The Silent Sound Of Drowning: Human Rights Justifications And Complex Intersectionality,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
The Silent Sound Of Drowning: Human Rights Justifications And Complex Intersectionality, Maria Grahn-Farley
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
This Article presents a new concept, “Human Rights Justifications,” which captures instances in which states invoke human rights to defend and legitimize their own actions. Human Rights Justifications stand in contrast to cases in which human rights are activated by an individual holding the state accountable for its actions. The difference between when a state and when an individual is the activating subject is that with the former, human rights risk serving the state in legitimizing its actions, instead of serving the individual as a protection from the state. This occurs because, when the state activates human rights, it also …
National Values Matter For Ai: Comparative Analysis Of Ai Regulations In The Us, The Eu, And China,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
National Values Matter For Ai: Comparative Analysis Of Ai Regulations In The Us, The Eu, And China, Kaori (Furuya) Kawaguchi
Brooklyn Journal of International Law
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve rapidly, governments worldwide face increasing pressure to regulate it. This Article focuses on regulatory approaches to AI in the United States, the European Union, and China, examining the underlying rationales: why have they taken these approaches? Each jurisdiction’s unique political institutions, historical preferences, and strategic priorities shape its approach to governance. In particular, the values the jurisdiction expects in technology shape its regulation. The US adopts a decentralized, innovation-friendly model rooted in reliance on market and self-regulation in industries with its strong trust in laissez-faire philosophy; the EU asserts global leadership in regulations …
A Middle-Class New Deal: A Call To Action,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
A Middle-Class New Deal: A Call To Action, Angela K. Littwin
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The books featured in the Debt in the Real World Symposium paint compelling portraits of American financial insecurity and distress. The fact that half of U.S. households cannot make ends meet is a devastating development, but it also presents an opportunity for making change because economic insecurity is now an “us” problem rather than a “them” problem. The next step is to organize, and as part of that process, to develop a vision of an economy that works for everyone. The title of one featured book, Michele Dickerson’s forthcoming The Middle Class New Deal, is a strong starting point because …
Missing Strugglers: Debt’S Reach, Bankruptcy’S Limits, And A Proxy For Who’S Left Out,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Missing Strugglers: Debt’S Reach, Bankruptcy’S Limits, And A Proxy For Who’S Left Out, Dalié Jiménez
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
This essay uses Debt’s Grip as a point of departure to examine how debt operates as a system of social control in the United States. While the book offers a vivid portrait of those who file for bankruptcy, it also gestures toward a broader reality: millions of financially distressed individuals who never access relief. Drawing on legal scholarship and political theory, this Essay argues that debt disciplines individuals, fragments solidarity, and undermines democratic agency. It proposes a new metric—the ratio of debt collection lawsuits to bankruptcy filings—as a proxy for unmet need, revealing a population of “missing strugglers” visible to …
Myth Busters: A Review Of “Debt’S Grip”,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Myth Busters: A Review Of “Debt’S Grip”, Susan Block-Lieb
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Debt’s Grip follows a long line of literature that looks to combat legal and cultural myths about consumer debt and consumer bankruptcy with quantitative and qualitative analysis on these topics. Who files for bankruptcy and why? Fighting longstanding myths is tough work, but Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless and Deborah Thorne have marshalled a strong set of tools, and strong intellectual allies, to support this epic battle.
How And Why To Be A Strategic Debtor,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
How And Why To Be A Strategic Debtor, Chrystin Ondersma
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Shame and fear prevent many Americans who need debt relief from seeking it. Americans who struggle with debt should reject fear and shame and should instead feel empowered and entitled to seek relief in bankruptcy. Almost every American will need to take on debt at some point. We’re expected to use credit to acquire educations, homes, cars, and appliances—even medical care. Americans do not incur debt strategically, but rather as a matter of survival. In Dignity Not Debt, I argued that human dignity, not profits, should guide policymakers, and that our collective goal should be to end both survival debt …
Can The New Literature About Debt Make A Real Difference In The Real World?,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Can The New Literature About Debt Make A Real Difference In The Real World?, Norman I. Silber
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Thank you for inviting me to participate in this symposium organized around a group of new books about “Debt in the Real World.” My discussion in Part I considers from a historical perspective the place these books occupy as part of a long tradition of consumer reform which has combined popular literature with scholarship to promote change. Part II then explores themes common to this new wave. Part III closes by arguing that as in earlier periods the new wave can make headway notwithstanding attacks on governmental interventions; that there may be space in our political geography for some of …
Power, Tools, And Process: Some Reflections On Bankruptcy Minimalism,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Power, Tools, And Process: Some Reflections On Bankruptcy Minimalism, Edward J. Janger
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
In Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal, Melissa Jacoby offers a brilliant and sweeping indictment of the way in which bankruptcy law is currently practiced in the United States. As she puts it, “This book is a story of falling out of love. With a law.” Like me, Professor Jacoby came of professional age, at the close of the first age of the Bankruptcy Code. Enacted in 1978, we both learned the statute in the mid-1990s, at a time when the transformative power of the 1978 Code was reaching its peak. On the business side, corporations …
Chasing The American Dream: Young Adults In Financial Crisis,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Chasing The American Dream: Young Adults In Financial Crisis, A. Mechele Dickerson
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
For nearly two decades, I have written about housing and I have chronicled why it is so hard for middle-class Americans to become homeowners. More recently, I have explored the concept of the “traditional” household (husband, wife and 2.5+ children) and stressed that, notwithstanding the substantial federal and state subsidies this household formation receives, it is no longer the norm. While the housing crisis persists, it has now metastasized into a widespread and sweeping financial and social breakdown. In my forthcoming book, The Middle-Class New Deal: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream, I more broadly explore the challenges adults …
Interdisciplinary Research Is Hard And Other Lessons From Debt’S Grip,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Interdisciplinary Research Is Hard And Other Lessons From Debt’S Grip, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Deborah Thorne
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
This symposium spotlights recent book-length treatments of household finance. Its organizers asked us to write an essay that would add to our recently published book, Debt’s Grip. At first, we were at a loss. The book documents what it means to live in financial precarity after decades of risk shifting onto households in the United States. We had spent a couple of years writing the book, which in turn is built on over a decade of teamwork in data collection. If we had something more to say, we would have said it in the book. For those looking for new …
Parenting While Mad: Altered States, Carceral Psychiatry, And The Fight For Abolitionist Access,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Parenting While Mad: Altered States, Carceral Psychiatry, And The Fight For Abolitionist Access, Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu
Journal of Law and Policy
Legal and psychiatric systems respond to parents in distress-oriented altered states (often labeled “postpartum psychosis”) in ways that reveal deep structural failures. Rather than providing genuine care, these states are criminalized, pathologized, and met with coercive treatment, family separation, and surveillance. Drawing on Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch, this article traces these systems to the rise of colonial-capitalist-patriarchy, when land was enclosed, reproductive labor weaponized, and community healing knowledge expropriated. Clinical mental health and family regulation systems continue this legacy today, punishing Madness, disempowering caregivers, and undermining community capacity to respond to distress. The author examines cases of postpartum …
Sterilization, Haunting And The Future Of Disability Law,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Sterilization, Haunting And The Future Of Disability Law, Linda Steele
Journal of Law and Policy
This article proposes that a methodology of ‘haunting’ could be used by disability rights lawyers and disability law scholars to challenge structural injustice against disabled people. The author make this argument through the example of forced sterilization. Forced sterilization pursuant to eugenics laws in the United States during the early to mid-twentieth century is a profound injustice perpetrated on disabled people which is yet to be fully reckoned with and repaired. While eugenics sterilization laws have been repealed, and some states have additionally made public apologies and introduced compensation programs, forced sterilization of disabled people continues to be perpetrated pursuant …
Democratic Integrity Under Threat: Confronting Disinformation With Legislative And Structural Reforms,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
Democratic Integrity Under Threat: Confronting Disinformation With Legislative And Structural Reforms, Sophia Brociner
Journal of Law and Policy
In the modern digital era, disinformation has evolved from a political strategy into a fundamental threat to democratic governance. This Note contends that the absence of comprehensive federal legislation addressing political disinformation on social media has compromised both the integrity of elections and the public’s trust in government institutions. By analyzing the disinformation campaigns that shaped the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections, this Note demonstrates how false and AI-generated content, amplified by both foreign and domestic actors, has manipulated voters, deepened political polarization, and destabilized public confidence in democratic processes. The discussion examines how rapid technological development, insufficient regulatory …
The Heteronormative Language Of Law: The Win In Bostock And The Loss For Title Ix,
2025
Brooklyn Law School
The Heteronormative Language Of Law: The Win In Bostock And The Loss For Title Ix, Negar Khalaf
Journal of Law and Policy
The struggle for equality in education begins with language. Legal categories like “sex” and “gender identity” shape who is protected and who is left behind. When the Supreme Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County, it extended protection to LGBTQ+ workers but offered no definition robust enough to secure similar rights for students under Title IX. Subsequent efforts by the Department of Education to bridge that gap—culminating in Tennessee v. Cardona and constrained by Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—reveal the limits of agency action in a post-Chevron era. This Note calls for a legislative solution: an amended Equality Act Bill (“EAB”) …
The Problem With The Pursuit Of Pleasure And Why It Isn’T The Same As Joy,
2025
Singapore Management University
The Problem With The Pursuit Of Pleasure And Why It Isn’T The Same As Joy, Seow Hon Tan
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
One is fleeting and depends on circumstances, the other comes from persevering in what one values and loving others.
Disposing Of Misdemeanors: An Empirical Perspective,
2025
Texas A&M University School of Law
Disposing Of Misdemeanors: An Empirical Perspective, Cynthia Alkon, Jonathan Marshall, Kyle Chrisman, Lydia Sidhom
Faculty Scholarship
While the U.S. Supreme Court has characterized the criminal legal system as a “system of pleas,” new empirical evidence suggests that, at least for misdemeanors, it is more accurately described as a system of dismissals. This Article draws on New York’s Pretrial Release Dataset, a unique publicly available administrative dataset that, to date, includes over 1.3 million criminal cases with 112 variables, of which 914,521 are misdemeanors. No other state in the country has made comparable criminal case-processing data publicly accessible at this scale. Using this dataset, the Article examines criminal case processing in ways that were not previously possible, …
Freedom Clinic Faculty And Students Win Clemency Case Through New Jersey Second Chance Initiative,
2025
Yeshiva University, Cardozo School of Law
Freedom Clinic Faculty And Students Win Clemency Case Through New Jersey Second Chance Initiative, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law
Cardozo Law News Archive
The Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law secured clemency for LaShawn Fitch through New Jersey's Second Chance Initiative. Cardozo Freedom Clinic faculty and students helped prepare Mr. Fitch's clemency petition, highlighting issues surrounding felony-murder sentencing, the trial penalty, and juvenile justice.
Empathy On Trial: The Role Of Neuroscience And Communication In Sexual Violence Jurisprudence,
2025
St Mary's University
Empathy On Trial: The Role Of Neuroscience And Communication In Sexual Violence Jurisprudence, Samantha M. Gonzales
Honors Program Theses and Research Projects
Sexual violence remains a contentious public safety and legal challenge, which has become further complicated by the tension between supporting victim-survivors and safeguarding the falsely accused. False accusations, though still well below the numbers of rightly accused, are experiencing a rise in popularity given recent (past ten years) political climates. This thesis examines how communication theory, neuroscience, and law intersect in molding perceptions of truth, culpability, and justice in sexual violence cases; while also examining the intersectionality of those fields in addressing the candor of allegations, the rate of recidivism, and quality of public health and safety. The most prominent …
Death Before Breath: Courts Should Add De–Escalation And Proportionality To The Graham Factors,
2025
Vermont Law School
Death Before Breath: Courts Should Add De–Escalation And Proportionality To The Graham Factors, Nakyshia Fralin
University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review
This paper examines Barnes v. Felix, a case recently before the Supreme Court, through a comparative analysis of various circuit courts’ applications of the Graham factors in use–of–force evaluations. Beginning with a historical overview of policing, the paper revisits the factual background of the case before delving into the Fifth Circuit’s analysis, known as the Moment–of–Threat doctrine. It then contrasts this approach with the broader “totality of the circumstances” approach, highlighting the differing judicial interpretations. Building upon these established frameworks, the paper proposes two additional factors aimed at promoting human life and safety. By introducing these elements, the analysis seeks …
Vol. 69, No. 13 (November 24, 2025),
2025
Maurer School of Law: Indiana University
