Law Commons^™

(Racial) Profiles In Courage, Or Can We Be Heroes, Too?, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

This article begins with the controversy over a proposed monument based on a widely disseminated photograph of three firefighters raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center. The three firefighters were White. The proposed monument would have had one White firefighter, one Black, and one Hispanic. This article argues that the controversy over the proposed monument serves as a microcosm for the larger and more important struggle over racial and gender diversity within fire departments, generally.

Teaching Asian Americans And The Law: Struggling With History, Identity, And Politics, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

In this brief article, Professor Chang explores the goals and challenges in constructing a course on Asian Americans and the Law. In his course on Asian Americans and the Law, Professor Chang tries to include in the weekly reading packets history, narratives, and cases. Professor Chang includes the narratives because he has found that the students often have a difficult time relating to the history without them. After all, narratives bring life to history, making it easier for students to relate to and/or identify with the historical persons who occupy very different subject positions with regard to race, nationality, immigration …

Syllabus: Asian Americans And The Law, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

This is the accompanying syllabus to the essay by Professor Chang, “Teaching Asian Americans and the Law: Struggling with History, Identity, and Politics.” The article explores the goals and challenges in constructing a course on Asian Americans and the Law. In his course on Asian Americans and the Law, Professor Chang tries to include in the weekly reading packets history, narratives, and cases. Professor Chang includes the narratives because he has found that the students often have a difficult time relating to the history without them. After all, narratives bring life to history, making it easier for students to relate …

“Forget The Alamo”: Race Courses As A Struggle Over History And Collective Memory, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

This article discusses issues related to the study and teaching of race and ethnicity. Professor Chang explains the way race is taught or not taught in law schools is reflective of the historical and factual predicates we want our students to have. Faculty diversification can have an impact on the courses that are taught. Most, if not all, of the courses on critical race theory are taught by faculty-of-color. Most of the primary courses on Latinas/os and the law are taught by Latinas/os. If more related and primary courses are going to be offered by schools, then it seems that …

Policy Choices And Model Acts: Preparing For The Next Public Health Emergency, Ken Wing

Faculty Articles

This article explores policy choices and model acts related to public health administration in the U.S. This article provides information of the general public or state policymakers concerning important policy choices, variation of the pre-existing legal structure in each state, and the principles of separation of powers in limiting legislature's ability to delegate legislative-type decisions.

Resisting Medicine/Remodeling Gender, Dean Spade

Faculty Articles

In this article, Dean Spade explores the problematic role of medicine in pushing for trans rights. Spade uses a combination of personal narrative of his own interaction with the healthcare system and his experience with legal advocacy on behalf of transgender and gender nonconforming clients. He reveals how the medicalization of trans identity, by categorizing it as a mental health disorder called Gender Identity Disorder, serves to reaffirm that everyone should either be male or female. Spade further asserts this medicalization can be problematic when advocating for the legal rights of gender nonconforming individuals. For example, he points out that …

The Sojourner’S Truth And Other Stories, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

In this introductory essay to a cluster of articles on Migrations, Citizens, and Latinas/os, Professor Chang frames the work of Ruben Garcia, Camille Nelson, and Victor Romero as setting forth what might be described as truths that can be learned from the sojourner/immigrant. This essay argues that the sojourner/immigrant's contributions to U.S. society are often ignored or discounted, which may be due to a willful amnesia because we do not want to think about what we might owe the sojourner/immigrant with regard to her entry into the United States, her stay, and her departure.

Serving Pro Se Patrons: An Obligation And An Opportunity, Kerry Fitz-Gerald

Faculty Articles

Historically, non-lawyer patrons in law libraries have been viewed with discomfort, and library services, even in libraries open to the public, have been geared toward members of the legal community. However, changes in both the needs of the public and in the demographics of library patrons are challenging the traditional allocation of services in public law libraries. This article discusses the reasons for the traditional allocation of services, the cultural and economic forces that are bringing the public to law libraries in greater numbers, and new modes of service that can better meet the needs of public patrons.

Risk Avoidance, Cultural Discrimination, And Environmental Justice For Indigenous Peoples, Catherine O'Neill

Faculty Articles

This article begins with the recognition that environmental justice for Native peoples requires attention to the interrelated cultural, spiritual, social, ecological, economic, and political dimensions of environmental issues. It observes, moreover, that “environmental justice requires an appreciation of each tribe’s particular historical circumstances and contemporary understandings, including each group’s aspirations for the flourishing of its culture.” It contends that some environmental decision makers and commentators have increasingly come to embrace “risk avoidance” – strategies that call upon risk-bearers to alter their practices in order to avoid the risk of environmental harms – in lieu of risk reduction – strategies that …

Unexplainable On Grounds Other Than Race: The Inversion Of Privilege And Subordination In Equal Protection Jurisprudence, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

In this article, Professor Darren Hutchinson contributes to the debate over the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by arguing that the Supreme Court has inverted its purpose and effect. Professor Hutchinson contends that the Court, in its judicial capacity, provides protection and judicial solicitude for privileged and powerful groups in our country, while at the same time requires traditionally subordinated and oppressed groups to utilize the political process to seek redress for acts of oppression. According to Professor Hutchinson, this process allows social structures of oppression and subordination to remain intact.

First, Professor Hutchinson examines the various …

Seasons Of Resistance: Sustainable Agriculture And Food Security In Cuba, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Cuba embarked upon a transformation of the agricultural sector that has been hailed by some observers as a model of socially equitable and ecologically sustainable agriculture. Cuba shifted from an export-oriented, chemical-intensive agricultural development strategy to one that promoted organic agriculture and encouraged production for the domestic market. This article places Cuba's agricultural reforms in historical context by examining the evolution of Cuban agriculture from the colonial period until the present through the lens of food security and ecological sustainability. The article argues that Cuba, for most of its history, was food insecure and ecologically compromised …

On The Theory Class's Theories Of Asbestos Litigation: The Disconnect Between Scholarship And Reality, Lester Brickman

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Spinoza's Identity And Philosophy: Jewish Or Otherwise?, Suzanne Last Stone

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Retrenchment On Entrenchment, Stewart E. Sterk

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of The United Nations Position On Terrorism: From Exempting National Liberation Movements To Criminalizing Terrorism Wherever And By Whomever Committed, Malvina Halberstam

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

“Soldiering On In Hope”: United Nations Peacekeeping In Civil Wars, Anna Roberts

Faculty Articles

This note will examine the consequences of the Security Council’s decisions to deploy under-resourced operations to civil war situations and various proposed means by which the Security Council might more effectively fulfill its responsibilities. Part II will look at a number of post-Cold War U.N. operations in civil wars—UNPROFOR in Croatia and Bosnia, United Nations Operation in Somalia I (UNOSOM I), United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda II (UNAMIR II), and United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL)—and show how, at least partly because of the Security Council’s failure to ensure that the operations it authorized were provided with sufficient …

Letters And Postcards We Wished We Had Sent To Gary Bellow And Bea Moulton, Marilyn Berger, John Mitchell, Annette Clark

Faculty Articles

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of Gary Bellow's and Bea Moulton's The Lawyering Process, this essay consists of eleven letters and postcards about how The Lawyering Process inspired the writing of the authors’ books - Pretrial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis & Strategy and Trial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis & Strategy. Alas, this correspondence is imaginary because that exchange of ideas did not take place. This method was inspired by the medieval letters of Abelard and Heloise and the modern-day fictional postcards and letters of Griffin and Sabine. Tracing the evolution of their thoughts from first reading the Bellow and …

Secured Transaction History: The Impact Of English Smuggling On The Chattel Mortgage Acts In The Spanish Borderlands, George Lee Flint Jr, Marie Juliet Alfaro

Faculty Articles

Spanish colonies, including the territories of Florida, Louisiana, and southwestern America, acknowledged the jurisdiction of Spanish royal decrees. The colonies approached the registration of mortgages in a similar but more tentative fashion, recognizing the distances between the borderlands and the registrar’s offices. The law developed differently in Florida and Louisiana, which were administered by a different governmental body. While the registration process was required for chattel mortgages on slaves, there is no evidence the rules were enforced or applied to other types of mortgages on personalty. However, in 1770, Louisiana adopted a filing requirement for chattel mortgages for all slaves …

Texas Annual Survey: Securities Regulation, George Lee Flint Jr

Faculty Articles

The Texas Legislature passed Sunset Legislation that distinguished between securities dealers and investment advisors that allowed the Texas Securities Act (“TSA”) to comply with national trends in securities regulation. The court struggled with definitions of “control person” and “evidence of indebtedness.” However, the Sunset Legislation allowed the expanded Board to submit emergency cease and desist orders and to conduct surprise inspections of registered dealers and sellers of securities. Violation of a cease and desist order became a criminal offense.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act increased the existing statute of limitations under the federal securities laws for private causes of action involving claims …

Into The Star Chamber: Does The United States Engage In The Use Of Torture Or Similar Illegal Practices In The War On Terror, Jeffrey F. Addicott

Faculty Articles

Because of the dangers presented by al-Qaeda style terrorism, the United States has crafted a variety of robust anti-terrorism responses. One of the more controversial of these is the indefinite detention of suspected enemy combatants, and the associated question as to whether the United States can and does employ torture.

Many prominent voices, such as Professor Alan Dershowitz, have advocated a judicial exception allowing torture as an interrogation tool in special instances, but the United States has struggled to find an appropriate balance between civil liberties and security concerns. To succeed in the War on Terror, the U.S. cannot allow …

Public Diplomacy And The Transformation Of International Broadcasting, Monroe Price

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Jurisdictional Competition To Abolish The Rule Against Perpetuities: R.I.P. For The R.A.P, Stewart E. Sterk

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche And The Nazis: The Impact Of National Socialism On The Philosophy Of Nietzsche, Charles M. Yablon

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

A Progressive Consumption Tax For Individuals: An Alternative Hybrid Approach, Mitchell L. Engler

Faculty Articles

Dissatisfaction with the existing income tax has increased in recent years. Practical problems with the income tax base create numerous loopholes, increasingly exploited by well-advised taxpayers. For the most part, these gaps are attributable to the income tax's "realization" requirement, under which taxpayers report gains and losses as "realized" through market transactions. A consumption tax appeals as a response to these significant current loopholes since "realization" loses its significance under a consumption-based tax. The consumption tax's appeal has been further enhanced by the recent and growing recognition of the narrow difference between income and consumption taxes, assuming away practical problems. …

Partnerships And Facilitation: Mediators Develop New Skills For Complex Cases, Lela P. Love

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Queers Anonymous: Lesbians, Gay Men, Free Speech, And Cyberspace, Edward Stein

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Admissibility Of Expert Testimony About Cognitive Science Research On Eyewitness Identification, Edward Stein

Faculty Articles

Eyewitness identifications are important to jurors, especially in criminal trials. Psychological research has shown, however, that eyewitness testimony is systematically fallible in ways that undermine the goals of the rules of evidence. This article assesses the arguments for and against admitting expert testimony concerning cognitive science research about eyewitness identification. The article concludes that experts should in many instances be allowed to testify about the problems with eyewitness identification testimony.

The Traumatic Dimension In Law, David G. Carlson

Faculty Articles

This paper applies Jacques Lacan's theory of retrospective cause to the jurisprudence of H.L.A. Hart and his followers. The thesis is that "effect" (judicial decision) precedes "cause" (law). The proper tense for legal discourse is, therefore, future anterior. The following points follow from this: (1) Positivism asserts that law is not necessarily connected to morality, but this is a priori wrong. Law wishes to be separate from morality, but it necessarily fails. (2) The theory vindicates Dworkin's notorious "right answers" theory, but makes the additional point that there is only one answer: you are guilty; you failed to conform to …

The Omen In Nomen: An Exemplary Dictionary Of Legal Names, Peter Goodrich

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche And Aretaic Legal Theory, Kyron Huigens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.