The Government at the Mercy of Its Contractors : How the New Deal Lawyers Reshaped the Common Law to Challenge the Defense Industry in World War II

On the eve of the United States\u27 entry into World War II, the Roosevelt administration tried to convince the federal judiciary to rein in the prices of defense contracts, using the doctrine of economic duress. In time of war, so the argument went, the nation depends on defense contractors for its very life, and these private firms should not be permitted to exploit public necessity for inordinate gain. This argument, had it succeeded, would have been perhaps the largest expansion of judges\u27 common law power over big business during the twentieth century. However, the Supreme Court, in the case of United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., rejected that argument. The newly appointed Justice Robert H. Jackson, who had authorized the duress theory in his previous post as Attorney General, blasted the decision as the dirtiest day\u27s work the Court has ever done and a defeat for the Government worse than Pearl Harbor. Justice Felix Frankfurter, dissenting, was equally adamant in support of the duress theory. Thus did Jackson and Frankfurter - two of the greatest legal minds of the New Deal-advocate a radical innovation in the common law to deal with the nascent military-industrial complex. Surprisingly, scholars have given this remarkable case no serious attention since the Second World War. This Article fills that void. It demonstrates that the U.S. government, desperate to provide for its troops during total war, had no choice but to meet the demands of large contractors. This was because, although the state had the legal power to seize defense plants, it lacked the practical means to do so. Further, this Article explains how the duress theory became a political weapon for New Deal lawyers against big business, how it represented a revolution in the legal understanding of duress and coercion, and how it caused an intense and illuminating controversy among liberal jurists about the true meaning of judicial restraint

Workplace English as Professional Development: The UW-Madison Model

University human resources departments dedicate themselves to providing relevant professional development to their institutions’ employees. However, few of these departments consider the language learning needs of employees who are nonnative English speakers. This paper introduces the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison)’s unique approach to meeting the English language learning needs of employees through its Cultural Linguistic Services (CLS) department within the Office of Human Resources (OHR). The CLS Workplace English Program features the development of contextualized learning materials, active participation of employees’ supervisors, dynamic scheduling, and on-the-job practice with authentic communicative tasks. The collaboration between CLS/OHR and other UW-Madison departments has resulted in a successful, sustainable, and potentially replicable Workplace English program for employees who are English language learners

The Endgame of Administrative Law: Governmental Disobedience and the Judicial Contempt Power

Scholars of administrative law focus overwhelmingly on lawsuits to review federal government action while assuming that, if plaintiffs win such lawsuits, the government will do what the courts say. But in fact, the federal government\u27s compliance with court orders is imperfect and fraught, especially with orders compelling the government to act affirmatively. Through an examination of thousands of opinions (especially of district courts), docket sheets, briefs, and other filings, plus archival research and interviews, this Article provides the first general assessment of how federal courts handle the federal government\u27s disobedience. The Article makes four conclusions. First, the federal judiciary is willing to issue contempt findings against agencies and officials. Second, while several federal judges believe they can (and have tried to) attach sanctions (fines and imprisonment) to these findings, the higher courts have exhibited a virtually complete unwillingness to allow sanctions, at times swooping down at the eleventh hour to rescue an agency from incurring a budget-straining fine or its top official from being thrown in jail. Third, the higher courts, even as they unfailingly thwart sanctions in all but a few minor instances, have bent over backward to avoid making pronouncements that sanctions are categorically unavailable, deliberately keeping the sanctions issue in a state of low salience and at least nominal legal uncertainty. Fourth, even though contempt findings are practically devoid of sanctions, they have a shaming effect that gives them substantial if imperfect deterrent power

Paleo Journey: An Interactive Paleolithic Cave Art Experience. Using the User Experience (UX) Design Process to Develop An Interactive and Immersive Paleolithic Cave Art Exhibit Suitable for Children Between Five (5) and Seven (7) Years Old.

Most European caves containing Paleolithic cave art paintings (dating from approximately 10,000 – 50,000 years BP) are no longer accessible to the general public, and their visitor centers often require lengthy travel for tourists. In addition, the interactivity associated with these exhibits largely focus upon computer screens, and not a tactile interface. This Thesis project seeks to create a prototype of a tactile interface on a mock cave surface using projection mapping and motion tracking. In developing this exhibit, the user experience (UX) design process was used as a methodology for defining, researching and co-designing for a particular user segment. While this Thesis only focuses on the users between the ages of five (5) to seven (7) years old, it can be used as a model for other user segments. In researching and testing prototypes with children from this age cohort, it was determined that young children have visual-spatial development issues that hinder their ability to identify common animals in static cave art such as lions, rhinos and bison. After viewing the same cave art animals in motion graphics, 100% of all children were able to correctly identify the animal types

Federal Agency Guidance and the Power to Bind: An Empirical Study of Agencies and Industries

The typical federal agency issues a vast amount of guidance, advising the public on how it plans to exercise discretion and interpret law. Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the agency must follow onerous procedures to issue full-blown regulations (including notice and comment) but can issue guidance far more easily. What justifies this difference, in the familiar telling, is that guidance is not binding in the way regulations are. Agencies are supposed to use guidance flexibly. But critics claim that agencies are not flexible-instead they follow guidance rigidly and thus pressure regulated parties to do the same. If true, this claim means agencies can issue de facto regulations simply by calling them guidance, threatening to make a dead letter of the APA \u27s constraints

Striped Robe

The idea for the kaftan-like garment, titled Striped Robe, is the result of a presentation given by the designers at Duke University’s Nasher Museum in Durham NC, in conjunction with “Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone sisters of Baltimore”. In fall of 2012, the codesigners were invited to give a presentation on the relationship between textile heiresses Claribel and Etta Cone, and the sisters’ patronage of Matisse and other emerging artists during the first half of the twentieth century