Coming Out in Rural America: The Case of Emilio Hernandez

The following case vignette will takes the reader into to a rural, Hispanic, Catholic home in which both Emilio, a 17-year-old high school student, and his family are struggling with his sexual orientation, experimentation, and coming out process. As the case progresses, the school social worker and the Department of Child Services become involved and the word of family troubles spreads throughout the rural community. The challenges faced by Emilio and his family are explored, the importance of social capital in a rural community is demonstrated, and the efforts of professionals to intervene become evident

Power, Deviance, Stigma, and Control: A Sociological Reconceptualization of Sexuality within Social Work Services

Despite shared societal and historical origins, sociology and social work have had a contentious relationship, leading some to suggest the two disciplines are inherently incompatible. This article challenges that assertion by examining how sociological conceptions of deviance, power, stigma, and control can contribute to more just social work services, particularly in the contentious area of adolescent sexuality. As respected social agents, social workers can play a role in counteracting the forces that alienate outsiders. By understanding how sociological theories contribute to their ability to contest the social discourse regarding sexuality, social workers can challenge social norms and work with clients in a more socially just manner

The Impact of Sexual Identity Development on the Sexual Health of Youth Formerly in the Foster Care System

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Youth in the foster care system receive less sexual and reproductive health education, experience higher levels of negative sexual health outcomes, and engage in more risky sexual behaviors than peers not in the foster care system. Counteracting these concerns requires understanding the processes that contribute to these outcomes. A conceptual model interfacing traditional identity development theories and social constructionist theories of social sexualization was developed that posited sociosexual input factors of sexual education and socialization, sexual abuse history, and adverse childhood experiences affect youths’ sexual identity development, which then impacts youths’ level of sexual health. Hierarchical linear regression determined the level of impact of sexual socialization on sexual health within a sample of youth formerly in the foster care system (n = 219). Whether sexual identity development level mediated the relationship between sexuality-related discussions and sexual health was tested as well as how relationship quality moderates the effects of sexuality-related topic discussions on sexual identity development. Further analysis explored differences between the experiences of youth who identified as sexual minorities and their peers who identified as heterosexual. Results indicated that gender identity, sexual orientation, adverse childhood experiences, sexual abuse history, and sexuality-related discussions with foster parents and with peers all impact sexual health. All four dimensions of sexual identity development significantly contributed to sexual health outcomes. Mediation occurred with two of the four sexual identity development dimensions, whereas no moderation effects were indicated. Youth who identified as sexual minorities and youth who identified as heterosexual had significantly different scores on three of four sexual identity development dimensions and youth who identified as sexual minorities had worse sexual health outcomes. Results indicate the importance of the sexual identity development process on sexual health and that youths’ sexual orientation identity must be considered when designing interventions to improve sexual health outcomes

Why More Employers Are Getting SALT-y on Remote Work Arrangements

This article explores the consequences of the extreme increase in remote work, due to the pandemic, on state taxation. Discussed in the article is state sourcing and apportioning of nonresident wage income, employer withholding tax obligations, and corporate tax nexus. The authors predict an increase in litigation as a result of states seeking to retain the ability to tax nonresident wages. For example, New York considers employees to be working in-state (and thus subject to taxation) even when they are not physically present in New York so long as they are working remotely for reasons of personal convenience. But, the authors argue, the pandemic should be an exception: if an employee’s New York office is closed they have no choice but to work remotely. Furthermore, Massachusetts has issued an emergency rule that continues to treat nonresident employees as though they continue to commute into Massachusetts, even though they currently work from home. This, the article urges, is constitutionally problematic. Some states have altered employer wage withholding obligations to ensure that remote employees are taxed based on where they commuted to prior to the pandemic: Massachusetts, Mississippi, and South Carolina are states that have enacted temporary trailing nexus policies. Illinois, Minnesota, and Maryland have indicated that employers are subject to wage withholding obligations if their employees are working remotely in those states. This article stresses that employers must know where their employees are working remotely from in order to comply with these obligations. Finally, it is uncertain how the increase in remote work will affect corporate tax nexus. While case law supports subjecting out-of-state corporations to taxation as a result of in-state remote employees, it is not clear how the pandemic, and the temporary nature of today’s remote work, will be treated by the law. While the District of Columbia, Indiana, North Dakota, and South Carolina have clarified that corporate tax nexus will not be imposed due to the current circumstances, many states have remained silent on the matter. As a result, taxpayers are left to speculate about their compliance obligations

Organizing to Win: Introduction

[Excerpt] The American labor movement is at a watershed. For the first time since the early years of industrial unionism sixty years ago, there is near-universal agreement among union leaders that the future of the movement depends on massive new organizing. In October 1995, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka, and Linda Chavez-Thompson were swept into the top offices of the AFL-CIO, following a campaign that promised organizing at an unprecedented pace and scale. Since taking office, the new AFL-CIO leadership team has created a separate organizing department and has committed $20 million to support coordinated large-scale industry-based organizing drives. In addition, in the summer of 1996, the AFL-CIO launched the Union Summer program, which placed more than a thousand college students and young workers in organizing campaigns across the country

SiGe/Si THz laser based on transitions between inverted mass light-hole and heavy-hole subbands

We have investigated a SiGe/Si quantum-well laser based on transitions between the light-hole and heavy-hole subbands. The lasing occurs in the region of k space where the dispersion of ground-state light-hole subband is so nonparabolic that its effective mass is inverted. This kind of lasing mechanism makes total population inversion between the two subbands unnecessary. The laser structure can be electrically pumped through tunneling in a quantum cascade scheme. Optical gain as high as 172/cm at the wavelength of 50 μm can be achieved at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, even when the population of the upper laser subband is 15% less than that of the lower subband

Intersubband lasing lifetimes of SiGe/Si and GaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum well structures

The feasibility of population inversion is studied for the SiGe/Si system and compared with that of GaAs/AlGaAs. Because of the absence of strong polar optical phonon scattering in SiGe/Si, the lifetime difference of the upper and lower lasing levels, to which the population inversion and laser gain are proportional, is consistently an order of magnitude larger than that of GaAs/AlGaAs; nor does it show the sudden drop to zero or negative values when the lasing energy exceeds the optical phonon energy. Both systems studied are superlattices, each period of which consists of three coupled quantum wells and barriers

Confrontation Confronted

The following article is an edited version of the amicus curiae brief filed with the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1998, in the case of Benjamin Lee Lilly v. Commonwealth of Virginia(No.98-5881). This case raises important questions about the confrontation clause, which has been a vital ingredient of the fair trial right for hundreds of years, Professor Richard Friedman and his co-authors say. In particular, this case presents the Court with an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between the confrontation clause and the law of hearsay. On June 10 the Court handed down a decision in favor of Lilly. Justice Stephen Breyer, a member of the plurality, wrote a concurring opinion citing this brief favorably and suggested that a future case might call for the Court to adopt its approach