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Sapphics Overshadowed: How Men Loving Men Have Defined LGBTQ+Fiction and How Women Deserve More Recognition.
No full textFeeling at Home: A look at the Importance of Diversity in Graphic Novels for Young Readers.
No full textEthical Considerations in Qualitative Research After Dobbs
Get PDFThe verdict in the Dobbs case will undoubtedly have an impact on the United States research enterprise for years to come. Since the landmark decision was handed down by the high court, researchers have warned of the impacts that the decision will have on clinical research. However, there is less discussion about how qualitative researchers will be impacted by this decision. Oftentimes, qualitative researchers are asking their participants to be vulnerable and to let researchers be privy to intimate and/or confidential details about their lives. In exchange for such access, researchers need to ensure the protection of their participants and conduct their research in an ethical manner.
Given the rise of anti-abortion laws, it is difficult for qualitative researchers to understand the true scope of the Dobbs decision on reproductive healthcare. For potential research participants, they may be hesitant to share their voices on any subject concerning reproduction, not only abortion, for fears of legal retribution if the courts make a decision regarding a different aspect of reproduction (i.e., in vitro fertilization and mail-order abortions). For researchers that continue to conduct reproductive healthcare research, new ethical considerations are apparent as researchers need to attune to their participants’ confidentiality concerns and their own well-being as they conduct increasingly stigmatized research.
This Article is composed of three parts. Part I provides a brief overview of qualitative methods and how these methods have been used to advanced reproductive healthcare efforts in the United States. Part II explores the ethical considerations of conducting reproductive research after Dobbs, and it is framed by the ethical criterion of excellent qualitative research. Part III explores how using an evolving relational ethics framework can help researchers better attune to their participants’ confidentiality concerns while also better protecting their own mental health. Ultimately, it is vital to continue attempts to incorporate the lived experiences of these individuals in qualitative research regarding reproduction in order to consider how to move forward with policies of reproduction in the United States
The BLM\u27s Public Lands Rule and Periodic Adjustments in Use to Conform to Changing Needs and Conditions Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act
Get PDFOn May 9, 2024, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalized new regulations, cumulatively referred to as the “Public Lands Rule.” According to the preamble for the rule, the purpose of the regulations is “to advance the BLM’s multiple use and sustained yield mission by prioritizing the health and resilience of ecosystems across public lands.” When making land management decisions, the definition of multiple use requires the BLM to take into account “the long-term needs of future generations.” Those resource needs include “recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific and historical values.” Despite this directive, BLM’s practice over the last fifty years prioritized extractive uses, often to the detriment of other land values listed in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). This imbalance, combined with other ecological stresses, has caused widespread degradation of public lands. Degraded landscapes cannot fulfill FLPMA’s mandate to ensure a sustained yield of natural resource values like healthy rangelands, productive forests, abundant fish and wildlife, and functioning watersheds. Opponents argue that the Public Lands Rule is inconsistent with FLPMA and will “lock up” federal lands. This article tests both of those critiques. It concludes that conservation is woven throughout BLM’s public land management duties, particularly the maintenance of ecosystem functions like fish and wildlife habitat, watershed functionality, productive soil, healthy rangelands, and productive forests. Moreover, subsequently enacted statutes and appropriations confirmed Congressional understanding that conservation of landscape health, including resilient and functional ecosystems, is an inherent part of BLM’s land management duties under the principles of multiple use. Turning to the concern that the conservation is a “non-use” that will “lock up” federal land, the last section of this article demonstrates the opposite. Conservation is an economically valuable use of land that is visible in its market value. Additionally, conservation can facilitate other uses by balancing the potential adverse impacts of a project and potentially easing compliance with regulatory standards. As required by FLPMA, BLM’s Public Lands Rule offers appropriate “periodic adjustments in use to conform to changing needs and conditions” on public lands
A Transformative Era of Action: How the Public Land and Private Sectors are Realigning to Solve the Energy Transition and Climate Change
Get PDFOver the last 50 years, environmental laws have transformed the areas we inhabit—and Planet Earth—for the better. Since the daybreak of the environmental law movement in 1970, our air and water are clearer, the lands we navigate are cleaner, and the food and products we consume are safer. Unfortunately, this same legal framework has not met the same success when tackling two of the biggest challenges of ours and future generations: the energy transition and climate change. Since the Supreme Court empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to act on climate change over fifteen years ago, conventional environmental laws and policies have not budged the needle toward climate change action with the urgency that these challenges warrant. The last few years, however, have ushered in a long overdue, transformative era of action on the energy transition and climate change. For the first time, we are seeing definitive forward momentum toward implementing solutions and reducing emissions. While the pathway to 2050 net zero remains blurred, both near and long term direction are getting within sharper sights. Importantly, this seismic shift toward progress is due to having the courage to pivot from using the same legal tools in the toolbox that have solved other environmental challenges so effectively, and adapt to a fundamentally new way of approaching environmental law. In short, what’s driving this transformative era of action is less sticks, more carrots. A new series of policies and laws in the United States has ushered in action by pivoting away from what has not worked in the past and embracing something new: an orientation between the public and private sectors to—for the first meaningful time in history—affirmatively align the interests of government and companies. Rather than work crosswise with the private sector, new policies and laws are incentivizing corporate action to tackle the energy transition and climate change for the first time. What this means for the law and the lawyer is a stronger and broader but different role than in the past. By embracing these transitions and transformations, the law and lawyers can now play a meaningful role in solving climate change and furthering the energy transition during this transformative era of action
Correlates of the Ego Impairment Index in an Adolescent Inpatient Sample
Get PDFThe Ego Impairment Index-3 (EII-3), a composite variable of psychopathology that can be computed from a valid Rorschach protocol, is the latest version of the EII found to demonstrate psychometric superiority and sound interrater reliability across studies of child, adolescent, and adult populations (Viglione et al., 2011). Research has documented that one’s EII-3 score reveals information regarding personality functioning that is not otherwise accessible through clinical observation, interview, or self-report measures. Still, guidelines for effective interpretation of EII-3 scores remain essential to yielding clinically relevant inferences and are especially of interest in adolescent populations of psychiatric severity. This study investigated correlations between EII-3 scores, constriction measures on the Rorschach Comprehensive System-Revised, measures of personality psychopathology via self-report measures such as the Personality Assessment Inventory – Adolescent (PAI-A), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – Adolescent (MMPI-A), and cognitive and academic scores as assessed by the Wechsler scales, derived from archival data of a heterogeneous sample of adolescents receiving psychiatric care at an inpatient hospital. Significant negative correlations emerged between the EII-3 and measures of constriction, deliberate positive impressions, and defensiveness on the MMPI-A, PAI-A, and The Rorschach Comprehensive System Revised (CS-R) Constriction Index, suggesting that these approaches result in a respondent appearing misleadingly psychologically healthy on the EII-3. Moreover, strong positive correlations were found for the association between the EII-3 and expected Rorschach variables. Negative relationships emerged between EII-3 scores and Rorschach measures of situational stress, suggesting that inpatient hospitalization was related to an acute crisis situation, rather than chronic impairment, in some cases. This study replicated previous findings by reporting positive correlations between EII-3 and scales of mental and emotional confusion and impaired object relations across self-report measures designed for adolescent populations. Ultimately, the present research adds interpretative value and provides much-needed direction for understanding the factors impacting convergent validity among gold-standard assessment tools
Examining the Role of Burnout: What Is Unique from the Experiences of Essential Healthcare Workers and First Responders Who Worked Throughout COVID-19?
Get PDFThroughout the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in March 2020, many essential healthcare workers (HCWs) and first responders were exposed to extreme numbers of sick and dying patients daily (Maunder et al., 2021). In December 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, infected people were dying at alarming rates, with over 350,000 deaths in the United States alone (United States Census Bureau, 2022). About three years later, in May 2023, the federal government retracted the executive order which declared COVID-19 a public health emergency (Jared, 2023). Although COVID-19 is no longer identified as a public health emergency, SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes the COVID-19 disease, continues to impose a significant threat to individuals’ psychological and emotional functioning (Jared, 2023). Prior to the pandemic, there was consensus within the literature that HCWs and first responders were at an increased risk of experiencing burnout and adverse psychological outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, and stress-related disorders related to the healthcare profession (Amanullah & Shankar, 2020); now, they presumably are at an even higher risk due to the unprecedented job-related and personal challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic (Jared, 2023; Maunder et al., 2021). Based on the literature, two groups of HCWs and first responders working throughout COVID-19 in the United States emerged. There was the group of HCWs and first responders who experienced higher levels of burnout and the group of HCWs and first responders who experienced lower levels of burnout. The purpose of this present study was to further examine and understand the set of characteristics possessed by HCWs and first responders who experienced higher levels of burnout, “High Burnout Group” (HBG), and the set of characteristics possessed by HCWs and first responders who experienced lower levels of burnout, “Low Burnout Group” (LBG). It was hypothesized that HCWs and first responders of the “HBG” would experience higher levels of stress, depression, moral injury, and secondary trauma than those of the “LBG.” Specifically, this study measured burnout via the Abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory (aMBI), affective distress via the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), depression via the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), moral injury via the Moral Injury Symptom Scale- Healthcare Professional Version (MISS-HP), and secondary trauma via the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS). Resilience, defined as the ability to bounce back or recover from stress, is considered a valuable coping mechanism when working through various psychological, emotional, or professional-related stressors ((American Psychological Association [APA], 2023). Thus, it was additionally hypothesized that HCWs and first responders within the “HBG” would report lower levels of resilience than those in the “LBG.” Resilience was measured via the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). This study assessed 157 participants, all of whom worked as essential HCWs or first responders throughout the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States. While the hypotheses were not supported, the results raise interesting questions suggesting a more complex, nuanced relationship between burnout and resilience that may lead to the development of more effective support services for essential HCWs and first responders in this ongoing pandemic and future pandemics to come. Keywords: burnout, resilience, COVID-19, pandemic, healthcare workers, first responders, essential worker
Disgusted Judges and Domestic Violence
Get PDFDomestic violence is disgusting. Seeing a person with a bruised face or black eye can make us cringe. Reading a graphic description of a physical or sexual assault by an intimate partner can lead to revulsion. Like the rest of us, judges experience disgust--both consciously and subconsciously--when confronted with evidence of abuse in intimate relationships. These feelings of disgust shape the judicial system\u27s responses to domestic violence in non-obvious ways.
In the minority of cases which seem to be “clear cut” (e.g., involving recent and corroborated physical or sexual violence), judicial disgust with defendants found to have perpetrated domestic violence may promote entry of civil protection orders (CPOs). But social science research and court-based studies strongly suggest that judicial disgust with domestic violence operates to the detriment of survivors in the majority of CPO cases which present as more “ambiguous” (e.g., “he said/she said” cases).
This Article argues that judicial disgust leads to the denial of relief to many domestic violence survivors in CPO cases because disgust promotes subconscious victim blaming and avoidance responses, which, in turn, undermine accuracy in adjudication and undercut legislative intent to protect survivors. Ultimately, disgusted judges are more likely to dismiss meritorious petitions for protection from domestic violence and to disregard procedural justice concerns.
State courts and legislatures should implement legal reforms to address the problem of judicial disgust with domestic violence. In addition, legal education providers at all levels (i.e., for law students, lawyers, and judges) should offer courses on emotional regulation skills to reduce the potential negative effects of disgust and other emotions on legal practice and adjudication. Finally, this Article implores social scientists to further explore the impact of disgust on people\u27s responses to domestic violence, with a new and specific focus on the context of adjudication, in order to aid efforts to promote access to legal relief for survivors