The Defense of Marriage Act and Uncategorical Federalism

This Essay addresses federalism objections to section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Ordinarily, the federal government accepts states’ determinations of what couples are validly married. Section 3 of DOMA, however, fashions a broad exception for same-sex couples, who are definitionally deemed not to be in “marriages.” In addition to equal protection and full faith and credit challenges to DOMA, litigants have made constitutional federalism arguments. In Massachusetts v. UnitedStates Department of Health and Human Services, the federal trial court accepted one such argument, though in a form that might be read to categorically deny the federal government authority over marriage. This Essay critiques such categorical federalism arguments, as well as the district court’s specific doctrinal argument, and offers a more nuanced, uncategorical federalism argument against DOMA section 3 based on existing constitutional precedents, an argument that relies on a confluence of factors to conclude that this provision of federal law is unconstitutional

Amorphous Federalism And The Supreme Court\u27s Marriage Cases

This Article addresses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, the two cases in the October 2012 Term that took up issues of marriage rights of same-sex couples. After Part I of the Article provides a brief Introduction, Part II examines the Supreme Court’s opinion in Perry. It summarizes the litigation; teases out divergent views of the relevance of federalism for the Court’s standing ruling in the case; identifies the problematic constitutional underpinnings of the Perry dissenters’ views of federal court standing, which rely on an unjustified constitutional privileging of initiative lawmaking; and explains why Perry is likely to have but limited impact on the Supreme Court’s Article III standing doctrine. Part III then summarizes the Windsor litigation; defends what should have been the self-evident conclusio —though denied by Justice Scalia in his dissent—that the majority opinion is based on equal protection (even if it perhaps also rests on substantive due process protection of “liberty”) and in so doing unpacks its treatment of federalism— something Scalia derided as “amorphous”—to show how the majority’s treatment of states’ predominant historical role in marriage regulation fits within an evidentiary framework the Court used to help establish the impropriety of the purpose of the Defense of Marriage Act; and explores some potential ramifications of the Windsor decision for challenges to state refusals to recognize same-sex couples’ marriages from other states and to state refusals to allow same-sex couples to marry within their territory

Baker v. Nelson: Flotsam in the Tidal Wave of Windsor\u27s Wake

Part I of this Article sketches the virtually unbroken string of pro-marriage decisions in the lower federal and state courts since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in United States v. Windsor to give a sense of the size and magnitude of this “tidal wave” of precedent. Next, Part II briefly explores some of the reasons that might help account for the flood of litigation and overwhelmingly positive outcomes. Part III tentatively suggests one way this flow of decisions in favor of marriage equality might influence the Supreme Court as it returns to the issue. Part II then at some length shows one particular aspect of Windsor’s wake: the way it has helped lower federal courts unanimously and properly conclude that doctrinal developments after the Supreme Court summarily rejected a same-sex couple’s constitutional claims to a right to marry in Baker v. Nelson in 1972 have rendered that decision no longer dispositive. Although Baker would in no event prevent the Supreme Court itself from revisiting the constitutional issues, the ability to declare Baker doctrinally undermined has positive repercussions for the social equality and lived reality of same-sex couples across the country in the meantime. Finally, Part IV of the Article addresses some of the ways in which United States v. Windsor itself developed constitutional doctrine in ways that advance the cause of constitutional justice and same-sex couples’ rights to equal protection and to marry

Baker v. Nelson: Flotsam in the Tidal Wave of Windsor\u27s Wake

Part I of this Article sketches the virtually unbroken string of pro-marriage decisions in the lower federal and state courts since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in United States v. Windsor to give a sense of the size and magnitude of this “tidal wave” of precedent. Next, Part II briefly explores some of the reasons that might help account for the flood of litigation and overwhelmingly positive outcomes. Part III tentatively suggests one way this flow of decisions in favor of marriage equality might influence the Supreme Court as it returns to the issue. Part II then at some length shows one particular aspect of Windsor’s wake: the way it has helped lower federal courts unanimously and properly conclude that doctrinal developments after the Supreme Court summarily rejected a same-sex couple’s constitutional claims to a right to marry in Baker v. Nelson in 1972 have rendered that decision no longer dispositive. Although Baker would in no event prevent the Supreme Court itself from revisiting the constitutional issues, the ability to declare Baker doctrinally undermined has positive repercussions for the social equality and lived reality of same-sex couples across the country in the meantime. Finally, Part IV of the Article addresses some of the ways in which United States v. Windsor itself developed constitutional doctrine in ways that advance the cause of constitutional justice and same-sex couples’ rights to equal protection and to marry

Molecular Hydrogen Kinematics in Cepheus A

We present the radial velocity structure of the molecular hydrogen outflows associated to the star forming region Cepheus A. This structure is derived from doppler shift of the H_2 v=1-0 S(1) emission line obtained by Fabry-Perot spectroscopy. The East and West regions of emission, called Cep A(E) and Cep A(W), show radial velocities in the range -20 to 0 km/s with respect to the molecular cloud. Cep A(W) shows an increasing velocity with position offset from the core indicating the existence of a possible accelarating machanism. Cep A(E) has an almost constant mean radial velocity of -18 km/s along the region although with a large dispersion in velocity, indicating the possibility of a turbulent outflow. A detailed analysis of the Cep A(E) region shows evidence for the presence of a Mach disk on that outflow. Also, we argue that the presence of a velocity gradient in Cep A(W) is indicative of a C-shock in this region. Following Riera et al. (2003), we analyzed the data using wavelet analysis to study the line width and the central radial velocity distributions. We found that both outflows have complex spatial and velocity structures characteristic of a turbulent flow.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figure

Competent or Not?: Exploring Adaptions to the Neo-Behaviorist Paradigm in a Sport Marketing Course

Educators and administrators are exploring competency-based education as an effective and efficient method to facilitate student learning. This reinforces a burgeoning neo-behaviorist movement in higher education which seeks to synthesize such behaviorist approaches with the cognitive focus of the last 20 years. The current research examines the outcomes in three years of a sport marketing class that blends cognitive-based and competency-based pedagogy. The first half of the course is primarily self-paced, with regular quizzes checking student mastery, while the second half of the course has students work in teams on marketing-related projects; a final examination assesses overall student learning. The research revealed that the blended approach resulted in complementary strategies which partially addressed the conventional criticisms of both cognitive- and competency-based pedagogical approaches. The study used paired sample t-tests to compare results on quizzes versus the final exam (N=111 students comprising 36,787 total student-responses), finding that the course's hybrid structure develops student learning in both lower-order and higher-order thinking (as per Bloom's taxonomy). In addition to this approach's pedagogical benefits, the structure may have implications for administrators and educators facing challenges in terms of student enrollment, budgets, and expectations of graduates

Drying and physiological quality of palheteira seeds (Clitoria fairchildiana R.A. Howard).

O conhecimento acerca o armazenamento de sementes é importante para a preservação de espécies vegetais. A Clitoria fairchildiana R.A.Howard é uma espécie endêmica com propriedades medicinais utilizada na reconstituição de áreas degradadas. O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar o efeito da secagem na qualidade fisiológica de sementes dessa espécie. As sementes foram secadas em sílica gel por 18 dias em intervalos de 2 ou 3 dias amostras foram retiradas para determinação do grau de umidade. Este foi obtido em estufa a 105±3oC por 24h, com 4 repetições de 10 sementes. Após obter o último grau de umidade uma amostra das sementes foi armazenada em freezer (-18ºC) por 90 dias. A semeadura foi em vasos contendo substrato de areia e serragem, na proporção de 1:1, previamente cozido em água aquecida por duas horas. Os vasos permaneceram em laboratório desprovido de controles de temperatura e de umidade relativa do ar. O teste de germinação ocorreu durante 14 dias com contagem diária das plântulas emersas e no final desse determinou-se as porcentagens de germinação, sementes mortas e plântulas anormais. O delineamento foi inteiramente casualizado com quatro repetições de 25 sementes por tratamento. A redução do grau de umidade de 18,5% para 5,6% afetou a qualidade fisiológica das sementes acarretando redução na taxa de germinação e aumento na porcentagem de sementes mortas e de plântulas anormais. Sementes de C. fairchildiana são classificadas como intermediária no armazenamento e podem ser secadas até 8,6% sem alteração na qualidade fisiológic