Legislation Commons^™

Categorically Black, White, Or Wrong: 'Misperception Discrimination' And The State Of Title Vii Protection, D. Wendy Greene

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article exposes an inconspicuous, categorically wrong movement within antidiscrimination law. A band of federal courts have denied Title VII protection to individuals who allege “categorical discrimination”: invidious, differential treatment on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, or sex. Per these courts, a plaintiff who self-identifies as Christian but is misperceived as Muslim cannot assert an actionable claim under Title VII if she suffers an adverse employment action as a result of this misperception and related animus. Though Title VII expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, courts have held that such a plaintiff’s claim of “misperception …

Research On The Relationship Between China Maritime Safety Administration And Ro For Implementing Imo Member State Audit Scheme And Relative Path Choice, Bingtuan Zuo

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Research On The Legal And Practical Issues With Respect Of Port State Control Regiem, Yu Ding

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Agenda: Arizona V. California At 50: The Legacy And Future Of Governance, Reserved Rights, And Water Transfers, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Arizona v. California at 50: The Legacy and Future of Governance, Reserved Rights, and Water Transfers (Martz Summer Conference, August 15-16)

The Colorado River is an economic, environmental and cultural lifeline of the southwestern United States, and the allocation of its scarce waters are a source of ongoing controversy. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Arizona v. California. While the case was an important landmark in the still-evolving relationship between these two Lower Basin states, it remains most relevant today by the way in which it clarified federal rights and responsibilities. This is especially true in the areas of federal (including tribal) reserved rights, the role of the Interior Secretary in Lower Basin water …

15th Annual Open Government Summit: Access To Public Records Act & Open Meetings Act, 2013, Department Of Attorney General, State Of Rhode Island

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

What Would Congress Want? If We Want To Know, Why Not Ask?, Danieli Evans

Articles

Judges often disagree about which interpretation of a statute is most faithful to 'legislative intent.' If judges are concerned about adhering to democratic preferences when interpreting statutes, why not ask Congress what it would prefer? I propose a procedure that would enable the Court, in a case where Justices are divided over the meaning of a statute, to submit both sides' reasoning to Congress, and Congress may choose to vote on its preferred of the alternative rulings the Court puts before it. Congress's preferences would be evidentiary only; they would not bind the Court to make one decision or another. …

The Achievement Gap And Disparate Impact Discrimination In Washington Schools, Sarah Albertson

Seattle University Law Review

In today’s public schools, students designated as “white” and “Asian” consistently outperform students from other ethnic groups in test scores and graduation rates. These disparities, commonly called “the achievement gap,” are a symptom of greater issues, or “opportunity gaps.” Washington State has recently taken a further step to address the achievement gap and racial discrimination in schools. In 2010, the Washington legislature passed the Equal Education Opportunity Law (EEOL), HB 3026, in response to the recommendations in commissioned achievement gap studies. The EEOL authorizes the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to enforce this law through regulations. This …

One Redeeming Quality About The 112th Congress: Refocusing On Descriptive Rather Than Evocative Short Titles, Brian Christopher Jones

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The consensus with regard to the 112th Congress is that it was a massive failure: the Congress passed fewer laws than in previous years, and the contemptuous debates over the debt ceiling and the so-called "fiscal cliff" did not win this Congress many supporters. So what redeeming qualities could have been present in such an irredeemable Congress? I believe that there was at least one: a returning focus on descriptive short titles for laws, rather than a perpetuation of the evocative and tendentious short titles that have been commonplace over the past couple of decades. A recent publication of mine …

Snapchat And Sexting: A Snapshot Of Baring Your Bare Essentials, Nicole A. Poltash

Law Student Publications

This comment explores sexting between minors and its inseparable link to Snapchat. Part II provides background information on the practice and prevalence of sexting. Part III explains the Snapchat application and its various uses. Part IV discusses the implications of sexting, legal and otherwise. Part V examines how Snapchat directly conflicts with current law.13 Lastly, Part VI proposes possible solutions.

Fippa Requests : A How-To Workshop, Lisa Di Valentino

FIMS Presentations

Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act regulates information privacy and access to information in the public sector. It applies to information held by the provincial government and its agencies, including colleges and universities. Provincial institutions must delegate an officer to handle such requests, and deal directly with the individual who is seeking access. Appeals of the institution's decision are handled by the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner. This workshop will cover the process of filing a formal information request, tips for ensuring that you obtain relevant
records, and how to challenge an institution's decision to withhold information.

When Congress Practices Medicine: How Congressional Legislation Of Medical Judgment May Infringe A Fundamental Right, Shannon L. Pedersen

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Nfib V. Sebelius Affects The Constitutional Gestalt, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The thesis of this essay is that the most important legal effects of the Supreme Court's decision in NFIB v. Sebelius are likely to be indirect. Sebelius marks a possible shift in what we can call the “constitutional gestalt” regarding the meaning and implications of the so-called “New Deal Settlement.” Before Sebelius, the consensus understanding was that New Deal and Warren Court cases had established a constitutional regime of plenary and virtually unlimited national legislative power under the Commerce Clause (which might be subject to narrow and limited carve outs protective of the core of state sovereignty).

After Sebelius …

Identification Problems And Voting Obstacles For Transgender Americans, James A. Haynes

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

To Skin A Cat: Qui Tam Actions As A State Legislative Response To Concepcion, Janet Cooper Alexander

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion is widely regarded as heralding the demise of small-claims class actions whenever contracts of adhesion are involved in the transaction-which means for virtually all consumer and employment claims. Amending the Federal Arbitration Act to overturn Concepcion would be a relatively simple exercise in legislative drafting, but in the current political climate such efforts are unlikely to succeed. Thus far, proposed federal corrective legislation has failed to pass, and federal agency regulation of class waivers has been lacking. State legislatures might have the political ability to pass corrective legislation, but virtually all state limitations on …

Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing Of The Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution, David Korn, David Rosenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion entrenched a potent structural and systemic bias in favor of defendants. The bias arises from the parties' divergent stakes in the outcome of the common question litigation in individual arbitrations: each plaintiff will only invest to maximize the value of his or her own claim, but the defendant has an incentive to protect its entire exposure and thus will have a classwide incentive to invest more in contesting common questions. …

Gender Discrimination In The Workforce, Natalie Hays, Katherine Morrow

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

The Phenomenology Of Gridlock, Josh Chafetz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Assertions that our legislative process is gridlocked — perhaps even "hopelessly" so — are endemic. So many more of our problems would be fixed, the thinking goes, if only our political institutions were functioning properly. The hunt for the causes of gridlock is therefore afoot.

This brief Essay, written for the Notre Dame Law Review's 2012 "The American Congress: Legal Implications of Gridlock" Symposium, argues that this hunt is fundamentally misguided, because gridlock is not a phenomenon. Rather, gridlock is the absence of phenomena; it is the absence, that is, of legislative action. Rather than asking why we experience gridlock, …

Felix Cohen On Legislation, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

Felix Cohen's and Walter Wheeler Cook's prediction theory of law was a fundamentally positivist theory, according to which the law of a jurisdiction is reducible to regularities of official behavior. Cohen used the prediction theory to argue for philosophical anarchism - that is, the view that the existence of law does not entail a duty, even a prima facie duty, of obedience. In particular, Cohen extended philosophical anarchism to adjudication. The fact that officials in a jurisdiction regularly behave in a certain way does not give a judge adjudicating a case a moral reason to do the same. In deciding …

Treading Water While Congress Ignores The Nation's Environment, Sandra B. Zellmer

Faculty Law Review Articles

During the late 1960s, the nation's attention was riveted on graphic images of contaminated resources, such as smoldering rivers and oil-soaked seagulls,' as well as Rachel Carson's haunting prose about the "strange blight"2 of chemical pesticides afflicting land, water, and wildlife. Policymakers recognized the need for strong legal protections for public health and the environment, and Congress responded with sweeping legislation governing the pollution of water, air, and soil, and the demise of threatened and endangered species.3

The Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA), which regulates discharges of pollutants into waters of the United States, is one of the most …

Statutory Interdependence In Severability Analysis, Rachel J. Ezzell

Michigan Law Review

According to conventional wisdom, when a court rules a statutory provision unconstitutional, it must sever that provision or strike down the entire statute. This understanding is incomplete. In practice, courts may engage in compound severance: invalidating additional, otherwise constitutional provisions of the statute without striking down the entire statute. They reason that the degree of interrelation between those provisions is so significant that severance of one compels severance of the other. As a result, a subset of the statute remains law. The power to craft such subsets raises constitutional concerns, and yet the jurisprudence concerning statutory interdependence is inconsistent and …