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Sterilized Speech: The U.S. Impacts of E.U. Digital Service Rules
No full textIn recent decades, online platforms have transformed how people communicate and interact. Speech on platforms has enabled commerce, driven political processes, facilitated revolution, and built communities. Distinguishing between beneficial and harmful content, however, has grown increasingly difficult. Beginning with the new legal framework for the illegal distribution of copyrighted works and the dissemination of audiovisual and terrorist content, the E.U. has taken the global lead and change in regulating online speech. The culmination of this approach has been the recent adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which promises to revolutionize online platforms’ liability. This Article argues that the new E.U. content moderation approach will significantly affect the most prominent U.S. digital service providers and undermine some fundamental freedoms in ways that have yet to be recognized.
This Article provides a novel perspective on analyzing the E.U. content moderation approach by placing the DSA within the broader context of its interaction with existing E.U. legal instruments applicable to online platforms. When considered in the context of the E.U.’s sectoral regulation for specific types of content and national laws for Member States, the DSA may profoundly change the landscape of online speech in the U.S. and worldwide. The predominant framework through which the E.U. addresses the risks and shortcomings of online platforms is that of fundamental rights. Platforms are, therefore, expected to assess the legality of content in a wide range of sectors, ranging from copyright and audiovisual content to content linked to terrorism under a plurality of applicable legislation. In other words, online platforms should consider free expression and balance it with other fundamental rights.
However, the E.U. legislation lacks detailed guidance on what balance should be performed and how to achieve that balance in practice. In addition, platforms must rely on algorithmic tools that are far from perfect. Therefore, this Article concludes that despite the large number of new rules in the new E.U., significant legal uncertainty persists, which will pave the way for the sterilization of speech across borders. The U.S. is a particularly fertile soil for speech sterilization, considering that protection of U.S. free speech rights considerably differs from those in the E.U., still conferring immunity upon intermediaries for the user’s expression. Therefore, the scope of these changes is significant, as a whole new generation of Americans will grow up in a world where the main moderators of online discourse will adopt new values alien to U.S. tradition
You Better Werk: The Viability of a Labor Union for the Cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race
No full textReality television cast members are poorly compensated, working under tremendously restrictive and controlling contracts. While actors and writers who are members of the Screen Actors Guild of America and the Screen Writers Guild of America have collectively bargained with studios for better wages, terms, and conditions of employment, contestants on reality television series have gone it alone – auditioning for a series and having no choice other than to accept the contract provided by the studios. In December 2024, at the end of the Biden administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint on behalf of the reality television participants on the Netflix hit Love Is Blind. For the first time in American history, the NLRB took the position that reality television contestants on a dating show constituted “employees.” This Article takes the position that the drag queen cast members of RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR), one of the most popular competition reality television series in American history, are also “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NLRA applies only to “employees” of private, nonreligious employers. Throughout American labor history, courts and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have considered whether American workers across myriad industries constitute “employees” entitled to labor rights under the NLRA or “independent contractors” explicitly excluded from the NLRA’s coverage.
Part II of this Article explains how RPDR operates—as a television show and as a workplace, examining a formerly leaked, alleged contract from Season 8 of RPDR. Most of the leaked contract will be discussed in Part IV. Part III of this Article addresses the NLRB’s various interpretations of “employee” under the NLRA, a threshold question that the drag queen cast members of RPDR must address should they choose to seek the protections of a labor union and the Act. While it is unclear how the second Trump administration’s NLRB appointees will handle questions of who is an “employee” and who is an “independent contractor” under the NLRA, this Article assumes that the administration will adopt a similar approach to the Board during Trump’s first term, prioritizing “entrepreneurial opportunity” in its application of the master-servant test under agency law. Specifically, this Article relies on the facts and legal findings of the Trump Board’s SuperShuttle and Centerfold Club decisions. In Part IV, this Article outlines the relevant facts of SuperShuttle and Centerfold, then addresses each of the ten agency factors applied in such cases, first outlining the relevant law, incorporating previous NLRB decisions evaluating the claims of workers in the arts. Each factor is applied to RPDR.
Even under SuperShuttle’s conservative approach, the cast members of RPDR are “employees” entitling them to a vote for union representation. This Article will address the strengths and weaknesses of the drag queen cast members’ potential claims. Part V of this Article proposes a new test to examine questions of “employee” status for casts of reality television by reconfiguring existing law into a more appropriate test. Ultimately, I hope that this Article serves as a starting point for the queens associated with RPDR, and other similarly situated reality television personalities on unscripted competition series, to begin the process of collectively bargaining. No Hollywood studio, no matter how entertaining or representatively important its series is, should profit off the culture, images, personalities, art, and work of the barely paid talent necessary to even make a show
White Supremacy and the Legitimation of Violence Against Women: Analyzing the History and Impact of VAWA
No full textThis article confronts the mainstream feminist narrative that white women first addressed patriarchal violence en mass in the 1970s. Instead, this article traces back to Black women who advocated against lynching and sexual violence in the late 1800s as the first attempt to address systemic violence against women. They engaged in womanism, or the fight for Black people’s right to experience safety and discover a sense of wholeness. Their efforts led to the proliferation of numerous movements in the 1900s. Despite how crucial their efforts were to the formation of the feminist movement; many white feminists remained hostile and engaged in political whiteness. Political whiteness is displayed through narcissism, alertness to threat, and an accompanying need for control. This led white women to co-opt marginalized women’s experiences while not deconstructing white supremacist beliefs, leading to a racialized understanding of the systemic violence against women and a belief that the criminal legal system would address that harm. The Law Enforcement Assistance Act (LEAA) and later Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), further co-opted these values by propping up the Victim Rights Movement through funding opinion studies and funneling funds to law enforcement. VAWA represents the problem of patriarchal violence as criminality. This exclusive focus on criminality makes the structural forms of violence invisible. In a race to be equal in a highly stratified society, white feminists ignored the threat present in VAWA. This article ends by challenging the political whiteness endemic in many feminist spheres and calling for movement building based in womanism and an intersectional approach
Shale Investment Dashboard in Ohio Q3 and Q4 2024
No full textThis report presents findings from an investigation into shale-related investment in Ohio, looking at up, mid, and downstream activities. The investment estimates are for July through December of 2024. The report also includes an estimate of cumulative investment into shale in Ohio from 2012 through December 2024. Prior biannual investments are included in previously posted reports that are available from Cleveland State University
Texas Redistricting Case Highlights Growing Judicial Rift
No full textKalir reviewed the recent Supreme Court “shadow docket” opinion in the Texas redistricting case where the Court reversed a 160-page opinion by the lower court with a short statement without oral argument and without any real reasoning. In dissent, Justice Kagan highlighted the paradox of overruling such a thorough work product with a cursory review “over a holiday weekend.” Following a New York Times survey among lower-court judges, Kalir argued that this opinion is a harbinger of a growing rift between the “one Supreme Court” and “other inferior courts” that the Constitution had invested with the “judicial power” of the United States
The Ultra (And Nearly Ultra) Locality Rules Persist! Why Continue to Ignore Modern Medicine and Contort the Standard of Care?
Full text linkThe use of the locality rule to define or modify the medical standard of care is inconsistent with modern medicine. Nevertheless, various states in the U.S. continue to adhere to a locality rule. This paper revisits this topic, about which I have previously written, by focusing on Idaho, Nebraska, Tennessee and Arkansas. The paper concludes by suggesting that locality rules should be eliminated in favor of a national standard of care
Fire Station Consolidation and Feasibility Study for the City of Warrensville Heights, Ohio
Full text linkThe City of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, (Mayor and City Council), commissioned Cleveland State University, Center for Emergency Preparedness to conduct this “Fire Station Consolidation and Feasibility Study.” The summary of findings and recommendations highlights some of the major issues which require discussion. The focus of this study is on the outcome factors to be investigated but not limited to the existing two fire station locations versus a single fire station, existing two fire station emergency service response times versus a single fire station emergency service response time, effective fire department staffing and relative costs. A thorough background literature review of the Insurance Service Office “Fire Suppression Rating Schedule,” “Emergency Medical Services” and “Fire and Rescue Services” are provided to assist in the understanding Fire and EMS service activities which are mentally challenging, physically demanding and labor intensive. This study investigated the current Warrensville Heights Fire Department fire station locations in relationship to Fire/EMS response times and the proposed single fire station site Fire/EMS response times, utilizing the existing staffing levels. Warrensville Heights Fire Department findings and recommendations are presented at the end of this study
Conversation in My Parlor About Climate Change and the Call to Thoughtful Service by Lawyers with Disabilities
Full text linkPope John Paul II penned, So much of our world seems to be in fragments, in disjointed pieces. Experts admonish that an irreparable threshold of 1.5°C for global temperatures is not a theoretical remonstrance but an imminent imperative. Is this true? This article will explore if climate change exists. I will thoughtfully respond to this question in the affirmative, exploring center-based solutions. Specifically, this article will urge that these great United States require a new generation of leaders who can embody the energy of a Brother President Theodore Roosevelt, who possesses the eloquence of President John Kennedy, and who, like President Reagan, can maintain and show a bullish love of the country. The law is one of many tools and this new generation of leaders, who will use those tools, must better reflect the diversity of modern America. Specifically, I urge inclusion by lawyers with disabilities in leading center-based solutions to climate change