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Housing Resource Bundles: Distributive Justice and Federal Low-Income Housing Policy
Get PDFOnly one in four eligible households receives some form of rental assistance from the federal government. Nonetheless, there is no time limit for the receipt of this assistance; individuals can continue to receive benefits as long as they satisfy eligibility requirements. In addition, individuals who do obtain assistance frequently have higher incomes than those denied it. Beyond simply providing housing, federal rental assistance is enlisted to serve a myriad of additional policy goals — including furthering economic integration and providing access to better neighborhoods — that can exacerbate inequities between those who receive benefits and those denied assistance. These broader objectives often increase the cost of housing assistance and reduce the number of households served.
Given increasingly limited resources and the growing demand for rental assistance, difficult decisions must be made regarding how to satisfy a range of conflicting programmatic goals. Although for at least four decades legal scholars, economists, public policy experts, and politicians have denounced the inequities in existing housing policy, no one has provided a detailed analysis of the specific ways in which this policy departs from norms of distributive justice and of how it might be made more equitable. This Article moves the conversation beyond simply decrying existing inequities and instead carefully analyzes federal housing policy in light of specific theories of distributive justice. Drawing on the philosophical literature, it evaluates the specifics of existing policies, and their distributional impacts, in light of five theories of distributive justice. It then proposes a new structure for federal rental assistance, which would allow recipients to choose among a set of “housing resource bundles.” This approach will not only satisfy the most salient understandings of distributive justice, but will also advance the concerns that underpin other distributive justice theories and allow federal housing policy to more effectively embrace a plurality of programmatic goals
Identifying Resilience in HIV-Negative Sexual Minority Men with Syndemic Conditions
Get PDFHIV/AIDS is a major public health concern for sexual minority men, especially men with risk factors for the virus. Most HIV prevention programs target relatively few behaviors, such as increasing individual condom use (Coates, Richter, & Caceres, 2008) through an exclusive focus on reducing high-risk behaviors (Herrick et al., 2011). Some researchers have posited whether more effective interventions, based on identifying and bolstering strengths of sexual minority men, should be developed. To that end, I conducted (a) a systematic review and (b) a qualitative study to serve as foundational steps in identifying resilience resources in samples of high risk, HIV-negative, sexual minority men. Both research inquiries examined samples of HIV-negative sexual minority men who endorsed at least one syndemic condition—empirically supported psychosocial risk factors identified as significantly increasing risk for HIV—including childhood sexual abuse, partner abuse, substance abuse, or mental health problems. In the systematic review, I identified 34 distinct resilience resources, including identity descriptors, behaviors related directly and indirectly to sex, cognitions, emotions, and relationships. I utilized these results to develop a qualitative interview guide. Results from interviews with 13 sexual minority men buttressed findings from the review: that resilience resources occurred at multiple ecosystem levels. More work is needed on ecosystem frameworks in HIV prevention to address the comprehensive issues influencing HIV infection. In addition, one hypothesis I generated from the interviews is that psychosocial risk factors for HIV may trigger stress-related growth for a certain subset of sexual minority men, leading to development of factors that decrease their HIV risk
Some Speculation About Mirror Neurons and Copyright
Get PDFThe internet, a world-wide copy machine, caused some rethinking of copyright law. Cognitive science increasingly suggests that humans are smaller scale, more adaptable, copy machines. Copyright law may again change. V.S. Ramachandran’s The Tell-Tale Brain discusses how mirror neurons may enable imitation, detection of others’ intention, and empathy. Ramachandran suggests that mirror neuron circuits could provide the neural substrate for cultural transmission, language, and even consciousness. This essay speculates on the implications for copyright law. It’s not news that people copy. But if cognition and culture depend on the bottom-up imitation by mirror neurons, perhaps some of the central tenets of copyright bear reexamining. Copyright’s central doctrine, the idea/expression dichotomy, could prove illusory if abstraction is dependent on embodied cognition - meaning that abstract ideas cannot be so easily separated from their expression as copyright law assumes. If cultural transmission is so directly tied to literal copying, fair use would have to give more respect to what it now terms merely reproductive uses. There would be reason to reexamine the Supreme Court’s statement in Eldred v. Ashcroft that mere copiers had little expressive interest. There could be more weight for such recent proposals to take into account the value of user innovation or to give protection to personal uses. On the flip side, in extending protection, copyright might give greater respect to the creative aspect of mere copiers. It remains to be seen whether mirror neurons underlie imitation, and whether that builds into language and cultural transmission. But copyright law may awaken from its dogmatic slumbers and take more seriously the question of how our minds work
International Power on Power
Get PDFCan international power be effectively used to control ‘power’? Power sector carbon emissions to the environment must be solved for a solution to the international problem of climate change. Many of the large developing countries are underwriting the largest in world history push into more high-carbon coal-fired power, which will wholly frustrate world climate control goals. The United Nations scientific panel concluded, with high certainty, that the world is passing the point of being able to control increase in world temperature to less than 2 degrees C. (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit), the so-called ‘tipping point’ of the Planet’s climate.
Tightening the screws of international climate law is necessary. This article applies legal tools to assess key variable in the international regulation of climate. This article critically examines the various comparative international, national, and subnational legal tools now addressing what many consider the most pressing world problem – with a comparison of the U.S. deployment of tools to those tools deployed internationally. This article assesses what international law is and is not doing successfully, and uses these lessons to chart the successful path forward to sustainability and manageable climate impact
Oral history interview with John Costello (SOH-042)
Get PDFIn this interview, John W. Costello, a 1956 graduate of Suffolk University Law School reflects upon his experiences attending Suffolk University Law School, his family’s long-standing connection to Suffolk, and his life post-graduation. Costello discusses his political career including, his service in the Massachusetts legislature, the Governor’s Council, and his bid for Lieutenant Governor in 1964. He describes his relationships with Massachusetts politicians such as Congressman Joe Moakley, Bobby Kennedy and Jack Kennedy. He also describes his law practice, connections to his law school classmates, and his family life. Costello concludes by discussing how Suffolk Law School prepared him for his career.https://dc.suffolk.edu/soh/1030/thumbnail.jp
Suffolk University Law School Alumni Magazine, Spring 2015
Get PDFhttps://dc.suffolk.edu/slam/1023/thumbnail.jp
