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Religious Accommodations for Educators: A Reexamination of Undue Burden in the Public School Classroom
Get PDFThis Essay addresses the question of how public schools should address existing tensions between employee religious rights and student identity and expression when a teacher refuses to use a student’s chosen name and pronouns. Guiding this issue and the practice for public school officials to follow is a 2024 decision of a federal district court in Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School District, and guidance published by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. While the court in Kluge recognized the substantial increased costs to the school of granting the religious accommodation when students are involved, the EEOC affirmed the need to balance individual rights in the workplace to avoid the creation of a hostile environment. Ultimately, these developments produce two key considerations for public school districts when dealing with religious accommodations that are discriminatory based on sex: hardship and hostility. There are many factors at play, but of most importance and worthy of heightened levels of consideration is the student
Racial Bias, Accomplice Liability, and The Felony Murder Rule: A National Empirical Study
Get PDFTwo long criticized prosecutorial tools—the felony murder rule and the accomplice liability doctrine—play an outsized role in the operation of American homicide law. Though each of these tools have separately faced intense criticism for their resistance to the supposedly foundational principles of moral culpability and individual responsibility, their legacy is also defined by the way they function symbiotically and specifically to heighten racialized punishment. This Article addresses the weighty combined reach of the accomplice liability doctrine and felony murder rule, and proposes that racial bias has fueled the operation and survival of these tools. Specifically, it suggests that implicit racial bias has led to the automatic individualization of white men who are involved in group crimes, while at the same time created automatic deindividualization for Black and Latino men in similar situations, rendering these two doctrines complicit in state sanctioned racialization. This Article hypothesizes that the phenomena of implicit racial bias and white individualization sustain the felony murder rule and accomplice liability doctrine, avoiding legislative and judicial responsibility to constrain the unfair expansion of criminal liability. A national empirical study conducted by the authors supports the claim of racialized group liability within the felony murder rule by demonstrating that Americans automatically individualize white men, yet automatically perceive Black and Latino men as group members. In addition to this core finding, the study also shows that mock jurors disproportionately penalized men with Latino-sounding names compared to men with white or Black-sounding names, ascribing to Latino men the highest levels of intentionality and criminal responsibility in a group robbery resulting in a homicide. Contextualized within the troubled history of the felony murder rule and accomplice liability doctrine, the Article concludes by calling for the abandonment of the felony murder rule in group liability situations
Empowering Innovation, Enabling Collaboration: A Blueprint for Pandemic Preparedness
No full textThis Policy Brief highlights key lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic response and explains how to incorporate them into the new pandemic prepared - ness treaty being negotiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its member states
High School Students\u27 Perceptions of Banned Books
Get PDFThis research study consisted of interviews with twelve students ages 14-18 at a Northeastern Ohio high school to determine their opinions regarding banned books and content restrictions in schools. With book bans increasing and becoming a divisive topic, many adult figures such as parents, politicians, educators, and school administrators have made their opinions known, but student perspectives are often disregarded. This study seeks to further the research on opinions of book bans by extending these questions to students to fill this gap in research and gain deeper insight into the perception of high school students in regard to school curriculum. There is a long withstanding history of literature restrictions in the United States, and it has continued today with many figures challenging texts utilized in the education system. Currently, the Board of Education, parents, and educators have the greatest control over the school curriculum, but students want to make their voices heard and be given the opportunity to impact their own education. These figures often speak for the students and make decisions without their input, leading to topics such as those relating to diversity, violence, sexual content, and profane language being frequently restricted. However, through these interviews, it has been found that most students have no issue with this subject matter, and the adults creating the curriculum have eliminated this content based on the false pretense that it will negatively impact adolescents. These students are old enough to speak for themselves, and they want to make their views known so that they can have control and exert influence over their own education to ensure that they have a positive, beneficial school experience with valuable literature
Symposium: Gender, Health and the Constitution: More than Merely Two-legged Wombs : Lessons on Metaphor and Body Politics from Atwood\u27s \u3ci\u3eThe Handmaiden\u27s Tale\u3c/i\u3e (1985)
Get PDFThis essay explores the dehumanizing potential of metaphors used to describe women’s reproductive biology through literary analysis of Margaret Atwood’s canonical feminist novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Attending to the rhetoric that both justifies and contests ritualized rape and forced surrogacy in Atwood’s novel, this essay begins by interrogating the ubiquitous cultural and biomedical metaphors that reduce women and pregnant people to their bodies’ reproductive potential. The first section draws from scholarship in medical anthropology, medical rhetoric, and literary studies to illuminate how gendered stereotypes pervade biomedical, cultural, and legal representations of reproduction, reifying the conflation of women and people who can become pregnant with their reproductive biology. The essay’s second section applies an ecofeminist lens to The Handmaid’s Tale to consider the consequences of this metaphorization amid a simultaneously environmental and public health crisis. The novel renders biomedical metaphors of women’s bodies as reproductive machines literal by legally classifying fertile women as “national resources” within a patriarchal capitalist economy, a dehumanizing abstraction that permits the State first to commodify, then to commandeer and equitably distribute fertile women in the name of public health and ecological crisis management. When considered from this angle, The Handmaid’s Tale inspires closer attention to figurative language’s real-world impact on health law and policy, particularly in moments of environmental catastrophe and political unrest
Symposium: Gender, Health and the Constitution: The Misalignment of Medical Capacity and Legal Competence for Perinatal People with Serious Mental Illness
Get PDFThis Article evaluates the misalignment of medical capacity and legal competence for perinatal people with serious medical illnesses (SMI), an issue that has had limited discourse in legal academia. It delineates the contours of these concepts, dissecting their theoretical underpinnings and practical applications. While medical capacity is often considered an iterative, context-specific determination, legal competence is typically treated as a rigid, binary legal categorization. It then illustrates how the disparate scope and aims of capacity and competence lead to a precarious misalignment for people with fluctuating mental states, particularly perinatal people with SMI. The Article proposes solutions to harmonize the medical and legal paradigms including normative considerations and practical policy changes, aiming to protect the rights and well-being of individuals while ensuring that determinations are fair, accurate, and reflective of an individual’s true abilities. Ultimately, the Article advocates for a paradigm shift away from the legal system’s inflexible, protectionist approach towards a more nuanced, adaptable capacity assessment model that responds to the variable nature of living with mental illness
Faculty Senate Chronicle April 4, 2024
Get PDFMinutes for the regular meeting of The University of Akron Faculty Senate on April 4, 2024
Symposium: Gender, Health & the Constitution: On the Constitutional Requirement for Adequate Prenatal Care Post-\u3ci\u3eDobbs\u3c/i\u3e
Get PDFThis Essay argues that state abortion statutes codifying government interests in the health and welfare of the unborn trigger a constitutional right to prenatal care where adequate medical care is constitutionally required in the penal system. It explores the healthcare mandates required by the U.S. Constitution in the era before the passage of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, specifically looking at abortion access and prenatal provisions in the penological system. It then dissects abortion-related legislation passed by various states in the wake of Dobbs—emphasizing language within the legislative findings that could trigger a constitutional obligation for prenatal health in jails and prisons. The Essay concludes with an assessment of Section 1983 claims to enforce this standard of care
Dobbs v. Employee Benefits: Major Questions Left After the Landmark Decision
Get PDFThe Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned nearly fifty years of precedent established in Roe v. Wade, shifting the power to regulate abortion laws from the federal government to individual states. This seismic legal shift has raised significant questions about the intersection of state abortion laws and employee benefits, particularly for companies that offer abortion-related benefits through employer-sponsored health plans. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) contains express and implied preemption provisions that have historically shielded employee benefit plans from conflicting state regulations. However, the extent to which ERISA can be used to preempt state abortion laws remains uncertain. Recent Supreme Court decisions, including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and West Virginia v. EPA, have further complicated the landscape by restricting agency deference and limiting the authority of administrative agencies like the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to interpret ERISA. The emergence of the major questions doctrine suggests that courts may be reluctant to uphold broad regulatory interpretations absent explicit congressional authorization. As a result, federal courts are left navigating uncharted territory, weighing ERISA’s preemption powers against newly emboldened state abortion restrictions. This article explores the legal uncertainties surrounding ERISA preemption in the post-Dobbs era and examines the potential consequences for employers, employees, and the future of employee benefit plans. With major corporations pledging to cover abortion-related travel expenses and some state officials threatening legal action against such benefits, a judicial showdown appears inevitable. The outcome of these legal battles will have far-reaching implications for the stability of employer-sponsored benefits and the broader regulatory landscape governing employee rights in the United States
State v. Pardoned Individual, 2024-Ohio-2969 (12th Dist.) – appellant’s brief
Get PDFThis appellate brief submitted to the Court Of Appeals Twelfth Appellate District Of Ohio argues that the trial court erred in denying the sealing of defendant\u27s pardoned conviction. It contends that an unconditional pardon should entitle the recipient to have the conviction sealed, aligning with the rehabilitative intent of a pardon. The brief emphasizes that denying the sealing undermines the purpose of the pardon and continues to impose collateral consequences on the individual. The appellant seeks a reversal of the trial court\u27s decision, advocating for the sealing of the pardoned conviction to fully restore his rights and reputatio