Law Commons^™

Special Solicitude: Religious Freedom At America’S Public Universities, William E. Thro

Office of Legal Counsel Academic Publications

Rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument that the First Amendment requires identical treatment for religious organizations and secular organizations, the Supreme Court held such a “result is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.” (Hosanna-Tabor, 565 U.S. at 189). This “special solicitude” guarantees religious freedom from the government in all aspects of society, but particularly on public university campuses. At a minimum, religious expression and religious organizations must have equal rights with secular expression and secular organizations. In some instances, religious expression and religious expression …

The Sources And Consequences Of Political Rhetoric: Issue Importance, Collegial Bargaining, And Disagreeable Rhetoric In Supreme Court Opinions, Michael A. Zilis, Justin Wedeking

Political Science Faculty Publications

How do political actors use rhetoric after an initial policy battle? We explore factors that lead Supreme Court justices to integrate disagreeable rhetoric into opinions. Although disagreeable language has negative consequences, we posit that justices pay this cost for issues with high personal significance. At the same time, we argue that integrating disagreeable rhetoric has a deleterious effect on the institution by reducing majority coalition size. Examining opinions from 1946 to 2011 using text-based measures of disagreeable rhetoric, we model the language of opinion writing as well as explore the consequences for coalition size. Our findings suggest serious implications for …

Leaving The Devil You Know: Crime Victimization, Us Deterrence Policy, And The Emigration Decision In Central America, Jonathan T. Hiskey, Abby Córdova, Mary Fran Malone, Diana M. Orcés

Political Science Faculty Publications

Following a sharp increase in the number of border arrivals from the violence-torn countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in the spring and summer of 2014, the United States quickly implemented a strategy designed to prevent such surges by enhancing its detention and deportation efforts. In this article, we examine the emigration decision for citizens living in the high-crime contexts of northern Central America. First, through analysis of survey data across Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, we explore the role crime victimization plays in leading residents of these countries to consider emigration. Next, using survey data collected across twelve …

Immigrants Benefit The Community And Economy, Jenny Minier

Center for Equality and Social Justice Position Papers

Immigration has historically been a defining characteristic of the United States, and it remains one of the country’s most significant economic advantages. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was implemented by President Obama to grant temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, as long as they are enrolled in school or working. Given President Trump’s recent comments about ending the DACA program, Congress must work on a policy solution that will allow the nearly 800,000 “Dreamers” currently enrolled in DACA to remain legally in the U.S. There are both moral and economic reasons …

Keeping Up With New Legal Titles, Franklin L. Runge

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this book review, Franklin L. Runge discusses The Future of Foreign Intelligence: Privacy and Surveillance in a Digital Age (2016) by Laura K. Donohue.

Hitting The "Bullseye" In Supreme Court Coverage: News Quality In The Court's 2014 Term, Michael A. Zilis, Justin Wedeking, Alexander Denison

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Non-Charitable Purpose Trusts: Past, Present, And Future, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article focuses on non-charitable purpose trusts and how they enable estate planners to better carry out their clients’ objectives. Specifically, it explores the history of non-charitable purpose trusts and summarizes the differences between private trusts, charitable trusts, and non-charitable purpose trusts. This Article also examines the treatment of non-charitable purpose trusts in England and the United States prior to the promulgation of the Restatement of Trusts in 1935. This Article surveys the recent adoption of non-charitable purpose trust provisions in the Uniform Trust Code and various Restatements and gives advice on drafting the trust instruments. Lastly, this Article concludes …

Protecting Online Privacy, Stephanie D. Winkler

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Online privacy has become one of the greatest concerns in the United States today. There are currently multiple stakeholders with interests in online privacy including the public, industry, and the United States government. This study examines the issues surrounding the protection of online privacy. Privacy laws in the United States are currently outdated and do little to protect online privacy. These laws are unlikely to be changed as both the government and industry have interests in keeping these privacy laws lax. To bridge the gap between the desired level of online privacy and what is provided legally users may turn …

The Effect Of Adopting Right To Work Laws: A Paired State Approach, Johnny Xu

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The issue of unionization is an enduring one both politically and economically. A major subset within union studies deal with so-called “right-to-work laws.” States with right to work laws are concentrated heavily in the South and in the Plains states and have been that way since the 1940s or 1950s. The most recent additions of right-to-work states are Indiana and Michigan both in 2012. This paper will contribute to the debate by creating a new and novel dataset to analyze what the effects of adopting right to work laws are for a state over time as well as between a …

A Comparison Of The Role Of The Employer In The French And U.S. Health Care Systems, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The United States is unique among developed nations in its heavy reliance on employment-based health insurance. The United States, however, is not the only nation in which employers play an important role in the financing of health care. Indeed, long before employment-based health insurance became common in the United States, countries with social insurance systems, such as France, Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, provided for the delivery of mandatory social insurance benefits, including health insurance, through the workplace.

This article explores the role of the employer in the health care system in one such country: France. The French health …

Americans' Unwillingness To Pay Taxes Before The American Revolution: An Uncomfortable Legacy, Richard A. Westin

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

When one reflects on the sorry condition of America’s finances one has to wonder why there is such resistance to fiscal discipline. Is it merely because there is an obstreperous group in the US Congress who cannot abide any tax? Has the public been subtly lobbied into believing that American taxes are high, pointless and intolerable or is there some gene in the America’s body politic that has always been there that expresses itself from time to time in a pernicious cheapness? Perhaps all those things are true, or perhaps none. Nevertheless, a glance backward at Colonial days can stimulate …

The Unjustified Subsidy: Sovereign Wealth Funds And The Foreign Sovereign Tax Exemption, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The taxation of Sovereign Wealth Funds in the United States is outmoded and due for reconsideration. Offering a tax exemption to the billion dollar investment funds owned by foreign governments is both unfair and ineffective. Founded in the principles of sovereign immunity, the foreign sovereign tax exemption, codified in I.R.C. § 892, fails to satisfy the Congressional goals that motivated its creation. This Article explains the current taxation of foreign sovereigns and, by extension, Sovereign Wealth Funds. It then illustrates that the current exemption is simultaneously too broad, providing a tax exemption for activities that are clearly nongovernmental activities, and …

An Analysis Of Regularizations Of Undocumented Residents In Spain And The Underground Economy: Insight For United States Policy Makers, Jon R. Davis

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

There were an estimated 11 million undocumented residents in the United States in 2010. The issue of undocumented migration and how it should be addressed is a contentious topic in the United States. However, the discussions about how to address illegal migration into the United States rarely include any comparisons to other measures that have been taken in other countries. There are many countries, such as Spain, that have large undocumented resident populations.

This analysis looks at policies that have been enacted in Spain since 1985 to enable undocumented residents to receive legal resident status, referred to as regularizations and …

Overcoming Structural Barriers To Integrated Housing: A Back-To-The-Future Reflection On The Fair Housing Act's "Affirmatively Further" Mandate, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A key goal of the 1968 Fair Housing Act (“FHA”), which was passed as an immediate response to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, was to replace the ghettos with “truly integrated and balanced living patterns.” It hasn’t happened. Today, more than four decades after the FHA’s passage, “residential segregation remains a key feature of America’s urban landscape,” continuing to condemn new generations of minorities to a second–class set of opportunities and undercutting a variety of national goals for all citizens.

But recent developments dealing with an underutilized provision of the FHA – § 3608’s mandate that federal housing funds …

The Sustainable Development Principle In United States Environmental Law, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The American public perceives the principle of sustainable development and sustainability, the shorthand nomenclature, through green-tinted lenses. Whether the user of the term is academic, corporate, or governmental, the advocate of sustainability is understood as an advocate of protecting the environment. The international legal understanding of the principle of sustainable development, however, is more ambiguous than this popular American understanding.

Part II of this Article describes the important principle of sustainable development in modern international environmental law. It discusses how the sustainable development principle has evolved from its initial appearance in the 1987 Brundtland Commission Report through its central position …

Property In Law: Government Rights In Legal Innovations, Stephen Clowney

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

One of the most enduring themes in American political thought is that competition between states encourages legal innovation. Despite the prominence of this story in the national ideology, there is growing anxiety that state and local governments innovate at a socially suboptimal rate. Academics have recently expressed alarm that the pace of legal experimentation has become "extraordinarily slow," "inefficient," and "less than ideal." Ordinary citizens, too, seem concerned that government has been leeched of imagination and the dynamic spirit of experimentation; both talk radio programs and newspapers remain jammed with complaints about legislative gridlock and do-nothing politicians who cannot, or …

Cox, Halprin, And Discriminatory Municipal Services Under The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article deals with Cox v. City of Dallas, Halprin v. Prairie Single Family Homes of Dearborn Park Ass’n, and the issue of whether the Federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) should be interpreted to outlaw discrimination in the provision of services by local governments. Part I describes the Cox litigation and its connection with Halprin. Part II surveys the pre-Cox cases that have dealt with discriminatory municipal services. Part III analyzes the FHA's relevant provisions and their legislative history and concludes that Cox and Halprin were wrong to deny FHA protection to current residents. Part IV …

Twilight Of The Idols? Eu Internet Privacy And The Post Enlightenment Paradigm, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article provides a timely examination of the European Union's approach to information privacy on the internet, an approach that some legal scholars have held up as a model for law reform in the United States. Building on the author's recent piece discussing the U.S. approach to internet privacy, this Article applies to the EU's internet privacy regime a theoretical framework constructed from the writings of philosopher and social theorist Alasdair MacIntyre on the failures of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought. The EU internet privacy regime is shown to reflect and reinforce three key elements of the "post-Enlightenment paradigm," i.e., the …

The Gathering Twilight? Information Privacy On The Internet In The Post-Enlightenment Era, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The steady stream of news reports about violations of privacy on the Internet has spawned a growing body of literature discussing the legal protections available for personally identifiable information—i.e., information about identified or identifiable persons—collected via the Internet. This Article takes the discussion of Internet privacy protection in a new and very different direction by reexamining the U.S. Internet privacy regime from the perspective of a broader cultural/historical analysis and critique. The perspective adopted is that of Alasdair MacIntyre's account of the disarray in Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment discourse about morality and human nature and the accompanying disappearance of rational justifications …

Reforming Retirement Systems: Why The French Have Succeeded When Americans Have Not, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In order to understand why the American Social Security system has been so resistant to change while the retirement systems in other countries have been amended, this Article analyzes why one country, France, was able to reform its retirement system significantly in 2003. The Article begins by briefly describing the French retirement system prior to 2003. It then provides an overview of the most significant changes wrought by the reform enacted in 2003. It then analyses why, after years of inaction and failed attempts to reform the French retirement system, the government succeeded in reforming the retirement system in 2003. …

Lessons From The French Funding Debate, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The French retirement system, like the American social security system, is facing long-term funding difficulties. As a result, the French are debating whether to expand the role of pre-funded retirement plans. The economic arguments presented in this debate are virtually identical to the economic arguments presented in the American debate on whether the American social security system should be partially privatized.

The French and American debates, however, diverge once history and ideology are considered. The French have a history of failed funded pensions in contrast to the United States where the failure of prominent underfunded pension led to the enactment …

2002 Eleventh Circuit Survey: Federal Taxation, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

During 2002 federal courts in the United States decided nineteen cases that directly impact federal tax law in the Eleventh Circuit. These cases involve a variety of tax law matters including Federal Insurance Contributions Act ("FICA") payroll tax, estate and gift tax, IRS authority to levy and assess tax, and discharges in bankruptcy. Other tax-related matters addressed by courts in 2002 that impact tax law in the Eleventh Circuit include inventory recapture in an S-corporation conversion, attorney fees for the prevailing party in a tax dispute, and injunctions against tax preparers. By far the most important tax case decided in …

A Solution To The Yahoo! Problem? The Ec E-Commerce Directive As A Model For International Cooperation On Internet Choice Of Law, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In May 2000, a French court decided that a French law banning the display of Nazi materials for sale applies to an auction website hosted by the California-based company Yahoo! Inc. The following year, at the request of Yahoo! Inc., a U.S. District Court declared that the French judgment was unenforceable in the United States because enforcing it would violate an important public policy-the First Amendment. These two cases have attracted considerable attention because they crystallize a difficult problem. The Internet is global. Every website potentially reaches every home on the planet. Thus, website content or activity that may be …

The Best Of Times And The Worst Of Times: Lessons From Recent Reforms Of The French Retirement System, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Principally because of increasing life expectancy and the fact that the baby boom generation is reaching retirement age and is followed by a much smaller generation, the American social security system is facing a long-term funding deficit. The Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors and Disability Trust Funds predicts that unless corrective action is taken, social security benefits will exceed dedicated tax revenues by the year 2016, and the social security system will become insolvent, that is, unable to pay benefits in full, by the year 2038.

The United States is not alone in facing these circumstances. …

Legislative Intent And Statutory Interpretation In England And The United States: An Assessment Of The Impact Of Pepper V. Hart, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Statutory interpretation is the process of discerning the meaning of legislation, and U.S. law has permitted courts to find meaning through a variety of often contradictory interpretive approaches. As a result, U.S. litigants often are uncertain about the interpretive approach a court will apply to a statute, even though the choice of the interpretive approach may determine the outcome of the litigation. Until the recent decision in Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v. Hart, English approaches to statutory interpretation were more circumscribed because English courts foreclosed the intentionalist approach. This Article considers the impact that Pepper has had on statutory …

Some Realistic Thinking About Secular Effects, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Notwithstanding complaints about incoherence in Establishment Clause doctrine, courts by and large administer the Clause responsibly. They do so by mediating between a number of powerful considerations, none of which can ever be entirely disregarded. These considerations include, but are not limited to, separation of church and state, the value of religiosity, the imperative of affording equal treatment to religious and similarly situated nonreligious entities, and the proper role of courts in a democratic political system. This is not to say that courts cannot overstep their bounds and provoke an adverse reaction from other powerful elements within the polity. It …

Summary Adjudication In United States Civil Procedure, Mary J. Davis

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article uses one of the high profile mass tort cases of recent decades, the complex silicone gel-filled breast implant products liability litigation, to evaluate summary adjudication measures. Recognizing that not all claims filed are complex tort claims (just the most interesting ones), where commercial claims present the opportunity for use of summary proceedings, those will be discussed as well, particularly regarding mechanisms by which security for a creditor-plaintiffs claim can be obtained prior to a favorable verdict.

While preparing this Report, it became clear that the author has a particular view of what constitutes a "summary adjudication" procedure, but …

In The Belly Of The Beast: A Comparison Of The Evolution And Status Of Prisoners' Rights In The United States And Europe, Roberta M. Harding

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Another epidemic has hit the international community. This one, however, is not derived from an unknown bacterial agent. Instead, it originates from a variety of social agents. The epidemic? The explosion in the number of people incarcerated in the global community. As of June 1997, the United States' prison population exceeded 1,700,000. This figure is consistent with the United States' status as one of the world's largest jailers. Like the United States, Europe's prison population has escalated. The growth in France's prison population is representative of the epidemic's trans-Atlantic scope.

The Article is divided into several sections. The first section …

England's Contaminated Land Act Of 1995: Perspectives On America's Approach To Hazardous Substance Cleanups And Evolving Principles Of International Law, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

An important contemporary problem in environmental regulation concerns the cleanup of property that is an unfortunate legacy of the modem industrial age—acres of land affected by past inadequate disposals of toxic substances. The United States began to address this problem in 1980 with the enactment of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). CERCLA establishes both a liability regime for assigning the costs of cleaning up lands contaminated by the release of hazardous substances and regulatory requirements defining how those cleanups are to be pursued. In 1995, England enacted the Contaminated Land Act (alternatively referred to as the …

Introduction, The Sesquicentennial Of The 1848 Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention: American Women's Unfinished Quest For Legal, Economic, Political, And Social Equality, Carolyn S. Bratt

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On July 19, 1998, America celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention. Almost three hundred women and men including Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass met on that July date in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, for a two-day discussion of the "social, civil and religious rights of woman." At the conclusion of the meeting, sixty-eight women and thirty-two men signed their names to a Declaration of Sentiments and this country's organized women's rights movement began. The Declaration of Sentiments was the earliest, systematic, public articulation in the United States of the ideas that fuel …