34,802 research outputs found
Localities as Equality Innovators
This Article thus argues that instead of regarding cities and localities that, like Seattle and Louisville, try to develop serious solutions to existing racial disparities as bad cities no different from those whose notorious policies spurred the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, we should be regarding them as potential equality innovators.” Their on-the-ground experience with the realities of race and its operation in the twenty-first century arguably places them in a better position than courts to develop innovative approaches to the structural racial inequities with which so many municipalities must grapple. Existing doctrine limits dramatically the ability of courts to confront in any meaningful way how localities and the people that inhabit them actually navigate race
Grassmann Variables and Pseudoclassical Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
The concept of a propagator is useful and is a well-known object in diffusion
NMR experiments. Here, we investigate the related concept; the propagator for
the magnetisation or the Green's function of the Torrey-Bloch equations. The
magnetisation propagator is constructed by defining functions such as the
Hamiltonian and Lagrangian and using these to define a path integral. It is
shown that the equations of motion derived from the Lagrangian produce
complex-valued trajectories (classical paths) and it is conjectured that the
end-points of these trajectories are real-valued. The complex nature of the
trajectories also suggests that the spin degrees of freedom are also encoded
into the trajectories and this idea is explored by explicitly modeling the spin
or precessing magnetisation by anticommuting Grassmann variables. A
pseudoclassical Lagrangian is constructed by combining the diffusive (bosonic)
Lagrangian with the Grassmann (fermionic) Lagrangian, and performing the path
integral over the Grassmann variables recovers the original Lagrangian that was
used in the construction of the propagator for the magnetisation. The
trajectories of the pseudoclassical model also provide some insight into the
nature of the end-points.Comment: 25 page
The Color of Kinship
This Article addresses the need for family law scholarship that better theorizes and grapples with how race informs American life in the 21st Century. Family law scholars have been instrumental in documenting and advocating for recognition of the “new kinship”—familial relationships and affective ties forged outside of marriage and amidst dramatic demographic shifts. In doing so, though, they have largely ignored race, focusing instead on matters such as gender or class. The assumption is that kinship is raceneutral. But, in fact, kinship has a color. Part II explores this reality by analyzing Cramblett v. Midwest Sperm Banks, LLC, a case involving a lesbian mother who filed a wrongful birth suit when the insemination process she underwent resulted not in the white baby desired, but a child who is partially black. Part III explains how the colorblind approach that informs much of family law scholarship undermines the ability of scholars in this area both to interrogate cases like Cramblett and to offer meaningful solutions to the problems that families confront. Part IV advocates for a new approach to issues of family and race, including whiteness. Mapping a research agenda and alternative vision for family law scholarship, this article urges greater attention to the ways in which race informs the functioning of all families and intersects with issues like sexual orientation and class. This article also makes the case that family law scholars can advance the national debate about race and inequality in the United States by offering insights into the ways in which family law systems and policies shape notions of race and structure inequality across a range of areas
A Legacy of Teaching
In this essay, Professor R.A. Lenhardt describes the lasting educational legacy of Professor Derrick Bell. Using a Bell article entitled “Humanity in Legal Education” as its starting point, the essay explores Bell’s emphasis on social justice and “conscience” in legal instruction. In particular, it discusses the impact that Bell’s unique approach to teaching law had on students enrolled at Harvard Law School in the 1990s, where Professor Bell taught before a much publicized protest leave
Beyond Analogy: Perez v. Sharp, Antimiscegenation Law, and the Fight for Same-Sex Marriage
Conversations about the constitutionality of prohibitions on marriage for same-sex couples invariably reduce to the question of whether a meaningful analogy can be drawn between restrictions on same-sex marriage and antimiscegenation laws. In an effort to refocus this debate, this article considers the California Supreme Court\u27s 1948 decision in Perez v. Sharp and its use by advocates in recent litigation to secure marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Opponents of marriage rights for members of the LGBT *840 community frequently assert that dispatching Perez in these cases distorts the meaning of that decision and other similar precedents by drawing a false analogy between bans on interracial and same-sex marriage. Professor Lenhardt argues that, instead, Perez\u27s appearance in recent cases helps to clarify the nature of the marriage rights at stake in Loving v. Virginia. She also contends that the strategic use of Perez serves to underscore the extent to which state antimiscegenation laws established not only racial, but also gender-based identity norms. Finally, Professor Lenhardt asserts that Perez\u27s use in recent marriage cases offers a way out of the “analogy” debate, focusing discussion on the nature and substantive effect of race and gender bars on marriage, rather than on a comparison of the groups seeking judicial redress for such restrictions. Professor Lenhardt concludes that a deeper appreciation of the extent to which state-imposed obstacles to marriage have operated to police identity, restrict opportunities for self-definition, and impede belonging can elucidate the true implications and citizenship effects of prohibitions on marriage for same-sex couples
Race Audits
The U.S. Supreme Court’s race jurisprudence suffers from a stunning lack of imagination where possibilities for meaningful local government involvement in combating structural racial inequality are concerned. Cases such as Parents. and Ricci limit dramatically the freedom that localities have to address racial inequity within their borders. Instead of constraints on local efforts in the race context, Professor Lenhardt argues that what we need, if persistent racial inequalities are ever to be eliminated, is greater innovation and experimentation. In this article, Professor Lenhardt thus introduces an extra-judicial tool called the race audit, which would permit individual cities or a regional coalition of localities voluntarily to determine the extent to which their governmental systems and policies create, enable, or perpetuate inequitable conditions for racial minorities. This tool, grounded in the tenets of structuralism, breaks from traditional audit mechanisms in the race context by eschewing a singular focus on intentional discrimination. Instead, it seeks to uncover the specific structural mechanisms that generate cumulative racial disadvantage across domains, time and generations by, inter alia, being attuned to the spatial dimensions, meaning, and operation of race in the United States. The race audit’s main goal – which falls outside the reach of most existing tools for measuring discrimination – would be achieved through the work of a “community of inquiry” consisting of academics, philanthropic organizations, non-profits and civil rights groups, governmental agencies, and business leaders charged with assessing the segregative effects of the locality’s policies and programs. The race audit process, whose results might be similar to those produced by truth and reconciliation commissions, would produce a counter-narrative about race in metropolitan areas whose telling would have numerous benefits, including generating more effective remedies for addressing structural discrimination, and promoting democratic conversations about equality and what is necessary to secure belonging at the local level. Most of all, the race audit would make apparent the deep potential cities have for being important “equality innovators.” designed to identify the sources of persistent racial inequality that can be productively deployed by localities. This tool, grounded in the tenets of structuralism, eschews a singular focus on intentional discrimination. Instead, it seeks to uncover the specific structural mechanisms that create cumulative racial disadvantage across domains, time, and generations by, inter alia, being attuned to the spatial dimensions, meaning, and operation of race in the United States. The race audit process, in addition to highlighting the capacity of localities to be important change agents, would help produce a counternarrative about race and the seeming naturalness of the racial segregation and disadvantage now evident in urban and suburban areas alike. The Author contends that, in doing so, the race audit would identify better, more effective strategies for alleviating structural racial inequality. Situating the race audit proposal in a larger project on the commitments underlying civil rights advocacy more broadly, she highlights the potential that the race audit and other innovative tools might have to spur democratic conversations about race and the conditions necessary for belonging at the local level; generate a thicker, more substantive account of equality than has thus far been forthcoming in U.S. Supreme Court cases; and reconcile the perceived tensions between notions of equality and liberty in the area of race
Asthma management: an ecosocial framework for disparity research
Background: Asthma management disparities (AMD) between African and White Americans are significant and alarming. Various determinants have been suggested by research frameworks that affect the unfair distribution of resources for asthma management to groups who are more or less advantaged socially. Ecosocial models organize determinants into individual/family, healthcare, community, and sociocultural levels. Multilevel interventions can affect AMD through simultaneous actions on different levels and pathways between determinants.
Objective: Provide a comprehensive summary of the known determinants of AMD.
Method: Peer reviewed research frameworks of AMD from 1998-2009 were retrieved from PubMed/ Web of Science databases using (“Socioeconomic Factors”[Mesh] OR (“Healthcare Disparities”[Mesh] OR “Health Status Disparities”[Mesh])) AND “Asthma”[Mesh] AND “African Americans”[Mesh] OR “Ethnic Groups”[Mesh]). Abstracts assessed for a focus on AMD, and determinants. Articles were analyzed for ecosocial levels and determinants.
Results: 13 research frameworks described 34 determinants. Compared to other levels, Individual/family levels had the most emphasis, and frameworks using healthcare and community levels were the most narrow in focus. Stress, poverty, violence/crime, quality of care, healthcare access, and indoor air quality were well described determinants.
Conclusions: Multilevel investigations should include those well described determinants of AMD and increase knowledge of pathway interactions between healthcare and community levels
Tolkien Among the Moderns (2015), ed. by Ralph C. Wood
Book review by Robin Anne Reid of Tolkien Among the Moderns (2015) ed. by Ralph C. Woo
Women & Tolkien: Amazons, Valkyries, Feminists, and Slashers
This paper reports on an early pilot project that asks women who self identify as readers or fans of Tolkien\u27s work and/or teachers who have taught Tolkien\u27s work, and/or scholars who have published on Tolkien\u27s work to answer a few open-ended questions about their reasons for enjoying his work. By women, I mean anybody who identifies as a woman. By Tolkien\u27s work, I mean any of his published novels, stories, poems, or academic essays. The study arises from the question that is often asked of fans of Tolkien\u27s work: why do women so enjoy it, given the relatively minor narrative roles women play
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