New Titles in the Chastek Library

"This book explores the seismic shift brought about by the 2022 US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which dramatically changed the constitutional standing of abortion decisions set in place by Roe v. Wade fifty years earlier. The authors describe the history of U.S. Supreme Court’s decision-making around abortion and some of its attendant considerations, including the constitutional right to privacy, moral obligations to protect life, and determinations about when life begins." -- Publisher site.

"In The Administrative State Before the Supreme Court: Perspectives on the Nondelegation Doctrine, leading scholars consider a revival of the Constitution's nondelegation doctrine--the separation-of-powers principle that bars Congress from transferring its legislative powers to the administrative agencies. Although the nondelegation doctrine has lain dormant since 1935, some Supreme Court justices have recently called for its return. As the Supreme Court takes up the doctrine in current cases, this volume makes a timely contribution to our understanding of the separation of powers and the Constitution." -- Back cover.

"Blending engaging history with lucid analysis, conservative scholar Yuval Levin’s American Covenant recovers the Constitution’s true genius and reveals how it charts a path to repairing America’s fault lines. Uncovering the framers’ sophisticated grasp of political division, Levin showcases the Constitution’s exceptional power to facilitate constructive disagreement, negotiate resolutions to disputes, and forge unity in a fractured society. Clear-eyed about the ways that contemporary politics have malfunctioned, Levin also offers practical solutions for reforming those aspects of the constitutional order that have gone awry." -- Publisher site.

"This title shows application potentials of artificial intelligence in various industries and presents application scenarios on how a practical implementation can take place. The starting point is the description of legal aspects, which includes a European regulation for artificial intelligence and addresses the question of the permissibility of automated decisions. Translated from German." -- Publisher site.

"'Come On, Children" The Autobiography of George Washington Fields, Born a Slave in Hanover County, Virgini​a' is, put simply, an incredible document. It recounts his escape from enslavement to an eminent career as a blinded lawyer. It does so with a special blend of humor and wisdom, laying out in no uncertain terms the set of values that guided him through his fascinating times. It convinces any reader that this was a great (and greatly likable) man, an inspiration for every law student walking through the doors with the passion and ambition to make a difference." -- Publisher site.

"This book provides a practical introductory guide to comparative law. Fernanda G. Nicola and Günter Frankenberg present and examine conventional and critical approaches to legal comparison, exploring its ramifications in the field and political effects." -- Publisher site.

"This book offers a study of one of the early republic's fiercest legal debates, one of the Supreme Court's most understudied jurists and constitutional theorists, and the enduring tension between two irreconcilable understandings of the American union. It explores the conflict between two competing theories of the American union in the early years of the republic: the Nationalist Theory, which posited that the union was the creation of the national American people, and the Compact Theory, which portrayed the union as a compact between the peoples of the several states who had each separately decided to join to form the union. Benjamin Clark employs this underlying debate as a framework for understanding the debate over federal common law in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The book gives particular attention to the constitutional thought of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, examining how these two seemingly-separate issues--the federal common law question and the existence of American nationhood--came together in Story's constitutional theory." -- Publisher site.

"A Degraded Caste of Society uses antebellum U.S. appellate court options and statues to illuminate 'two competing criminal law doctrines that applied' to free Black people: 'equal protection and unequal protection based on perceptions of race.' These doctrines, Fede argues, 'reflect the broader social conflicts between two competing legal cultures and legal consciousnesses.' The legacy of these laws 'continued to live on' until 2009 legislation made this sort of violence a federal crime. The unequal protection doctrine, which has its roots in the antebellum U.S., has a 'long but not always completely acknowledged' or understood influence on criminal law in the United States." -- Publisher site.

"How can judges decide whether dignity has been violated, especially when these decisions risk embroiling judges in contentious social disputes? Will accepting dignitary claims burst open the proverbial 'floodgates of litigation'? The book shows how courts can integrate dignity into legal determinations in a considered manner. More generally, the book brings together theoretical analysis and detailed doctrinal discussion. It demonstrates the connections between dignity and subjects such as jurisdiction and remedies, which help to delineate the bounds of judicial authority." -- Publisher site.

"Distorting Democracy will awaken Americans to the perils of our system by unveiling the Electoral College's origins, history, and present operations. This book demonstrates that the system has no principled foundation, that it has changed dramatically over its 230-year history, and that it threatens the legitimacy of our political system in the present." -- Publisher site.

"By examining five lawsuits in Louisiana, Montalvo deconstructs enslavers' cases--the legal arguments and rhetorical strategies they used to produce information and shape perceptions of enslaved people. Commodifying enslaved people was not simply a matter of effectively exploiting their labor. Enslavers also needed to control information about those people. Enslavers' narratives--carefully manipulated, prone to omissions, and sometimes false--often survive as the only account of an enslaved individual's life. In working to historicize the people at the center of enslavers' manipulations, Montalvo outlines the possibilities and limits of the archive, providing a glimpse of the historical and contemporary consequences of commodification. Enslaved Archives makes a significant intervention in the history of enslaved people, legal history, and the history of slavery and capitalism by adding a qualitative dimension to the analysis of how enslavers created and maintained power." -- Publisher site.

"With stunning scope, journalistic rigor, and unprecedented access to the highest echelons of conservative and liberal power, Dias and Lerer chronicle the end of the Roe era. Their reporting stretches from the back rooms of abortion clinics to the halls of the White House, exposing the behind-the-scenes actors and recasting the maneuvers of those already in the spotlight. The result is a sweeping and intimate narrative of secrets, power, and jaw-dropping revelations, and a beacon to guide us forward." -- Publisher site.

"Though the fight for marriage equality has received a considerable amount of attention from scholars and the media, it was only a small part of the more than half-century struggle for queer family rights. Family Matters uncovers these decades of advocacy, which reshaped the place of same-sex sexuality in American law and society - and ultimately made marriage equality possible. This book, however, is more than a history of queer rights. Marie-Amélie George reveals that national legal change resulted from shifts at the state and local levels, where the central figures were everyday people without legal training. Consequently, she offers a new way of understanding how minority groups were able to secure meaningful legal change." -- Publisher site.

"Free Exercise is a contribution to both US constitutional history and the history of religious toleration in the United States. It traces the routes by which Americans arrived at the First Amendment's religious clauses, the cultural currents that shaped their meaning, and the consequences that flowed from them. The book also demonstrates how white women, African Americans, Jews, Roman Catholics, and nonbelievers expanded the application of religious liberty-and illuminated its boundaries. Each chapter demonstrates how protections for religious freedom were forged from both vague memories and intimate experiences, an emergent respect for individual autonomy and a refusal to materially alter the condition of women and the enslaved." -- Publisher site.

"This book is the first thorough study of the Justice Department's pattern or practice program, examining how the program works, how court-imposed consent decrees implement needed reforms, and discussing the various challenges the program has encountered over nearly thirty years." -- Publisher site.

"With sharp insight, Mallinson and Hannah explore the backdrop to this sea change in policy, including shifts in public opinion, growing opposition to the War on Drugs, the promise of new revenue streams, and more. They examine the complex web of state actors--and the steps they took--to chart a path forward for marijuana legalization, from grassroots activists and interest groups to elected officials and other key policymakers." -- Publisher site.

"This book examines how organizations' use of algorithms is reconfiguring our understanding of control for millions of high-skilled workers who use online labor market platforms (e.g., Upwork, TopCoder, Gigster) to find their work. The book investigates how algorithms enable platforms to control workers within an environment in which organizations embed the rules and guidelines for how workers should behave in opaque algorithms that shift without providing notice, explanation, or recourse for workers." -- Publisher site.

"Chapters focus on subjects traditionally tested on the bar exam, including evidence, criminal procedure, and family law, as well as professional responsibility. Additionally, this volume includes guidance for teaching a range of other advanced law school topics and can be used in experiential courses, including advanced legal writing, legal research, counseling, and negotiations. It also features guidance and reflections from faculty who have created new courses specifically focused on race and social justice in the legal system. With submissions from over 40 authors, the collection is intended to spur valuable conversations within the classroom and across the legal academy." -- Publisher site.

"Collegiate Greek-letter organizations have been around for almost 250 years in the United States. Hazing and social event liability have traditionally been their greatest legal challenges, but as they have proliferated across the landscape, grown in financial resources, and increased in corporate structure, college fraternities and sororities have come to face a greater variety of legal issues. This book seeks to offer an overview of the legal landscape of the critical issues that collegiate Greek-letter fraternities and sororities should understand and integrate into their day-to-day work." -- Publisher site.

"The first examination of judicial selection litigation in the United States and beyond. Analyzes over 2,000 cases and presents patterns of litigation over time and across states. A unique study of the interaction of litigation and politics in the U.S. throughout the entire history of the country." -- Publisher site.

"Locker Room Talk is Ludtke's gripping account of being at the core of this globally covered case that churned up ugly prejudices about the place of women in sports. Kuhn claimed that allowing women into locker rooms would violate his players' 'sexual privacy.' Late-night television comedy sketches mocked her as newspaper cartoonists portrayed her as a sexy, buxom looker who wanted to ogle the naked athletes' bodies. She weaves these public perspectives throughout her vivid depiction of the court drama overseen by Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve on the federal bench. She recounts how her lawyer, F.A.O. "Fritz" Schwarz employed an ingenious legal strategy that persuaded Judge Motley to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause in giving Ludtke access identical to her male counterparts. This title is both an inspiring story of one woman's determination to do a job dominated by men and an illuminating portrait of a defining moment for women's rights.' -- Publisher site.

"Reviewing the presidencies of the twenty-first century, he explains why modern national security threats have given presidents of both parties incentives to monopolize foreign policy decision-making, Congress incentives to defer, and the courts reasons to rubber-stamp. Koh suggests both a workable strategy and crucial prescriptions to restore the balance of our constitutional order in addressing modern global crises." -- Publisher site.

"Drawing on a yearlong study of survivors, perpetrators, and the administrators who oversaw their cases, sociologist Nicole Bedera exposes the structures that predictably punish survivors who come forward in the service of protecting-or even rewarding-their perpetrators. In doing so, she reveals that the system tasked with ending gender inequality on campus only intensifies it, upending survivors' lives and threatening the degrees that brought them to college in the first place. Equally heartbreaking and optimistic, On the Wrong Side makes it easy to imagine life-changing interventions for the next generation of students by proposing specific solutions to the structural problems of Title IX. Bedera proves that ending sexual violence is within our grasp-and dares us to be courageous enough to take action." -- Publisher site.

"The systemic devaluation of reproductive labor, which is coded feminine and racialized, has resulted in both the impoverishment of those who perform care work and the disproportionate flow of resources towards "innovative" techno-scientific solutions. Denbow analyzes the precarity and marginalization of reproductive labor through platforms like Care.com, as well as how cutting-edge technologies like gene editing are being presented as panaceas to social ills while bypassing key ethical questions around such technologies. By drawing connections between seemingly disparate phenomenon, Denbow passionately illustrates the importance of protecting and funding reproductive labor." -- Publisher site.

"There are reflections on experiences in the Palestine solidarity movement and on the twists that discourse there takes. Contributions draw on Judaism, feminism and sociology to face what happened and to trace how Israelis were transported back to a quintessentially pre-Israel Jewish experience. Others survey reports of antisemitism around the globe in the wake of 7 October, including pieces about Britain and Germany. This work will appeal to scholars, students and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies and the politics of Israel." -- Publisher site.

"Rethinking Rescue unites the causes of animal welfare and social justice, moving between Weise's story and that of the U.S. rescue movement: from the dog's twentieth-century transition from property to family to the rise of the no kill campaign to stop shelter euthanasia and the contradictions that hampered those efforts. Through captivating storytelling and investigative reporting, Carol Mithers examines the consequences of bias within this overwhelmingly white movement, where an overemphasis on placing animals in affluent homes often disregards pet owners in poverty. Weise's innovative and ultimately triumphant efforts revealed a better way." -- Publisher site.

"The Social Contract in the Ruins, argues that all attempts to ground political authority and obligation in agreement alone are logically self-defeating. Political authority and obligation require an antecedent moral ground. But this moral ground cannot be constructed by human agreement or created by sheer will-human or divine. All accounts of morality as constructed or made collapse into self-referential incoherence. Only an uncreated, real good can coherently ground political authority and obligation or the proposition that rightful government depends on the consent of the governed. Government by consent requires classical natural law for its very coherence." -- Publisher site.

"Drawing on historical and contemporary data of Court battles during presidencies ranging from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, he offers insight into the shifting politics of nominating and confirming justices, the changing pool of nominees considered for the Supreme Court, and the increased salience of the Court in presidential and congressional elections." -- Publisher site.

"This fascinating book focuses on two main cross-cutting themes: effective investigation, analysis and presentation of facts; and effective questioning, listening and responding. Addressing these two themes in both dispute and transactional contexts, it outlines a unique course that centers the skills of fact investigation, interviewing, negotiation, deposition-taking, and direct and cross examination of witnesses. Ultimately, Krieger presents a storyboard method to teach trial advocacy, providing specific teaching guidance and suggesting practical exercises to use either in law school classes or office-based training. Utilising empirical research in the cognitive sciences and medical education pedagogy, this innovative book will be essential for law school instructors of simulation, clinical and externship skills courses. It will also appeal to trainers of new law graduates and paralegals at law firms, government law offices and nonprofits." -- Publisher site.

"It has now been 20 years since Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in May 2004. The consequences of extending legal recognition to same-sex couples need no longer be a topic of speculation and debate; researchers have had two decades to study the consequences of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals; their children; and the general public. The broad goal of this report is to document those consequences. The authors pursued this goal in two ways. First, they conducted a comprehensive review of the existing research literature on the effects of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples. Second, they conducted new analyses to evaluate the prediction that rates of marriage, cohabitation, and divorce and attitudes toward marriage would be adversely affected by granting same-sex couples access to legal marriage." -- Publisher site.

"This book traces the history of the right to anonymous speech in America, dating back to the pseudonymous publication of the Federalist Papers and other foundational political writings. It examines how courts have recognized a First Amendment right to anonymity, and how that right has shaped the Internet that we know today." -- Publisher site.

"Leading artificial intelligence (AI) developers and researchers, as well as government officials and policymakers, are investigating the harms that advanced AI systems might cause. In this report, the authors describe the basic features of U.S. tort law and analyze their significance for the liability of AI developers whose models inflict, or are used to inflict, large-scale harm. Highly capable AI systems are a growing presence in widely used consumer products, industrial and military enterprise, and critical societal infrastructure. Such systems may soon become a significant presence in tort cases as well--especially if their ability to engage in autonomous or semi-autonomous behavior, or their potential for harmful misuse, grows over the coming years." -- Publisher site.

"In this report, the authors look for trends in litigation rates, trial awards, and insurance claim payments that are consistent with the expected effects of social inflation. Increases in trial awards and insurance claim severity net of economic inflation would be suggestive of social inflation but would not necessarily provide conclusive evidence. The difference between the growth rates in trial awards or claim severity and economic inflation could be due to social inflation, as well as factors external to the civil justice system." -- Publisher site.