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Theresa J. Pulley Radwan, Sword or Shield: Use of Tithing to Establish Nondischargeability of Debt Following Enactment of Religious Liberties and Charitable Donation Protection Act, 19 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 471 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Darryl Wilson, Battle Galactica: Recent Advances and Retreats in the Struggle for Preservation of Trademark Rights on the Internet, 12 Journal of High Tech Law 1– (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Roy Balleste, Persuasions and Exhortations: Acknowledging Internet Governance and Human Dignity for All, 38 Syracuse J. Int'l L. & Com. 227 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The title of the article sums up the author’s desire to communicate and advocate on the importance of Internet governance. Internet governance is concerned with the laws and regulations related to the management of the Domain Name System (DNS), all Top Level Domains (TLDs), the Internet’s Root Zone, and other related subjects. The article provides background information on the subject before considering its importance to freedom of expression, corporate responsibility abroad, state responsibility and the rule of law under international law. The subject stands to identify Internet operations and the forces that manage those operations. The Internet, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT), has created a juncture that potentially equalizes governments, businesses, and civil society at the discussion table. The first part of the article considers that if Internet governance is to be understood, then it must be explored and studied by all academics in the legal field. The second part of the article presents a tribute to the efforts of those individuals that have participated on the common goal to discuss and discover international internet management standards that would be influential in the promotion of democracy, education, and ultimately human development.
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Ellen S. Podgor, Introduction – Corporate Criminal Liability, 41 Stetson L. Rev. 1 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This is the Introduction to Stetson University's College of Law Symposium Issue on Corporate Criminal Liability. The papers from this symposium came from a discussion forum held as part of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) conference. This Introduction provides an overview of corporate criminal liability and also a roadmap of the papers that are part of this volume.
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Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Has the Tide Turned in Favor of Disclosure? Revealing Money in Politics After Citizens United and Doe v. Reed, 27 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 1057 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This article will cover a short but tumultuous period in the history of campaign finance disclosure law from 2007 to 2010 to highlight the dramatic 180 degree turn that the law has taken on the issue of the constitutionality of disclosure within the past four years. First, I will explore the hostility that many lower courts were exhibiting in the short window between the Supreme Court’s decision in Wisconsin Right to Life II (WRTL II) in 2007 and the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010. Basically these lower courts made the mistake of applying WRTL II to disclosure laws. This mistake was corrected by the Supreme Court in Citizens United and Doe v. Reed in 2010. After Citizens United and Doe, lower courts all over the country have adopted the Supreme Court’s view that disclosure and disclaimers can be constitutionally applied to advertisements that feature candidates for office directly before an election. And lower courts have gone further to endorse disclosure around ballot measure fights as well. In other words, in the nation’s courts the tide has turned in favor of disclosure of the sources of money in politics.
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Ellen S. Podgor, Foreward – Overcriminalization 2.0: Developing Consensus Solutions, 7 J.L. Econ. & Pol'y 565 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This is the Introduction to the Symposium issue of the Journal of Law, Economics and Policy on Overcriminalization 2.0. This introduction sets the stage of the overcriminalization movement and provides a roadmap of the papers in this volume.
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Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Hiding Behind the Tax Code, the Dark Election of 2010 and Why Tax-Exempt Entities Should Be Subject to Robust Federal Campaign Finance Disclosure Laws, 16 Chapman Journal of Law and Public Policy 59 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
If the past is prologue, we should anticipate a marked increase in the use of non-profits to mask for-profit money in politics. History shows that for-profit corporations spend through non-profits to enjoy their anonymity while spending without accountability from shareholders or customers. And Citizens United may only expand this corporate habit of spending through intermediaries. If for-profit corporations are purposefully using non-profits to hide the true source of their funds, then it is possible that the degree of disclosure required of non-profits in the future may have an impact on whether for-profits give money to ideological and politically active non-profits.
Citizens United changed many aspects of American campaign finance law. The Supreme Court’s decision ended decades-old restrictions on the use of union and corporate treasury funds to pay for independent expenditures and electioneering communications. But the one area where the Citizens United Court increased the ability of Congress to regulate was the disclosure of the sources of money in politics. Indeed, the Supreme Court found that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002’s (BCRA’s) disclaimer and disclosure provisions could be constitutionally applied to the plaintiff in Citizens United, a 501(c)(4) organization, as well as to its ads and its film entitled “Hillary: The Movie.”
As Citizens United reaffirms, in order for voters to make informed choices at the ballot box, they must know who is paying for each side of a political fight. Campaign finance disclosure and disclaimer laws should be adopted at the federal level to achieve this end, regardless of the tax status of the spender. Yet the question remains, how expansive is this governmental right to mandate disclosure? And in particular, what types of disclosure can non-profit social welfare organizations or trade associations be subject to in the future once they purchase political advertisements? These are the questions that this article will endeavor to answer.
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Elizabeth Berenguer, The Invisible Man: How the Sex Offender Registry Results in Social Death, 2 Journal of Law and Social Deviance 92 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This Article establishes that over-criminalization serves to marginalize unwanted groups of society, and particularly regarding the sex offender registry, it results in social death. The author relies upon the notion of crime as a social construct to establish that the concept of “sex offense” changes over time as society and culture evolve. From there, the author incorporates the work of Michele Foucault involving the relationship of power, knowledge, and sexuality to show how the trend toward more repressive social controls over sex-related activity is related to a shift in this relationship. The Author identifies three characteristics and the associated traits which arise when over-criminalization exists, and further shows how these characteristics and traits are present with respect to the sex offender registry. This Article offers critical insight into the relationship between over-criminalization and repressive control systems and concludes that over-criminalization exists when repressive governmental controls seize power and render non-existent informal social controls. It follows that the sex offender registry is a repressive governmental control that has concentrated power in the government and criminal laws while shifting power away from informal social controls to result in the social death of those unwanted, those labeled sex offender.
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Michèle Alexandre, We Reap What We Sow: Using Post-Disaster Development Paradigms to Reverse Structural Determinist Frameworks and Empower Small Farmers in Mississippi and Haiti, 14 U. Pa. J.L. & Soc. Change 135 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The goal of this article is to extrapolate some key lessons from studying two pre-disaster structures that perpetuated environmental oppression and poverty as well as to develop post-development economic models in these disaster-stricken areas. Furthermore, the article considers the environmental movement as a vehicle for implementing the policies proposed. It also investigates how individuals within these deterministic structures can be empowered to overcome the structural realities that help perpetuate poverty and environmental oppression.
In so doing, this article borrows from Critical Race Theory’s notion of structural determinism to denounce the hierarchical structures promulgated by neutral rules in agricultural legislation and to further analyze the commonalities in the realities faced by farmers all over the world. It analyzes some structural and policy-based problems that have had detrimental effects on poor regions like Haiti and the Gulf Coast. Disasters like Katrina and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti exacerbate these problems and serve as reminders that these disparities need to be eradicated when implementing post-disaster development plans.
Consequently, this paper is divided into the following parts: Part I discusses the application of the structural determinist principle to the agricultural context in Mississippi and Haiti. Part II discusses the rural isolation discriminatory practices with regards to small farmers and the challenges faced by rural residents pre- and post-Katrina. Part III analyzes the challenges existing in Haiti pre-disaster. Part IV discusses the effects of American agricultural policies on small farmers domestically and abroad. Part V considers a model for post-disaster development that attempts to reverse the oppressive effects of current agricultural policies. Finally, Part VI explores the environmental movement’s potential for helping to implement post-disaster development plans.
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Jason Bent, The Telltale Sign of Discrimination: Probabilities, Information Asymmetries, and the Systemic Disparate Treatment Theory, 44 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 797 (2011)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The systemic disparate treatment theory of employment discrimination is in disarray. Originally formulated in United States v. International B’hood of Teamsters, 431 U.S. 324, 360-61 (1977), the systemic disparate treatment theory provides plaintiffs with a method for creating an inference of unlawful discriminatory intent if plaintiffs can first present sufficient statistical evidence establishing that the employer was engaged in a “pattern or practice” of discrimination. While the Court and scholars have recently given substantial attention to the disparate impact theory, they have not adequately analyzed the contours of the systemic disparate treatment theory. For example, there are currently disputes about whether the systemic disparate treatment theory can be utilized by plaintiffs in (1) ADEA cases, (2) ADA cases, (3) hostile work environment cases, and (4) private individual (non-class) discrimination cases brought under any of the antidiscrimination statutes. The development of a coherent approach to systemic disparate treatment law is becoming increasingly important. Since 2006, the EEOC has made pursuit of its “Systemic Initiative” a top priority in its enforcement strategy. Thus, difficult questions about the application of the systemic disparate treatment theory will continue to surface.
In this paper, I take a first step toward bringing order to the systemic disparate treatment theory. I return to the foundations of the systemic disparate treatment theory in order to formulate a set of guiding principles for resolving the issues listed above. Drawing upon economic models of optimal allocation of burdens of proof in civil litigation and an application of Bayesian probability analysis, I argue that the proper extent of the systemic disparate treatment theory depends on three critical considerations: (1) the background prevalence (or prior probability) of the type of discrimination alleged; (2) the relative strength of the evidentiary signal provided by the proffered statistical evidence; and (3) the parties’ relative access to evidence on the element of discriminatory intent. Applying the principles I develop in this article, I conclude that the Teamsters systemic disparate treatment theory should be available to plaintiffs in ADEA, ADA, and individual (non-class) cases, but not in hostile work environment cases.