Let Them Eat Paint: Childhood Lead Paint Poisoning as the Denial of Constitutional and Civil Rights

Over forty years ago, the United States federal government banned the use of lead-based paint in residences. Yet, tens of millions of American homes still contain lead paint today—exposing huge numbers of children to a grave risk of irreversible brain damage. While most Americans are familiar with the devastating 2014 crisis caused by lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, few realize that Flint is only a small piece of a much larger lead poisoning problem. In thousands of towns across the United States today, children suffer elevated blood lead levels at even greater rates than those observed in Flint. In many cases, the cause of lead exposure for these children is not water, but paint. A child living in a home with deteriorating lead paint can easily suffer life-long harm—just by breathing in invisible lead dust or touching lead-contaminated surfaces and later putting their hands in their mouth. Despite clear evidence of the serious consequences of lead since the early 1900s, however, the lead paint problem has festered in America’s shadows for over a century. Most recently, in the decades since the residential ban, landlords and sellers have refused to adequately test for and remove lead paint from their properties—and governments and regulatory agencies have failed to enact effective laws and enforce regulations. Why has this crisis been allowed to continue for so long? History, empirical data, and anecdotal evidence all strongly suggest that America has ignored the issue largely because lead poisoning mainly affects low-income communities and people of color. This Note argues that the current legal remedies used to address the lead paint epidemic are inadequate and have failed to fix a completely preventable public health crisis. In addition, it demonstrates that all of the existing approaches to lead poisoning—legislative reform, regulatory action, lawsuits sounding in common law negligence, and the use of market share liability and public nuisance doctrine—do not address the underlying issues of racial and economic discrimination that have perpetuated this problem for decades. In order to ensure enforcement of federal and state laws, to legitimize the experiences of children who have suffered at the hands of discriminatory policies, and to garner national attention to the issue, this Note argues that advocates should expand their response to lead paint by pursuing claims under constitutional and civil rights theories. In particular, this Note analyzes how litigators can bring successful lead poisoning claims under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Fair Housing Act, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Connections between Identity, Attachment, and Psychological Dating Aggression during Adolescence

The collective influence of identity styles and romantic attachment insecurity on psychological dating aggression was examined for 1,975 adolescents living in a southern state of the United States. Informational identity style related negatively to psychological dating aggression, but anxious romantic attachment related positively to this behavior. Diffuse-avoidant identity style and using psychological dating aggression were associated positively, whereas normative identity style and receiving psychological dating aggression were associated negatively. Additionally, the combination of high informational or normative identity style with high avoidant romantic attachment was linked to lower psychological dating aggression. Our findings build on the previously noted parallelism between identity styles and romantic attachment insecurity by showing how they work together to explain variability in psychological dating aggression

Adolescents and Sexual Risk-Taking: The Interplay of Constraining Relationship Beliefs, Healthy Sex Attitudes, and Romantic Attachment Insecurity

Introduction: Although sexual exploration during adolescence may be perceived as normative, many adolescents who are sexually active are likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors detrimental to their well-being. The present study examined the influence of insecure attachment (anxious and avoidant dimensions), healthy sex attitudes, and constraining relationship beliefs on the following sexual risk indicators: age at first sex, number of sexual partners, condom use, length of time knowing sexual partners, seriousness of relationship, and frequency of sex. Methods: Cross-sectional data from two cohorts recruited one year apart for a five-year project were analyzed. Adolescents were public high school students from a Southern state in the USA (cohort 1: N = 878, 51.1% females, M = 16.50 years old; cohort 2: N = 759, 46.9% females, M = 15.78 years old). Results: Across both cohorts, healthy sex attitudes were related to having sex for the first time at an older age, having less sexual partners in a lifetime, and knowing one’s sexual partner longer. High scores on the avoidant attachment dimension were related to less commitment to the relationship. This dimension also was related to holding lower scores on healthy sex attitudes, which in turn was related to having more sexual partners and knowing one’s sexual partner for a shorter time. Although not replicated, higher endorsement of constraining relationship beliefs was associated with inconsistent condom use and greater sex frequency. Conclusion: Findings suggests that attachment insecurity, healthy sex attitudes, and constraining relationship beliefs work together to influence adolescent sexual risks

The impact of relationship education on adolescents of diverse backgrounds

Abstract: Adolescent-focused marriage education is a relatively uncharted research area. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the effectiveness of an adapted version of the curriculum entitled, Love U2: Increasing Your Relationship Smarts with an economically, geographically, and racially diverse sample of 340 high school students. Findings suggest that participants showed increases in 5 dimensions of their relationship knowledge, including their ability to identify unhealthy relationship patterns. Participants also had more realistic beliefs about relationships/marriages and reported lower levels of verbal aggression use at postprogram compared to controls. Moreover, these findings existed across race, household income, and family structure type, with all participating students benefiting in similar ways. Implications for future programming and research are discussed

The impact of relationship education on adolescents of diverse backgrounds

Abstract: Adolescent-focused marriage education is a relatively uncharted research area. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the effectiveness of an adapted version of the curriculum entitled, Love U2: Increasing Your Relationship Smarts with an economically, geographically, and racially diverse sample of 340 high school students. Findings suggest that participants showed increases in 5 dimensions of their relationship knowledge, including their ability to identify unhealthy relationship patterns. Participants also had more realistic beliefs about relationships/marriages and reported lower levels of verbal aggression use at postprogram compared to controls. Moreover, these findings existed across race, household income, and family structure type, with all participating students benefiting in similar ways. Implications for future programming and research are discussed

Reaching for the future: The education-focused possible selves of low-income mothers

This chapter describes the educational possible selves of low-income mothers as they make the transition from welfare to work.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/56083/1/255_ftp.pd

Natural Mentors, Racial Identity, and Educational Attainment Among African American Adolescents: Exploring Pathways to Success

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/92398/1/j.1467-8624.2012.01769.x.pd

When is identity congruent with the self? A self-determination theory perspective

Within the identity literature, self and identity are often used as interchangeable terms. By contrast, in Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2003) both terms have a differentiated meaning and it is maintained that identities may vary in the extent to which they are congruent with the basic growth tendencies of the self that are fueled by the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Specifically, the level of congruence between identities and the self is said to depend on (a) the motives underlying one’s identity commitments (i.e., pressure versus volition) and (b) the content of the goals defining one’s identity (i.e., extrinsic versus intrinsic). It is argued in SDT that both the motives and the goals behind one’s identity are important for optimal functioning because of their linkage with basic need satisfaction. This chapter (a) compares the SDT view on identity development with prevailing models of identity formation, and with constructivist models of identity in particular, and (b) reviews research relevant to the idea that identities need to be congruent with the self in order to foster well-being and adjustment