claims of security.” Indeed, the United States has a long and unfortunate history of overreacting to the dangers of wartime. Again and again, Americans have allowed fear to the better of them. Some measure of fear, of course, is inevitable—even healthy—in time of war. Otherwise, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a nation to make the sacrifices war demands. An essential …

"Accommodations" For The Learning Disabled: A Level Playing Field Or Affirmative Action For Elites?, Craig S. Lerner

Vanderbilt Law Review

A growing number of students in American higher education are being diagnosed as "learning disabled" and then using that diagnosis to secure beneficial "accommodations," such as extra time on exams. These accommodations are often said to be mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This Article challenges the premise that the ADA necessarily requires educational institutions to provide learning disabled students with any accommodations. The ADA defines "disability" as an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. Whether one is substantially limited is determined with reference not to one's innate abilities, but to the skills of the average …

Law, Human Rights, Realism And The “War On Terror”, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror by Michael Ignatieff. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 212pp.

An Overview Of Public Health In The New Millenium: Individual Liberty Vs. Public Safety, Dorothy Puzio

Journal of Law and Health

This article explores the tensions between creating an effective public health system that would be able to respond to and protect against any public health threat, and protecting individuals against unnecessary intrusions on their civil liberties. It then considers approaches to this issue that might best strike a balance in a democratic society. While many Americans may recognize and even accept that greater security would entail some intrusion into individual rights, there is no formula for striking the appropriate balance. This article attempts to arrive at a workable framework by examining how the United States' public health system works. This …