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The Inauguration of the 15th President of the University of Michigan
Get PDFSanta J. Ono, Ph.D., is the 15th president of the University of Michigan. He began a five-year term on October 14, 2022.
A recognized leader in higher education in the United States and Canada, President Ono is an experienced vision researcher whose pioneering work in experimental medicine focuses on the immune system and eye disease. At U-M, he is professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences in the Medical School.
He joined U-M after serving as president and vice chancellor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) since 2016
Who Owns Children’s DNA?
Get PDFIn recent years, DNA has become increasingly easy to collect, test, and sequence, making it far more accessible to law enforcement. While legal scholars have examined this phenomenon generally, this Article examines the control and use of children’s DNA, asking who ultimately owns children’s DNA. I explore two common ways parents—currently considered “owners” of children’s DNA— might turn over children’s DNA to law enforcement: (1) “consensual” searches and (2) direct-to-consumer testing. My fundamental thesis is that parental consent is an insufficient safeguard to protect a child’s DNA from law enforcement. At present, the law leaves parents in complete control of children’s DNA, with parents’ and children’s interests viewed as totally unified. This Article is the first to argue that parents might have serious conflicts of interest and even encourage (or be the ones) sharing DNA with law enforcement.
This Article contributes to the literature by using the functional logic of a property rights framework, including property law’s rare virtue of historically recognizing children’s and parents’ interests as separate. A property-like interest in one’s DNA leads to solutions that create safeguards beyond parental consent. Ultimately, I advocate for moving from a framework of parents-as-owners to parents-as-fiduciaries—of both children’s DNA and of children themselves
The Supreme Court is poised to reverse affirmative action: Here’s what you need to know.
Get PDFSometime in the next six weeks the Supreme Court will likely reveal its decisions in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFAI) v. President and Fellows of Harvard and SFAI v. University of North Carolina. Court watchers are almost unanimous that the Supreme Court majority will: read the 14 amendment as barring the use of racial preferences by public colleges and universities andinterpret Section VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as similarly restricting race conscious admissions at any school receiving federal funds.
To achieve these outcomes a conservative majority will have to reject 40 years of a twice reaffirmed precedent as well as the likely intent of the framers of the 14 Amendment and of the Congress that enacted the Civil Rights Act. Given the leanings of six of the nine Supreme Court Justices and their prior rulings on race-related issues, neither of these jurisprudential principles is likely to matter
States Have Long Tried To Ban Ideas From The Classroom: The Current Road Brings a Fresh Evil
Get PDFEfforts by state and local officials to ban ideas and books from public school classrooms are nothing new. Recent attempts to do so, however, have a uniquely pernicious characteristic. The current wave of bans doesn’t just seek to censor thoughts or words; it seeks to censor identity
Violence against Women
Get PDFThere is no provision in either the Declaration {DEDAW) or Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (the Convention) that explicitly addresses violence against women. This contrasts with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) Article 4(a) which requires States parties to declare as \u27an offence punishable by law [ ... ] all acts of violence [ ... ] against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin\u27. Instead, States parties\u27 obligations with respect to the elimination of violence against: women have been developed by a number of international institutional initiatives in which the Committee has played a key role. By requiring a holistic approach to the dif- ferent manifestations of violence against women, identifying violence as discrimination against women, and thereby adopting a rights-based approach, General Recommendation No 19 on Violence against Women in 1992 was the instrument that brought violence against women unequivocally into the domain of international human rights law. In 2017, drawing upon its twenty-five years of experience of understanding violence against: women as a form of discrimination, as expressed through several rounds of States\u27 initial and subsequent periodic reporting and more than fifteen years of individual petitions and inquiry procedures under the Optional Protocol to the Convention, the Committee updated General Recommendation No 19 in its General Recommendation No 35. This rook account of both subsequent normative developments and social changes and pro- vides States with \u27further guidance aimed at accelerating the elimination of gender-based violence against women\u27
The Jurisprudence of Justice Gorsuch and Future Efforts to Address Climate Change
Get PDFFollowing the Trump administration’s significant reshaping of the federal judiciary and a number of blockbuster Supreme Court cases during the October 2021 and October 2022 Terms, environmental law is shifting rapidly toward a more restrictive vision of federal regulation. Justice Gorsuch has been clamoring for such a revolution throughout his time on the bench. Since joining the Supreme Court, he has not only provided a crucial vote for limiting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s regulatory authority, but also advanced a radical vision of the separation of powers that would drastically alter our modern system of administrative governance. In several of his opinions, Justice Gorsuch has opposed federal regulations on quite expansive grounds, criticizing deference to agency expertise and questioning the constitutionality of delegation to administrative agencies. He has also praised the slow trickle of congressional legislation, arguing that it is consistent with the Founders’ vision of a limited federal government
Moore v. United States: Brief of Amici Curiae Reuven Avi-Yonah, Clinton G. Wallace & Bret Wells in Support of Respondent
Get PDFAmici are professors of tax law. Amici join this brief solely on their own behalf and not as representatives of their universities.
Reversing the Moore decision would invalidate or at the very least cast considerable doubt over many sections of the Internal Revenue Code. Rules that call for taxation without realization (“Nonrealization Rules”) and their predecessors can be traced back to the earliest iterations of the income tax after the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified. Although the section 965 transition tax (“Transition Tax”) is a single-application provision that has no ongoing import, it is fashioned in the same manner as Nonrealization Rules that are critically important to the effectiveness of the income tax.
Nonrealization Rules are essential to prevent tax sheltering and create a level playing field for all taxpayers. Importantly, these rules are not at odds with inclusion of income at the time of realization. Rather, these Nonrealization Rules have been carefully integrated into the income tax. Congress enacted intricately calibrated basis adjustments so that income taxed on a nonrealization basis is not taxed again when a distribution or other realization event occurs. Nonrealization Rules are also embedded in U.S. tax treaties, reflected in longstanding regulations used to implement the Internal Revenue Code, and have been embraced in Supreme Court and lower court precedents that have widely been treated as settled law until this case. These rules are essential to the broader scheme of income taxation envisioned by the Sixteenth Amendment — to ensure comprehensive and consistent taxation of all income across varied sources despite taxpayer attempts to escape the reach of the income tax through complex tax planning
Moody v. Netchoice, LLC: Amici Brief of National Security Experts on Behalf of Neither Party
Get PDFAmici represent a broad cross-section of the national security community and have significant operational and policy expertise in combatting terrorism. They include former career and politically appointed officials, across Republican and Democratic administrations, from the National Security Council staff, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Defense, and Department of State, as well as former members of Congress with national security credentials and other national security experts. A complete list of amici is included in the Appendix.\u3c \p\u3e
As experienced national security experts, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials, amici have seen firsthand the threat that online radicalization poses to the United States. In amici’s experience, the use of social media platforms to radicalize, recruit, plot, and plan terrorist attacks is ubiquitous among foreign terrorist organizations and domestic extremists and can be directly traced to acts of terrorism and violence in the United States. Although amici appreciate that information warfare is nothing new, the rise of social media and other online platforms has created a novel and more treacherous battlefield in the war, where foreign adversaries and other malign actors can spread disinformation, propaganda, and recruitment materials far more widely and effectively than ever before. These efforts increase political polarization, sow discord, generate mistrust in governments and institutions, and undermine the national security of the United States.
Our nation’s security depends upon social media platforms to be responsible corporate citizens who seek out dangerous content posted by malign actors and remove it or take other measures to stop its spread. The Florida and Texas statutes at issue significantly restrict the ability of social media platforms to undertake this important work. The brief of the Solicitor General filed at the certiorari stage explained that the content-moderation provisions of both statutes hinder the platforms’ ability to exercise their First Amendment rights to determine whether and how to display third-party content.
Amici appear here to highlight how the Florida and Texas statutes, if allowed to go into effect, will thwart the crucial efforts of social media platforms to moderate dangerous content posted by foreign terrorist groups, foreign adversaries, violent domestic extremists, and other malign actors. These statutes’ enforcement would foster an environment where social media platforms refrain from removing or downranking dangerous content and from developing better methods of identifying such content and mitigating its effects, thereby tilting the battlefield in favor of those who seek to spread disinformation, sow political division, and encourage violence. Such an environment would threaten the national security of the United States. Amici urge the Court to avoid such a dangerous result
Philanthropic Justice: the Role of Private Foundations in Transitional Justice Processes
Get PDFIn recent years, political transitions have become a major area of interest to private actors, including philanthropies. More and more philanthropic foundations have chosen to donate money to support transitional justice processes across the globe. However, philanthropies often take on not only the role of a funder but also the role of an active participant in transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms. They push for the building of long-lasting partnerships with state authorities and international organizations, and, sometimes, take over and administer certain transitional justice processes. As a result, philanthropic foundations wield considerable power in transitional justice, especially when the state cannot or will not act. Given the significant and growing role of philanthropy in both established democracies and states in transition, it is necessary to look more closely at issues of philanthropic involvement in TJ processes. Their activity remains largely outside the margins of international law scholarship. This article aims to make philanthropic contributions a more visible object of scholarly scrutiny.
This article will introduce the legal problems related to “philanthropic justice,” including concerns that speak for the need of more attention to the phenomenon. It will first show how private foundations engage in transitional justice mechanisms and spell out the concerns related to this philanthropic engagement in transitional justice. It will proceed with a discussion about the potential reasons why private foundations engage in international legal matters such as transitional justice. Further, the article will explore the United Nations’ legal frameworks on cooperation with the philanthropic sector. The last substantial part will cover the issues of responsibility of private actors under international law and why it is important in the context of transitional justice