Educating Antiracist Lawyers: The Race and the Equal Protection of the Laws Program at Dickinson Law

The year 2020 has forced us, as a nation, to recognize painful realities about systemic racism in our country and our legal system. The fallacies in our founding documents and the vestiges of our slave past are so woven into our national culture that they became hard to see except for those who suffered their daily indignities, hardships, and fears. As legal educators, we must face the role we have played in helping build the machinery of structural racism by supplying generation after generation of those who maintain that machinery and prosper within it. In this critical moment of our country’s history, we, as legal educators, must train and prepare a generation of lawyers to once and for all complete the work of the Civil Rights Movement and purge what remains of racism from our legal system – to build better safeguards to ensure that all of us, everyone, has the equal protection of the laws promised by the 14th Amendment of our Constitution.This article is one of three interdependent articles authored by Penn State Dickinson Law faculty and staff. These articles are meant to be read together to chart the vision and implementation for building an Antiracist law school and providing a template for an Antiracist legal academy and legal profession. This first article, Danielle Conway, Bekah Saidman-Krauss, and Rebecca Schreiber, “Building an Antiracist Law School: Inclusivity in Admissions and Retention of Diverse Students—Leadership Determines DEI Success” can be downloaded on from SSRN. The third in this series is Amy Gaudion, “Exploring Race and Racism in the Law School Curriculum: an Administrator’s View on Adopting an Anti-Racist Curriculum.”As educators, we must recognize our unique opportunity and important responsibility to combat racism in our educational mission. We must do more than transfer legal knowledge and skills to our students. We must cultivate within them, a principled, enduring commitment to work for true equality over the course of their careers and practice law in a way that promotes equal treatment of all. To do this we must reconsider not only what we teach, but how we teach it.This essay sets out one possibility. It describes the Race and Equal Protection of the Laws program at Penn State Dickinson Law. This innovative program draws from Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy to develop an educational approach with the objective of transforming how our students see their place and role in our evolving, flawed democracy. It incorporates the work of Critical Race Theory to help students understand the root causes of systemic racism and why the landmark decisions of the Civil Rights Movement have not realized their potential to change the lived experience of Blacks and people of Color. It adapts principles of Shared Praxis, an approach to teaching grounded in Critical Pedagogy that guides students to a deepening consciousness of the problem, explores with them sources of law and justice that can be brought to bear, and invites them to develop their own carefully considered response as law students and as lawyers.During this yearlong course, students will learn and work as co-investigators with faculty members and other students to better understand the relationship between race and different areas of the law including housing, health care, criminal justice, democracy, capitalism and education

Immunogenicity and safety of an acellular pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, inactivated poliovirus, Hib-conjugate combined vaccine (Pentaxim™) and monovalent hepatitis B vaccine at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age in infants in South Africa

Objective. To assess the immunogenicity and safety data for a pentavalent combination vaccine containing acellular pertussis, inactivated poliovirus, and Haemophilus influenzae (Hib) polysaccharide-conjugate antigens. Methods. A DTaP-IPV//PRP~T vaccine (Pentaxim™) was given at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age to 212 infants in South Africa. Monovalent hepatitis B vaccine was given concomitantly. Immunogenicity was assessed using seroprotection and seroconversion rates; safety was assessed by monitoring for solicited injection site and systemic adverse events, and follow-up monitoring for unsolicited adverse events and serious adverse events. Results. Immunogenicity was high for each vaccine antigen, and similar to a reference study done in France using a similar (2, 3 and 4 months of age) administration schedule. After the third dose, 94.6% of participants had anti-PRP ≥0.15 μg/ml. The anti-PRP geometric mean antibody titre (GMT) was 2.0 μg/ml. The seroprotection rates for diphtheria and tetanus (≥0.01 IU/ml), poliovirus types 1, 2 and 3 (≥8 1/dil U) and hepatitis B were all 100%. Anti-polio GMTs were very high, 1 453, 1 699 and 2 398 (1/dil U) for types 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The seroconversion/vaccine response rates to pertussis antigens (4-fold increase in antibody concentration) were 97.5% for PT and 83.9% for FHA. Conclusions. The DTaP-IPV//PRP~T vaccine was highly immunogenic at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age in infants in South Africa, was compatible with the monovalent hepatitis B vaccine, and was well tolerated

One-year post-primary antibody persistence and booster immune response to a DTaP-IPV//PRP~T vaccine (Pentaxim) given at 18 - 19 months of age in South African children primed at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age with the same vaccine

Objective. To assess the immunogenicity and safety of a pentavalent diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, inactivated poliovirus, Hib polysaccharide-conjugate vaccine booster.Design, setting and participants. A DTaP-IPV//PRP~T vaccine (Pentaxim, a Sanofi Pasteur AcXim family vaccine) was given to 182 healthy children in South Africa at 18 - 19 months of age following priming with the same vaccine plus a monovalent hepatitis B vaccine at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of  age.Outcome measures. Seroprotection (SP) and seroconversion (SC) rates, geometric mean titres (GMTs) and concentrations (GMCs) were assessed before, and 1 month after, the booster dose. Safety was assessed using parental reports.Results. One month after primary vaccination, at least 94.3% of participants were seroprotected against tetanus (≥0.01 IU/ml), diphtheria (≥0.01 IU/ml), poliovirus (≥8 1/dil) and Haemophilus influenzae type b  (Hib) infection (≥0.15 μg/ml). Before the booster dose, the SP rates  ranged from 65.7% to 100%. One month after the booster dose, SP rates were 97.7% for Hib (anti-PRP titre ≥1.0 μg/ml), 100.0% for diphtheria (≥0.1 IU/ml) and 100% for tetanus (≥0.1 IU/ml) and poliovirus types 1, 2, 3 (≥8 1/dil). At least 95.7% of participants had fourfold post-booster increases in anti-pertussis antibody titres. GMTs increased from 11.21 to 465.51 EU/ml and from 12.89 to 520.35 EU/ml for anti-PT and anti-FHA respectively. Anti-PRP GMT increased from 0.35 to 47.01 μg/ml. The  DTaPIPV// PRP~T vaccine booster was well tolerated, with fever ≥39.0°C in only 1.7% of participants.Conclusions. Antibody persistence following priming was satisfactory. The pentavalent DTaP-IPV//PRP~T vaccine booster was highly immunogenic and well tolerated.S Afr Med J 2011;101:879-883

Laser aiming simulation /LASIM/ Final report, Feb. 1967 - May 1968

Laser aiming simulation models for synchronous satellite optical communication system

Estimating Nonpoint Source Pollution in North Texas Watersheds through Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems

Monitoring nonpoint source pollution in a large area is often impractical. However, estimating nonpoint pollution through use of empirical models such as the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) provides a basis for identifying problem areas, and setting management priorities. The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of using Landsat imagery and existing geographic data to estimate the effects of land use changes on water quality in four North Texas watersheds over a twelve year period

Assessing the full costs of floodplain buyouts

Given projected increases in flood damages, managed retreat strategies are likely to become more widespread. Voluntary buyouts, where governments acquire flood-damaged properties and return the sites to open space, have been the primary form of federally funded retreat in the USA to date. However, little attention has been paid to the cost structure of buyout projects. Using a transaction cost framework, we analyze the costs of activities that comprise floodplain buyouts. Federal data do not distinguish transaction costs, but they do suggest that the cost of purchasing properties often accounts for 80% or less of total project costs. Through a systematic review (n = 1103 publications) and an analysis of government budgets (across n = 859 jurisdiction-years), we find limited sources with relevant cost information, none of which reports transaction costs. The absence of activity-level cost data inhibits more targeted policy reform to support community-driven and efficient buyout programs. Better data collection and reporting can inform more impactful and equitable buyout policy