Liberalism, Republicanism And The Spirit Of American Politics: A Critique Of Sandel

Michael Sandel sees Rawls' liberal theory of justice as abstractly uncomprehensive of another, republican view of the essential relation of political life to moral culture. But, as reference to the debates of the Civil War and the New Deal show, his own jeremiadic account of American history equally misrepresents the dialectical interplay of liberal and republican moments that is essential in American freedom

Recovering a Lost Story Using Oral History: The United States Supreme Court\u27s Historic Green v. New Kent County, Virginia, Decision

In 1965, New Kent County, located just east of Richmond, Virginia, became the setting for the one of the most important school desegregation cases since Brown v. Board of Education. Ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared separate but equal unconstitutional, both public schools in New Kent, the George W. Watkins School for blacks and the New Kent School for whites, remained segregated. In 1965, however, local blacks and the Virginia State NAACP initiated a legal challenge to segregated schools, hoping to initiate desegregation where the process had yet to begin and to accelerate the process in areas where token desegregation was the norm. In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court decision inCharles C. Green v. the School Board of New Kent County forced New Kent County and localities across the state and nation to fulfill the promise of Brown. While the case has been part of the court records since it was decided in 1968, it has remained largely unknown to the general public and many scholars of the era. This article is an attempt to use the tool of oral history to present the people and the story behind Green v. New Kent County and to add another piece to the puzzle that was school desegregation in this country

Why New Hampshire Should Permit Married Couples to Choose Community Property

[Excerpt] “Two states, Alaska and Tennessee, offer married couples the choice of holding their property as separate or community property. Another nine states use community property as the default arrangement. Yet in each of those nine states a couple can opt out of community property rules by agreement. Only in the remaining thirty-nine states are married couples forced to accept separate property. There is no good reason for this condition to exist. This essay sets forth the advantages of offering married couples the choice of community or separate property and deals with some expected objections to this proposal. Section I details the benefits of choice. Section II examines likely objections and finds those objections insufficient to reject the proposal.

The New Ice Age: Addressing the Deficiencies in Arkansas\u27s Posthumously Conceived Children Statute

The ability to conceive a child using the preserved genetic material, or gametes, of a deceased person presents a number of legal issues for inheritance, estate planning, Social Security, and parental rights. New medical advancements in assisted reproductive technology (ART) enable individuals to conceive children after their death, complicating the conventional methods of determining heirship of the decedent under state intestacy laws. The purpose of intestacy law is to determine the succession of a decedent that dies without a will, or intestate, with the goal of carrying out the donative intent of the decedent. Intestacy law has failed to keep pace with these technological advancements, which has left the legal status of posthumously conceived children (PCC) uncertain in many states