Law and Society Commons^™

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Gregory W. Bowman, Brooklyn Crockton

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Two Rwu Law Lawmakers Fight To 'Let R.I. Vote' 03-24-2022, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Statutory Interpretation From The Outside, Kevin Tobia, Brian G. Slocum, Victoria Frances Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

How should judges decide which linguistic canons to apply in inter­preting statutes? One important answer looks to the inside of the legisla­tive process: Follow the canons that lawmakers contemplate. A different answer, based on the “ordinary meaning” doctrine, looks to the outside: Follow the canons that guide an ordinary person’s understanding of the legal text. We offer a novel framework for empirically testing linguistic canons “from the outside,” recruiting 4,500 people from the United States and a sample of law students to evaluate hypothetical scenarios that correspond to each canon’s triggering conditions. The empirical findings provide evidence about which traditional …

Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: 'Radical Imagination, Radical Listening', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Kate Levine

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Massive Resistance--The Remix: Anti-Black Policymaking And The Poisoning Of U.S. Public Education, Janel George

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

What is occurring today in state legislatures and school boards around the country—under the guise of conservative attacks on Critical Race Theory—is merely a remix of the same song of white supremacy in public education. This nation has witnessed the impact of legislative campaigns designed to undermine educational opportunity for Black students before. This article applies a Critical Race Theory approach to analyze the role of law and policy in replicating racial inequality in education. This article asserts that policymakers seeking to preserve white supremacy in education have invoked three primary legislative tactics over the years: (1) denying; (2) defunding; …

Changemakers: Coming Full Circle, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Don't Change The Subject: How State Election Laws Can Nullify Ballot Questions, Cole Gordner

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Procedural election laws regulate the conduct of state elections and provide for greater transparency and fairness in statewide ballots. These laws ensure that the public votes separately on incongruous bills and protects the electorate from uncertainties contained in omnibus packages. As demonstrated by a slew of recent court cases, however, interest groups that are opposed to the objective of a ballot question are utilizing these election laws with greater frequency either to prevent a state electorate from voting on an initiative or to overturn a ballot question that was already decided in the initiative’s favor. This practice is subverting the …

Dirty Johns: Prosecuting Prostituted Women In Pennsylvania And The Need For Reform, Mckay Lewis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prostitution is as old as human civilization itself. Throughout history, public attitudes toward prostituted women have varied greatly. But adverse consequences of the practice—usually imposed by men purchasing sexual services—have continuously been present. Prostituted women have regularly been subject to violence, discrimination, and indifference from their clients, the general public, and even law enforcement and judicial officers.

Jurisdictions can choose to adopt one of three general approaches to prostitution regulation: (1) criminalization; (2) legalization/ decriminalization; or (3) a hybrid approach known as the Nordic Model. Criminalization regimes are regularly associated with disparate treatment between prostituted women and their clients, high …

Racial Justice And Decriminalization Of Prostitution: No Protection For Women Of Color, Janice G. Raymond

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Uncovering The "Hidden Crime" Of Human Trafficking By Empowering Individuals To Respond, Laura Shoop

Georgia State University Law Review

This Note will examine current state law promoting awareness of human trafficking and identification of trafficking survivors in the United States and make recommendations as to what further measures, if any, state legislators should take to increase awareness, identification, and reporting of human trafficking. Part I explains the history and development of human trafficking legislation at the federal and state levels. Part II analyzes the methods that states currently use to promote public awareness and identification. Part III discusses a proposal for amending current state law to better encourage and facilitate awareness of human trafficking and the identification and reporting …

Reflections On The Effects Of Federalism On Opioid Policy, Matthew B. Lawrence

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

From Common Law To Constitution, Sanctioned Dispossession And Subjugation Through Otherization And Discriminatory Classification, Mobolaji Oladeji

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

10th Annual Pegalis Law Group Health Law Colloquium, New York Law School

Health Law Society Publications

Federalism, ERISA, and State Single-Payer Health Care. How to Make Sense of Future Legislation and the Impact on Population Health

(CLE Presentation on Oct. 24th 2019)

Moderator:

Adam S. Herbst, Esq., Senior Vice President, Chief Legal and Strategic Planning Officer of Blythedale’s Children Hospital; Adjunct Professor at New York Law School teaching Health Law and Policy; Co-director of the NYLS Health Law and Patient Safety Project; Lecturer, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University

Panelists:

Honorable Richard N. Gottfried, New York State Assembly (District 75) & Chairman of the Assembly's Committee on Health and Sponsor of …

Does The Decriminalization Of Prostitution Reduce Rape And Sexually Transmitted Disease? A Review Of Cunningham And Shah Findings, Lily Lachapelle, Clare Schneider, Melanie Shapiro, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In 2013, research findings by Cunningham and Shah claimed that rape and sexually transmitted diseases were reduced by decriminalized prostitution in Rhode Island. The original unpublished claims have received wide media coverage which have gone unexamined. This review finds errors in their analyses. One error is the date when prostitution was decriminalized in Rhode Island. Cunningham and Shah claim that prostitution was decriminalized in 2003. Our analysis finds the date of decriminalization of prostitution was 1980. The change in the start date of decriminalization significantly alters the analysis and the findings. Another error results from Cunningham and Shah using an …

Skinning The Cat: How Mandatory Psychiatric Evaluations For Animal Cruelty Offenders Can Prevent Future Violence, Ashley Kunz

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

In 2017, the Texas legislature amended Texas Penal Code § 42.092, which governs acts of cruelty against non-livestock animals. The statute in its current form makes torturing, killing, or seriously injuring a non-livestock animal a third degree felony, while less serious offenses carry either a state jail felony or a Class A misdemeanor charge.

While a step in the right direction, Texas law is not comprehensive in that it fails to address a significant aspect of animal cruelty offenses: mental illness. For over fifteen years, Texas Family Code § 54.0407 has required psychiatric counseling for juveniles convicted of cruelty to …

Law School News: 'Hate And Bigotry Have No Place In America' April 18, 2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Fire Rises: Refining The Pennsylvania Fireworks Law So That Fewer People Get Burned, Sean P. Kraus

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

On October 30, 2017, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act that repealed the state’s fireworks law, which had prohibited the sale of most fireworks to Pennsylvanian consumers for nearly 80 years. The law’s replacement generally permits Pennsylvanians over 18 years old to purchase, possess, and use “Consumer Fireworks.” Bottle rockets, firecrackers, Roman candles, and aerial shells are now available to amateur celebrants for holidays like Independence Day and New Year’s Eve. The law also regulates a category of larger “Display Fireworks,” sets standards for fireworks vendors, and introduces a 12-percent excise tax on fireworks sales that serves to …

Acting Differently: How Science On The Social Brain Can Inform Antidiscrimination Law, Susan Carle

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Legal scholars are becoming increasingly interested in how the literature on implicit bias helps explain illegal discrimination. However, these scholars have not yet mined all of the insights that science on the social brain can offer antidiscrimination law. That science, which researchers refer to as social neuroscience, involves a broadly interdisciplinary approach anchored in experimental natural science methodologies. Social neuroscience shows that the brain tends to evaluate others by distinguishing between "us" versus "them" on the basis of often insignificant characteristics, such as how people dress, sing, joke, or otherwise behave. Subtle behavioral markers signal social identity and group membership, …

Mandatory Arbitration Stymies Progress Towards Justice In Employment Law: Where To, #Metoo?, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Today our employment law provides workers with far more protection than once existed with respect to hiring, firing, salary, and workplace conditions. Despite these gains, continued progress towards justice is currently in jeopardy due to companies’ imposition of mandatory arbitration on their employees. By denying their employees access to court, companies are causing employment law to stultify. This impacts all employees, but particularly harms the most vulnerable and oppressed members of our society for whom legal evolution is most important. If companies can continue to use mandatory arbitration to eradicate access to court, where judges are potentially influenced by social …

Gun Control: The Gun Violence Epidemic In The U.S., Anna Koduru

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

While holding almost half of all civilian-owned guns around the globe and yet only 4.4 percent of the world’s population, the United States of America is heavily centered around gun rights due to the 2nd amendment in the U.S. Constitution. But gun violence is on the rise as deaths due to gun violence are at its highest rate in nearly 40 years. Americans are divided amongst themselves when it comes to how we must approach this issue. In order to reduce gun violence in the U.S., both Republican and Democrat leaders must come together and make bipartisan moves to implement …

Whole-Of-Society Approach Needed Against Truth Decay, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In an age of pervasive informationflows, governments do not defeat fake news. It's the people as a society whodo.The threatof deliberate falsehoods, or more popularly "fake news", posesserious threats to the democratic wellbeing of societies. The marketplace ofideas increasingly suffers from truth decay, propagated online or offline,imperilling an already vulnerable information ecosystem. In turn,this compromises the functioning of a democracy, which is premised on citizenshaving a shared reality rather than multiple distorted realities.

A Fresh Look At Title Vii: Sexual Orientation Discrimination As Sex Discrimination, Anthony Michael Kreis

All Faculty Scholarship

Since 2006, the Illinois Human Rights Act has prohibited discrimination in employment because of an employee’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Until 2017, employees discriminated against because of their sexual orientation had no federal cause of action, however. In a landmark decision, Hively v. Ivy Tech, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit became the first appellate court to hold that federal law’s prohibition of sex discrimination in the workplace also proscribed sexual orientation discrimination. The Hively decision is a substantial departure from decades’ worth of Seventh Circuit precedent and created a split between the circuits. This Article examines …

Legal Ethics And The Political Activity Of Government Lawyers, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The ability to engage in political activity is an essential feature of a democratic society. However, the ability of government lawyers to do so is unclear. While most governments have passed legislation identifying permissible political activity of their employees, it is unclear how the professional obligations of lawyers apply in this context and how these professional obligations interact with this legislation. This article answers these questions. The duty of loyalty to the client requires most government lawyers to refrain from all political activity at the same level of government. The special professional obligations of Crown prosecutors require these lawyers to …

Rhode Island's Top Lawyer: Peter Kilmartin, Rwu Class Of 1998 5-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Martyrdom And Religious Freedom, Christopher C. Lund

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Open Source: The Enewsletter Of Rwu Law 09-22-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Governor Raimondo On Rwu Law 09-19-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Amend The Communications Decency Act To Protect Victims Of Sexual Exploitation, Samantha Vardaman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Teaching Public Policy Drafting In Law School: One Professor's Approach, Lisa A. Rich

Faculty Scholarship

This article provides an overview of the Drafting for Public Policy course offered at the Texas A&M University School of Law. The article addresses the theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings of the course, including how such a course easily encompasses the teaching of cultural context and awareness, as well as professional identity, and encourages students to engage deeply in the policymaking process. It also explores the continued relevance of the work of Harold D. Lasswell, as well as that of Myres McDougal and Anthony Kronman. These works, from 1943 and 1993 respectively, resonate now because they called on law schools to …