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Backward Design: A Handy Tool for Remote Teaching
Get PDFThe Vanderbilt Law Library recently revamped its 1 L legal research curriculum. In order to ensure that the revamp was effective, the librarians utilized backward design, which requires that instructors formulate a set of teaching objectives prior to creating course materials. When the University transitioned to remote teaching as a result of COVID-19, the prior preparation as a group made the transition much easier because the teaching librarians were able to utilize the core concepts that were agreed to by all while still customizing their instruction to fit the needs of their individual sections and teaching styles
We Are All Growing Old Together: Making Sense of America\u27s Monument-Protection Laws
Get PDFMonuments and the laws that protect them divide Americans today as never before. American attitudes toward monuments have always been a blend of affection, insecurity, and suspicion. But Americans are now more invested in the built and natural monuments that surround us: to be for, or against, protecting certain monuments has now become a shorthand for one’s stance on a host of cultural and political issues. These changing attitudes have thrown American monument-protection laws into sharp relief. And many local, state, and federal legislators and executive officials have taken advantage of this opportunity to exploit America’s patchwork of monument-protection laws, exacerbating already-fraught monument conflicts for short-term political gain.
Contemporary conflicts over American monuments are particularly difficult to resolve for a number of reasons. Part of the problem is a lack of agreement about what does or should count as a monument, which is compounded by both the extreme diversity of American monument-protection laws and a persistent rural-urban divide that helps fuel many contemporary American monument conflicts. In addition, American monument-protection laws too often are considered in isolation, which undermines the possibility for achieving any kind of consensus or settled outcome after individual monument conflicts.
These factors complicate public discourse about monuments, monument-protection laws, and the conflicts that inevitably arise from both. They also complicate every effort to study American monuments and the laws that protect them. The absence of any meaningful shared discourse, let alone consensus, makes American monument conflicts particularly difficult to resolve, as the losing side tends to find the application of American monument-protection laws to be profoundly arbitrary. But in fact, many recent conflicts arising from America’s diverse monument-protection laws follow similar patterns—even though the political coalitions shift dramatically, depending on what sort of monuments are at stake. This Article reframes the debate over American monument-protection laws by considering Confederate statue statutes, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Antiquities Act of 1906 together. It analyzes recurring patterns of conflict that arise out of each statutory and regulatory system and proposes repeal of the statue statutes and reforms to the Antiquities Act
Associations and Cities as (Forbidden) Pure Private Attorneys General
Get PDFThe Supreme Court interprets Article III’s case-or-controversy language to require a plaintiff to show injury in fact, causation, and redressability. A plaintiff who meets that tripartite test has standing to sue and thus a personal stake in pursuing the litigation. Accordingly, in Sierra Club v. Morton, the Supreme Court prohibited pure private attorneys general: litigants who would sue without the requisite personal stake. This limitation extends to organizations. They, too, must show standing on their own account or, under Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Commission, identify a member with Article III standing and show how the lawsuit is germane to the organization’s purpose.
Yet when Hunt interacts with the complexities of modern standing doctrine, it becomes clear that many associations, particularly those that are large or have broad purposes, can show standing for virtually any lawsuit. Moreover, recent scholarship has plausibly suggested that municipalities can be treated as associations under Hunt; municipal purposes are so broad, and some cities are so big, that they could litigate almost any case they wish. But the purpose of the ban on pure private attorneys general is to avoid giving any plaintiff a roving commission to enforce the law. Thus, Sierra Club and Hunt are in serious tension.
This unnoticed conflict is further evidence of the notorious incoherence of Article III standing itself and might sensibly trigger a rethinking of the entire doctrine. Such reform seems highly unlikely, however, given nearly fifty years of standing’s reign. Alternatively, Congress—which is far better placed than the courts to make necessary factual determinations—could take steps to resolve the conflict between Sierra Club and Hunt. But Congress has other priorities. More modestly, the Court could make some changes at the margins of Hunt and Sierra Club, to ameliorate the tension between the two strands of standing doctrine
Modernizing the Bank Charter
Get PDFThe banking charter—the license a bank needs to obtain before it can open—has become the centerpiece of an argument about what finance should do for the rest of the economy, both in academia and at the banking agencies. Some advocates have proposed using the charter to pursue industrial policy or to end shadow banking. Some regulators have proposed giving financial technology firms bank charters, potentially breaking down the traditionally high walls between banking and commerce. An empirical survey of chartering decisions by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency suggests that chartering is best understood as an ultracautious licensing regime for “fit and proper” applicants. It would not and probably should not be easily adapted to realize the policies the advocates propose, or to mix banking with big business. The modern charter should be paired with more transparent administration by agencies and more standard review by courts. These policies could appropriately be paired with the careful and narrow fintech chartering program that regulators have created
Janus and the Future of Collective Bargaining: Rhetorically Predicting a First Amendment Right to Negotiation
Get PDFThe importance of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees has been widely recognized for its effect on reducing the power and influence of public unions. A close reading of the majority opinion provides a clue that compulsory collective bargaining itself may be settling into the court’s crosshairs. Collective bargaining is an important tool, by which labor can reduce the often-inherent power imbalance it has with ownership and management. Yet as this Article outlines, the interests of individual workers can often be at odds with those other workers workers, particularly those who do not feel the union represents their interests. This Article will explore the history of unions and collective bargaining, the variety of worker rights that are affected by compulsory collective bargaining, why the Supreme Court might choose to eliminate compulsory collective bargaining via the First Amendment, and what may ultimately replace it. or even the union itself. When the law designates a union as the exclusive bargaining agent for a group of workers, it prohibits individual workers from advocating for their own interests. As the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in Janus, this results in a substantial reduction of the rights o
Section 1983 & Qualified Immunity: Qualifying the Death of Due Process and America\u27s Most Vulnerable Classes Since 1871. Can It Be Fixed?
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Underwriting Crowdfunding
Get PDFCrowdfunding has more in common with an initial public offering (IPO) than may be readily apparent. Both are coordinated sales of securities to public investors (in crowdfunding\u27s case, the crowd ). Both rely on disclosure to mitigate information asymmetries between a company and its investors. Yet IPOs protect investors better for two reasons. First, companies undertaking an IPO have significant track records to disclose, unlike nascent startups. Second, IPOs are underwritten, meaning a reputational intermediary vouches for them.
This Essay considers applying underwriting to Regulation Crowdfunding (Regulation CF) to allow crowdfunding to mimic an IPO. It tackles questions such as: Who would be the underwriter? What potential legal liability would crowdfunding underwriters face? And what changes to Regulation CF are necessary to permit underwritten crowdfunding offerings
