Law Commons^™

Local Regulation Of Charitable Solicitation, Joseph Mead

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Most discussions of the policy context for nonprofits in the United States focus on federal or state restrictions. Fundraising charities, however, must comply not only with myriad state requirements but an uncertain number of local requirements as well. Based on a survey of the largest cities in the United States, I find that all of these cities have some restrictions on charitable solicitation. Several of the cities also impose extensive registration requirements and other restrictions. These findings highlight the need for nonprofits to be aware of local regulation of their activities.

Righting A Wrong: Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, And The Espionage Act Prosecutions, David Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This is a story of excess and reparation. It is a chronicle of one President from the elite intellectual classes of the East, and another from a county seat in the heartland. Woodrow Wilson was the college president whose contribution to the art of government lay in the principle of expertise and efficiency. When he went to war, he turned the machinery of government into a comprehensive and highly effective instrument for victory. For Wilson, it followed that there could be little tolerance for those who impeded the success of American arms by their anti-war propaganda, draft resistance, or ideological …

To Leave Or Not To Leave—Law Libraries And The Fdlp: A Decade Later, Is That Still The Question?, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article recounts the literature of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when some librarians, considering the changing form of government information, questioned whether the FDLP would survive in its existing form and recommended FDLP changes that would keep depository libraries engaged as the means of accessing digital government information evolved. In the later 2000s, articles and reports included comprehensive suggestions to the GPO, by and on behalf of library associations, of ways to make depository libraries stronger partners in the FDLP. Possibly in response to these calls for reform, the GPO polled depository libraries in its 2012 FDLP Forecast …

Why We Need Reed: Unmasking Pretext In Anti-Panhandling Legislation, Joseph Mead

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of areas where asking for help is restricted or banned. Whether called begging, panhandling, or solicitation, cities were spurred on by concerns of business owners and residents to ban or highly restrict this type of speech from occurring in public areas. Yet laws such as these have been repeatedly struck down by courts in recent months, fueled in large part by the Supreme Court’s decision in Reed v. City of Gilbert.

In this essay I argue that, at least in the context of anti-panhandling legislation, Reed …

Same-Sex Marriage And Jewish Law: Time For A New Paradigm?, Doron M. Kalir

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In recent years the Supreme Court, as well as important segments of society, has come to accept and even celebrate same-sex relations that, in the past, and for some still today, have generated contempt, hostility, and violence. This change in law and culture poses a unique challenge for those who are moved by the plight of gay people yet concomitantly feel bound by their religious convictions and therefore prevented from providing religious legitimacy to people who yearn to be part of their community. Professor Kalir meets this challenge by proposing that the Torah (and Jewish law), read in context, accepts …

Are They Worth Reading? An In-Depth Analysis Of Online Trackers’ Privacy Policies, Candice Hoke, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Pedro Giovanni Leon, Alyssa Au

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

We analyzed the privacy policies of 75 online tracking companies with the goal of assessing whether they contain information relevant for users to make privacy decisions. We compared privacy policies from large companies, companies that are members of self-regulatory organizations, and nonmember companies and found that many of them are silent with regard to important consumer-relevant practices including the collection and use of sensitive information and linkage of tracking data with personally-identifiable information. We evaluated these policies against self-regulatory guidelines and found that many policies are not fully compliant. Furthermore, the overly general requirements established in those guidelines allow companies …

Perspectives On Abandoned Houses In A Time Of Dystopia, Kermit J. Lind

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article describes various perspectives on abandoned houses in urban neighborhoods and the reactions from those perspectives. It notes how conflicting reactions perpetuate the crisis of blight for individual residents and their communities. It argues that real solutions for management of abandonment must be based in local communities and tailored to local conditions. Priority must be placed on consistent maintenance in compliance with local housing and neighborhood health, safety and environmental codes. Housing preservation, rehabilitation, reutilization programs will not succeed without improved and sustained maintenance. Localities will need to take the lead in remodeling residential maintenance using new strategies, methods …

Responding To The Mortgage Crisis: Three Cleveland Examples, W. Dennis Keating, Kermit J. Lind

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Just as SVD [Slavic Village Development] fought back against predatory lending, mortgage fraud, and speculator flipping, the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County also sought to prevent these practices and stem the rising tide of foreclosures. This included legislation, litigation, and homeowner counseling. This article will focus on three examples of the response to the mortgage crisis in Cleveland: the Cleveland Housing Court, the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation (land bank), and community development corporations (CDCs) and local intermediaries (namely, the Cleveland Housing Network (CHN) and Neighborhood Progress, Inc. (NPI)). Each of these entities has developed initiatives aimed at the …

The Effect Of Rluipa's Land Use Provisions On Local Government, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the absence of perfect information about how RLUIPA has affected local governments, this article argues that the courts have adopted a pragmatic approach to maneuvering in the difficult terrain that RLUIPA occupies: combining appropriate judicial deference to a legislature that enacts a neutral law of general applicability with the heightened judicial scrutiny that becomes appropriate when that same law is applied to a specific zoning approval, a circumstance that frequently allows for subjectivity, and thus the potential for discrimination or arbitrariness against religious uses, in the approval process. I conclude that: (1) until proven otherwise, the costs RLUIPA undoubtedly …

The Association Of Adult Businesses With Secondary Effects: Legal Doctrine, Social Theory, And Empirical Evidence, Alan C. Weinstein, Richard D. Mccleary

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the decade since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Alameda Books v. City of Los Angeles, 535 U.S. 425 (2002), the adult entertainment industry has attacked the legal rationale local governments rely upon as the justification for their regulation of adult businesses: that such businesses are associated with so-called negative secondary effects. These attacks have taken a variety of forms, including: trying to subject the studies of secondary effects relied upon by local governments to the Daubert standard for admission of scientific evidence in federal litigation; producing studies that purport to show no association between adult businesses and negative …

Do 'Off-Site' Adult Businesses Have Secondary Effects? Legal Doctrine, Social Theory, And Empirical Evidence, Alan Weinstein, Richard D. Mccleary

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Recent federal court decisions appear to limit the ability of cities to mitigate the ambient crime risks associated with adult entertainment businesses. In one instance, a court has assumed that criminological theories do not apply to “off-site” adult businesses. After developing the legal doctrine of secondary effects, we demonstrate that the prevailing criminological theory applies to all adult business models. To corroborate the theory, we report the results of a before/after quasi-experiment for an off-site adult business. When an off-site adult business opens, ambient crime risk doubles compared to a control area. As theory predicts, moreover, ambient victimization risk is …

On Account Of Race Or Color: Race As Corporation And The Original Understanding Of Race, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Oh describes this essay as a critique of constitutional and political discourse on "race" and argues that current equal protection doctrine operates under a conception of race that undermines rather than moves forward the goal of achieving racial equality. That understanding defines race solely or primarily as a physical trait or characteristic, and unjustifiably rejects other, more robust notions of race. He argues that the notion of race as physical trait is inconsistent with the historical understanding of race that served as the basis for the Reconstruction Amendments. A careful examination of nineteenth and early twentieth century court decisions, decisions …

Essay: Current And Future Challenges To Local Government Posed By The Housing And Credit Crisis,, Alan Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The ongoing problems in the housing and credit markets, caused by a toxic combination of wholesale deregulation of financial markets by the federal government and imprudent lending and investment practices by financial institutions, pose significant challenges to local and state government officials. Some of these challenges are obvious. How will cities cope with an unprecedented number of foreclosures at the same time that state and local tax revenues are decreasing? When will access to credit ease in a municipal bond market that has constricted as a result of both general credit concerns and questions about the companies insuring those bonds? …

What's In A Name? A Gen Xer And Gen Yer Explore What It Means To Be Members Of Their Generations In The Workplace, Lauren M. Collins, Elizabeth A. Yates

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the NextGen Librarian's Survival Guide by Rachel Singer Gordon, the author cites several reasons this time is different than times before in librarianship. Those that are most relevant to law librarianship include:

• Flattening workplace hierarchies and participative management increase the input of newer librarians in workplace decision making

• New technologies require changing skills that affect attitudes toward the integration of those technologies into our daily work

• Outside pressures, such as the prevalence of the Internet, impose a need for librarians to continually prove our relevance and improve relations with younger patrons

• The much talked about …

The Lt. Governor Encourages Lawyers To Take Advantage Of State Resources To Aid Ohio's Economic Development, Lee Fisher

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

For the last several months, my colleagues and I at the Ohio Department of Development have been focused on the formation of a statewide economic development strategy that will establish our priorities and guide our future decisions. Ultimately this strategy will serve as an economic development plan for Ohio that will be led primarily by the Ohio Department of Development, along with the Governor's office and other state agencies and departments. With full implementation, our strategic plan will not only guide Ohio's long-term investments, but will also help guide our daily decisions.

How To Avoid A "Holy War" -- Dealing With Potential Rluipa Claims, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article discusses how local government can seek to avoid a claim being brought against it under the Religious Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Thus, the focus is not on what steps a local government should take when a RLUIPA claim is brought - or threatened to be brought - against it, but focuses instead on what steps local governments should take to seek to avoid a RLUIPA claim in the first place. After reviewing both the changing context of religious observance in the United States, and RLUIPA decisions to date, the article concludes that we are clearly …

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis And Local Government: Immediate And Future Challenges, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

Creating Online Tutorials: Five Lessons Learned, Lauren M. Collins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the fall of 2005, two librarians, a legal research and writing program director, and an instructional technologist at Wayne State University received a grant to create online tutorials introducing novices to the basics of legal research. Tutorials were planned on subjects that the library and the legal research and writing program had traditionally covered jointly via library workshops, coordinated with classroom instruction for first-year law students. Since the mission of the law library is to support campus-wide activity and to assist members of the general public with legal research needs, the content of the tutorials was designed to serve …

Clash Of The Titans: Collisions Of Economic Regulations And The Need To Harmonize Prescriptive Jurisdiction Rules, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Part I of this article describes regulatory clashes involving different states' public laws, and then focuses on certain areas of law, including antitrust, securities, and Internet commerce and publishing, where such clashes are most likely to take place. Part II focuses on the different solutions to this regulatory puzzle invoked by scholars, advocating either territorial-based or substance-based approaches. Part III then critiques the two approaches, while emphasizing the need to address the issue from a global perspective, that is, by seeking to harmonize jurisdiction-allocating rules on an international level.

Interracial Marriage In The Shadows Of Jim Crow: Racial Segregation As A System Of Racial And Gender Subordination, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Essay works through essentialist language to reveal the multidimensional nature of racial segregation as a system of subordination. Specifically, it examines how racial segregation in public schools and laws prohibiting interracial marriage mutually reinforce racial and gender inequality. Part I discusses Brown and the traditional analysis of that decision as a case dealing with race, racial stigma, and equal educational opportunity. Part II reviews laws prohibiting interracial marriage, the reasoning and purpose behind these laws, and the Loving decision that rendered such laws unconstitutional. Part III then examines racial segregation in public schools as more than just a system …

Kelo: One Year Later, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

June of 2006 marked the first anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, making this a good time to analyze the past year's flurry of activity and assess what it means for local governments. As of mid-May of 2006, more than forty states were considering legislation in reaction to the Kelo ruling, and fifteen have already enacted such legislation.

Re-Mapping Equal Protection Jurisprudence: A Legal Geography Of Race And Affirmative Action,, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Oh argues that when the United States Supreme Court decided Richmond v. Croson in 1989 and imposed strict scrutiny on state and local government affirmative action programs, it marked a critical moment and turning point in the evolution and development of public and legal discourse on race, racism, and race relations in America. Although many scholars have critically examined the Croson opinion, curiously, scholars have yet to recognize its full ramifications and implications. Aside from the technical doctrinal changes made to equal protection law, the Croson decision is also important because of the way the Court produced and mapped a …

Rluipa: Where Are We Now? Where Are We Heading?, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past three years, hardly a week has gone by without at least one news-story announcing that a church, synagogue, or religious school-I'll use the term “church” from here on as a shorthand for all houses of worship or other religious institutions—is claiming that its right to religious freedom is being infringed by local government land use regulations in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. RLUIPA, a federal statute signed into law in September 2000, was enacted to restore to full vigor legal protection for religious freedoms that the Act's proponents argue had been seriously …

Book Review, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Reviewing L. Vale, Reclaiming Public Housing: A Half Century of Struggle in Three Public Neighborhoods, Harvard University Press (2002)

Defining Feminism, Defining Feminisms, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Oh argues that feminists urgently need to define Feminism and to construct feminist theories that validate and affirm the truth of women's lived experience, in all their multiplicity and diversity. Because feminist theories are forged through the diverse experiences of differently situated women, it is respectfully suggested that the title of this Chapter may and can be seen as the call to define Feminism and Feminism(s). Defining feminism(s) means, in spirit of the "I-Thou" relationship, being mindful and respectful that individual Feminists will define Feminism in alignment with the truth of their unique experience, in alignment with the truth of …

Case Commentary - Martin V. Corporation Of The Presiding Bishop: Should Zoning Accommodate Religious Uses Or Vice Versa?, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In Martin v. Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, 747 N.E. 2d 131 (Mass. 2001), the highest court in Massachusetts rules that the Dover Amendment, a state statutes that denies local government the authority to "prohibit, regulate, or restrict the use of land or structures for religious purposes..." authorized the town of Belmont to grant a church special permission to build a steeple for a newly built Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints temple that was taller than the local zoning provisions would normally allow. Since Martin involved a Massachusetts statute, normally the decision would evoke limited interest, and …

"On The Make": Campaign Funding And The Corrupting Of The American Judiciary, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The thesis offered here is that the cost of judicial campaigns has reached a level where both candidates and sitting judges are shaping their behavior to attract financial and other support. This not only results in distortion of judicial selection by repelling meritorious potential candidates who are unwilling to compromise their principles, but in the capture of judges by special interests willing to finance judicial campaigns. Some argue that the great increase in contributions to judicial candidates simply means that contributors are giving to candidates they feel certain will support their positions. To some extent this is certainly true. But …

The Dilemma Of Old, Urban Neighborhoods, W Dennis Keating

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In his recounting of the suburban migration from America's cities, journalist and broadcaster Ray Suarez laments the loss of the "old neighborhood". He extols its virtues while explaining its decline. Suarez's nostalgic examples recall the virtues of the extended family kinship, neighborliness, and other features of the "urban village." These are often associated with those urban neighborhoods populated by recent immigratns. These urban villages were thought to have peaked in the decades between the American Civil War and the onset of the First World War, when many U.S. cities industrialized and grew very rapidly. However, a continuing movement of migrants …

The "Race-Neutral" Option For Local Government Contracting Programs, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Despite the dismal record cities have compiled of late in defending their race-conscious contracting programs, this article seeks "to dispel the notion that strict scrutiny is 'strict in theory but fatal in fact.'" If a local government follows the course outlined above, and combines the ability to monitor and analyze all relevant contracting data with the enactment and implementation of a multi-faceted race-neutral program, it has laid a sound foundation for the subsequent enactment of race-conscious remedies that are narrowly-tailored to address statistically valid disparities in utilization of specific categories of MBEs that remain after the race-neutral program has been …

Conflicts In Regulating Religious Institutions, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past 25 years, religious institutions have greatly increased their claims of violation of religious freedom when they are denied zoning approval or subjected to historic preservation regulations. While no one can definitively explain the causes of this increase in First Amendment challenges, it can partially be traced to recent changes in both our society and the way our political/legal system conceptualizes religious freedom.