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Rules in the Workplace: Does the NLRA Protect Employees’ Ability to Record Working Conditions?
Get PDFIn the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, some employees have recorded videos at work and posted them online to express their disagreement with working conditions. The NLRB recently created a new standard of review for evaluation of employer work rules, and the Board upheld an employer\u27s no-camera rule, which included cell phones capable of taking photographs and videos. In this article, Avery Lubbes analyzes whether the Biden Board overturn this ruling as violative of labor rights.https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lawjournalonline/1077/thumbnail.jp
Elements of Effective Online Instruction in Law
Get PDFThe Covid pandemic has had a significant impact on law school pedagogy, although how much that impact will remain and be a benefit post-pandemic remains to be seen. This article argues that we should leverage what we learned and use it to redesign our courses for a future world of hybrid teaching, so as not to lose what we gained by returning to in-person teaching as if nothing happened to us or our students. It offers suggestions about how to go about doing that—how to capture the benefits of what has been learned about online teaching in the 2020–21 Academic Year, and apply it to our teaching going forward. Among those suggestions is to redesign our courses from back to front, starting with articulating our learning outcomes and then developing modules designed to meet those outcomes, with formative assessment for each module as the semester progresses. It also suggests maximizing the precious in-person time we will regain post-pandemic by intentionally moving some of our content online, and deliberately choosing how to deliver that online content best. Doing these things deliberately will contribute to making us more effective teachers, and help our students become more effective learners—in law school, and in their future lives as practitioners
Now is Not the Time for Another Law School Lecture: An Andragogical Approach to Virtual Learning for Legal Education
Get PDFCOVID-19 forced nearly every institution of higher learning, as well as others, to quickly pivot from a traditional face-to-face teaching model to an online teaching model. While some institutions had technology in place to quickly adapt, most institutions were not prepared. Even where the technology infrastructure was in place, the faculty were not readily prepared to adapt their teaching style to this online model. Given these challenges, many professors chose the path of least resistance and chose to conduct those lectures just as they always had but just in an online format. However, now was not the time for another law school lecture. Instead, it is a perfect time to use an andragogical approach to virtual learning to create more engaging and effective instruction. This article discusses the differences between andragogy and pedagogy and the fact that andragogy focuses on designing instruction with the adult learner in mind. It also discusses metacognition as a part of adult learning theory and how online tools can be used to develop such courses. Lastly, I share my own development strategies using adult learning principles and instructional technology
COVID-19 and Law Teaching: Guidance on Developing an Asynchronous Online Course for Law Students
Get PDFMost law schools suspended their live classroom teaching in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly transitioned to online programming. Although professors can be commended for rapidly adapting to an emergency situation, some commentators have nevertheless suggested that the emergency online product delivered to students was substandard. Based on our own experiences in designing and delivering online courses, we caution against embracing a broad-reaching, negative conclusion about the efficacy of online education. Indeed, much of this emergency online programming would be more properly defined as “emergency remote teaching,” as opposed to “online education.” Online education requires professors to design their courses to be delivered at a distance, with the goal being to create a course driven by pedagogy using technological tools to inform and enhance the learning experience. COVID-19 may be with us for the foreseeable future, and law schools may choose to deliver more of their courses online as a result. This Article offers some guidance on how to develop and implement an effective asynchronous distance-learning course for law students
Law Faculty Experiences Teaching During the Pandemic
Get PDFWhen colleges and universities abruptly shifted to online teaching in March 2020 all, focus (appropriately) was on ensuring continuity of education for students. In adapting courses to the new online environment, professors were encouraged to take into account the incredible stress students were experiencing, their new living conditions, and, in some cases, lack of access to technology and educational resources. For the Spring 2020 semester, almost all U.S. law schools shifted to some form of pass/fail grading in recognition of the enormous upheaval to students’ educational plans.
Less discussed during the initial months of the corornavirus pandemic was how faculty members experienced and responded to the pandemic in their personal lives and as professional educators. This essay describes the results of an informal, non-representative survey of law faculty conducted in May 2020. The principal findings are that during the initial months of the pandemic, law professors themselves were under considerable stress, that they altered their modes of delivery and interaction with students, and that they wanted students, colleagues, and school administrators to recognize the complex experiences of law faculty teaching during the pandemic.
The initial survey results here could serve as a basis for law school deans and others to develop school-specific surveys that might elicit more specific feedback about the experiences of faculty members at their schools. That feedback would enable law school leaders to develop programs that support their faculty and students. It may also be important to track longer-term effects of the pandemic on law faculty careers, as disruptions to legal education caused by the coronavirus may continue for some time
Racism, Health Equity, and Crisis Standards of Care in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Get PDFLong-standing and deeply embedded institutional racism, notably anti-Black racism in U.S. health care, has provided a solid footing for the health inequities by race evident in the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequities in susceptibility, exposure, infection, hospitalization, and treatment reflect and reinforce this racism and cause incalculable and preventable suffering in and loss of Black lives. This Article identifies multiple expressions of racism evident in the crisis standards of care (CSC) created by states and health care institutions to guide the ethical allocation of scarce critical care resources including ventilators. Contextualized within the broad landscape of health inequities pre-COVID-19 as well as during the pandemic, this Article analyzes two manifestations of racism in CSC: 1) the scarce participation of Black health care and public health professionals as well as Black communities in CSC creation, and 2) the ostensible “objectivity” and “race irrelevancy” of features of CSC. This ethical analysis leads to a proposal for dismantling racism in CSC by embracing antiracism as health equity at the outset of CSC policy-making. An initial exploration of the nature of health equity and related policies and practices in this COVID-19 era support a concluding outline of distinctive “first steps” toward antiracist pro-health equity CSC
ESG Investing: May ERISA Plan Fiduciaries Consider Environmental, Social, and Governance Factors When Making Investment Decisions?
Get PDFERISA fiduciaries have long sought guidance from the DOL as to whether environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors may be considered in their investment decision-making. In 2020, the DOL issued a final rule requiring ERISA fiduciaries to consider solely pecuniary factors. In this article, Morgan Fox discusses a recently proposed rule under the new Administration that eases the restrictions and provides greater leeway for ERISA plan fiduciaries to consider ESG factors.https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lawjournalonline/1080/thumbnail.jp
Protecting the Rights and Wellbeing of People with Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated significant inequities experienced by people with disabilities. It has also emphasized the value of legal protections against discrimination based on disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted 30 years ago to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities and ensure equal opportunity across major areas of American life (ADA, 2008). Together with an earlier law, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Rehabilitation Act, 2012), this landmark civil rights law impacts a broad range of issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic and protects a large and growing number of Americans. This Chapter focuses on application of these laws to health care and employment during the pandemic. These laws are powerful tools to protect the rights and well-being of people with disabilities, but they require robust enforcement. Enforcing agencies have provided COVID-19-specific guidance on the application of the laws to health care and employment. Further action is needed, as unresolved legal questions, gaps in protections, lack of knowledge of and noncompliance with disability rights laws, and a lack of data limit the impact of these laws. Recommendations for policymakers to ensure COVID-19 responses respects the rights and wellbeing of people with disabilities include: robust enforcement of the laws; clear and current agency guidance on how to comply with the laws; education about the requirements of the laws, especially in health care settings; and improved data collection and reporting.
This paper was prepared as part of COVID-19 Policy Playbook: Legal Recommendations for a Safer, More Equitable Future, a comprehensive report published by Public Health Law Watch in partnership with the de Beaumont Foundation and the American Public Health Association
Race, Rules, and Disregarded Reality
Get PDFExploring issues of racial bias and social injustice in the law school classroom is a modern imperative. Yet, important conversations about systemic inequality in the law and legal profession are too often dissociated from core doctrinal courses and woodenly siloed to the periphery of the curriculum. This dissociation creates a paradigm of irrelevancy-by-omission that disregards the realities of the lived experiences of our students and the clients they will ultimately serve. Using Evidence as a launch pad, Professor Deborah Merritt has paved a pathway to incorporate these disregarded realities in doctrinal teaching. This important pathway leads to safe spaces necessary for both faculty and students to explore the historical context of racial subordination in law. Professor Merritt’s disruptive pedagogy upends the casebook method of law school teaching. Her groundbreaking “uncasebook” has prompted deeper thinking about the meaning, purpose, and role of law. This Article serves dual aims. First, it lauds Professor Merritt’s career-long commitment to the goals of equity and inclusion in law teaching and the legal profession. Second, it complements the existing discourse on the role of race and the record of racial disparity in the Rules of Evidence by adding the personal narrative of an outgroup insider. We can do more to promote equity and inclusion in the law school classroom. This Article offers a revealing example of why we must