Category: Print

Laura R. McNeal. For decades, we have witnessed the increased criminalization of our nation’s youth, especially youth of color and students with disabilities, through the implementation of “zero tolerance” policies and overly harsh school disciplinary practices. Instead of improving school safety, these practices have blurred the lines between school discipline and school safety, pushing students out of school and into the juvenile justice system. Perhaps most troubling and relevant are the concerns expressed in the post-Ferguson era regarding allegations of inappropriate and excessive use of force by school police on students. In schools all over the nation, school police carry…

Jason P. Nance. The school-to-prison pipeline is one of our nation’s most formidable challenges. It refers to the trend of directly referring students to law enforcement for committing certain offenses at school or creating conditions under which students are more likely to become involved in the criminal justice system, such as excluding them from school. This article analyzes the school-to-prison pipeline’s devastating consequences on students, its causes, and its disproportionate impact on students of color. But most importantly, this article comprehensively identifies and describes specific, evidence-based tools to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline that lawmakers, school administrators, and teachers in all…

Claire Raj. Special education, despite being a uniform federal mandate, is often implemented drastically differently depending on the school system delivering services, the particular category of disability, and the race or ethnicity of students. Affluent white children who attend well-managed school districts tend to benefit from special education services. In the under-funded and over-tasked districts where most minorities attend school, the special education system does not always provide the same benefits. In these schools, special education, too often, operates as a dumping ground for those students the general education system cannot or refuses to serve. In these instances, the label…

Zachary Rosenberg. The computer revolution changed every facet of our lives, including litigation. Though computer interfaces are designed to display information through familiar renderings of everyday physical objects, computer files are stored and behave differently from their physical counterparts. Metadata, the information contained in a computer file that are almost invisible to users, can profoundly affect the admissibility and authenticity of digital files. This paper explains what metadata are and the role they play in litigation to authenticate other evidence or as evidence in itself. This paper proposes a new best practice for attorneys: whenever a lawyer receives an electronic…

Faith Berry, Lucian Deaton & Michele Steinberg. Regionally, nationally and globally, threats to life, property and resources from wildfire are growing. Changing climate conditions, growth of vulnerable communities into high-hazard areas, and limited governmental and financial resources available to cope with this threat all mean that wildfire losses are expected to continue and expand. It is not possible to find a single and simple solution to all of the problems that the scenario of larger, damaging wildfire presents. However, when focusing on how to prevent wildland/urban interface (WUI) fire disasters—the destruction of dozens or hundreds of structures during significant wildfire…

Steven Gow Calabresi. In their article, Against Design, Caryn Devins, Roger Koppl, Stuart Kauffman, and Teppo Felin argue that it is impossible for any lawmaker to successfully design a Constitution or a law so that it will produce the ends that the legislator wishes to enact. The authors argue that institutional design is impossible because every such design in law sets in motion a Spontaneous System of Order, which then develops the law or institution in ways the Framers of such laws and institutions could never have imagined. This is the case because changing circumstances and unforeseeable inventions and developments…

W. Wallace Covington & Diane Vosick. The ecological, social, and economic sustainability of the Rocky Mountain West is threatened by declining forest health that is manifested by unnaturally high tree densities and fuel loads, increases in invasive exotic plants, decreasing biological diversity (plants and animals), and increased insect and disease outbreaks. These unnatural fuel loads lead to wildfires that have become unprecedented in their severity, acreage, and effects. In this paper we discuss the causes of forest health decline and advocate for ecological restoration as an approach for restoring forest health. We also summarize recent policy changes with the stated…

Rebecca Davidson, Spencer Plumb & Marcus Selg. At the end of the twentieth century, scholars divided public land policy within the United States into three periods: disposition, reservation, and management. As we enter the twenty-first century, our public lands are declining in health and, from a financial standpoint, are less an asset and more a liability. To address the issues facing public lands management, the federal government is now more dependent on public-private partnerships as well as private investment in the health of our public lands. Begging the question— are we entering a new period for public land policy following…

Caryn Devins, Roger Koppl, Stuart Kauffman & Teppo Felin. Our argument in Against Design may seem new, challenging, or even bizarre. One commenter, Levinson, questions whether we really mean what we say: “I presume that the authors cannot really be arguing that all design is impossible.” Given our admittedly unorthodox and perhaps radical challenge to common notions of design, we appreciate the thoughtful attention to our views given by our commenters Vernon Smith, Sanford Levinson and Steven G. Calabresi. Even when disagreeing with us, they have responded to Against Design with open minds. But we must take responsibility for any…

Donald A. Falk. The progression of changes to Earth’s climate poses unprecedented challenges to the science and practice of ecosystem management. The viability of many populations, species, and even ecosystems is increasingly uncertain in their current form. Effects of climate change per se are compounded by multiple interacting stressors, including landscape modification and fragmentation, alerted disturbance regimes (particularly wildland fire), and the increasing presence of non-native invasive species. In framing a meaningful response to global environmental change, all of these interacting factors must be taken into account. For example, the ability of species to migrate in response to changing climate…