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Resurrecting Parents of Legal Orphans: Un-Terminating Parental Rights
No full textDespite federal and state legislation that requires termination of parental rights when a child has remained in foster care for a specified period of time, studies indicate that relationships with their biological parents (and other relatives) remain important to children in foster care.3 Especially for children whose parents’ parental rights have been terminated, the connection with their biological parent remains central to their development and these children make efforts to maintain that connection. Once it becomes clear that the purpose for terminating the parental rights (i.e., freeing the child for adoption) will not be served, in an increasing number of cases, the state child-placing agency, parent, or the child has approached the courts asking that the legal relationship between the parent and child be reinstated. Section I provides a brief overview of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, a federal law enacted in 1997 and its possible impact on the creation of legal orphans. Section II presents an overview of current state efforts to provide a mechanism by which parental rights may be reinstated. Section III explores court responses to individual requests to recreate parent-child relationships after termination of parental rights. Section IV outlines arguments related to res judicata and equal protection that may be used by parents when the court denies standing. Finally, section V proposes a method of temporarily terminating parental rights which ensures that children do not exit the foster care system without legal parents and discusses situations when the option may be most appropriate
Good But Not Great: Improving Access To Public Records Under The D.C. Freedom Of Information Act
No full textUntold Stories: Gender-Related Persecution and Asylum in South Africa
No full textSouth Africa receives more asylum seekers than any other country in the world.1 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres proclaimed, “If you look at the policy and legal statutes of South Africa, refugees enjoy one of the most advanced and progressive systems of protection in the world today.”2 Increasing numbers of women seek South Africa’s protection. In 2006, 20.2% of asylum seekers were women; a significant increase from previous years.3 Given South Africa’s prominence in the region, its handling of female asylees and gender-related persecution claims influences the adjudication of these claims regionally and even worldwide.
Revisiting the Transatlantic Triangle: The Constitutional Decolonization of the Eastern Caribbean
No full textRevisiting the Transatlantic Caribbean constitutes a comprehensive study of the decisive 5-year period, spanning between 1962 and 1967, which witnessed the unfolding of an intense decolonization dialogue between Britain and its far-flung Eastern Caribbean possessions at the height of the Cold War.https://digitalcommons.law.udc.edu/fac_books/1004/thumbnail.jp
Changing Federal Statutory Proposals to Address Domestic Violence at Work: Creating a Societal Response by Making Businesses a Part of the Solution
No full textOver five million acts of domestic violence are committed every year.1 The prevalence of these acts makes domestic violence “the leading cause of injury to women.”2 Detrimental wherever they occur, these acts are not limited to the privacy of one’s home. Instead, domestic violence regularly and repeatedly spills over to the “public” workplace.For example, Francescia La Rose’s former boyfriend called her supervisor and threatened to come to the office to kill La Rose if she was not fired. Her employer responded by warning La Rose to keep her personal problems out of the workplace. The next day, the ex-boyfriend walked into the building where La Rose worked, past the security guard, and shot and killed her. La Rose’s family filed a wrongful death case against her employer claiming that the employer failed to adequately protect La Rose after being notified of a specific threat.3 In another example, a perpetrator of abuse began harassing his target’s coworkers after the perpetrator was served with a protection order sought by the targeted employee. Neither the employer nor the coworkers had standing to seek a protection order in response to this new harassment.4 These stories are not the only ones that can be told. In fact, domestic violence has a significant impact on America’s workplaces. Individuals subjected to abuse, their coworkers, and other third parties (like volunteers, contractors, and customers) all suffer consequences as a result of domestic violence that occurs or spills over into the workplace. One out of every five employed adults is a victim of domestic violence,5 and 96% of victims have experienced trouble at work related to domestic violence.6 Employees experience decreased productivity during and after actual or threatened violence and may require time off from work to address safety concerns, medical needs, and legal issues. In addition, employers need to address the consequences of domestic violence. America’s workplaces are faced with significant economic losses from lost productivity, administrative difficulties when employees take unplanned time off, increased medical costs and insurance premiums, and the threat of liability for firing employees experiencing domestic violence in hopes of maintaining a safe workplace or for failing to adopt and/or enforce appropriate domestic violence prevention policies. Generally speaking, however, the business community has not yet realized the significant burden domestic violence imposes or changed the usual employer response of ignoring a “personal” problem or taking ill-advised actions that result in further negative legal and practical consequences. Despite these real consequences, the workplace is not the first societal structure that most people think of when they think of changes that are needed to address domestic violence. Instead, when most people think of solutions to the problem of domestic violence, they think of things like increased education on how to prevent the cycle of abuse, changes that need to be made to the prosecution of related crimes, or increasing emergency housing for victims and their children.7 In many respects, this represents a significant service that past feminist scholarship on domestic violence has made—it recognizes that domestic violence is not simply a private matter. Rather, it is a public problem that is in need of a societal solution. However, by not thinking of the workplace in response to this question, a significant area for which change is needed is missed. There is a legitimate basis for proposing a societal solution to domestic violence that is rooted in employment law. There are already various rules that are being used to respond to the effects of domestic violence at work (e.g., tort law, statutory leave laws, occupational safety regulations, etc.). This Article argues that the workplace has a greater affirmative role to play in reducing the impact of domestic violence on the workplace. Moreover, society has an obligation to create a coherent structure and system for this issue to be addressed. This Article argues that the best way to do that is through a federal approach. The federal government has an affirmative societal role to play in pushing the workplace to confront this issue. Moreover, there is utility for a societal solution to this problem that engages the workplace directly to respond to domestic violence and reduce its impact on the victim and others. Obviously, a federal approach will result in the consideration of complicated legal terrain that involves both constitutional issues and conceptual federalism issues as to the proper role of the federal and state governments. (The latter is necessary because the federal government would need to work with the state structures already in existence.) But it is worth trying to figure this out. This Article makes the case that there is a crucial role for the federal government to play and that it can do so both creatively and constitutionally
Further (Ms) Understanding Legal Realism: Rescuing Judge Anna Moscowitz Kross
No full textIn his informative and provocative Article, Understanding Legal Realism,\u27my colleague-to-be, Brian Z. Tamanaha, 2 seeks to recast the history of Legal Realism in this country by revisiting the what and who 3 of this important movement. 4 His goal is to dispel common misconceptions about legal realism and provide a fuller account of its community. In part, he seeks to rescue 5 (sometimes from obscurity) those who erroneously may have been left off Karl Llewellyn\u27s (and others\u27) allimportant Legal Realist lists. 6 As for realism\u27s what, Tamanaha suggests that it may not be as rooted in skepticism about law and judging as many have previously proclaimed. Even Realists, he argues, like their formalist forefathers, recognized the importance of the rule of law. 8 Thus, he offers a more balanced description of the school\u27s thinking than traditionally understood