Mississippi College School of Law
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A THIRD WAY: TITLE IX’S POTENTIAL BEYOND CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW PARADIGMS
Full text linkA single occurrence of sexual violence on a college campus can lead to any of three major legal outcomes. The first is a traditional criminal prosecution of the alleged perpetrator. The second is a civil lawsuit against the school under Title IX, in which the victim alleges that the school’s disciplinary procedures failed to deliver an adequate response according to the body of law developed by courts interpreting Title IX. The third, which has become increasingly important and visible after a decade of student activism and initiatives by the Department of Education, is an administrative enforcement action by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in which the agency investigates the school for noncompliance with Title IX under threat of rescission of federal funding. The latter arena of administrative law is a highly dynamic one, as the OCR under Presidents Obama, Trump, and now Biden has engaged in the process of issuing the regulatory guidance that structures the agency’s enforcement of Title IX as applied to the (mis)handling of sexual violence in educational settings.
The surge of activity surrounding OCR’s enforcement of Title IX has revealed the vast potential of administrative regulation to create a meaningful alternative to traditional criminal or civil litigation remedies—a third way toward justice for victims of sexual violence on college campuses. This essay explores several salient ways in which administrative enforcement of Title IX differs from criminal and civil responses to sexual violence in educational settings. The objective of this essay in surveying existing applications of Title IX in the administrative arena is descriptive. Still, there is a normative element to demonstrating Title IX’s capacity to transcend the limitations of criminal and civil law paradigms. Beyond the carceral logic embedded in the criminal justice system and the procedural prescriptions built into the courts’ interpretation of Title IX lies “the expansive possibilities for administrative enforcement that are in Title IX’s design.
Introduction
Full text linkThe 2022 Mississippi College Law Review Symposium celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Passage of Title IX. With the benefit of hindsight, the Symposium critically examined Title IX and its progeny, analyzing the benefits and the downfalls over the past fifty years. The 2022 Symposium celebrated Title IX for its accomplishments in eliminating sex-based discrimination in educational institutions but refused to let previous accomplishments overshadow the still-existing gender inequality. While history allows celebration, advocacy demands a commitment to work toward solutions for the persisting inequality. Armed with this intention, the Mississippi College Law Review set out to provide a forum dedicated to educating and equipping attendees with the knowledge to effectively advocate for gender equality
ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: EVALUATING THE FACTORS THAT LED TO THE JACKSON WATER CRISIS & PROPOSING A SOLUTION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN MISSISSIPPI
Full text link40,000. That is the number of residents that were left without potable water for nearly five weeks during Jackson, Mississippi’s February 2021 water crisis. An unusual cold front rolled through, freezing plant equipment, bursting water pipes, and causing many in Jackson to lose access to running water. This was not, however, the first time that Jackson residents had endured hardships with regard to their drinking water—it was just the first time that national attention turned to, and has seemed to remain on, Mississippi’s capital city. Those in Jackson are all too familiar with water pipes bursting, low water pressure, boil water notices, and a water supply contaminated with lead.
Access to clean drinking water is taken for granted by most in the United States (U.S.); however, for a disadvantaged minority, such as those in Jackson, it seemed—and sometimes still seems—nearly unattainable. The human right to water has been recognized as a “prerequisite for the realization of other human rights” and was even declared a fundamental human right itself—just not by the U.S. However, growing concerns about the availability of safe drinking water in communities across the U.S. led the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), in response to a charge from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2016, to release a report with recommendations on water infrastructure needs in disadvantaged communities. Ironically, the first goal included in the report was that Governments treat water as a human right
CHILDREN ARE DIFFERENT: JONES V. MISSISSIPPI, JUVENILE LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE, AND WHY YOUTHFULNESS MATTERS IN SENTENCING
Full text link“We are a country of mercy, and we are a country of vengeance, and we live with both at the same time.” This is how Robert Dunham, death penalty expert and Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, describes the United States sentencing system. Battling inside each of us is the desire for people to pay for their wrongdoings, warring against the empathy of our human nature that wants to see the good in people, even criminals.
This internal conflict is rarely on better display than in cases involving child criminals. It is impossible to forget that these children and teenagers are criminal offenders, and in homicide cases, a victim lost their life because of the child’s crime. On the other hand, it is easy to see their humanity and remember that they are still children—children who likely experienced unimaginable hurt that caused them to act defiantly toward family and government.
The United States is currently the only nation in the world where life sentences for juveniles are permitted. Due to a recent string of United States Supreme Court cases on the subject of juvenile sentencing, life without parole is only available as a sentence for juveniles who have committed homicide. The topical focus of these recent decisions was on juvenile sentencing, but the determination centered around interpretation of the Eighth Amendment— specifically the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment
REFORMING THE MISSISSIPPI CRIMINAL CODE PART IV: OFFENSES AGAINST PROPERTY; THEFT AND RELATED CRIMES
Full text linkClear and fair criminal laws are foundational to criminal justice, and any meaningful reform effort should begin with the criminal laws. The Mississippi Code has been justifiably criticized as often being neither clear nor fair. This article about reforming the theft crimes is the fourth in a series of articles advocating for change to the Mississippi criminal laws. The first article explained why change is needed. Briefly, Mississippi criminal laws have been justifiably criticized because of gross sentencing disparities, vague definitions of the conduct prohibited, as well as confusing or absent definitions of states of mind required to commit the crime. The criminal statutes are also often disorganized and do not relate to each other.
I have been chairing a committee [hereinafter “the Committee”] to reform the Mississippi Criminal Code for more than twenty years. The Committee was originally appointed by the Mississippi Judicial Advisory Study Committee, which was established by the legislature in 1993 to improve the administration of justice. The Committee has completed work on the project and is currently reviewing what we have done, which accounts for the more recent dates I refer to in the minutes of the Committee [hereinafter “Minutes.”] The Committee hopes to present its proposals to the legislature in the foreseeable future to alleviate some of the problems with the current code, described above and more comprehensively in the first article. The Committee proposals are an important part of criminal justice reform, and the purpose of these articles is to explain the Committee’s reasoning, as well as to present the proposed changes to the law
