Law Commons^™

A Butterfly In Covid: Structural Racism And Baltimore's Pretrial Legal System, Doug Colbert, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Summer of 2020 represented a potentially pivotal moment in the movements against mass incarceration and for racial justice. The authors commenced a study of Baltimore’s pretrial legal system just as the convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and urgent cries of Black Lives Matter appeared to present a once-in-a-generation opportunity for meaningful decarceration. Over forty-four weekdays in June and July, the team observed bail review hearings in 509 cases and collected extensive data from the arguments and recommendations offered by the pretrial agency and prosecuting and defense attorneys. Unfortunately, the hoped-for reform failed to materialize as judges held nearly 62% of …

Beyond Window Dressing: Public Participation For Marginalized Communities In The Datafied Society, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

We live in a datafied society in which our personal data is being constantly harvested, analyzed, and sold by public and private entities, and yet we have little control over our data and little voice in how it is used. In light of the impacts of algorithmic decision-making systems—including those that run on machine learning and artificial intelligence—there are increasing calls to integrate public participation into the adoption, design, and oversight of these tech tools. Stakeholder input is particularly crucial for members of marginalized groups, who bear the disproportionate harms of data-centric technologies. Yet, recent calls for public participation have …

Turning Participation Into Power: A Water Justice Case Study, Jaime A. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers a revamped model of participatory governance—the Constituent Empowerment Model (CE Model)—which affirmatively shifts power to the voices of marginalized constituents so that they can influence governmental policy. The CE Model focuses on three concepts necessary to produce this shift in power to those who are traditionally unheard: operationalized (feasibly realized) participation; constituent primacy; and structural accountability. To illustrate how a CE system might be constructed, this Article examines a model recently adopted in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, that is designed to shift the balance of power between the water utility and its customers. Baltimore offers a …

Expanding Civil Rights To Combat Digital Discrimination On The Basis Of Poverty, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

Low-income people suffer from digital discrimination on the basis of their socio-economic status. Automated decision-making systems, often powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, shape the opportunities of those experiencing poverty because they serve as gatekeepers to the necessities of modern life. Yet in the existing legal regime, it is perfectly legal to discriminate against people because they are poor. Poverty is not a protected characteristic, unlike race, gender, disability, religion or certain other identities. This lack of legal protection has accelerated digital discrimination against the poor, fueled by the scope, speed, and scale of big data networks. This Article …

Empire And Politics In Eastern And Western Civilizations, Mortimer N.S. Sellers

All Faculty Scholarship

To speak of “empire” today is to evoke the history of China and of Rome, two great empires that vastly influenced the culture and development of half the globe. The whole world has been touched by their powerful examples, so that even someone writing, as I do, in a distant corner of North America, feels the history and influence of the Roman and Chinese empires every day. Nor are they unique. Something like “empire” has arisen wherever there was wealth and stability to support it. Rome and China had numerous rivals in the East and West who aspired to empire …

How Algorithm-Assisted Decision Making Is Influencing Environmental Law And Climate Adaptation, Sonya Ziaja

All Faculty Scholarship

Algorithm-based decision tools in environmental law appear policy neutral
but embody bias and hidden values that affect equity and democracy. In effect,
algorithm-based tools are new fora for law and policymaking, distinct from
legislatures and courts. In turn, these tools influence the development and
implementation of environmental law and regulation. As a practical matter,
there is a pressing need to understand how these automated decision-making
tools interact with and influence law and policy. This Article begins this timely
and critical discussion.

After introducing the challenge of adapting water and energy systems to
climate change, this Article synthesizes prior multidisciplinary work …

Me, Myself And My Digital Double: Extending Sara Greene’S Stealing (Identity) From The Poor To The Challenges Of Identity Verification, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

Identity is an essential part of the human condition. When one’s identity is stolen or when a state rejects a citizen’s identity, the consequences can be devastating to one’s notion of selfhood as well as undermine their economic security. In Stealing (Identity) from the Poor, Sara Greene explores the serious harms suffered by low-income people who are victimized by identity theft. She explains that our plutocratic regime of identity theft laws serves the interests of wealthier Americans at the expense of those experiencing poverty.

This Essay extends Greene’s analysis and framing to the harms of identity verification systems, particularly in …

Megacorporations Are Jacking Up Prices 'Because They Can,' Pushing Red-Hot Inflation To Historic Levels, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that corporations may be taking advantages of supply chain bottlenecks and shortages to collude and raise prices illegally. Although price fixing is illegal, the current levels of penalties are far too low. This gives firms an incentive to collude. Before the pandemic, when inflation was low, consumers and the antitrust enforcers would have been more likely to notice any sudden price increases and investigate whether they were caused by collusion. But using bottlenecks and shortages as cover, companies can take advantage of their years of consolidation and collude more easily with less chance of it being detected. …