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Pacific Islands and the U.S. Military: The Legal Borderlands of the Environmental Movement
Get PDFClimate change remains an urgent, ongoing global issue that requires critical examination of institutional polluters. This includes the world’s largest institutional consumer of petroleum: the United States military. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a massive institution with little oversight, a carbon footprint spanning the globe, a budget greater than the next ten largest nations combined, and overly generous exemptions to environmental regulations and carbon reduction targets. This Comment examines how this lack of accountability and oversight plays out in the context of three Pacific islands that have hosted U.S. military bases for decades. By considering the environmental impact of military bases on Okinawa, Guam, and Hawai’i, this Comment reveals how the DoD has continually bypassed environmental responsibility through favorable basing agreements with foreign nations that minimize U.S. liability for environmental cleanup, by building bases on unincorporated territories where civilians do not have full constitutional rights, and by obfuscating the true nature of environmental contamination to the public. As a result, environmental laws—and their enforcement by the EPA—are severely undermined. This Comment concludes by offering recommendations to address the root of the U.S. military’s environmental impact in its overseas bases by strengthening the EPA’s authority to enforce environmental laws at military bases, eliminating the military exemptions to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, employing the BRAC process to shrink the DoD’s bloated footprint, and giving full autonomy to Pacific Island nations
Hemispheric Justice: Awakening to 303 Creative’s Troubles – A Glocalized LatCritical Analysis
Get PDFHealthcare in Carceral Settings: Providing Alternatives for the Medically Vulnerable Incarcerated Person
Get PDFStudents for Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action and Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity?
Get PDFThe Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater institutional efficacy, including possible race-neutral alternatives. The programs also failed to break down stereotypes through the introduction of a critical mass to empower diverse voices. The programs thereby resembled prohibited quotas or racial balancing. As such, the programs at issue violated Grutter, which still governs race-based affirmative action in college admissions. More importantly, the Roberts court paved the way for more expansive diversity-based admissions programs by permitting institutions to value individual racial experiences, which authentically further an institution’s mission and interests. After SFFA, the use of race as a factor could well face time limits. Contrastingly, individualized racial experiences may benefit college applicants at institutions that embrace diversity in an authentic way without facing any time limitation. Further, institutions with distinct missions may value diversity in a race-conscious way but without any racial preference. In sum, the Roberts Court guides the use of race in college admissions toward a race-neutral, diversity-based paradigm such that institutions may still unlock the empirically proven benefits of cultural diversity with only de minimus interference from the courts. This approach rests upon a powerful policy basis that leads to superior innovation, macroeconomic outcomes, social cohesion and, therefore, superior national security for the United States. This approach thus could support a powerful interest convergence
Student Life E-Newsletter April 15, 2024
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The Class of Injuries Test: A Unifying Proposal to Determining Duty, Proximate Cause, and Superseding Cause in Negligence Claims
Get PDFWhile there seems to be universal agreement that liability in tort cannot be unlimited, there is widespread disagreement regarding the various tests that courts utilize to limit such liability. We assume here that breach can be proven: the defendant failed to conduct themself in accordance with the salient standard of conduct (for example, failure to exercise reasonable care under all the circumstances). In the ensuing litigation, the court and jury are asked to decide several issues that each limit liability for negligence. Here, we focus on three oft-debated issues: duty, proximate cause, and superseding cause. The tests for each are overlapping, varied, inconsistent, contradictory, and confusing. This Article examines the existing confusion in determining duty, proximate cause, and superseding cause and then identifies a single test that, if adopted, would both unify and clarify these defenses
What Is in Your Tampon? Increasing Transparency in Menstrual Products
Get PDFThe average person who menstruates will bleed for an average of five days, every twenty-four to thirty-eight days, over several decades and could use thousands of disposable menstrual products in their lifetime. Menstrual products line retail shelves. They can be found in homes, bags, and bodies—but until 2021, manufacturers were not required to disclose the ingredients used to make these products to consumers at all. In fact, they still are not federally required to disclose menstrual product ingredients on product packaging. Instead, in recent years, changes to menstrual product labels have largely been the result of state legislation. In 2019, New York State passed the first Menstrual Right to Know Act, which gave manufacturers eighteen months to begin disclosing menstrual product ingredients on boxes sold within the state. California passed its own disclosure law in 2020.
In addition to increasing transparency through ingredient disclosures, states are legislating to end menstrual product taxes and to increase access. Amid these efforts to increase menstrual equity, it is important to evaluate whether changes to state laws are the appropriate route for a product historically regulated by the FDA. It is also important to consider whether these laws might be more effective if taken a step further. This Note argues that menstrual products deserve increased scrutiny and that legislation can support important changes to further the health of menstruators in the United States. In delving into the history of the tampon and the Toxic Shock Syndrome Crisis of the 1980s, this Note also aims to highlight the importance of product safety and regulation, particularly as new products enter the market. Parts I and II provide an overview of the menstrual product market, including the history of FDA regulation and more recent research efforts. Part III evaluates efforts to increase menstrual product transparency through state and federal legislation. Part IV proposes additional regulations to increase transparency and consumer safety, focusing on eco-labeling, fixing absorbency charts, and legislating at the federal level. California and New York’s laws are an important step toward increasing consumer awareness and autonomy, but they are just a start. Significant changes are needed to combat existing menstrual stigma, achieve future equity, and ensure product safety
We Shall Overcome: The Evolution of Quotas in the Land of the Free and the Home of Samba
Get PDFWhen were voices given to the voiceless? When will education be permitted to all? When will we need to protest no more? It’s the twenty-first century, and the fight for equity in higher education remains a challenge to peoples all over the world. While students in the United States must deal with the increase in loans, in Brazil, only around 20% of youth between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four have a higher education degree.
The primary objective of this Article is to conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of the development, implementation, and legal adjudication of educational quota systems within higher education in the U.S. and Brazil with an emphasis on understanding these policies through the lens of education as a fundamental human right. Utilizing a systematic review methodology and interdisciplinary approach, this study will delve into the complex legal, historical, and cultural underpinnings specific to the higher education sector in both countries. The aim is to elucidate how the U.S. and Brazil interpret and implement quota systems in higher education, assessing their alignment with international human rights standards and their impact on educational equality and diversity. This focused comparative study seeks to provide a detailed narrative of the evolution of higher education quota systems, their legal challenges, and their outcomes