Changing the Rules of Establishment Clause Litigation: An Alternative to the Public Expression of Religion Act

In 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) threatened to sue the city of Redlands, California, if it did not remove a small cross from its city seal.\u27 The cross represented the city\u27s religious heritage and its history as a city of churches. Instead of facing the possibility of litigation and the more daunting risk of losing in court and being forced to pay the ACLU\u27s attorneys\u27 fees in addition to its own, the Redlands City Council agreed to change the seal. The City of Redlands not only could ill afford the risk of paying the ACLU\u27s attorneys\u27 fees; it also had insufficient municipal funds to replace the seal. Therefore, the city had to improvise. Blue tape covered the cross on many city vehicles, and some city employees used electric drills to obliterate the cross from their badges. After its success in Redlands, the ACLU turned its attention to the Los Angeles County seal, which contained a small cross symbolizing the Spanish missions that played an integral role in the county\u27s history. One newspaper columnist observed, The cross was about one-sixth the size of a not-very-big image of a cow tucked away on the lower right segment of the seal, and maybe a hundredth of the size of a pagan god (Pomona, goddess of fruit) who dominated the seal. The county\u27s attorneys advised that a loss in court would be costly-the county would be responsible not only for the cost of changing the seal and its own legal fees, but also for the ACLU\u27s legal fees. In what was an unpopular decision, the county supervisors voted to redesign the seal. The transition to the new seal is costing the county around $1 million and entails replacing the seal on approximately 90,000 uniforms, 12,000 vehicles, and 6,000 buildings. Events similar to these are taking place around the country. Some Americans view these events as victories over governments endorsing a particular religion in violation of the First Amendment\u27s Establishment Clause and attempting to force religion upon their citizens. Others believe that these events are examples of communities being coerced into abandoning all acknowledgment of their religious values and heritage. Debates over this issue have increased recently, especially surrounding the Public Expression of Religion Act ( PERA ), which was introduced in Congress in response to events such as those that took place in Redlands and Los Angeles. The U.S. House of Representatives passed PERA on September 26, 2006. The House forwarded the bill to the Senate, where it was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and currently awaits action. PERA would amend federal statutes to provide that plaintiffs who challenge government action as violating the Establishment Clause would not be able to recover attorneys\u27 fees. This change would be a departure from current federal law and practice, under which plaintiffs who are successful in a lawsuit brought under the Establishment Clause may (and almost always do) recover attorneys\u27 fees from the defendant government, whether local, state, or federal. PERA\u27s proponents argue that the current fee-shifting scheme, combined with the unpredictability of the Supreme Court\u27s Establishment Clause jurisprudence, allows plaintiffs to force governments to accede to their demands and abandon all public acknowledgment of religion by greatly increasing the risk involved in defending Establishment Clause claims in court. Like PERA, this Note recognizes that plaintiffs have an inordinate amount of leverage when they bring an Establishment Clause claim. Part II of this Note examines the two main factors contributing to this leverage. The first factor is the unsettled state of Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Part II first introduces the debate concerning the original purpose of the Establishment Clause. It then discusses the many tests the Supreme Court has applied in Establishment Clause cases and examines two recent cases that scholars cite as exemplifying the muddled state of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, Van Orden v. Perry15 and McCreary County v. ACLU.16 Part II then examines the second factor, 42 U.S.C. ?? 1983 and 1988, the federal fee-shifting statutes that enable successful plaintiffs in Establishment Clause cases to receive attorneys\u27 fees from the defendant government. Part III of this Note introduces PERA. It discusses the background of the bill, presents its provisions in detail, and examines the debates surrounding the bill. Part IV critically appraises PERA and the solution it proposes. Although this Note concludes that PERA is fundamentally flawed, it also asserts that a legitimate aim can and should be extracted from the bill. This aim is to protect a government\u27s ability to defend the acknowledgment of its religious heritage. Part IV demonstrates that the Supreme Court\u27s Establishment Clause jurisprudence allows for the acknowledgment of religious heritage and explains why this acknowledgment needs protection. Part IV concludes by examining why PERA\u27s approach to this problem is flawed. Finally, Part V proposes an alternative to PERA that would make it easier for governments to defend acknowledgments of their religious heritage without reducing the incentives for governments to avoid behavior that clearly violates the Establishment Clause. This alternative exempts governments from having to pay a plaintiffs attorneys\u27 fees in Establishment Clause cases unless the challenged conduct violates clearly established law. This clearly established law standard is similar to the standard used in the Supreme Court\u27s qualified immunity jurisprudence, which this part outlines. Part V concludes by examining how courts could apply this standard in Establishment Clause cases

Including the urban heat island in spatial heat health risk assessment strategies: a case study for Birmingham, UK

Background Heatwaves present a significant health risk and the hazard is likely to escalate with the increased future temperatures presently predicted by climate change models. The impact of heatwaves is often felt strongest in towns and cities where populations are concentrated and where the climate is often unintentionally modified to produce an urban heat island effect; where urban areas can be significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas. The purpose of this interdisciplinary study is to integrate remotely sensed urban heat island data alongside commercial social segmentation data via a spatial risk assessment methodology in order to highlight potential heat health risk areas and build the foundations for a climate change risk assessment. This paper uses the city of Birmingham, UK as a case study area. Results When looking at vulnerable sections of the population, the analysis identifies a concentration of "very high" risk areas within the city centre, and a number of pockets of "high risk" areas scattered throughout the conurbation. Further analysis looks at household level data which yields a complicated picture with a considerable range of vulnerabilities at a neighbourhood scale. Conclusions The results illustrate that a concentration of "very high" risk people live within the urban heat island, and this should be taken into account by urban planners and city centre environmental managers when considering climate change adaptation strategies or heatwave alert schemes. The methodology has been designed to be transparent and to make use of powerful and readily available datasets so that it can be easily replicated in other urban areas

Enhanced referral prioritisation for acute adult dietetic services: A randomised control trial to test a web-based decision training tool

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Dietitians in acute adult services need to prioritise dietetic referrals in order to manage their daily workload and ensure effective treatment of patients. Newly qualified dietitians do not usually receive specific training on prioritisation and could be helped with an evidence-based, effective, decision-training tool that is based on the practice of experienced dietitians. We developed an internationally available web-based decision-training tool designed to improve novice dietitians' ability to make dietetic prioritisation decisions. The training tool comprised of a pre-training task, a post-training task and training materials. The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of the training tool on novices' ability for dietetic prioritisation. METHODS: Pre-registration dietitians and recent graduates (one-year) from across the UK were invited to participate in this randomised controlled trial (RCT). Each participant made prioritisation decisions on a set of dietetic referral scenarios: 53 scenarios at pre-training and 27 at post-training. After pre-training the intervention group was presented with the training materials, whereas the control group was told to carry on with the post-training task. Participants did not know which group they had been randomly allocated to. We calculated i) level of agreement between decisions made by each novice and experts' consensus using Pearson correlation, intra-class correlation (ICC(2,1)); ii) intra-rater consistency using ICC(1,1) and iii) intra-group consistency using ICC (2,1). We compared group means at pre-training and post-training; estimated effect size using the degree of change from pre- to post-training, and 2-factor mixed ANOVA to assess overall effect of the training across the groups and time-points. RESULTS: 151 participants (69 in control and 82 in intervention) completed the trial. The groups did not differ in demographic characteristics. Both Pearson and ICC(2,1) correlations increased with training intervention; a moderate effect of training was found for both metrics, d = 0.69 (r = 0.32) for the former and d = 0.54 (r = 0.26) for the latter. Intra-rater consistency improved with training but with a small effect size, d = 0.32 (r = 0.16). The intra-group consistency also improved with training: ICC = 0.48 pre-training to 0.61 post-training. CONCLUSIONS: The training tool was found to be effective in improving the novice dietitian's ability to prioritise referrals in the acute adult setting. The training tool is freely available at www.dietitianreferral.org for use by all student or early career dietitians internationally

A Methodological Framework for Assessing the Benefit of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination following Previous Infection: Case Study of Five- to Eleven-Year-Olds

Vaccination rates against SARS-CoV-2 in children aged five to eleven years remain low in many countries. The current benefit of vaccination in this age group has been questioned given that the large majority of children have now experienced at least one SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, protection from infection, vaccination or both wanes over time. National decisions on offering vaccines to this age group have tended to be made without considering time since infection. There is an urgent need to evaluate the additional benefits of vaccination in previously infected children and under what circumstances those benefits accrue. We present a novel methodological framework for estimating the potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected children aged five to eleven, accounting for waning. We apply this framework to the UK context and for two adverse outcomes: hospitalisation related to SARS-CoV-2 infection and Long Covid. We show that the most important drivers of benefit are: the degree of protection provided by previous infection; the protection provided by vaccination; the time since previous infection; and future attack rates. Vaccination can be very beneficial for previously infected children if future attack rates are high and several months have elapsed since the previous major wave in this group. Benefits are generally larger for Long Covid than hospitalisation, because Long Covid is both more common than hospitalisation and previous infection offers less protection against it. Our framework provides a structure for policy makers to explore the additional benefit of vaccination across a range of adverse outcomes and different parameter assumptions. It can be easily updated as new evidence emerges

Towards a new history of European sport

The European Commission has invested much symbolic capital in sport's potential contribution to European identity, recently stating ‘that sport has a role in forging identity and bringing people together’. Yet such claims must be strongly qualified. Whilst sport is conspicuously present in Europe as an everyday activity, it is elusively variegated in its social and cultural forms and impacts, and historically informed scholarship points to a more sophisticated approach to the understanding of the subject. At the same time, national histories – conceived largely within national frameworks – hold sway in the field of sports history. There is little truly comparative work and this lack allows the European Commission to put out its statements unchallenged. This article proposes a number of ways in which European sports history might be conceived comparatively. It outlines four different models of European sport (British, German, Soviet, Scandinavian), whilst highlighting the problems inherent in such modelling; argues for greater historical depth (e.g. the importance of Italy in the early modern period); warns against the dangers of presentism (e.g. highlighting the proximity of dance and gymnastics in earlier periods); challenges the hegemony of British sport; and champions the cause of a serious consideration of Eastern Europe.</jats:p

Prioritizing Aquatic Science and Applications Needs in the Chesapeake Bay for a Space-Borne Hyperspectral Mission

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America, benefiting a growing population through its ecosystem services, fishing, recreations, and transportation routes. Studies indicate the health of the Bay as seen some improvement in recent years, yet threats to its health persist (e.g. warming, pollution nutrient run-off). Increasing human activities in coastal regions requires constant vigilance by agencies managing water quality, to ensure the safety of the population. Since April 2018, an interagency working group has been meeting monthly and a daylong workshop was convened with science and applications stakeholders around the overall theme of monitoring water quality from space. Current ocean color images indicate bloom locations used to guide in situ sampling efforts, despite limited spatial, spectral and temporal resolution. High resolution hyperspectral remote sensing provides a potential opportunity to measure additional indicators of ecological health and water quality. Assessing the needs of the aquatic user community around the Chesapeake Bay will inform science and applications recommendations during the current architecture study for a Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) Mission, as well as future scoping studies of other coastal and inland water bodies

The factor structure of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression scale in a South African peri-urban settlement

The factor structure of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression scale (EPDS) and similar instruments have received little attention in the literature. The researchers set out to investigate the construct validity and reliability of the EPDS amongst impoverished South African women. The EPDS was translated into isiXhosa (using Brislin's back translation method) and administered by trained interviewers to 147 women in Khayelitsha, South Africa. Responses were subjected to maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis. A single factor structure was found, consistent with the theory on which the EPDS was based. Internal consistency was satisfactory (a =0.89)

Prescribing hand strengthening exercise for patients with rheumatoid arthritis; clinical cues influencing occupational therapists' and physiotherapists' judgements

OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical judgements of therapists in prescribing the intensity of hand strengthening exercise in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS: Phase I: Eleven therapists knowledgeable in treating patients with RA subjectively identified seven clinical cues. These were incorporated into 54 hypothetical patient case scenarios. PHASE II: Therapists with ≥2 years post-registration experience and current or recent experience in treating patients with RA were asked to assess 69 case scenarios in total (54 + 15 repeats) and judge what intensity of hand strengthening exercise they would prescribe using the OMNI-Resistance Exercise Scale of perceived exertion. Using responses to the repeated cases, the Cochran-Weiss-Shanteau index of expertise was used to identify therapists who prescribed more consistently. Multiple regression was used to determine which clinical cues were most strongly associated with the intensity of exercise prescribed. A sub-group analysis explored differences between consistent and inconsistent prescribers. RESULTS: Fifty-three therapists took part. Thirty completed all 69 case scenarios. Across all therapists, the three most important clinical cues associated with lower intensity of exercise prescribed were (1) Patient's reported pain intensity whilst practising the exercise (β = -1.150, p < 0.001), (2) Disease activity (β = -0.425, p < 0.001) and (3) average hand pain over the last week (β = -0.353 p < 0.001). Twelve therapists were categorised as consistent prescribers. This group relied on fewer clinical cues (three vs. seven) when judging what intensity of exercise to prescribe. CONCLUSION: This study provides insights into how therapists prescribe hand exercises. Intensity of hand strengthening exercise was influenced by three key clinical cues, including pain intensity and disease activity

Value bias of verbal memory

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. A common finding is that items associated with higher reward value are subsequently remembered better than items associated with lower value. A confounding factor is that when a higher value stimuli is presented, this typically signals to participants that it is now a particularly important time to engage in the task. When this was controlled, Madan, Fujiwara, Gerson, and Caplan (2012) still found a large value-bias of memory. Their value-learning procedure, however, explicitly pitted high- against low-value words. Our novel value-learning procedure trained words one at a time, avoiding direct competition between words, but with no difference in words signalling participants to engage in the task. Results converged on null effects of value on subsequent free recall accuracy. Re-analyses attributed Madan et al.’s value-bias to competition between choice items that were paired during learning. Value may not bias memory if it does not signal task importance or induce inter-item competition

Prescribing hand strengthening exercise for patients with rheumatoid arthritis; clinical cues influencing occupational therapists' and physiotherapists' judgements

Objective To explore the clinical judgements of therapists in prescribing the intensity of hand strengthening exercise in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods Phase I: Eleven therapists knowledgeable in treating patients with RA subjectively identified seven clinical cues. These were incorporated into 54 hypothetical patient case scenarios. Phase II: Therapists with ≥2 years post-registration experience and current or recent experience in treating patients with RA were asked to assess 69 case scenarios in total (54 + 15 repeats) and judge what intensity of hand strengthening exercise they would prescribe using the OMNI-Resistance Exercise Scale of perceived exertion. Using responses to the repeated cases, the Cochran-Weiss-Shanteau index of expertise was used to identify therapists who prescribed more consistently. Multiple regression was used to determine which clinical cues were most strongly associated with the intensity of exercise prescribed. A sub-group analysis explored differences between consistent and inconsistent prescribers. Results Fifty-three therapists took part. Thirty completed all 69 case scenarios. Across all therapists, the three most important clinical cues associated with lower intensity of exercise prescribed were (1) Patient's reported pain intensity whilst practising the exercise (β = −1.150, p < 0.001), (2) Disease activity (β = −0.425, p < 0.001) and (3) average hand pain over the last week (β = −0.353 p < 0.001). Twelve therapists were categorised as consistent prescribers. This group relied on fewer clinical cues (three vs. seven) when judging what intensity of exercise to prescribe. Conclusion This study provides insights into how therapists prescribe hand exercises. Intensity of hand strengthening exercise was influenced by three key clinical cues, including pain intensity and disease activity