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Michèle Alexandre, Race, Space and Democracy: Locally-Based Strategies for Development, 44 The Harbinger 1 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Renee Nicole Allen et al., The Pink Ghetto Pipeline: Challenges & Opportunities for Women in Legal Education, 96 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 525 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The demographics of law schools are changing and women make up the majority of law students. Yet, the demographics of many law faculties do not reflect these changing demographics with more men occupying faculty seats. In legal education, women predominately occupy skills positions, including legal writing, clinic, academic success, bar preparation, or library. According to a 2010 Association of American Law Schools survey, the percentage of female lecturers and instructors is so high that those positions are stereotypically female.
The term coined for positions typically held by women is “pink ghetto.” According to the Department of Labor, pink-collar-worker describes jobs and career areas historically considered “women’s work,” and included on the list is teaching. However, in legal education, tenured and higher-ranked positions are held primarily by men, while women often enter legal education through non-tenured and non-faculty skills-based teaching pipelines. In a number of these positions, women experience challenges like poor pay, heavy workloads, and lower status such as by contract, nontenure, or at will.
While many may view this as a challenge, looking at these positions solely as a “pink ghetto” diminishes the many contributions women have made to legal education through the skills faculty pipelines. Conversely, we miss the opportunity to examine how legal education has changed and how women have accepted the challenge of being on the front line of educating this new generation of learners while enthusiastically adopting the American Bar Association’s new standards for assessment and student learning. There is an opportunity for women to excel in these positions if we provide them with allies who champion for equal status and provide the requisite support.
This article focuses on the changing gender demographics of legal education, legal education pipelines, and the role and status of women in higher education with an emphasis on legal education. The final section applies feminist pedagogy to address challenges, opportunities, and aspirations for women in legal education.
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S. E. Darrah et al., Improvements to the Wetland Extent Trends (WET) Index as a Tool for Monitoring Natural and Human-Made Wetlands, 99 Ecological Indicators 294 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Indicators of status and trends in wetland extent are essential for monitoring progress towards the environmental targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Here, we test the value of the Wetland Extent Trends (WET) index as an updatable indicator of trends in wetland area and its application to global and regional scale assessments and national reporting. We expand the indicator to include a regional trend for Latin America and the Caribbean and a global human-made WET index. Based on a sample of over 2000 wetland records, natural wetland extent declined on average by 35% globally, at an increasing rate from 1970 to 2015. Human-made wetlands, however, increased by 233% from 1970 to 2014. The continuing decline in natural wetland extent suggests that global targets will not be achieved without significant further efforts.
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Royal C. Gardner et al., CWA In-Lieu Fee Mitigation: Project and Programmatic Risks, 49 Envtl. L. Reporter News and Analysis 10538 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
In 2008, after prompting by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) issued a regulation governing compensatory mitigation under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The agencies’ primary goal was to improve the effectiveness of mitigation projects to offset the impacts of filling wetlands and streams. The 2008 Compensatory Mitigation Rule was also designed to level the playing field for the three types of mitigation providers: mitigation banks, in-lieu fee (ILF) programs, and permittee-responsible mitigation.
After a decade of experience with this regulation, it is appropriate to reflect on its implementation. Although much has been written about mitigation banks, less attention (in the literature at least) has been paid to ILF programs and permittee-responsible mitigation. This Comment focuses on ILF programs.
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Cynthia Hawkins DeBose and Brien V. Squires, Throwing the Baby Out with the Bath: Florida’s Flawed Approach to Post-Adoption Inheritance, 18 Conn. Pub. Int. L.J. 187 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Will Bunting, The Impact of Data Mining on Information Disclosure by Regulatory Agencies: With an Application to Redlining, 56 Harv. J. on Legis. 355 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Data mining techniques can be used to locate statistical outliers that are incorrectly characterized as evidence of unlawful conduct. Using home mortgage loan data made publicly available by financial regulators, a simple data mining exercise finds that approximately three percent of all lender-MSA pairs (or approximately seven to nine percent of all lending institutions) flagged as having redlined minority neighborhoods is attributable to a failure to correct for the multiple hypothesis testing problem. The false positive rate does not fully explain, however, the estimated high frequency of statistical redlining. Three possible models of information disclosure by regulatory agencies are considered: (1) full information, (2) no information, and (3) limited information. Under a limited information model, litigation serves to correctly implement statistical hypothesis testing: a plaintiff must formulate a hypothesis prior to examination of the data and obtains the information necessary to test this hypothesis only through discovery.
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Royal C. Gardner et al., Advocating for Science: Amici Curiae Brief of Wetland and Water Scientists in Support of the Clean Water Rule, 39 Wetlands 403 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
The Trump administration has proposed replacing the Clean Water Rule, a 2015 regulation that defined the statutory term "waters ofthe United States" to clarify the geographic jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. Since its promulgation, the Clean Water Rule has been subjected to numerous judicial challenges. We submitted an amici curiae brief to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, explaining why the Clean Water Rule, and its definition of "waters of the United States," is scientifically sound. The definition of "waters of the United States" is a legal determination informed by science. The best available science supports the Clean Water Rule’s categorical treatment of tributaries because compelling scientific evidence demonstrates that tributaries significantly affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of traditional navigable waters (primary waters). Similarly, the best available science supports the Clean Water Rule’s categorical treatment of adjacent waters based on geographic proximity. Compelling scientific evidence demonstrates that waters within 100 ft of an ordinary high water mark (OHWM) significantly affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of primary waters, as do waters within 100-year floodplains and waters within 1500 ft of high tide lines of tidally influenced primary waters or OHWMs of the Great Lakes. This review article is adapted from that amici brief.
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Rebecca Kihslinger et al., In-Lieu Fee Mitigation: Review of Program Instruments and Implementation Across the Country (Environmental Law Institute, 2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Nationwide, in-lieu fee (ILF) programs provide a significant percentage of the compensatory mitigation available to offset permitted impacts to aquatic resources. This comprehensive report outlines the range of practice in ILF mitigation and describes innovative approaches across the country. The aim of this report is to support the development of effective mitigation programs by enhancing the capacity of state/local/tribal governments and others to develop or oversee ILF programs.
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Ashley Krenelka Chase, Neutralizing Access to Justice: Criminal Defendants’ Access to Justice in a Net Neutrality Information World, 84 Mo. L. Rev. 323–70 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This Article examines net neutrality and its impact on criminal defendants’ ability to access the courts — and justice — through access to legal information. Research in the American legal system has moved largely online, and print resources are becoming increasingly expensive and, therefore, scarcer. The move to online legal research presents difficult issues in light of the recent demise of net neutrality: If meaningful and speedy access to the Internet becomes dependent upon being able to afford an Internet “fast lane,” users will be divided into the haves and the have-nots. Criminal defendants will surely fall into the latter category, rendering their access to justice completely non-existent.
This Article will examine the legislation, regulations, and cases that brought net neutrality to the attention of the American public. It will examine how net neutrality and access to information are related, particularly in the criminal justice system. It will discuss the United States Supreme Court decisions that have impacted criminal defendants and the methods that defendants use to seek the justice and access to the courts. In detailing how the demise of net neutrality will directly harm the millions of Americans who are currently impacted by the criminal justice system — either as a defendant or as a family member or friend of one — suggestions will be made to ensure that criminal defendants retain access to justice.
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Erin Okuno, A Look Back at Sierra Club v. Costle: Balancing Legal, Political, and Ethical Interests in Informal Rulemaking, 44 Administrative & Regulatory Law News 18 (2019)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.