Law Commons^™

Review Of The Book The Fight Against Book Bans: Perspectives From The Field, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book The Fight against Book Bans: Perspectives from the Field, edited by Shannon M. Oltmann.

Beyond The Reach Of Legal Process – Lessons From United States V Rafiekian, Vivian M. Williams

Publications and Research

The influence of foreign agents on the domestic affairs of countries is now a major issue in global affairs. This issue gained significance after foreign influence was blamed for a massive protest demanding fair election, rocked Moscow in 2011. It has been amplified after Russian involvement was cited for Donald Trump’s surprised election as President of the United States in 2016. There is now great anxiety among nations that foreign actors could influence electoral outcomes. Consequently, the past decade has seen a proliferation of laws regulating the operation of foreign agents within a country. Aggressive enforcement of Foreign Agents laws …

Review Of The Book Denial Of Genocides In The Twenty-First Century, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Bedross Der Matossian.

Weathering The Perfect Legal Storm: Novel Virus, Novel Instruction, Novel Course, Marissa Moran

Publications and Research

For this legal educator, in the spring and fall of 2020, three simultaneous and novel events-Corona virus, virtual synchronous instruction, and teaching a new interdisciplinary course for the first time, created an environment that could have resulted in the perfect legal storm. Instead, these events contributed to beneficial teaching and learning experiences from which arose many “first-ever” innovative faculty and student endeavors.

Helping The Helpers: The Role Of Organizational Support And Peer Influence On Police Officer Receptivity To Employee Assistance Programs, Kenneth Quick

Publications and Research

Purpose – This study aims to investigate critical differences between police officer willingness to use and recommend an employee assistance program (EAP) to a peer, including the relationship between officer perceptions of macro-level organizational support and micro-level EAP support.

Design/methodology/approach – A survey of 213 police officers from a large, urban police department in the Northeast United States of America is used to evaluate the relationship between officer perceptions of the EAP and the officers’ willingness to use and recommend the EAP to peers. Generalized linear regression models are used to evaluate the moderating effect of perceived organizational support (POS) …

The Paradox Of Plenty: Why Guyana’S Local Content Law Needs A Reality Check, Vivian M. Williams

Publications and Research

The effectiveness of coercive local content requirements to the development of resource rich developing countries is an area attracting increasing global attention. Local content requirements are especially popular in the extractive sector though empirical studies show that they do not fulfill their intended purpose. Now recognized as the world's fastest growing economy after becoming an oil producing country, Guyana has passed a local content law. The real concern is not merely whether local content requirements fail to fulfill their objectives but whether they create market distortions that lead to the resource curse. This issue was addressed by Baruch's Adjunct Assistant …

Understanding The Global Refugee Crisis [Paralegal Studies], Andrea R. Irias

Open Educational Resources

This assignment was designed to meet the criteria of the Global Learning competency and Written ability rubrics. Although it was created for the Paralegal Program, it was not made to fit one specific course as we are unsure where it fits best in the program. As we continue to experiment with placement, we have piloted this assignment in two different courses (BTP203 and BTP205) with similar results. It was designed for students to complete outside of the classroom as homework with minimal in-class instruction as the content of the assignment did not truly fit in the courses that held it …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Com 3045 (Communication, Law, And Free Speech), Donovan Bisbee

Open Educational Resources

From pornography to political speech, from the lewd to the libelous, and everywhere in between, the law is forever drawing lines that divide protected speech (what you can say in America) from unprotected speech (what you cannot say in America). This is an interdisciplinary course that draws on philosophical, legal, and rhetorical theories of communication to help explain how those lines are drawn. Readings include famous court cases involving freedom of speech, as well as political and philosophical writings on all sides of the free speech debate. This course is part of the required core for the Communication Studies Major, …

Copyright Enforcement In Content-Sharing Platforms, Kameshwari Shankar

Publications and Research

This paper analyzes the choice between quality improvements and copyright litigation by a proprietary seller who faces a competitive threat from a content-sharing platform. The platform operates like a “public good” with contributors who share content and free-riders who only consume content while adding to congestion on the platform. When the proprietor can identify contributors in the platform with sufficient accuracy, a litigation strategy that targets contributors exacerbates free-riding behavior in the sharing platform and drives down platform quality. In contrast, investing in quality improvements for the copyrighted good does not affect contribution decisions on the platform, leading to a …

Student Self-Grading Form, Brett Whysel

Open Educational Resources

This is a word document that students use at the beginning, midpoint, and end of a semester to set relevant goals, measure progress towards goals, and self-grade. It is intended to build motivation, metacognition, and accountability. Instructors may use it on its own or to supplement other assessment tools, and improve the accuracy, validity, and fairness of final grades.

Technology In The Security Sector: Mexico, Vanessa J. Gutierrez, Melina Ponte, Angiee Rosario, Arleen Castillo, Henry Saldarriaga, Hector Tejeda, Stephanie Reich, Rosemary Barberet

Publications and Research

The use of technology in policing seeks to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the daily duties police officers may encounter. However, there is mixed empirical data on the use of technology and if it is really contributing to the institutional goals of the security sector, or, if it is contributing to other factors. This report provides an exploratory approach to understanding what information technology is being used in Mexico at the state level, in order to compare where broader application of information technology could make impactful contributions to the security situation in the country.

With a focus on six …

Spotlight Report #6: Proffering Machine-Readable Personal Privacy Research Agreements: Pilot Project Findings For Ieee P7012 Wg, Noreen Y. Whysel, Lisa Levasseur

Publications and Research

What if people had the ability to assert their own legally binding permissions for data collection, use, sharing, and retention by the technologies they use? The IEEE P7012 has been working on an interoperability specification for machine-readable personal privacy terms to support this ability since 2018. The premise behind the work of IEEE P7012 is that people need technology that works on their behalf—i.e. software agents that assert the individual’s permissions and preferences in a machine-readable format.

Thanks to a grant from the IEEE Technical Activities Board Committee on Standards (TAB CoS), we were able to explore the attitudes of …

Designing Respectful Tech: What Is Your Relationship With Technology?, Noreen Y. Whysel

Publications and Research

According to research at the Me2B Alliance, people feel they have a relationship with technology. It’s emotional. It’s embodied. And it’s very personal. We are studying digital relationships to answer questions like “Do people have a relationship with technology?” “What does that relationship feel like?” And “Do people understand the commitments that they are making when they explore, enter into and dissolve these relationships?” There are parallels between messy human relationships and the kinds of relationships that people develop with technology. As with human relationships, we move through states of discovery, commitment and breakup with digital applications as well. Technology …

Me2b Alliance Validation Testing Report: Consumer Perception Of Legal Policies In Digital Technology, Noreen Y. Whysel, Karina Alexanyan, Shaun Spaulting, Julia Little

Publications and Research

Our relationship with technology involves legal agreements that we either review or enter into when using a technology, namely privacy policies and terms of service or terms of use (“TOS/TOU”). We initiated this research to understand if providing a formal rating of the legal policies (privacy policies and TOS/TOUs) would be valuable to consumers (or Me-s). From our early qualitative discussions, we noticed that people were unclear on whether these policies were legally binding contracts or not. Thus, a secondary objective emerged to quantitatively explore whether people knew who these policies protected (if anyone), and if the policies were perceived …

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

Who’S Afraid Of Bob Jones?: 'Fundamental National Public Policy' And Critical Race Theory In A Delicate Democracy, Lynn D. Lu

Publications and Research

In Summer of 2021, Republican legislators across the United States introduced a host of bills to prohibit government funding for schools or agencies that teach critical race theory (“CRT”), described by the American Association of Law Schools not as a single doctrine but a set of “frameworks” to “explain and illustrate how structural racism produces racial inequity within our social, economic, political, legal, and educational systems[,] even absent individual racist intent.” Characterizing such an explicitly race-conscious analysis of legal and social institutions as “divisive,” opponents of CRT, such as former Vice President Mike Pence, labeled it “nothing short of state-sponsored …

Sex Is As Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity (Preface And Introduction), Paisley Currah

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

¿Qué Es Un Campesino? ¿Qué Son Los Campesinados? Un Breve Documento Sobre Cuestiones De Definición, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

En muchos (aunque no todos) los instrumentos internacionales de derechos humanos, el artículo 1.º se utiliza para definir a los titulares de derechos. Las precisiones normativas de este tipo pueden ser controversiales —por ejemplo, en debates sobre quién es un “niño” en el periodo previo a la Convención sobre los Derechos del Niño—, pero también puede serlo su ausencia (como ocurrió con la Declaración sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas). La pregunta de cómo definir campesino y campesinado tiene una historia larga, complicada y polémica. Las definiciones de los grupos humanos surgen o son creadas con diferentes propósitos, incluyendo …

Righting Health Policy: Bioethics, Political Philosophy, And The Normative Justification Of Health Law And Policy, D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

In Righting Health Policy, D. Robert MacDougall argues that bioethics needs but does not have adequate tools for justifying law and policy. Bioethics’ tools are mostly theories about what we owe each other. But justifying laws and policies requires more; at a minimum, it requires tools for explaining the legitimacy of actions intended to control or influence others. It consequently requires political, rather than moral, philosophy. After showing how bioethicists have consistently failed to use tools suitable for achieving their political aims, MacDougall develops an interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy. On this account the legitimacy of health laws does …

Impact Of Forensic Medical Evaluations On Immigration Relief Grant Rates And Correlates Of Outcomes In The United States., Holly G. Atkinson, Katarzyna Wyka, Kathryn Hampton, Christian Seno, Elizabeth Yim, Deborah Ottenheimer, Nermeen Arastu

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of forensic medical evaluations on grant rates for applicants seeking immigration relief in the United States (U.S.) and to identify significant correlates of grant success. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 2584 cases initiated by Physicians for Human Rights between 2008-2018 that included forensic medical evaluations, and found that 81.6% of applicants for various forms of immigration relief were granted relief, as compared to the national asylum grant rate of 42.4%. Among the study’s cohort, the majority (73.7%) of positive outcomes were grants of asylum. A multivariable regression analysis revealed …

A New Morning In Higher Education Collective Bargaining, 2013-2019, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

This book chapter appears in Julius, D. J. (ed.), Collective Bargaining in Higher Education: Best Practices for Promoting Collaboration, Equity, and Measurable Outcomes (Routledge, New York and London). The chapter analyzes and contextualizes data concerning the growth in unionization and collective bargaining involving faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate assistants from 2013 to 2019, the period between the economic fallout from the Great Recession and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses the democratic values underlying collective bargaining and the historical and legal development of unionization at public and private institutions over the decades. It identifies three significant new trends …

Graduate Student Employee Unionization In The Second Gilded Age, William A. Herbert, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

In debates on the future of work, a common theme has been how work became
less secure through the denial of employee status. Though much of the attention
has focused on other industries, precarity has also affected those working in
higher education, including graduate student employees, contributing to what is
now called the “gig academy.” While universities have reassigned teaching and
research to graduate assistants, they have also refused to recognize them as
employees. Nevertheless, unionization has grown considerably since 2012, most
significantly at private institutions. Utilizing a unique dataset, this chapter
demonstrates that between 2012 and 2019, graduate student …

Intro To Contracts, Anjelica Cappellino

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

A Day At The Races In Black And White: How An 1898 Horse Race Led To A Whipping, A Lawsuit, And A 1901 Arrest, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

After losing an 1898 horse race in the Bronx, New York, African-American jockey Alonzo ‘Lonnie’ Clayton, who had won the Kentucky Derby in 1892 at the age of fifteen, heard an insult from the crowd along the rail and struck a white spectator from Brooklyn across the face with his riding whip. The blow resulted in a two hundred dollar fine by the track stewards, but ultimately led to a civil trial, a financial judgment against Clayton that he ignored, and then an arrest and incarceration for non-payment of the judgment, which some writers mistakenly still claim was for race-fixing. …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

Understanding The Nature And Dimensions Of Litigation Crowdfunding: A Visual Analytics Approach, Viju Raghupathi, Jie Ren, Wullianallur Raghupathi

Publications and Research

The escalating cost of civil litigation is leaving many defendants and plaintiffs unable to meet legal expenses such as attorney fees, court charges and others. This significantly impacts their ability to sue or defend themselves effectively. Related to this phenomenon is the ethics discussion around access to justice and crowdfunding. This article explores the dimensions that explain the phenomenon of litigation crowdfunding. Using data from CrowdJustice, a popular Internet fundraising platform used to assist in turning legal cases into publicly funded social cases, we study litigation crowdfunding through the lenses of the number of pledges, goal achievement, target amount, length …

Earth Law And The Rights Of Nature A New Generation Of Laws Built For Nature, Lindsey Kayman, Paul Bartlett, Milena Popov, Grant Wilson

Open Educational Resources

Earth Law and the Rights of Nature: A New Generation of Laws Built for Nature

Wilson, Grant, Kayman, Lindsey, Bartlett, Paul, and Milena Popov John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Earth Law Center, Environmental Education Fund

Forget doom and gloom. Let’s educate students about the Rights of Nature, an inspiring, evolving legal development which is gaining traction in the US and around the world, and which can promote the cultural shift needed to address our overlapping intersecting environmental crises — climate change, accelerating species extinction, and ecosystem collapse. The Rights of Nature is one aspect of Earth Law. Some of …

Geoprivacy, Convenience, And The Pursuit Of Anonymity In Digital Cities, Jerome Dobson, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

Cities demand spatial efficiencies that can be achieved only through sharing of information. Current technologies support collection, processing, and dissemination of unprecedented quantities of personal, public, and corporate information. Inherent in this milieu is an inevitable contest among societal efficiency, corporate profits, consumer convenience, personal privacy, and even freedom. The authors examine current trends in technology, data collection, legislation, and public acceptance. They find that without broad specific regulations limiting location data collection and use—including a universal protected right for individuals to pursue anonymity—governments, commercial enterprises, employers, and individuals increasingly will exploit tracking technologies at the expense of geoprivacy.

Restorative Relationships And 'Radical Help': Reimagining Welfare-To-Work Beyond The Market-Family Divide, Lynn D. Lu

Publications and Research

The unprecedented global lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the extreme vulnerability of “essential” yet underpaid workers, the vast inequality between the wealthy and the less fortunate, and the bottomless pit facing those without a social safety net. While the crisis has laid bare the near-universality of human susceptibility to disease and unemployment in a world in which few can safely work, it has also highlighted the disproportionate precarity experienced by low-wage and contingent workers, people of color, and non-citizens. Well before the pandemic, rampant socioeconomic and racial inequality, high underemployment and concentration of wealth, and technological advances …

From Stigma To Dignity? Transforming Workfare With Universal Basic Income And A Federal Job Guarantee, Lynn D. Lu

Publications and Research

As the COVID-19 pandemic takes a catastrophic toll on lives and livelihoods across the United States, the harshest impact of the unpredictable virus has disproportionately fallen with foreseeable accuracy on Black, immigrant, poor, and elderly people, who are most likely to live and work in close contact with others and to have less access to health care or emergency savings. The speed and severity of the viral contagion has rendered devastatingly, undeniably visible the vast, racial gap between those with reliable health care, child care, housing, nutrition, household wealth, and income and those without, but that gap was already widening …