Why Parental Leave For Fathers Is So Important For Working Families

[Excerpt] Although paid leave is often framed as an issue that matters to working women, paid parental leave is also critically important for fathers. Policies that ensure fathers have the support they need to prioritize their family responsibilities, while also meeting work demands, can significantly increase the personal and economic well-being of their families. Paternity leave – and especially longer leaves of several weeks or months – can promote parent-child bonding, improve outcomes for children, and even increase gender equity at home and at the workplace. Paid parental leave for fathers, as well as for mothers, provides a real advantage to working families

Texas Disenfranchisement of Felons

Policy Research Project Research in progress for GOVT 2306: Honors Texas Government Faculty Mentor: Tiffany Cartwright, Ph.D. Michelle Baker wrote the following research paper as an assignment for my online GOVT 2306: Honors Texas Government class during the Fall 2020 semester. The class assignment helps students begin to formulate a classic policy paper, in which alternative policy options are discussed and analyzed, ultimately leading to a preferred policy option. Students submitted just a few paragraphs of the paper at a time over the course of the fall semester before finally pulling everything together in one cohesive research paper. As Michelle’s paper progressed throughout the term, she continued to build on her research and add her own unique insights. Throughout the editing process for Quest, she continued that progress by fully engaging in the peer review process, and she has turned a simple class assignment into something truly inspiring. The disenfranchisement of felons, the topic chosen by Michelle, has increasing relevance to Texas and the U.S. today, and she beautifully connects the past policy decisions made by Texas to the current conversation about voting rights and race

Rewriting Judicial Opinions and the Feminist Scholarly Project

In 1995, the authors of a law review article examining “feminist judging” focused on the existing social science data concerning women judges and compared the voting records and opinions of the only female Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O\u27Connor. Based on this review, the authors concluded that appointing more women as judges would make little difference to judicial outcomes or processes. The authors accused those who advocated for more women on the bench of having a hidden feminist agenda and bluntly concluded that “[b]y any measure, feminist judges fit very uneasily in most conceptions of the proper role of the judicial system.” More than twenty years later, scholars have a better understanding of what constitutes “feminist judging”; moving beyond the gender of those involved in making judgments, feminist judging is understood to derive from the asking of feminist questions and the application of feminist theories and methods. Current scholars also are taking a closer look at the role of feminist judicial perspectives throughout the judicial system. Through a series of “feminist judgments” projects around the globe, scholars are testing the proposition that feminist judging “fits” within the judicial role, no matter the gender of the judge. In the form of rewritten opinions based on the facts and precedent in effect at the time of the original decision, these projects demonstrate that judges who apply feminist perspectives would make a profound difference, not only in the outcomes and processes in individual cases, but also in the development of the law

At the Fontier of the Younger Doctrine: Reflections on Google v. Hood

On December 19, 2014, long-simmering tensions between Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and the search engine giant Google boiled over into federal court when Google filed suit against the Attorney General to enjoin him from bringing civil or criminal charges against it for alleged violations of the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act. Hood had been investigating and threatening legal action against Google for over a year for its alleged failure to do enough to prevent its search engine, advertisements, and YouTube website from facilitating public access to illegal, dangerous, or copyright protected goods. The case has garnered a great deal of media attention, and with good reason. It raises important questions about Internet service providers’ responsibility for serving as a conduit to potentially dangerous or illegal goods, and it could have significant ramifications for the balance of power between the federal government and the states when it comes to regulating entities like Google

At the Fontier of the Younger Doctrine: Reflections on Google v. Hood

On December 19, 2014, long-simmering tensions between Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and the search engine giant Google boiled over into federal court when Google filed suit against the Attorney General to enjoin him from bringing civil or criminal charges against it for alleged violations of the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act. Hood had been investigating and threatening legal action against Google for over a year for its alleged failure to do enough to prevent its search engine, advertisements, and YouTube website from facilitating public access to illegal, dangerous, or copyright protected goods. The case has garnered a great deal of media attention, and with good reason. It raises important questions about Internet service providers’ responsibility for serving as a conduit to potentially dangerous or illegal goods, and it could have significant ramifications for the balance of power between the federal government and the states when it comes to regulating entities like Google

Race Decriminalization and Criminal Legal System Reform

There is emerging consensus that various components of the criminal legal system have gone too far in capturing and punishing masses of Black men, women, and children. This evolving recognition has helped propel important and pathbreaking criminal legal reforms in recent years, with significant bipartisan support. These reforms have targeted the criminal legal system itself. They strive to address the pain inflicted by the system. However, by concerning themselves solely with the criminal legal system, these reforms do not confront the reality that Black men, women, and children will continue to be devastatingly overrepresented in each stitch of the system. As a result, these reforms do not reach deeply enough. They do not address or confront the reality that simply being Black has been and will continue to be criminalized. This Article asserts that measures beyond these reforms—measures that reach the root of racial criminalization—are necessary for true criminal legal system transformation

Cyber warfare and the law of armed conflict

This paper discusses cyber warfare and its intersection with the law of armed conflict. Cyberspace creates a unique battlefield with many challenges. This paper tackles four of these challenges: distinguishing warfare acts from criminal activities; what amounts to an armed attack in cyberspace that justifies a State’s right to selfdefence; target distinction; and direct participation in cyber hostilities. It is the author’s determination that the law of armed conflict does apply in cyberspace however two additional changes are needed for the traditional laws to have any practical effect. These two variations include the extension of the traditional criteria of armed attack to include severe data loss as tangible property damage; and reexamining the framework of direct participation