Legal Theory Commons^™

"Who Shapes The Law? Gender And Racial Bias In Judicial Citations.", Laura P. Moyer, John J. Szmer, Susan B. Haire, Robert K. Christenson

Faculty Scholarship

In this letter, we assess whether the contributions of judges from underrepresented groups are undervalued or overlooked, thereby reducing these judges’ influence on legal policy. Drawing on an original dataset of discretionary citations to over 2,000 published federal appellate decisions, we find that the majority of opinions written by female judges receive less attention from other courts than those by similarly situated men and that this is largely attributable to disparities in citing Black women and Latinas. We also find that additional efforts by Black and Latinx judges to ground their opinions in precedent yield a much lower rate of …

The Politics Of The Self: Psychedelic Assemblages, Psilocybin, And Subjectivity In The Anthropocene, Joshua Falcon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how psychedelic substances become drawn into particular sociohistorical and political arrangements, and how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, assemblage theory, and critical posthumanism, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which conceptualizes the nature of psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. In developing the concept of psychedelic assemblages, this research provides a window onto the politics of the self in the Anthropocene. …

Lawyers For White People?, Jessie Allen

Articles

This article investigates an anomalous legal ethics rule, and in the process exposes how current equal protection doctrine distorts civil rights regulation. When in 2016 the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct finally adopted its first ever rule forbidding discrimination in the practice of law, the rule carried a strange exemption: it does not apply to lawyers’ acceptance or rejection of clients. The exemption for client selection seems wrong. It contradicts the common understanding that in the U.S. today businesses may not refuse service on discriminatory grounds. It sends a message that lawyers enjoy a professional prerogative to discriminate against …

Rejoining Treaties, Jean Galbraith

All Faculty Scholarship

Historical practice supports the conclusion that the President can unilaterally withdraw the United States from treaties which an earlier President joined with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate, at least as long as this withdrawal is consistent with international law. This Article considers a further question that to date is deeply underexplored. This is: does the original Senate resolution of advice and consent to a treaty remain effective even after a President has withdrawn the United States from a treaty? I argue that the answer to this question is yes, except in certain limited circumstances. This answer …

Developing And Sustaining Political Citizenship For Poor And Marginalized People: The Evelyn T. Butts Story, Kenneth Cooper Alexander

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This study tells the deep, rich story of Evelyn T. Butts, a grassroots civil rights champion in Norfolk, Virginia, whose bridge leadership style can teach and inspire new generations about political, community, and social change. Butts used neighbor-to-neighbor skills to keep her community connected with the national civil rights movement, which had heavily relied on grassroots leaders—especially women—for much of its success in overthrowing America’s Jim Crow system of segregation and suppression. She is best-known for her 1963 lawsuit that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1966 decision to ban poll taxes for state and local elections, a democratizing event …

Polarization And The Supreme Court, Kyla Duffy

Senior Honors Projects

Political polarization has been commonly observed in American politics and has drawn scholarly interest. In recent years, trends of polarization have appeared to increase in Congress, with Democrats and Republicans drifting further and further apart. Americans appear to be deeply split on many social issues which have resulted in culture wars in American politics. According to the legal model of judicial decision making, decisions handed down by the Supreme Court should be unaffected by these trends of polarization. However, recent scholarship, most notably the attitudinal model of judicial decision making, calls into question the legal model of decision making. It …

Repeating History: The Ineffectiveness Of The 1973 War Powers Resolution, Kaitlyn N. Schiess

Senior Honors Theses

Reluctant students often criticize the study of history as irrelevant to the present day.

In the case of one important and controversial piece of legislation, nothing could be farther from the truth. The 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR), which places limits on presidential power to deploy troops in combat situations, has ample application to the political functioning of the United States today. Thus, investigating and studying the resolution remains relevant and important today. The WPR became law in 1973, overcoming a predictable veto by President Nixon. The legislation has consistently been a flashpoint for political controversy – eliciting criticism by …

Medical Marijuana, Brittany Hale

PPPA Paper Prize

No abstract provided.

All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies And The Rule Of Law, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This paper contains the introduction to the new book, All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press, 2010).

The book begins with the observation that Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether courts operate on the basis of unbiased legal principle or of political interest. This division in public opinion in turn breeds suspicion that judges do not actually mean what they say, that judicial professions of impartiality are just fig leaves used to hide the pursuit of partisan purposes.

Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, the …

Perpetual Conflict Or Compromise? The Cost Of Domestic Legitimacy In The Realm Of Women's Human Rights: A Case Study On The Right To An Abortion, Kim Andrea Kelly

Honors Scholar Theses

With its turbulent and volatile legal evolution, the right to an abortion in the United States still remains a highly contested issue and has developed into one of the most divisive topics within modern legal discourse. By deconstructing the political underpinnings and legal rationale of the right to an abortion through a systematic case law analysis, I will demonstrate that this right has been incrementally destabilized. This instability embedded in abortion jurisprudence has been primarily produced by a combination of textual ambiguity in the case law and judicial ambivalence regarding this complex area of law. In addition, I argue that …

Shareholder Primacy's Corporatist Origins: Adolf Berle And The Modern Corporation, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Alternative Career Resolution Ii: Changing The Tenure Of Supreme Court Justices, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Equilibrium Content Of Corporate Federalism, William W. Bratton, Joseph A. Mccahery

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Human Rights And National Security: The Strategic Correlation, William W. Burke-White

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Hazards Of Legal Fine Tuning: Confronting The Free Will Problem In Election Law Scholarship, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Implementing Procedural Change: Who, How, Why, And When?, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Immigration Policy, Liberal Principles, And The Republican Tradition, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ways To Think About The Unitary Executive: A Comment On Approaches To Government Structure, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Self-Regulation, Normative Choice, And The Structure Of Corporate Fiduciary Law, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Retaining The Rule Of Law In A Chevron World, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.