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Reevaluating School Searches Following School-to-Prison Pipeline Reforms
Get PDFThe U.S. Supreme Court held in New Jersey v. T.L.O. that school officials could search students without a warrant and with only reasonable suspicion, not probable cause, because of schools’ need for discipline and the relationship between educators and students. That case belongs to a body of Fourth Amendment cases involving, in T.L.O.’s terms, “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” What Fourth Amendment standard, then, governs searches involving one of the roughly 20,000 school resource officers (SROs) in American schools? Most state courts to decide the issue in the 1990s and 2000s found that T.L.O. applied to SRO-involved searches, likening SROs to school officials and drawing a line between SROs and other police officers.
Reforms largely enacted in the 2010s, in contrast, draw a line between school officials and SROs, emphasizing that SROs are law enforcement officers, not school disciplinarians. Reflecting the consensus that law enforcement responses to school misbehavior harm children, these reforms limit SRO involvement to more serious crimes or immediate safety risks.
This Article is the first to explore how these recent reforms undermine earlier cases applying T.L.O. to SROs. These recent reforms place SROs on the law enforcement side of the “special needs” line. This analysis also shows how searches conducted under policies requiring schools to turn over evidence of criminal activity to law enforcement transform the character of searches conducted by school officials into law enforcement searches. Finally, this Article offers a doctrinal path to limiting warrantless school searches to narrower circumstances, thus letting authorities respond to the risk of deadly weapons at schools while limiting the risk that reduced Fourth Amendment protections will contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline
A Promising Start for Early Childhood Development and the Law
Get PDFExamining the role of the law in early childhood development is not new; several legal scholars have engaged in such an inquiry, including scholars at this symposium. But this engagement has not led to a sustained debate about how the legal system can foster early childhood development, nor has it yet led to the integration of legal scholars into the interdisciplinary research on, and policy debates about, early childhood. I have argued that the creation of a new subdiscipline in family law — early childhood development and the law — would achieve these goals, sparking debate within law, bringing a legal perspective to interdisciplinary research, and involving legal scholars in policy debates about supporting early childhood development. As I elaborate below, this symposium and the preceding national summit are promising steps in the creation of this new subdiscipline, highlighting the theoretical and practical benefits of this focused inquiry and generating a research agenda. Drawing on this momentum, this essay also identifies the next steps for building the subdiscipline, with the ultimate goal of reorienting the legal system to nurture early childhood development
Regulating in the Face of a Changing World: Legal Regulation of Climate Change
Get PDFEveryone knows that the temperatures have been going up. While tern, peratures bounce around from year to year, when looking at five,year averages, the trend is unmistakable. A well,known adverse effect of these changes is that the Arctic is warming; the extent of Arctic sea ice declin, ing had dipped to a record low in 2015. A decreased level of sea ice has led to the rise of sea levels, which have increased at an accelerated pace. There are a number of projections about what the future pace of sea level rise will be, but most scientists believe it most likely that the measured sea level near 2100 will be at least 1 or 2 meters higher than its current state. Two meters is considerable, when taking into account the many flat areas of the world surrounded by the ocean. Historically, sea levels have risen about eight inches over the last century, already creating notable impacts. These rising sea levels will have impacts that will require legal assessment and response
Techniques for Regulating Military Force
Get PDFThis chapter draws on the five chapters that follow—each of which describes the war powers in a single country — to identify and analyze some of the techniques for regulating this area of foreign affairs and then to reflect on the value of comparative research on it. Three basic techniques are: (1) to establish substantive standards on when the government may or may not use force, (2) to divide among different branches of government the authority to deploy the country’s armed forces, and (3) to subject such decisions to oversight or review. There is considerable variation, both across countries and over time within particular countries, in how and with what effect each technique is used. Given that variation, comparative war powers research might be of limited relevance to national officials who make use of force decisions or to analysts who seek to explain them. Rather, the principal benefit of such research might be to bring into stark relief each country’s own national ethos — to shed light on how it defines itself and conceives of its relationship with the rest of the world
Outcome Report on the Climate Crisis, Global Land Use and Human Rights Conference
Get PDFOn September 27th, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Landesa, the New York City Bar Association International Environmental Law Committee, and Wake Forest Law School hosted a day-long conference on the intersection between land use, the climate crisis and clean energy transition, and human rights.
Held at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, the conference brought together individuals from civil society organizations, governments, and academia, as well as lawyers, climate scientists, land-rights experts, indigenous representatives and other stakeholder groups. The panelists analyzed the critical role that land plays in achieving climate solutions, the degree to which climate change may reshape regional abilities to support sustainable ecosystems, and the ways in which these land and climate interactions might affect land rights, human rights, and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. This outcome document summarizes the panel discussions and crucial takeaways
Modelling for Sustainable Development: New Decisions for a New Age
Get PDFThis book outlines how next-generation models need to integrate social and environmental components in government and corporate decision-making. Traditionally, these models have focused on profits and taxes, but to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, they need to take a more holistic view. The book builds on the expanding practices of modelling complex decision making requirements and indicators. It considers the challenges of decision making in the face of incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information, the role of multiple stakeholders, and the capacity of governments and others to use models effectively.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/sustainable_investment_books/1007/thumbnail.jp
UNCITRAL Working Group III on ISDS Reform: How Cross-Cutting Issues Reshape Reform Options
Get PDFThe United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is currently working on how to reform international investment treaties, focusing in particular on those treaties’ provisions enabling investors to sue governments in international arbitration. As an observer organization in this process, CCSI has emphasized that in the context of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform, it is important to first consider what it is that investment treaties aim to achieve, and only then to consider what form(s) of dispute settlement will best advance those objectives. This means not only looking at reform of the existing ISDS mechanism, but also alternatives to it. Having identified various concerns about ISDS, UNCITRAL is now taking stock of potential reform options, and will consider this fall which options to pursue and in what order. To contribute to UNCITRAL’s work, CCSI, together with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), submitted this document outlining potential reform options and considerations.
UNCITRAL Working Group III on ISDS Reform: How Cross-Cutting Issues Reshape Reform Options discusses at a general level how issues such as regulatory chill, investor obligations and counterclaims, the rights of non-parties, and damages – issues that were recognized by the Working Group as being important for guiding its efforts and outputs – could inform the contours of reform solutions
Insulation by Separation: When Dual-Class Stock Met Corporate Spin-Offs
Get PDFThe recent rise of shareholder engagement has revamped companies’ corporate governance structures so as to empower shareholder rights and to constrain managerial opportunism. The general trend notwithstanding, this Article uncovers corporate spin-off transactions — which divide a single company into two or more companies — as a unique mechanism that insulates the management from shareholder intervention. In a spin-off, the company’s managers can fundamentally change the governance arrangements of the new spun-off company without being subject to monitoring mechanisms, such as shareholder approval or market check. Furthermore, most spin-off transactions enjoy tax benefits. The potential agency problems associated with the managers’ unilateral governance changes can be further compounded when the managers adopt multiple classes of common stock with unequal voting rights (dual-class stock) in the new spun-off company without shareholder approval.
This is the first Article to systematically examine the problem from both corporate and tax law perspectives and to offer possible solutions. The Article argues that when the managers’ unilateral governance changes are substantial, certain adjustments to corporate and tax laws may be necessary to curb managerial opportunism. For instance, under corporate law, when spin-off transactions accompany a charter amendment, shareholder approval, either at the state law level or company charter level, can be mandated. In addition, tax law can revisit the “continuity of interest” requirement to evaluate whether material changes in shareholder voting rights can disqualify certain spin-offs from tax-free treatment. The Article will also present new insights into the long-standing debate on dual-class stock by showing how the perceived risk of dual-class stock can be magnified when combined with spin-off transactions
Professor Katherine Franke Joins an Amicus Brief in \u3cem\u3eCommonwealth of Pennsylvania and New Jersey v. Trump\u3c/em\u3e
Get PDFOn Monday, March 25th, Professor Katherine Franke, Faculty Director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School, joined an amicus brief in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and New Jersey v. Trump,* a challenge to two rules that exempt employers with religious or moral objections from compliance with the contraceptive coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act
New Year, New Name: The Public Rights/Private Conscience Project is Now the Law, Rights, and Religion Project
Get PDFAfter nearly five years of fighting for religious equality and civil rights, the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project (PRPCP) is proud to announce our new name