Law and Society Commons^™

Climate Change And The Threat To U.S. Jails And Prisons, Laurie L. Levenson

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Dicamba Is Gone With The Wind: The Ninth Circuit Blows Life Into Fifra In National Family Farm Coalition V. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Timothy Howley Keith

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Blocking Nature's Vulnerable Calls For Help: The Tenth Circuit Dials Into The Telecommunications Act's Federal Environmental Preemption Clause In Santa Fe Alliance V. City Of Santa Fe, Samantha Speiss

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Deep South’S Constitutional Con, Lynn Uzzell

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hermeneutics For Legal Research And Analysis, Konstantin G. Vertsman

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Inter-Circuit Judicial Splits Surrounding The Class Action Fairness Act’S “Local Single Event” Exception—A Proposal To Resolve The Confusion, Odalys Vielma

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Marijuana Legalization: Child-Centered Considerations In Texas Family Law Matters, Julie Whitson

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Dark Side Of Due Process: Part Ii, Why Penumbral Rights And Cost/Benefit Balancing Tests Are Bad, Joshua J. Schroeder

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Antiabortion Civil Remedies And Unwed Fatherhood As Genetic Entitlement, Yvonne F. Lindgren

Faculty Works

Antiabortion civil remedy laws in effect in five states grant putative fathers the right to sue abortion providers for wrongful death regardless of their relationship to the gestating parent. While these laws represent an important new development in the movement to restrict the abortion right, they also expand parental recognition of unwed fathers. Constitutional law requires that unwed fathers who seek to assert parental rights must establish that they possess both biological connection and a relationship with their child or the gestating parent—what has come to be known as “biology-plus.” However, antiabortion civil remedy laws vest parental recognition and rights …

Maritime Magic: How Cruise Lines Can Avoid State Law Compliance Through Passenger Contracts, Cameron Chuback

University of Miami Law Review

Florida Statutes section 381.00316 prohibits businesses in Florida from requiring consumers to provide documentary proof of COVID-19 vaccination to access businesses’ goods and services. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (“NCLH”) has recently challenged section 381.00316’s applicability to its cruise operations because NCLH believes that requiring its passengers to provide documentary proof of COVID-19 vaccination is the one constant that allows NCLH’s cruise ships to smoothly access foreign ports, which have differing COVID-19 protocols and rules. In Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Ltd. v. Rivkees, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled in favor of NCLH on this …

Reforming Age Cutoffs, Govind C. Persad

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the use of minimum age cutoffs to define eligibility for social insurance, public benefits, and other governmental programs. These cutoffs are frequently used but rarely examined in detail. In Part I, I examine and catalogue policies that employ minimum age cutoffs. These include not only Medicare and Social Security but also other policies such as access to pensions and retirement benefits, eligibility for favorable tax treatment, and eligibility for discounts on governmentally provided goods and services. In Part II, I examine different rationales underlying eligibility and discuss the imperfect fit between these rationales and the use of …

Addressing Stigma And False Beliefs About Mental Health: A New Direction For Mental Health Parity Advocacy, Claire Sontheimer, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

Despite laws designed to protect mental health and substance use parity in the United States, real parity remains an aspiration. Under the current system, insurance companies use multiple tactics to deny coverage for or delay the provision of mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD) treatment. The difficulty of enforcing parity creates a barrier to achieving the goal of accessible behavioral health services. Rather than a continued effort to legislate our way out of this conundrum, it may be useful to look further upstream. Critical impediments to achieving such parity include the basic attitudes and beliefs about mental and behavioral …

Cafo’S Are A Public Health Crisis:The Creation Of Covid-19, Helena Masiello

University of Miami Law Review

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (“CAFO’s”) are largely unregulated by State or Federal Laws in the United States. As a result of this lack of oversight, they are a breeding ground for deadly infectious diseases. The COVID-19 epidemic has demonstrated the threat that diseases pose to the United State like H1N1, SARS, and Ebola.
The USDA needs to regulate CAFOs under the mandate given to them by congress in the AHPA to ensure that they are not the epicenter of the next wave of deadly infectious diseases. Scientists have been warning about the disease potential of CAFOs for the last decade, …

Cruel Dilemmas In Contemporary Fertility Care: Problematizing America's Failure To Assure Access To Fertility Preservation For Trans Youth, Anna Reed

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Transgender youth are increasingly able to access gender-affirming healthcare. Because gender-affirming care such as hormone therapy is clinically shown to reduce gender dysphoria and ease physical and social transition, every major U.S. medical association recognizes that gender-affirming healthcare is medically necessary for the treatment of dysphoria. However, an important dimension of gender-affirming care remains under-insured and overpriced: fertility preservation (FP). Several studies indicate that hormone therapies and certain gender-affirming surgeries can have negative, long-term impacts on future fertility. Although these impacts can be mitigated through approved FP methods such as sperm cryopreservation and oocyte cryopreservation, such methods are rarely affordable …

America’S Constant Crisis Of Care: The Case For Passing A National Direct Care Ratio For Nursing Homes, Marissa Espinoza

Journal of Law and Policy

For decades, the conditions in America’s nursing homes have been the subject of bombshell media reporting, governmental investigations, and public outrage. Longstanding issues—such as chronic staffing shortages and inadequate infection control measures—were laid bare as the COVID-19 pandemic tore through nursing homes, exposing society’s most vulnerable populations—the elderly and the sick—to appalling living conditions. Amid horrifying media reports documenting life inside nursing homes, and in response to mounting public outrage, legislators sprang into action. The most aggressive policy proposed was a direct care ratio, which caps the profits that nursing home owners can extract from facilities by mandating a minimum …

A Pandemic Of Separation Of Powers Violations In Texas: The Interrelationship Of The Texas Disaster Act And Texas Gov’T Code Section 22.0035, Ron Beal

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Article is on the interrelationship of the Texas Disaster Act and Texas Government Code Section 22.0035. The author demonstrates that the Governor of Texas and the Texas Supreme Court have grossly violated the separation of powers on a continuing basis since March 29, 2020 by Governor Abbott issuing Executive Order 13, which prohibits the granting of bail to anyone awaiting trial, and the Texas Supreme Court’s unwillingness to invalidate that order administratively or judicially. Finally, the Article addresses the nearly one thousand district and county court judges who are constantly violating the separations of powers by failing to invalidate …

Not Groovy Man: Psilocybin's Long And Complicated History With The Law, And Its Potential To Treat The Growing Mental Health Crisis In America, Zachary Lecompte

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pov: What Rights Could Unravel Next, In Light Of Draft Opinion By Scotus Overturning Roe V. Wade, Robert L. Tsai

Shorter Faculty Works

Beyond what Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization portends for the future of abortion rights is the striking method of analysis he employs in the reported draft. Despite his many efforts to reassure that the opinion “does not undermine” other constitutional rights “in any way,” it actually outlines a roadmap for the withdrawal of other cherished constitutional rights.

Designing An Americans With Abilities Act: Consciousness, Capabilities, And Civil Rights, Laura C. Hoffman, Zachary E. Shapiro, Allison Rabkin Golden, Gregory E. Antill, Katherine Fang, Chaarushena Deb, Elizabeth Clarke, Alexis Kallen, Hanya M. Qureshi, Kai Shulman, Caroline V. Lawrence, Megan S. Wright, Joseph J. Fins

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a seminal piece of legislation aimed at protecting those with disabilities from discrimination. The ADA, however, has not been consistently able to integrate people with disabilities successfully into society. With a specific focus on individuals with serious brain injuries, this Article aims to provide insight into the shortcomings of the ADA, specifically focusing on lackluster enforcement of the legislation and its failure to incorporate promising new technologies. These limitations of the ADA are made even more clear in light of the evolution occurring in the understanding of rights and capabilities. As such, the …

Religious Freedom Vs. Compelled Vaccination: A Case-Study Of The 2018-2019 Measles Pandemic Or The Law As A Public Health Response, Barbara Pfeffer Billauer Esq.

Catholic University Law Review

Following the recent decision in Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo,^[1] clear guidance regarding the state’s powers to act during a pandemic is wanting. I look here to the 2018–2019 global measles epidemic, with a focus on the New York and Israeli experiences, for that guidance. Measles rates increased dramatically during the 2018–2019 season, both in the United States and globally. This phenomenon reflects a general decline in worldwide vaccination and an increase in vaccine resistance stoked by anti-vax groups. In the United States, the epidemic targeted ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, as it did in Israel. This Article evaluates the …

Covid-19 Policies At Sports Venues: The Nfl Should Have Required Attendees To Be Vaccinated, David Caudill

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Protecting A Woman’S Right To Abortion During A Public Health Crisis, San Juanita Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

As COVID-19 infected our nation, states were quick to issue executive orders restricting various aspects of daily life under the pretense of public safety. It was clear at the outset that certain civil liberties were going to be tested. Among them, the constitutional right to an abortion.

This comment explores Texas’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the limitations it imposed on abortion access. It will attempt to address the legitimacy of the “public health concerns” listed in executive orders issued throughout numerous states and will discuss the pertinent legal framework and judicial scrutiny to apply.

According to the Fifth …

Reproduction And Gender Self-Determination: Fertile Grounds For Trans Legal Advocacy, Samira Seraji

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Current medical constructions of trans identities reflect heterosexist understandings of gender expression—understandings that deny access to gender-affirming healthcare to those who fail to perform normative binary genders. As medical providers establish norms for how to “properly” be trans, the state codifies these norms, basing trans existence on rigidly defined and harshly enforced understandings of binary gender. When this construction of transness is codified on an institutional level, such as with gender reclassification rules for government identification, it forces trans people to conform their bodies to cisgender norms, and dangerously disrupts trans people’s bodily autonomy and diminishes their control over their …

Endnotes

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Climate Migration Beyond The Refugee Framework: Creating Bridges Between Human Rights And International Climate Law, Mara Elisa Andrade

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Accounting For Climate Change In United States Regional Ocean Planning: Comparing The Obama And Trump National Ocean Policies To A Climate-Forward Approach, Taylor Goelz

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Swallowing The Rule: Why Ferc’S “Immediate Need Exemption” Frustrates Competitive And Climate-Smart Electricity Sector Transmission Planning Under Order No. 1000, Philip Killeen

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

“At What Cost?’: The Future Of Securities Enforcement In Climate Change Litigation, Angela Washington

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

About Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Because our publication focuses on reconciling the tensions found within our ecosystem, it spans a broad range of environmental issues such as sustainable development; trade; renewable energy; environmental justice; air, water, and …

Editor's Note, Keanu Bader, Alexis Bauman

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.