Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

The Prison Litigation Reform Act Exhaustion Requirement: How A Legislative Decision From 1996 Is Controlling Covid-19 Conditions Inside Correctional Facilities, And What Can Be Done To Fix It, Hannah E. Mirzoeff

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Coming Causation Revolution In Employment Discrimination Litigation, D’Andra Millsap Shu

Cardozo Law Review

For more than a decade, employment discrimination causation law has been a confusing, often overly restrictive quagmire that has contributed substantially to the paltry success rate of plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases. Most of these cases are dismissed pretrial, all too often based on a failure of causation. A key reason traces back to loose and misleading language—centered on a single word—in a 2009 Supreme Court opinion involving the but-for causation standard that applies in most discrimination cases. The Court said that the discriminatory motive must be “the” but-for cause of the employer’s action when it should have said “a” …

Civil Rights Catch-22s, Jonathan P. Feingold

Cardozo Law Review

Civil rights advocates have long viewed litigation as a vital path to social change. In many ways, it is. But in key respects that remain underexplored in legal scholarship, even successful litigation can hinder remedial projects. This perverse effect stems from civil rights doctrines that incentivize litigants (or their attorneys) to foreground community plight—such as academic underachievement or overincarceration. Rational plaintiffs, responding in kind, deploy legal narratives that tend to track racial stereotypes and regressive theories of inequality. When this occurs, even successful lawsuits can harden the structural and behavioral forces that produce and perpetuate racial inequality.

I refer to …

Driving The National Labor Relations Act Forward: Analyzing Abusive Conduct That Occurs In The Course Of Protected Activity After General Motors Llc, Kurt Stumpo

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sex Work Is Real Work: The Implications Of U.S. Strippers Winning The Right To Unionize, An International Comparative Study, Katherine Fustich

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note examines the landmark NLRB decision in *Nolan Enterprises*, which granted U.S. strippers the right to unionize by classifying them as employees rather than independent contractors. This ruling has significant implications for labor rights in the sex work industry, both domestically and internationally. The analysis compares this development with international perspectives from the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, highlighting the challenges and opportunities for sex worker unionization and the broader implications for labor movements globally.

Why Do You Care About My Hair? A Proposal For Remedying Hair Discrimination In The Workplace On A Federal Level, Grayson Moronta

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

P*Law 2022, Center For Public Service Law

2021–2022 Flyers

This document outlines the full schedule for P*LAW Week 2022 at Cardozo School of Law, presented by the Center for Public Service Law. Held virtually from January 24 to January 27, the week featured panels, workshops, and discussions on key issues in public interest law, including immigration policy, educational equity, criminal justice reform, reproductive rights, data privacy, military law, labor rights, and overdose prevention. Events brought together legal professionals, advocates, scholars, and Cardozo students to explore law’s role in advancing social justice and supporting vulnerable communities.

The Commodification Of Public Land Records, Reid Kress Weisbord, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

The United States deed recording system alters the “first in time, first in right” doctrine to enable good faith purchasers to record their deeds to protect themselves against prior unrecorded conveyances and to provide constructive notice of their interests to potential subsequent purchasers. Constructive notice, however, works only when land records are available for public inspection, a practice that had long proved uncontroversial. For centuries, deed archives were almost exclusively patronized by land-transacting parties because the difficulty and cost of title examination deterred nearly everyone else.

The modern information economy, however, propelled this staid corner of property law into a …

The Need For Mediation In Internal Whistleblowing Mechanisms, Elad Michael

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.

The Monetization Of Childhood: How Child Social Media Stars Are Unprotected From Exploitation In The United States, Jessica Pacht-Friedman

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note highlights the legal vulnerabilities of child social media influencers, or "kidfluencers," who are increasingly exploited due to inadequate protections under U.S. labor laws. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exempts child performers, and while some states have Coogan Laws, these are insufficient to address the unique challenges posed by digital platforms like YouTube. The author advocates for expanding these protections to include social media stars and adopting a "Right to be Forgotten" to safeguard children's privacy and financial interests.

Equal Education Means Equal Education: Confronting Education Access Disparities For New York Students Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic During The 2020-2021 School Year, Sara Gruber

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing educational disparities, particularly affecting low-income and minority students in New York due to the shift to online learning. The state's current legislation, such as the Dignity for All Students Act, fails to address these off-campus digital divide issues, necessitating legal reform to ensure equal educational opportunities.

Beyond The Grave: A Fiduciary’S Access To A Decedent’S Digital Assets, Isabelle N. Sehati

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment Of Proposed Department Of Labor Regulations On Esg Investing, Prudence And Loyalty, Edward A. Zelinsky

Testimony

DOL’s proposed regulations about ERISA’s fiduciary duties of prudence and loyalty weaken the protection of America’s workers and retirees. Accordingly, these proposed regulations should be amended to delete the imprudent, unproven and ambiguous term “ESG,” to add more balanced examples which reduce misperceptions of ERISA’s fiduciary duties, and to expunge altogether the concept of tie-breaking which violates the duty of loyalty by encouraging the pursuit of collateral benefits.

The fundamental claims of ESG advocates are economically implausible. Such advocates assert that they consistently outperform and manipulate competitive markets. This claim is unpersuasive.

ESG proponents assert that a person making an …

In House Counsel Panel, Cardozo Office Of Career Services, Cardozo Startup Society, Cardozo Business Law Society, Cardozo Labor And Employment Law Society

2021–2022 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Defend Fired Workers Learn Litigation Skills, Unemployment Action Center

2021–2022 Flyers

No abstract provided.

The Right To Dine: Why New York City's Restaurant Culture Is Worth Saving, Evelyn Baert

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note argues that New York City's restaurant culture, akin to Paris's, holds significant cultural and economic value and should be preserved through comprehensive government relief measures. It advocates for adopting a French-inspired approach to economic aid, emphasizing the importance of restaurants as social and cultural hubs beyond mere economic entities.

Title Vii Prohibits Employment Discrimination... Except When It Doesn't: Eliminating The Small Firm Exemption, Hayley Bronner

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The note argues that the small firm exemption in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which excludes employers with fewer than fifteen employees from coverage, undermines the law's purpose of eradicating employment discrimination. The exemption, initially a political compromise, lacks an evidence-based foundation and disproportionately affects vulnerable groups such as women and minorities. The analysis suggests that eliminating this exemption is essential to achieve universal protection and align Title VII with broader state and international laws, proposing measures like damage caps to mitigate potential burdens on small businesses.

Contra Publius: The House As Cure For The Complaisance And Venality Of The Senate, Sam Solomon

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Employers’ Secret Weapon: How The After-Acquired Evidence Doctrine Allows Employers To Get Away With Disability Discrimination, Emma Schwab

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Firing Employment At Will And Discharging Termination Claims From Employment Discrimination: A Cooperative Federalism Approach To Improve Employment Law, William R. Corbett

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Packing Is A Chimera, Brian L. Frye

Cardozo Law Review

The dream of the 1930s is alive in Washington. Democrats see Republicans hemorrhaging voters as Trump struggles with the economy and the pandemic and are salivating at the prospect of retaking not only the White House, but also the Senate. Of course, you should never sell a bearskin until you’ve caught the bear. But even a blowout victory can’t get Democrats the prize they really want, a Supreme Court majority. So, in back-to-the-future fashion, many progressives are pushing the idea of court packing. After all, in politics, rules are made to be broken.

Legalizing Undocumented Work, Jennifer J. Lee

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paid To Play: College Athletes Face Off With The Ncaa In The High Court, Heyman Center On Corporate Governance, Cardozo Antitrust Society, Cardozo Business Law Society, Cardozo Labor And Employment Law Society, Cardozo Sports Law Society, Hiba Hafiz, Glen Nager, Josh Mendelsohn, Daniel Lust

2020–2021 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Who Killed The Mockingbird?-An Analysis Of Community Theatres' Legal Standing Amid Copyright Disputes Over To Kill A Mockingbird And How To Protect Community Theatres, Yifan Li

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Defining Who Is An Employee After A.B.5: Trading Uniformity And Simplicity For Expanded Coverage, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

My assessment of California’s A.B.5 differs from the evaluation advanced by the advocates and opponents of that legislation: I conclude that A.B.5 made a significant but limited expansion of the coverage of California labor law but at a notable cost. Even as A.B.5 broadened the reach of the Golden State’s labor protections, A.B.5 also made the definition of "employee” more complex and less uniform. Those seeking federal or state legislation like A.B.5 confront the same trade-off under which greater coverage is achieved at the expense of more complexity and less uniformity in the definition of who is an employee. The …

If You Build It, Will They Come? An Empirical Study Of The Voluntary Use Of Mediation And Its Implications, Dwight Golann

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

A generation ago, American litigants did not often go to mediation voluntarily. Advocates of the process predicted, however, that as lawyers and parties became more familiar with mediation, they would opt to use it more often. But, is this true? Virtually no data exists about how often litigants voluntarily choose to mediate legal disputes, whether use varies in different kinds of cases, and what motivates litigants' decisions whether to mediate or not. This Article presents data about each of these issues and analyzes its meaning.

The Use Of Mediation To Resolve Conflicts Arising From Cultural Appropriation By Western Fashion Brands, Faith Adongo

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The Cambridge Dictionary defines cultural appropriation as "the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture." It is sometimes referred to as cultural misappropriation, and also defined as taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from a culture other than one's own, without permission. Supporters of cultural appropriation see it as the only realistic way of developing, spreading and integrating cultures, while critics see it as a means through which dominant cultures "borrow" from the cultures of minority groups.

Mediation: Embedded Assumptions Of Whiteness?, Sharon Press, Ellen E. Deason

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Article began with the murder of George Floyd by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25, 2020, after a convenience store employee reported that Floyd used a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase cigarettes. Seventeen minutes after the police arrived, Floyd was unconscious, pinned beneath them. The events were recorded by bystanders and the public was confronted with visual evidence of what has been happening to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) especially Black men-for centuries. It was dramatic testimony that law enforcement is based on a system that is the product of systemic racism and …

Peace Of Play: For Labor Harmony, Baseball Needs Antitrust Exemption To Go And Salary Cap To Stay, Joshua Burton

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that Major League Baseball (MLB) can address its labor disputes, competitive imbalances, and economic challenges by revoking its antiquated antitrust exemption and implementing a salary cap and floor system. These reforms would promote fairness, incentivize competitive spending, and prevent future work stoppages, aligning MLB's economic structure with other major sports leagues.

The Secrets Behind Reality Television Shows And Their Unconscionable Contracts, Stephanie Rimberg

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that reality television show contracts are often unconscionable due to the significant imbalance of power between producers and participants. These contracts frequently classify participants as independent contractors, despite their integral role in the show, and include provisions that are procedurally and substantively unfair, such as disclaimers of liability and arbitration clauses. The author contends that these contracts violate California contract law and public policy, advocating for participants to be reclassified as employees and for contracts to be amended to protect their rights.