Law Commons^™

Hollow Promises For Pregnant Students – How The Regulations Governing Title Ix Fail To Protect Them From Discrimination In School, Kendra H. Fershee

Kendra H Fershee

This Article describes the unequal treatment of pregnant students historically in American public school historically and how the regulations implementing Title IX are too weak to ensure that the historical discrimination cease, despite the prohibitions on discriminatory practices. This Article explains the historical reasons for the discrimination, Congress’s attempt to remedy the discrimination through Title IX and its implementing regulations, and the failure of the regulations to meet the regulatory goals of school access, choice, and quality. The Article continues to make concrete suggestions, with specific language recommendations, for changes in the current Title IX regulations with respect to pregnancy. …

Will Americans Embrace Single-Payer Health Insurance: The Intractable Barriers Of Inertia, Free Market, And Culture, Susan Adler Channick

Susan Channick

This article posits that the adoption of single-payer health insurance is effectively impossible in the United States. In spite of evidence that a single-payer system might be substantially more efficient and inexpensive than the complex, administratively-burdened multi-payer system we currently have, the probability that it can be part of health care reform is remote at best. The article identifies a number of reasons that a single-payer health insurance system cannot succeed ranging from inertia, path dependence, the expense of Medicare, the American belief in looking to the private sector for solutions to even large societal problems, the fear of big …

A Black Mathematician Responds To Delgado, Aris B. Winger

Aris B Winger

A Black mathematician, a rarity, responds to Richard Delgado's famous "Role Model" article by elucidating crucial mistakes made by the author in his arguments against being a role role model.

Locking Schools Into More Than They Bargained For: The Effects Of The No Child Left Behind Upon Our Schools Ability To Control Their Own Education, Jake S. Phillips

Jake S Phillips

This article finds the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) has failed to provide states with the federal funding their schools were promised to receive, when they first accepted the mandated terms. Under the NCLBA, every state established accountability plans for their schools; and if they failed to meet required “adequate yearly progress” they would suffer penalties including a reduction in funding. Since federal funding has never been provided fully, schools have struggled to meet their established accountability plans. As a result, states would like to opt out of the NCLBA and regain their own control, but they can not …

Low Probability/High Consequence Events: Dilemmas Of Damage Compensation, Richard O. Lempert

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

This article was prepared for a Clifford Symposium which challenged paper writers to imagine how our system of tort compensation might look in the year 2020. This paper responds to an aspect of the general challenge: to imagine a tort recovery system which would deal adequately with rare and catastrophic events. To get a handle on this problem, the paper looks closely at how the legal system compensated damages attendant on four recent events that might be considered “rare and catastrophic” – Three Mile Island, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In no case did the system …

Law In The Healthcare Crisis, John W. Hill

John W Hill Sr

The U.S. faces a healthcare crisis of monumental proportions with myriad facets including issues of access, quality, and affordability. Medical malpractice liability in this crisis is often alleged to play a role in this crisis through its impact on physician compensation and shortages. This study goes beyond the rhetorical arguments in exposing the root causes of the crisis to be the structure of healthcare delivery and physician compensation systems, in part using pooled data we develop. These systems greatly increase the cost of healthcare, lead to far too many medical errors, and skew the distribution of physicians across specialties, in …

Law And The Healthcare Crisis, John W. Hill

John W Hill Sr

The U.S. faces a healthcare crisis of monumental proportions with myriad facets including issues of access, quality, and affordability. Medical malpractice liability in this crisis is often alleged to play a role in this crisis through its impact on physician compensation and shortages. This study goes beyond the rhetorical arguments in exposing the root causes of the crisis to be the structure of healthcare delivery and physician compensation systems, in part using pooled data we develop. These systems greatly increase the cost of healthcare, lead to far too many medical errors, and skew the distribution of physicians across specialties, in …

Monstrous By Law: Gothic Technology In Four Slavery Texts, Theodore A.B. Mccombs

Theodore A.B. McCombs

Monstrous by Law explores two famous legal texts of antebellum American slavery—THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER, regarding the 1831 slave rebellion; and the notorious trial of Margaret Garner, the fugitive slave who murdered her children to prevent them from being taken back into slavery. Using theories developed by Toni Morrison and Judith Halberstam, the essay examines how these two texts make use of a particular “Gothic technology,” by which the black defendants are portrayed as monstrous figures that help define and reinforce white identity by contrast. The essay then turns to Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno, which was inspired in …

Judicial Adherence To A Minimum Core Approach To Socio-Economic Rights – A Comparative Perspective, Joie Chowdhury

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Today’s world is witness to extraordinary inequality and the most desperate poverty. Millions of people across the world have no access to adequate food or water, basic health care or minimum levels of education. There are many avenues through which to approach the issue of improving socio-economic conditions. Courts, especially recently, have in certain countries, been seeking to ameliorate these conditions, to some extent, through the means of socio-economic rights adjudication.

For courts to effectively empower people to realize their socio-economic rights, attention to implementation of judgments is essential. A strong normative base for such judgments is just as crucial, …

Prevention Or Pretext: The Designation Of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Syed Ali M. Jafri

Syed Ali M. Jafri

This paper examines whether the “Foreign Terrorist Organization” & “Specially Designated Foreign Terrorists” designations are applied in a consistent manner. The author concludes that the designations are applied inconsistently and are used in the post September 11th era as a tool not only against legitimate terrorist targets, but also against the ideological opponents of United States foreign policy. Specifically the designations are used against Islamic based political movements. The pre-textual use of terrorist designations against ideological opponents weakens the United States position in the battle against terrorism, and undermines their legitimate security concerns. The current application of the designation schemes …

Giving Every Child A Chance: The Need For Reform And Infrastructure In Intercountry Adoption Policy, Rachel J. Wechsler

Rachel J. Wechsler

This essay is both descriptive and normative in nature. Its purpose is to describe the current intercountry adoption regime along with its problems, and to propose a much-needed solution. At the outset, the paper explains the great need for intercountry adoption, highlighting empirical research on child development. Secondly, it gives an overview of past and present international adoption policy. Thirdly, the essay describes the problems in the current policy regime. Finally, it proposes an international agency and Family Court as a new approach to intercountry adoption that will solve many of the failures of the current system.

Defining The Relationship Between Corruption And Human Rights, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

The relationship between corruption and human rights is only beginning to be seriously examined. A major premise of the ongoing research argues that corruption disables a State from meeting its obligations to respect, fulfill and protect the human rights of its citizens.

This study explores two other relationships between human rights and corruption. First, by showing how individualistic and procedural rights have been used to defeat investigations and prosecutions of corruption by high level governmental officials. Second, in demonstrating how anti-corruption reforms have primarily targeted the promotion market efficiency while reducing spending in meeting basic needs and rights such as …

Section 529 Prepaid College Tuition Scholarships: Help In Uncertain Economic Times, Carol Zeiner

Carol Zeiner

The economy is wretched. The United States’ economic recovery is dependent in part on the country’s position in a global economy. If we as a nation wish to remain competitive in a knowledge-based economy that requires a higher level of education, we must facilitate greater access to postsecondary education. Unfortunately, in the last two decades, the United States has fallen from first to tenth place in the world in the proportion of its population that has obtained that all important postsecondary education. President Obama has set a goal of restoring the United States to first place by 2020. The United …

The ‘Growth Budget’: Disciplined And Responsible Government Spending For Future Prosperity, Neil H. Buchanan

Neil H. Buchanan

This essay considers how spending by the federal government can improve long-term living standards. The familiar concept of “capital budgeting” separates government expenditures into two categories: purchases of goods and services for current consumption that provide no long-term payoff (“operating expenditures”), and purchases of productive capital goods that do generate long-term payoffs (“capital expenditures”). Within that framework, I advocate expanding the range of possible public investments that would count as capital expenditures to include those that do not produce physical infrastructure but that nevertheless provide long-term economic benefits. Adding these items – such as spending on basic research, health care, …

Delivery Of Legal Services To Immigrant Small Business Owners: The Problems And A Model To Solve Them, Pablo A. Ormachea, William A. Langer

William A Langer

Delivery of Legal Services to Immigrant Small Business Owners: The Problems and a Model to Solve Them. By Pablo Ormachea & William Langer

Immigrant entrepreneurs not only provide essential support for individual families, but also serve as key engines of economic growth for United States cities. While immigrant small-business owners continuously stimulate growth in various economic sectors, creating new jobs and helping to develop inner-city neighborhoods, they overcome considerable obstacles and barriers to reach these achievements. This article argues that a deeper understanding of such systemic barriers can help to reduce such barriers so that an increasingly larger number of …

Defining The Relationship Between Corruption And Human Rights, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

The relationship between corruption and human rights is only beginning to be seriously examined. A major premise of the ongoing research argues that corruption disables a State from meeting its obligations to respect, fulfill and protect the human rights of its citizens.

This study explores two other relationships between human rights and corruption. First, by showing how individualistic and procedural rights have been used to defeat investigations and prosecutions of corruption by high level governmental officials. Second, in demonstrating how anti-corruption reforms have primarily targeted the promotion market efficiency while reducing spending in meeting basic needs and rights such as …

Tainted Loans: Towards A Mass Torts Approach To Subprime Mortgage Litigation, Raymond H. Brescia

Raymond H Brescia

A poison has entered the financial bloodstream. The subprime mortgage crisis and the wider financial crisis it has spawned have caused the erosion of trillions of dollars in wealth, destroyed whole communities and the dislocation of millions of homeowners. Yet, unlike in other situations where toxic products have caused widespread harm, to date, we have not seen an avalanche of litigation, large jury awards, massive settlements compensating victims and financial ruin for the distributors of those products. Some of this is changing, however. Litigation arising out of the present financial crisis is hitting the courts, including suits alleging discrimination in …

The Kiss Of Death: A Sowellian Analysis Of International Recognition And The Somaliland Paradigm, Donato J. Latrofa

Donato J Latrofa

The concept of “statehood” and “recognition” governs debate about the future of Africa, and in particular, what should be done with Somalia/Somaliland. The question lately has been whether or not newly-formed/seceded nations should be “recognized” (as if recognition by the rest of the organized world equates to legitimacy or functionality). Many scholars believe that Somaliland should be “recognized” because it has shown itself to be a bastion of calm in the Horn of Africa. However, these scholars overlook that such a decision may not be costless to Somalilanders and their government. The first part of this article gives a background …

Defining The Relationship Between Corruption And Human Rights, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

The relationship between corruption and human rights is only beginning to be seriously examined. A major premise of the ongoing research argues that corruption disables a State from meeting its obligations to respect, fulfill and protect the human rights of its citizens.

This study explores two other relationships between human rights and corruption. First, by showing how individualistic and procedural rights have been used to defeat investigations and prosecutions of corruption by high level governmental officials. Second, in demonstrating how anti-corruption reforms have primarily targeted the promotion market efficiency while reducing spending in meeting basic needs and rights such as …

Defining The Relationship Between Corruption And Human Rights, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

The relationship between corruption and human rights is only beginning to be seriously examined. A major premise of the ongoing research argues that corruption disables a State from meeting its obligations to respect, fulfill and protect the human rights of its citizens.

This study explores two other relationships between human rights and corruption. First, by showing how individualistic and procedural rights have been used to defeat investigations and prosecutions of corruption by high level governmental officials. Second, in demonstrating how anti-corruption reforms have primarily targeted the promotion market efficiency while reducing spending in meeting basic needs and rights such as …

Between Hope And Evil: Reframing Disability Allowances, Sagit Mor

Sagit Mor

The paper identifies and traces the roots of a fundamental tension that underlies disability politics with regard to disability allowances: are cash benefits an archaic and outdated form of assistance to disabled people, or are they still a relevant mode of response to systematic marginalization and exclusion? Based on a field study of the Israeli disability community the paper shows that while disability rights advocates tend to reject disability allowances as fundamentally wrong and to support the transformation of society's social structures, welfare activists tend to view disability allowances as responding to the most pressing needs of poor disabled people. …

Defining The Relationship Between Corruption And Human Rights, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

The relationship between corruption and human rights is only beginning to be seriously examined. A major premise of the ongoing research argues that corruption disables a State from meeting its obligations to respect, fulfill and protect the human rights of its citizens.

This study explores two other relationships between human rights and corruption. First, by showing how individualistic and procedural rights have been used to defeat investigations and prosecutions of corruption by high level governmental officials. Second, in demonstrating how anti-corruption reforms have primarily targeted the promotion market efficiency while reducing spending in meeting basic needs and rights such as …

Defining The Relationship Between Corruption And Human Rights, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

The relationship between corruption and human rights is only beginning to be seriously examined. A major premise of the ongoing research argues that corruption disables a State from meeting its obligations to respect, fulfill and protect the human rights of its citizens.

This study explores two other relationships between human rights and corruption. First, by showing how individualistic and procedural rights have been used to defeat investigations and prosecutions of corruption by high level governmental officials. Second, in demonstrating how anti-corruption reforms have primarily targeted the promotion market efficiency while reducing spending in meeting basic needs and rights such as …

Subprime Communities: Reverse Redlining, The Fair Housing Act And Emerging Issues In Litigation Regarding The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Raymond H. Brescia

Raymond H Brescia

As the nation struggles to find its bearings in the current financial crisis, and venerable pillars of Wall Street crumble, hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent to shore up the financial system and re-capitalize credit markets. While the eyes of Washington are directed towards Wall Street, there is much talk of the need to prop up Main Street as well, and nowhere is this more apparent than in communities and neighborhoods across the United States that have experienced the first wave of the financial crisis hit: home upon home of foreclosed properties, abandoned and neglected, their absent silence …

Sheltering Counsel: Towards A Right To A Lawyer In Eviction Proceedings, Raymond H. Brescia

Raymond H Brescia

This Article provides an overview of the current arguments presented by advocates who seek to establish a right to counsel for indigent tenants in eviction proceedings and assesses the strength of those arguments in the current political, social, and economic milieu. It is beyond question that the overwhelming majority of low-income tenants are unrepresented in proceedings in which their homes are in jeopardy and having counsel in such proceedings often prevents eviction and homelessness. Preventing those evictions reduces the human cost of homelessness, saves government substantial money by not having to provide shelter to the homeless, and preserves the stock …

Rape, Feminism, And The War On Crime, Aya Gruber

Aya Gruber

Over the past several years, feminism has been increasingly associated with crime control and the incarceration of men. In apparent lock step with the movement of the American penal system, feminists have advocated a host of reforms to strengthen state power to punish gender-based crimes. In the rape context, this effort has produced mixed results. Sexual assault laws that adopt prevailing views of criminality and victimhood, such as predator laws, enjoy great popularity. However, reforms that target the difficulties of date rape prosecutions and seek to counter gender norms, such as rape shield and affirmative consent laws, are controversial, sporadically-implemented, …

Pretend “Gun-Free” School Zones: A Deadly Legal Fiction, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Most states issue permits to carry a concealed handgun for lawful protection to an applicant who is over 21 years of age, and who passes a fingerprint-based background check and a safety class. These permits allow the person to carry a concealed defensive handgun almost everywhere in the state. Should professors, school teachers, or adult college and graduate students who have such permits be allowed to carry firearms on campus? In the last two years, many state legislatures have debated the topic. School boards, regents, and administrators are likewise faced with decisions about whether to change campus firearms policies. The …

The Idea Eligibility Mess, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees students with disabilities a free public education appropriate to their needs, but students must meet the definition of “child with a disability” to be eligible for that entitlement. The law governing special education eligibility, however, is charitably characterized as a mess. There are several sources of the current eligibility confusion. First, recent court cases have reached conflicting conclusions about how much adverse educational impact the child’s disabling condition must have, what constitutes a sufficient need for special education, and when children with emotional disabilities are eligible. Second, long-established methods for assessing learning …

More Private Equity, Less Government Subsidy, And More Tax Efficiency In Urban Revitalization, Roger M. Groves

Roger M. Groves

MORE PRIVATE EQUITY, LESS GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY, AND MORE TAX EFFICIENCY IN URBAN REVITALIZATION: Modeling Profitable Philanthropy and Investment Incentives In hopes of revitalizing depressed urban areas, US tax policy has been to use tax credits as a major incentive to induce private equity re-investment. But those give away subsidies to private investors have failed to have transformative effects, and come at a price in the billions to the public treasury. This article seeks a shift in the tax policy paradigm to increase the private equity investment, while reducing tax subsidy dependence. For the philanthropic urban investor, the short term incentive …

Age Discrimination And Social Benefits: The Long Retreat From Tétreault-Gadoury?, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

This case note looks at a number of recent decisions of the Canadian courts concerning age discrimination as it applies to social benefits.