Law Commons^™

Guatemala's Past Casts An Ominous Shadow, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

Slides: Sources Of Electrical Energy For Those Who Are Remote And Poor, Frank Barnes

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Frank Barnes, Distinguished Professor, Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado

24 slides

Slides: Appropriate Sustainable Energy Technologies: A Light To The World, Lakshman D. Guruswamy, Jason B. Aamodt, Blake Feamster

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Jason Aamodt, Attorney; Adjunct Professor, University of Tulsa

15 slides

Recognizing The Link Among Climate Change, Food, And Poverty, Helen H. Kang

Publications

The United States must begin to meet in earnest the challenges that climate change poses to adequate nutrition for the poor and the hungry. Climate change is profoundly affecting agriculture and is expected to continue to do so, resulting in sometimes-sharp food-price fluctuations to which our government at all levels is unprepared to respond. While those with resources may be able to cope with price volatility, those who are already undernourished are less able without government programs nimbly responding to fluctuations in food prices. Compounding the problem for U.S. households, the predicted cost increases of other necessities such as energy …

Poverty In America: Why Can't We End It?, Peter B. Edelman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The lowest percentage in poverty since we started counting was 11.1 percent in 1973. The rate climbed as high as 15.2 percent in 1983. In 2000, after a spurt of prosperity, it went back down to 11.3 percent, and yet 15 million more people are poor today.

At the same time, we have done a lot that works. From Social Security to food stamps to the earned-income tax credit and on and on, we have enacted programs that now keep 40 million people out of poverty. Poverty would be nearly double what it is now without these measures, according to …

Changing Social Security To Achieve Long-Term Solvency And Make Other Improvements: Background Factors, Issues, Options, Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

For years those responsible for Social Security and policy analysts have acknowledged that the present statutory framework for determining and financing program benefits is unsustainable. Nonetheless, despite the work of Presidential commissions, countless Congressional hearings, proposals for reform advanced by individuals and groups across the political spectrum, changes to Social Security that would restore its fiscal balance into the foreseeable future have repeatedly been deferred or deflected by the nation's law-makers.

This paper aims to assist analysis of and reflection on the range of options for ensuring Social Security's future while not adding yet another solvency proposal to the already …

Education's Elusive Future, Storied Past, And The Fundamental Inequity In Between, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Purpose Vs. Power: Parens Patriae And Agency Self-Interest, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of human service agencies to serve vulnerable populations such as abused and neglected children derives from the common law doctrine of parens patriae, embodying the inherent role of the state as parent of the country. However, along with this foundational purpose, the parens patriae doctrine also provides power that is illusive to public knowledge and oversight. To maintain their cloak of power, the very agencies created to fulfill the parens patriae obligations — to protect the rights of children — have systematically battled the children’s efforts to claim those rights as their own. Also, the agencies have now …

Middle Income Peers As Educational Resources And The Constitutional Right To Equal Access, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

Concentrated poverty in public schools continues to be a leading determinate of the educational opportunities that minority students receive. Since the effective end of mandatory desegregation, advocates have lacked legal tools to address it. As an alternative, some advocates and scholars have attempted to incorporate the concerns of concentrated poverty and racial segregation into educational litigation under state constitutions, but these efforts have been slow to take hold. Thus, all that has remained for students in poor and minority schools is the hope that school finance litigation could direct sufficient resources to mitigate their plight. This Article offers another solution. …

Mobilization And Poverty Law: Searching For Participatory Democracy Amongst The Ashes Of The War On Poverty, Wendy A. Bach

Scholarly Works

In 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the federal government launched Community Action, a program that was to be designed and implemented with the maximum feasible participation of the poor. Today in governance theory, we are told once again that participation by affected communities in the mechanisms of governance have the ability to deepen democracy – to yield better policy and to engage new voices in the mechanisms of democracy. Mobilization and Poverty Law: Searching for Participatory Democracy Amongst the Ashes of The War on Poverty turns to history to explore a question central to both governance …

Massachusetts Immigrants By The Numbers, Second Edition: Demographic Characteristics And Economic Footprint, Alan Clayton-Matthews, Paul Watanabe

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

With this update to the original groundbreaking study of Massachusetts Immigrants by the Numbers in 2009, we continue to focus on the economic and social contributions that immigrants have made in building the vibrant Massachusetts economy. It shows that, despite heightened public debate, the demographic characteristics and economic trends of the state’s immigrant population have remained largely unchanged. Immigrants continue to have a positive impact on the Commonwealth.

Don't Forget Dad: Addressing Women's Poverty By Rethinking Forced And Outdated Child Support Policies, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

In the dialogues regarding reducing poverty among women, especially mothers, the inextricably linked issues surrounding low-income men must be simultaneously considered. In social policy addressing women’s poverty, poor fathers have too often been considered primarily as an enemy to be pursued rather than a fellow victim of poverty’s wrath, and potential partner towards the cure. We want someone to blame, and many assume that poor single mothers are best served by always being encouraged — and even forced — to pursue the noncustodial fathers for financial support through adversarial means. Mothers applying for public assistance are forced to sue the …

Middle-Income Peers As Educational Resources And The Constitutional Right To Equal Access, Derek W. Black

Faculty Publications

Concentrated poverty in public schools continues to be a leading determinate of the educational opportunities that minority students receive. Since the effective end of mandatory desegregation, advocates have lacked legal tools to address it. As an alternative, some advocates and scholars have attempted to incorporate the concerns of concentrated poverty and racial segregation into educational litigation under state constitutions, but these efforts have been slow to take hold. Thus, all that has remained for students in poor and minority schools is the hope that school finance litigation could direct sufficient resources to mitigate their plight. This Article offers another solution. …

Reclaiming Demographics: Women, Poverty, And The Common Interest In Particular Struggles, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Invited Symposium Introduction for Jan. 2012 AALS Poverty Section Panel.

Occupying America: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The American Dream, And The Challenge Of Socio-Economic Inequality, Trina Jones

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Undo Undue Hardship: An Objective Approach To Discharging Federal Students Loans In Bankruptcy, Aaron N. Taylor

All Faculty Scholarship

A debtor seeking to discharge student loans in bankruptcy must prove that paying the debt would cause an undue hardship upon him and his dependents. Undue hardship, however, is an undefined concept, flummoxing debtors, creditors and judges alike. The result of this ambiguity is rampant inconsistency in the manners in which similarly-situated debtors (and creditors) are treated by the courts. This article argues that the undue hardship standard should be replaced by a framework that uses debt service thresholds to determine the propriety of federal student loan bankruptcy discharges. Eligibility for discharge would depend on outstanding loan amounts, debtor income …

Community Economic Development And The Paradox Of Power, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article starts from the premise that poverty is a growing problem in the United States. Intergenerational poverty, the entrenchment of a class of very poor people, is a major sub set of that problem and is tied very closely to the issue of race. The author claims that missing in the fight by the poor and their allies against stratified poverty is the creation and utilization of power. This paper examines the disparate ways in which commentators have defined power. It suggests that those seeking to obtain power must understand the concept’s varying meanings and direct their activities to …

De-Concentrating Poverty: De-Constructing A Theory And The Failure Of Hope, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since the late 1980s, led by William Julius Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged, scholars have been writing about the social problems caused by the concentration in residential communities of high levels of poverty. Even before Wilson’s book, government policy, which previously had resulted in racially and economically segregated communities, had begun to shift towards de-concentration. The consent decree in Hills v Gautreaux, and the HOPE VI and Moving to Opportunity Programs all pointed towards de-concentration of poverty. Commentators have suggested both benign and not-so-benign reasons for the policy shift.

There were a variety of quite hopeful goals promoted by …