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The New 92? Lawful Orders, the Obedience Paradigm, and the Military as a Forum for Experimental Change in the Aftermath of Trump v. United States
Full text linkArticle 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice criminalizes defiance of lawful orders issued by superior military and civilian officials in a service member’s chain of command, while Rule for Court-Martial (R.C.M.) 916(d) provides procedural guidance for the assertion that a service member was acting pursuant to lawful orders as a criminal defense. These provisions are integral to maintaining good order and discipline within the military ranks and ensuring consistent and reliable implementation of operational and policy initiatives across the Department of Defense. The duty to obey lawful orders is closely circumscribed in the context of the military chain of command but may contain additional ambiguity when the order’s originator is a senior civilian official, such as the Secretary of Defense or the President of the United States. In an era of rapidly-reconstituting political norms, recent senior civilian directives to the military have frequently departed from established processes as the institution is used to facilitate social policy decisions absent the formal executive or legislative guidance or judicial mandate that have historically accompanied such shifts as applied to the Department of Defense. This Article explores the regulatory and punitive environments in which these orders are issued, as well as the obedience paradigm that governs compliance with executive directives by service members at all levels of the military chain of command. It specifically examines implications for the Article 92/ R.C.M. 916(d) “obedience paradigm” in light of the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States, an unprecedentedly broad grant of executive immunity for official presidential acts. The Article subsequently details several seminal moments in the history of the military’s role as a forum for the enactment of controversial, often highly-partisan, policies in the areas of race, gender, and sexual orientation, as well as their catalysts – both populist and judicial – to provide context for analysis of a potential reevaluation of Article 92/ R.C.M. 916(d). Finally, it investigates whether alteration of the contemporary framework governing compliance with lawful orders is warranted, given the shifting contemporary normative dimensions of military policy guidance issued by senior civilian officials in the Department of Defense, and proposes some reforms to the existing paradigm to ensure the maintenance of good order and discipline within the military ecosystem and the preservation of Constitutional values and ethical policymaking writ large
A Gamified Mobile App for Learning Linguistics: Applying Software Design and Thinking to Educational Engagement
Full text linkThis thesis explores how mobile app technologies—particularly gamification, adaptive learning algorithms, and user-centered UI/UX design—can be used to make linguistics education more accessible and engaging. Drawing on recent scholarship in educational technology and human-computer interaction, I developed a React Native-based mobile application that introduces users to core linguistic concepts such as phonetics, syntax, and semantics through interactive mini-games. The academic component of this thesis synthesizes research on best practices in educational app design and documents the full design and development process. The project demonstrates how creative computer science work can be informed by scholarly literature while producing a functional tool that contributes to the broader field of educational technology
Seven Ways of Looking at the Climate Crisis
Full text linkThis essay introduces the symposium issue of the Pace Environmental Law Review featuring seven works written in connection with the March 2025 conference on “Taxation, the Environment, and Climate Change.” This essay identifies and explores three common themes in the articles: (1) the role of taxation in environmental protection, (2) the tax law’s impact on human behavior, and (3) the optimal design for tax laws to mitigate climate change. This essay also sketches a few possible directions for future scholarship at the intersection of taxation and environmental law. It concludes by emphasizing the need for lawyers, lawmakers, policymakers, and advocates who have a deep understanding of both fields
Why Aviation Fuel Remains Untaxed: Legal Barriers to Aviation Fuel Taxation
Full text linkAviation fuel remains largely untaxed worldwide, despite the sector’s growing contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. This article examines the legal foundations of this exemption and argues that it results less from fiscal necessity than from historical international law and institutional inertia. The Chicago Convention (1944), subsequent ICAO policy instruments, and a dense network of air service agreements have collectively constrained states’ ability to tax aviation fuel, a stance reinforced by the delegation of aviation emissions to ICAO under the Kyoto Protocol. A comparative analysis of the European Union, Switzerland, and the United States shows that domestic frameworks replicate these international barriers. Yet, national and regional initiatives such as the EU and Swiss Emissions Trading Systems (ETS) demonstrate that innovation is possible outside the ICAO framework and without full global consensus. The article concludes by identifying Most-Favoured-Nation and national treatment clauses in Air Services Agreements—and ICAO’s institutional role itself—as promising areas for further research at the intersection of aviation governance, international taxation, and environmental law
TFPA, Wildfire Mitigation, and the Dissemination of Indigenous Knowledge
Full text linkThe United States is experiencing a multitude of environmental issues across the country, including increasingly frequent and disastrous wildfires. Simultaneously, Indigenous persons are demanding their right to self-sovereignty and working to preserve intergenerational Indigenous Knowledge including cultural burning practices. Cultural burning is a practice of many Indigenous tribes that help environments and the species that comprise them, foster and grow. To further help tribes with their mission in keeping Indigenous Knowledge alive and to reduce the frequency and severity of destructive wildfires, this article argues the federal government should amend federal acts to provide Indigenous tribes with a greater opportunity to employ their traditional practices in subject matters the tribes have pertinent experience with. As a starting point, this article will address how the Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) can be amended to enhance the opportunity for tribes to practice cultural burning. Additionally, I will discuss the impacts of both historic and current federal government wildfire mitigation practices, particularly fire suppression, in the United States. Then, I will address how the federal government can amend the TFPA to increase the frequency and extent of Indigenous cultural burning practices on federal lands by expanding the definition of lands covered by the Act, providing programs for tribes, and specifically defining cultural burning terms to help ensure maximum use of cultural burning practices that could help mitigate worsening wildfire conditions
NYC DJ Henry Memorial Event
No full textThe Pace community on the New York City campus was invited to celebrate the life and legacy of DJ Henry over dinner. Attendees came together as a community to learn more about the life of DJ Henry, while also engaging in artistic expression to show our resistance and social justice
Democracy in Action: We Fight Back
No full textThe United States achieved full democracy with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Democracy in Action: We Fight Back is a photo/poster essay that documents social movements commencing with the civil disobedience of the 1960’s. We concentrate, however, on current protests – at home and abroad – in the fight to combat authoritarianism and protect what many have come to realize is the fragility of the U.S. democracy
Hemp and Marijuana: The Necessity of Lab Testing for Fair Prosecutions
Full text linkThis Article examines the evidentiary and ethical challenges prosecutors nationwide face in distinguishing between hemp and marijuana under current federal and state laws. Following the legalization of hemp under the federal 2018 Farm Bill, the legal distinction between hemp and marijuana now hinges on the concentration of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This distinction requires quantitative lab testing to be established. Without quantitative lab testing, prosecutors cannot accurately determine THC levels, making it challenging, if not impossible, to meet the burden of proof required for marijuana possession convictions. This Article argues that the absence of testing raises evidentiary and ethical concerns that undermine the principles of justice and due process. The Article includes a historical overview of hemp regulation, an analysis of the federal 2018 Farm Bill, a state-specific implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill—Texas House Bill 1325, and a discussion of prosecutors’ ethical responsibilities in criminal cases. The Article concludes that fair prosecutions require quantitative lab testing, as a failure to identify substances accurately undermines the justice system’s integrity and risks wrongful convictions
Embrace the Chaos: Contributing to Experience in the Face of AI and NextGen
Full text linkThis article asserts that the combination of AI-assisted writing tools and the immediacy of the NextGen Bar compel changes in legal education’s goals, expectations, and delivery methods. Topping off these forces, the ABA is considering increased requirements for additional experiential credits prior to graduation. These challenging mandates provide opportunities for law faculty, who can construct courses that help students learn through integrated experiential credits while promoting and spreading legal knowledge to organizations that lack legal advice.
Through the example of a Housing Discrimination course, this article demonstrates a method for constructing a course that is resigned to the presence of ChatGPT while it seeks to hone skills that will be tested on the NextGen Bar, all while improving enforcement of civil rights via the federal Fair Housing Act. Building on emerging scholarship in how LRW professors are meeting the challenge of assessing student writing in the presence of ChatGPT, this article identifies opportunities for faculty to address the need to help students develop the client-focused skills they will need to succeed on the NextGen Bar, while promoting efforts to enforce anti-discrimination laws.
This article argues that law faculty should consider ways in which their doctrinal interests can be overlaid upon experiential teaching to benefit organizations that cannot afford a lawyer. A roadmap is provided for faculty to select from the proposed skills NextGen will test to serve as the organizing principle for their course assignments. The article asserts that by integrating essential skills—such as how to interview, communicate with, perform legal research for, and counsel an organizational client—with the substantive law, faculty can enable students to meet the challenges of NextGen.
In the provided example, the client is a non-profit fair housing center that serves at the forefront of fair housing enforcement, but relies on lay advocacy to investigate whether discriminatory housing practices have occurred. While their non-law-trained advocates are well-versed in fair housing concepts, their interactions with housing consumers, housing industry groups, and local governments often raise unique or novel questions of law. Connecting student assignments to these organizations serves an additional need by ensuring some of their questions no longer remain unanswered