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Vanderbilt Hustler; Vol. 125 Iss. 16 February 28, 2013
No full textThe official student newspaper at Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt Hustler; Vol. 125 Iss. 21 March 28, 2013
No full textThe official student newspaper at Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt Hustler; Vol. 125 Iss. 35 September 11, 2013
No full textThe official student newspaper at Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt Hustler; Vol. 125 Iss. 40 October 9, 2013
No full textThe official student newspaper at Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt Hustler; Vol. 125 Iss. 42 October 23, 2013
No full textThe official student newspaper at Vanderbilt University
Climate Change Meets the Law of the Horse
No full textarticle published in law journalThe climate change policy debate has only recently turned its full attention to adaptation - how to address the impacts of climate change we have already begun to experience and that will likely increase over time. Legal scholars have in turn begun to explore how the many different fields of law will and should respond. During this nascent period, one overarching question has gone unexamined: how will the legal system as a whole organize around climate change adaptation? Will a new distinct field of climate change adaptation law and policy emerge, or will legal institutions simply work away at the problem through unrelated, duly self-contained fields, as in the famous Law of the Horse? This Article is the first to examine that question comprehensively, to move beyond thinking about the law and climate change adaptation to consider the law of climate change adaptation.
Part I of the Article lays out our methodological premises and approach. Using a model we call Stationarity Assessment, Part I explores how legal fields are structured and sustained based on assumptions about the variability of natural, social, and economic conditions, and how disruptions to that regime of variability can lead to the emergence of new fields of law and policy. Case studies of environmental law and environmental justice demonstrate the model’s predictive power for the formation of new distinct legal regimes.
Part II applies the Stationarity Assessment model to the topic of climate change adaptation, using a case study of a hypothetical coastal region and the potential for climate change impacts to disrupt relevant legal doctrines and institutions. We find that most fields of law appear capable of adapting effectively to climate change. In other words, without some active intervention, we expect the law and policy of climate change adaptation to follow the path of the Law of the Horse - a collection of fields independently adapting to climate change - rather than organically coalescing into a new distinct field.
Part III explores why, notwithstanding this conclusion, it may still be desirable to seek a different trajectory. Focusing on the likelihood of systemic adaptation decisions with perverse, harmful results, we identify the potential benefits offered by intervening to shape a new and distinct field of climate change adaptation law and policy. Part IV then identifies the contours of such a field, exploring the distinct purposes of reducing vulnerability, ensuring resiliency, and safeguarding equity. These features provide the normative policy components for a law of climate change adaptation that would be more than just a Law of the Horse. This new field would not replace or supplant any existing field, however, as environmental law did with regard to nuisance law, and it would not be dominated by substantive doctrine. Rather, like the field of environmental justice, this new legal regime would serve as a holistic overlay across other fields to ensure more efficient, effective, and just climate change adaptation solutions
Translating the Values of Clinical Pedagogy Across Generations
No full textarticle published in law reviewClinical teaching is a Baby Boomer. After an extended infancy, it came of age in the 1960s. It challenged the entrenched isolation and aloofness of law school by questioning the very methods by which law is taught. Channeling the Boomers' cultural tenets of dismantling hierarchy, fostering collaboration, and advocating for social change, it shook off legal academia's suit and tie and rolled up its sleeves, bringing the community into the classroom and putting the university to work. These Boomer-era values are reflected in clinical teaching's enduring core principles of non-directive teaching, reflective practice,
close and immediate supervision, learning from experience, and a commitment to social justice. In clinical education's formative years, teachers, students, and pedagogy were sympathetically aligned. All came from the same generational neighborhood and brought similar perspectives on the purposes of education, work, and advocacy to the clinic. Today, generational diversity is the norm. Baby Boomers mentor Generation X colleagues in the teaching of Millennial students. Generational variety brings a multitude of differing approaches to clinical pedagogy. There is no longer a presumptive unity between social and pedagogical perspectives. Clinical teachers and students must now mind the
generational gap
The Presumption of Patentability
No full textarticle published in law reviewWhen the Framers of the United States Constitution granted Congress the authority to create a patent system, they certainty did not envision a patent as an a priori entitlement. As it stands now, anyone who files a patent application on anything is entitled to a presumption of patentability. A patent examiner who seeks to challenge patentability faces the dual burden of building a prima facie case of unpatentability and carrying the ultimate burden of proof. Thus, from the outset, an applicant is in a very good position; but the examiner’s limited resources, time pressures, and production goals tip the scales even further toward patent issuance. This entitlement regime increases the number of patent application filings on questionable inventions, contributes to the proliferation of low-quality patents, impedes patent reform, hinders innovation, and frustrates patent policy. Yet these problems are often attributed to other causes and the potential role of the presumption and proof framework has largely been overlooked. But can it be fixed?
This Article proposes a way to rebalance the scales of patentability during patent examination. By demanding more from the applicant, it makes the issuance of a patent far from a sure thing. The proposed regime makes three key changes in the rules of patent examination. First, the locution of the dual burdens would be decoupled such that the initial burden of coming forward with evidence of unpatentability (building a prima facie case) would remain with the examiner but the burden of persuasion on the ultimate issue would now rest with the applicant. Second, the current presumption of patentability would be replaced with a presumption of unpatentability. As a result, an applicant who could not adduce proof of patentability by a preponderance of the evidence would face a rejection. Third, in an effort to produce more technically robust patents, the restrictions on amending patent documents after filing would be relaxed so that an applicant who adduces proof of patentability could incorporate the additional information into the issued patent. Aside from derailing questionable patents, this regime would lead to more efficient patent examination, improved patent quality, better inventions, better disclosure, and fewer obstacles to innovation
Translating the Values of Clinical Pedagogy Across Generations
No full textarticle published in law reviewClinical teaching is a Baby Boomer. After an extended infancy, it came of age in the 1960s. It challenged the entrenched isolation and aloofness of law school by questioning the very methods by which law is taught. Channeling the Boomers' cultural tenets of dismantling hierarchy, fostering collaboration, and advocating for social change,
it shook off legal academia's suit and tie and rolled up its sleeves, bringing the community into the classroom and putting the university
to work. These Boomer-era values are reflected in clinical teaching's
enduring core principles of non-directive teaching, reflective practice,
close and immediate supervision, learning from experience, and a
commitment to social justice.
In clinical education's formative years, teachers, students, and
pedagogy were sympathetically aligned. All came from the same
generational neighborhood and brought similar perspectives on the
purposes of education, work, and advocacy to the clinic. Today,
generational diversity is the norm. Baby Boomers mentor Generation
X colleagues in the teaching of Millennial students. Generational variety
brings a multitude of differing approaches to clinical pedagogy.
There is no longer a presumptive unity between social and pedagogical
perspectives. Clinical teachers and students must now mind the
generational gap
Developing Agency for Global Citizenship through the Implementation of Human Rights Education
No full textTeaching and Learning Department Capstone ProjectThe world we live in today is one in which we can communicate to people on other continents instantly through Skype, Email, Facebook, and even by telephone. We have more cross-cultural encounters presently than in any other time in the history of our planet through the means of industrialization that in turn, has now manifested into globalization. Through this notion of globalization, our world is really only a couple of decades old. Upon the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet Communism, our new existence was conceived. This conception resulted in the mass overhaul of what it meant to be a citizen. No longer were we participants in a nation-state infrastructure, but instead, we became participants of the world. Everything we do affects individuals world-wide. Consumerism, communication, and other daily tasks and choices we make expose us to global contact though we are often not cognizant of it.
With this being said, our education system is set up to promote national citizenry instead of this novel concept of global citizenry. Gaudelli & Fernekes (2004) describe this idea of global citizenship as being “contingent with a process of imagining the world in new ways that transcend a nation-state fixation while embracing peace, diversity, complexity, and temporal awareness” (p.17). Internationally, the United States is falling behind in promoting this idea of global citizenry, as other post-industrial and first world nations have already adopted this concept into their curriculums. There is resistance to this curriculum, naturally, since it involves major changes which could pose a threat to the state. However, curriculum developers and policy makers must be conscious of how outdated the nation-state fixation lens is in our compulsory education. Our goal as educators is to prepare our students for the problems of tomorrow that they will inherit. These issues are no longer confined to the borders of our nation, but extend from both poles, north to south, and from the prime meridian to the equator. The problems of tomorrow are global problems that will affect us all as members of the human race.
Inherent to this idea of global citizenry is human rights education. Gaudelli & Fernekes state that human rights education “is a core element of the transcendent move toward a global civic culture, establishing a foundation for fairness and justice that is potentially universal” (p.17). Central to our role as citizens is knowing our rights, and as global citizens we must know our human rights since these are universal and applicable to all nations.
In my capstone, I will address the necessity for human rights education through a historical analysis of how this globalized world formed and its caveats that we must prepare our students for, the inadequacies of the current education infrastructure in promoting global citizenry, and how human rights education promotes global citizenry. I will then discuss the practical application of human rights education, considering the ways in which teachers must teach the subject, and the realities of implementing such a curriculum. Finally, I will discuss the validity in promoting global citizenry through human rights education.Vanderbilt UniversityDepartment of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen