Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

Organizing In Detroit Soup Kitchens For Power And Justice, Gregory B. Markus

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Collateral Consequences: How Reliable Data And Resources Can Change The Way Law Is Practiced, Christopher Gowen, Erin Magary

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

On The "Poverty Of Responsibility": A Study Of The History Of Child Protection Law And Jurisprudence In Nova Scotia, Ilana Luther

PhD Dissertations

This thesis presents a history of child protection law and jurisprudence in Nova Scotia. The thesis begins by examining the development of the first child protection statute in Canada, the Nova Scotia Prevention and Punishment of Wrongs to Children Act in 1882. The Act was developed amidst a climate of reform in late-19th century Halifax, at the urging of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Act, along with a number of other pieces of “domestic relations” legislation at the time, was focused on protecting children in poverty. With the passing of the Act, the legislature not …

Symposium: Legal Issues And Urbanization In Developing Countries-Foreward, Georgia Journal Of International And Comparative Law

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Exhibits To Accompany Testimony & Statement Of Dean Hill Rivkin Before The Senate Judiciary Committee (21 April 2015), Dean H. Rivkin

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Exhibits to accompany testimony and statement-of-record of Professor Dean Hill Rivkin (The University of Tennessee College of Law), as submitted on April 21, 2015, before a hearing convened by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary: “Improving Accountability and Oversight of Juvenile Justice Grants.”

Rights At Risk In Privatized Public Housing, Jaime Alison Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Traditional public housing is dwindling. Federal policy has increasingly encouraged privatization, shifting stewardship of public housing out of the hands of government and into the hands of private, for-profit companies. Privatization in this context has both benefits and risks. A particularly compelling area of study is the attempt by lawmakers to conscript private contractors into serving public policy goals. Private landlords are obligated not merely to provide housing, but to conduct themselves in ways that promote the interests of vulnerable people. The case of public housing suggests that legislative mandates and contractual obligations are not enough to assure this outcome, …

Insuring Floods: The Most Common And Devastating Natural Catastrophes In America, Christopher French

Faculty Scholarship

Flooding is the most common natural catastrophe Americans face, accounting for 90% of all damage caused by natural catastrophes. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, for example, collectively caused over $160 billion in damage, but only approximately 10% of the Hurricane Katrina victims and 50% of the Hurricane Sandy victims had insurance to cover their flood losses. Consequently, both their homes and lives were left in ruins in the wake of the storms. Nationwide, only approximately 7% of homeowners have insurance that covers flood losses even though the risk of flooding is only increasing as coastal areas continue to be developed and …

Community Lawyering: Introductory Thoughts On Theory And Practice, Michael R. Diamond

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There are several fundamental questions that one might ask in seeking the meaning of the term "community lawyer." Albeit somewhat theoretical, the most basic questions involve delving into exactly what is meant by the term "community." For what, exactly, is the community-lawyer lawyering? Further, once a client has been identified, questions will arise about how the lawyer should relate to that client and about the role the lawyer ought to play in assisting the client to achieve its goals. There is a long and rich literature concerning the latter question but a fairly sparse body of legal writing on the …

First Amendment Decisions - 2002 Term, Joel Gora

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Footnote Online Supplement: State Truancy Law Compilation, Dean H. Rivkin

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

This compilation of state truancy laws is being provided as a footnote supplement to the forthcoming article No Child Left Behind? Representing Youth and Families in Truancy Matters (2013) by Prof. Dean Hill Rivkin and Brenda McGee, of The Education Law Practicum at the University of Tennessee College of Law. It is an updated version of the laws listed in the Juvenile Law Center’s excellent amicus curiae brief in Bellevue School District v. E.S., Brief of Juvenile Law Center, et al., As Amicus Curiae on Behalf of Respondent, Bellevue Sch. Dist. v. E.S., 257 P.3d 570 (Wash. 2011) …

The U.S. Department Of Agriculture As A Public Health Agency? A "Health In All Policies" Case Study, Lindsay F. Wiley

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The "war on obesity" is now well into its second decade. What began as an effort to encourage medical doctors to screen and treat patients whose weight put them at risk for health problems has transformed into a much broader public health campaign to address the root causes of obesity. A growing number of state, territorial and local health departments are currently exploring new ways to promote healthy eating and physical activity. At the federal level, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has made "nutrition, physical activity and obesity" a top priority.

The Independent Medicare Advisory Committee: Death Panel Or Smart Governing?, Robert Coleman

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

There But For The Grace Of God Go I: The Right Of Cross-Examination In Social Security Disability Hearings , Bradley S. Dixon

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program For Women, Infants, And Children (Wic) And The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap): Comparing Policies And Suggesting Changes, Regina T. Cucurullo

Journal of Food Law & Policy

National concerns, such as obesity, should be addressed through national efforts. Considering the national reach of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and their ability to influence the diets of a significant amount of the nation's population, changes to these programs should be made to encourage healthy nutrition.

Racial Disparities In Sentencing In The U.S. And Georgia, Kamal Rattray, Nicole Lee

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

Incarceration represents the ultimate use of coercive power, and in the state of Georgia, that power is being disproportionately levied upon people of color, particularly African Americans.1 According to 2011 statistics from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the total prison population statewide was approximately 53,341 inmates. The majority of that number were Blacks (33,069 inmates), followed by Whites (17,752 inmates), Hispanics (2,306 inmates) and other ethnic groups.

Cornography: Perverse Incentives And The United States Corn Subsidy, Anthony Kammer

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Among the most important functions we have afforded to the U.S. Congress is the power to reshape social and economic incentive structures through legislation. Proceeding from the enumerated powers under the Constitution and using a complex toolbox of legislative and regulatory innovations, the federal legislature has enormous power to transform the types of behavior that people will perceive as self-interested throughout our economy and thus how those same people are likely to act. Congress can, among other things, create new forms of criminal and civil liability, establish entitlement systems, subsidize industries, encourage behavior through the tax code, regulate interactions among …

The Costs And Impacts Of Rising Food Prices Among Low-Income Households, Elaine Waxman

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The pressure of rising food prices on low-income households is often assumed to be primarily an issue for developing economies, where fluctuations in food staple prices can have dramatic consequences for food security and social and political stability. Observers often note that Americans benefit from relatively low food prices and spend far less to feed their families than their counterparts in many other parts of the world. Indeed, the average American household spent 7.6% of their household expenditures on food purchases at home in 2009, while the comparable percentage exceeded 40% of household expenditures in diverse countries such as Mexico, …

Paving The Road To A More Free World: Adr As Sustainable Development - A Look At Bangladesh , Amadea M. Goresh

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In this paper, I will look at the sustainable impact that Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) programs are having in the third world by examining one such nation in particular, the country of Bangladesh. Due to its historical problems combating poverty and corruption, Bangladesh has uniquely devised alternative, extra judicial means of resolving conflict. I will begin by looking at the current state of affairs of the country's government and judicial systems. Next, I will examine the nation's distinctive dispute resolution mechanism, known as shalish, and then discuss the pivotal role non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are playing in adapting the traditional ADR …

Clouded Diamonds: Without Binding Arbitration And More Sophisticated Dispute Resolution Mechanisms, The Kimberley Process Will Ultimately Fail In Ending Conflicts Fueled By Blood Diamonds , Shannon K. Murphy

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In 2003, under an initiative of the United Nations (U.N.), various nations of the world gave life to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS)-a method by which consumers of all levels could know the origin of their diamonds-with the Scheme only certifying those harvested from legal, government-run mines. The Scheme's drafters believed that, if given the choice, consumers would choose to buy diamonds mined legally, with profits flowing to legitimate sources of power. However, the KPCS as it stands is voluntary and lacks the teeth needed to deter its violators. The KPCS lacks a binding arbitration agreement and needs a …

The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Law & Economics Working Papers

Two conflicting stories have consumed the academic debate regarding the impact of deinstitutionalization litigation. The first, which has risen almost to the level of conventional wisdom, is that deinstitutionalization was a disaster. The second story does not deny that the results of deinstitutionalization have in many cases been disappointing. But it challenges the suggestion that deinstitutionalization has uniformly been unsuccessful, as well as the causal link critics seek to draw with the growth of the homeless population. This dispute is not simply a matter of historical interest. The Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that unjustified …

Pledge Your Body For Your Bread: Welfare, Drug Testing, And The Inferior Fourth Amendment, Jordan C. Budd

Law Faculty Scholarship

Proposals to subject welfare recipients to periodic drug testing have emerged over the last three years as a significant legislative trend across the United States. Since 2007, over half of the states have considered bills requiring aid recipients to submit to invasive extraction procedures as an ongoing condition of public assistance. The vast majority of the legislation imposes testing without regard to suspected drug use, reflecting the implicit assumption that the poor are inherently predisposed to culpable conduct and thus may be subject to class-based intrusions that would be inarguably impermissible if inflicted on the less destitute. These proposals are …

Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene

Michigan Journal of International Law

Countries like those in Southern Africa will never emerge from the indomitable shadow of inequity and the serious threat of backlash unless real property is redistributed; but, the conception of property these countries explicitly or implicitly adopt can adversely affect their ability to redistribute. Under the classical conception of real property (the classical conception), redistribution is difficult because title deed holders are a privileged group who are given nearly absolute property protection. Strangely, the classical conception is ascendant in many transitional states where redistribution is essential. The specific question this Article addresses is: for states where past property dispossession has …

Why Paretians Can’T Prescribe: Preferences, Principles, And Imperatives In Law And Policy, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent years have witnessed two linked revivals in the legal academy. The first is renewed interest in articulating a normative “master principle” by which legal rules might be evaluated. The second is renewed interest in the prospect that a variant of Benthamite “utility” might serve as the requisite touchstone. One influential such variant now in circulation is what the Article calls “Paretian welfarism.”

This Article rejects Paretian welfarism and advocates an alternative it calls “fair welfare.” It does so because Paretian welfarism is inconsistent with ethical, social, and legal prescription, while fair welfare is what we have been groping for …

The Missing Jurisprudence Of The Legislated Constitution, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Does the fourteenth Amendment and its Equal Protection Clause — the promise that "no state shall deny equal protection of the laws" — have any relevance to the progressive project of reducing economic inequality in various spheres of life or, more modestly, of ameliorating the multiple vulnerabilities of this country's poor people? The short answer, I believe, is, it depends. It will depend, in 2020, just as it depends now, on what we mean by the Constitution we are expounding: the Constitution as read and interpreted by courts — the adjudicated Constitution — or what I propose to call the …

Insource The Shareholding Of Outsourced Employees: A Global Stock Ownership Plan, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

With the American economy stalled and another federal election campaign season well underway, the “outsourcing” of American jobs is again on the public agenda. Latest figures indicate not only that claims for joblessness benefits are up, but also that the rate of American job-exportation has more than doubled since the last electoral cycle. This year’s political candidates have been quick to take note. In consequence, more than at any time since the early 1990s, continued American participation in the World Trade Organization, in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and in the processes of global economic integration more generally appear …

Temporary Accidents?, M. Elizabeth Magill

Michigan Law Review

In Part I of this Review, I will summarize Croley's book, focusing on his powerful critique of public choice theory and the alternative account that he develops and defends. Part II assesses the book, arguing that Croley is successful in demonstrating agency autonomy but less successful in showing that either administrator motivations or the administrative process tend to make agencies regulate in welfare-enhancing ways. As is often the case, the critique is more powerful than the construction of the alternative account. Even so, Croley's book should alter debates over the possibility of good government by placing the agency and how …

The Future Of Social Security: Principles To Guide Reform, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1061 (2008), Kathryn L. Moore

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paying To Save: Tax Withholding And Asset Allocation Among Low- And Moderate-Income Taxpayers, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

We analyze the phenomenon that low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers exhibit a “preference for over-withholding” their taxes, a measure we derive from a unique set of questions administered in a dataset of 1,003 households, which we collected through the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. We argue that the relationship between their withholding preference and portfolio allocation across liquid and illiquid assets is consistent with models with present-biased preferences, and that individuals exhibit self-control problems when making their consumption and saving decisions. Our results support a model in which individuals use commitment devices to constrain their consumption. …

The American Tradition Of Racial Profiling, Jean Phan

ExpressO

The enemy has always been easily recognizable in American life: He has been the savage Native American known for scalping people; the black slave bent on ravaging white women; the Asian worker unfairly competing against the white man; the Mexican immigrant who does nothing but leech off the system; the Arab who dreams up terrorist plots, and carries them out. These enemies have always been visible in American society, and yet, they don’t exist in reality. They exist only in the minds of those too afraid to consider that these strange individuals who seem so different, could be just like …

At War With The Eclectics: Mapping Pragmatism In Contemporary Legal Analysis, Justin Desautels-Stein

ExpressO

This article has two primary goals. The first is descriptive, and seeks to respond to what appears to be an increasing degree of confusion over the word “pragmatism,” especially as it is used in a good deal of legal literature. This descriptive aim begins by separating out three general categories of pragmatism: (1) the so-called “everyday” pragmatism familiar to the American vernacular, (2) the classical philosophy of the early pragmatist authors like William James and John Dewey, and (3) pragmatism as understood in the context of law. The majority of the article is subsequently concerned with exploring this last category, …