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America’s Continued Fair Housing Crisis and the Ignored Solution: The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule
Get PDFThe Americans with Disabilities Act and Healthcare Employer-Mandated Vaccinations
Get PDFBattles around workplace vaccination policies often focus on the annual influenza vaccine, but many healthcare employers impose requirements for additional vaccines because of the increased likelihood that employees in this sector will interact with populations at increased risk of acquiring or experiencing harmful sequelae of vaccine-preventable diseases. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and many states recommend healthcare employees receive numerous vaccines, including measles, mumps, and rubella (“MMR”); tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (“Tdap”). However, recent outbreaks of once-eliminated diseases that are now resurgent and the rising antivaccination movement raise questions about how far employers can go to mandate vaccinations. While healthcare institutions are increasingly mandating that employees receive vaccinations, employee objections to vaccines, including litigation, have increased in recent years. Employer policies must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. Although the ADA permits mandatory vaccine policies under certain circumstances, employers must consider reasonable accommodations, which are changes to the job or work environment that permit the employee with a disability to perform the essential functions of the job, within certain limits. This article analyzes two recent cases which suggest how employers seeking to protect their workforce and the patients they serve by requiring vaccines can work within the framework of the ADA to implement these policies
An Argument for Explicit Public Health Rationale in LGBTQ Antidiscrimination Law as a Tool for Stigma Reduction
Get PDFThe lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (inclusive of nonbinary), and queer (collectively, LGBTQ) community is experiencing health inequities at alarming rates. From behavioral health issues, to violence issues, to increased rates of homelessness, structural stigma impacts LGBTQ communities at a disproportionate rate. Suicide numbers are particularly concerning. The LGB community rate of suicide is two to three times that of the general population. For the transgender and nonbinary community, that number soars to nearly nine times that of the general population. In this article, we examine the social determinates of health impacting the LGBTQ community and the ways structural stigma supports health inequity. Given the health data, the article analyzes how policymakers could include an explicit rationale in antidiscrimination laws to shift social norms and lower stigma in pursuit of improving population health. Even when a policy is anti-discriminatory on its face, naming the intent of shifting norms and lowering stigma matter. When the explicit rationale is named, it can serve two purposes: 1) articulating a clear public health purpose of the antidiscrimination law and 2) educating the public on the need for norm change and its public health impact. Making it clear that the goal of social norm change is to protect and improve the population’s health may make the state’s compelling state interest case stronger, particularly in the face of Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, in challenges to antidiscrimination laws
Leveraging Quantum Technologies to Address the Next Pandemic
Get PDFWill Saunders discusses quantum computing technologies and their ability to speed up our manufacturing processes through synthesizing new medications and detect deficiencies in our current supply chain structures to combat widespread diseases and prevent further spread. From complex molecular modeling to simulating future outbreaks, quantum technologies offer a means for better predictability and optimization for handling future outbreakshttps://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lawjournalonline/1040/thumbnail.jp
The Spooky Side to a Seller’s Market
Get PDFHalloween is creeping closer, which means many people will be watching scary movies, telling ghost stories, and visiting haunted houses. While you might want to keep the hauntings out of your own home, you could be at the will of the seller. Lindsey Fafoglia analyzes seller\u27s disclosure laws as they relate to paranormal activity.https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lawjournalonline/1045/thumbnail.jp
Raising the Stakes: When a Supreme Court Justice Dies during an Election Year
Get PDFIn light of the recent passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Erin O\u27Leary discusses what Justice Ginsburg’s death means for the election and the future of the Supreme Court.https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lawjournalonline/1046/thumbnail.jp
The Case for Face Shields: Improving the COVID-19 Public Health Policy Toolkit
Get PDFAs the United States battles the later stages of the first wave of COVID-19 and faces the prospect of future waves, it is time to consider the practical utility of face shields as an alternative or complement to face masks in the policy guidance. Without face shields specifically noted in national guidance, many areas may be reluctant to allow their use as an alternative to cloth face masks, even with sufficient modification.
In this piece, we discuss the benefits of face shields as a substitute to face masks in the context of public health policy. We further discuss the implications and opportunity costs of creating policy guidance with only a small subset of scientific data, much of which is limited. We conclude by arguing that existing federal guidance should be expanded to include face shields as a policy option
Exploring the Impact of Taxation on Immigration
Get PDFRules governing admission of immigrants to stable, developed countries vary widely among countries, yet wealthy immigrants with capital to invest and highly educated immigrants receive favorable admission decisions from immigration authorities more frequently and quickly than do conflict and economic refugees who will become part of a substantially fungible labor force. As preferred immigration destination countries limit the number of immigrants they will admit — the U.S. certainly does —, admissions are likely to follow a hierarchy based on expectations that certain immigrants will contribute significantly to the economy and welfare of the destination country in a manner that distinguishes them from other applicants for admission. Admission standards and practices also may favor some applicants over others on the basis of race, religion, and country of origin. Immigration has changed the face of many economically developed countries and introduced a diversity of cultures into formerly homogeneous mono-cultures.Conflict zones and weak economies drive immigration from those areas to wealthier and more stable areas. At the same time, high taxes and regulation fuel emigration from wealthy stable economies to lower tax, less regulated jurisdictions. Labor flight to lower tax jurisdictions historically has not been prevalent because rendition of services has been location dependent. However, the rapid growth of technology has made many industries independent of the location of their service providers. Cross-border competition for some labor has grown. While top scientists and medical professionals have been in demand since at least the early years of the 20th century, demand for technology expertise has accompanied growing international reliance on technology. The emergence of English as a common, international language has removed linguistic barriers to international commerce and individuals with technical training and expertise are able both to work remotely and relocate. Competition for skilled individuals in many realms has become international and less developed countries which have devoted their limited resources to educating and training their citizens to develop expertise and skills are concerned about losing those they have educated to other countries that might offer higher salaries and better living circumstances.This paper explores the role that taxation plays in the movement of people and capital. Part I addresses the relationship between taxes and retention of capital, including tax incentives for capital investment, shifting tax burdens from capital to labor, and rules preventing the escape of capital from its current taxing jurisdiction. Part II considers how taxes supplement immigration policy to attract capital currently outside the jurisdiction. Part III contemplates whether taxes play any significant role in attracting or retaining skilled labor. Part IV looks at taxes and tax trends and identifies how they disadvantage or benefit fungible, frequently immigrant labor. Part V concludes that capital tax rate competition seems unlikely to prevent capital flight as it inquires whether anti-immigration and anti-immigrant public sentiment has contributed to the shift of tax burdens from capital to labor
Independent Contractor Misclassification is Making Everything Worse: The Experience of Home Care Workers in Maryland
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and magnified existing problems in the American health care system. One of these problems—existing at the intersections of race, age, disability, class, power, poverty, and health—is the widespread misclassification of home care workers as independent contractors Home care workers, who are predominantly women and people of color, provide personal assistance services and health care supports to older adults and people with disabilities in home- and community-based settings, usually for very low wages. Misclassification cuts them out of the social safety net in case of job loss or injury, imposes a greater tax burden than that of properly classified employees, reduces businesses’ tax contributions to state unemployment insurance funds, makes it difficult or impossible to obtain the protections of anti-discrimination statutes, increases the likelihood of wage theft, and creates a race to the bottom among businesses. Further, misclassification makes it harder to effectively manage the COVID-19 pandemic by making home care a less appealing job at a time of increasing need, putting an additional obstacle in the way of state government contacting workers directly about public health protocols, and disincentivizing home care employers from providing appropriate training and personal protective equipment. Using Maryland as a case study, this Article aims to explain these challenges, articulate some of the barriers standing in the way of correcting them, and propose solutions to chart a path forward
