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Yearly Archives: 2015
Affirmative Action and the Struggle Against Systematic Oppression: How Race-Based Admissions are not a Threat to America by Linda Adeniji
Systematic Oppression
In June 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered the commencement address at Howard University, where he said:
Freedom is not enough . . . You do not take a person, who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity.
President Johnson delivered this speech as formal discrimination came to an end in the 1960s with the passage of The Civil Rights Act and as many African-Americans were still confronted with informal and debilitating discrimination. As a result, Affirmative Action was born, giving preferences to African-Americans in higher education admissions and hiring practices, and igniting a fierce debate over the constitutionality of such policies that continues today.
Opponents of Affirmative Action argue that such consideration of race in the admission and hiring of African-Americans violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
The Central Tibetan Administration: Legal State or Mere Organization by Jennifer Tuel
Central Tibetan Administration
Over the years, celebrities and individuals have advocated to “Free Tibet,” such as Sharon Stone’s scandalous suggestion that the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was a result of “bad karma” due to Chinese mistreating the Tibetans. Such individuals are referring to the Tibet Autonomous Region (“TAR”) within China when chanting “Free Tibet” or commenting on the mistreatment of Tibetans. The Central Tibetan Administration (“CTA”) does not receive as much attention even though it may be considered a free, independent state for Tibetans.
In 1949, the People’s Liberation Army of China entered the area now known as the TAR. The CTA was established in 1959 by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and about eighty thousand Tibetans who fled the TAR because they disagreed with Chinese rule. The CTA went on to establish a government in Dharamsala, India for Tibetans.
A Comparison of Kansas and Missouri Health Care Grievance Procedures, and the Need for a Unified Process at the Federal Level by Zhiyuan Liao
Health Care Grievance Procedures
People purchase health insurance for the purpose of managing unexpected economic loss resulted from medical sufferings. In today’s medical field, many patients and physicians feel frustrated and powerless when a Managed Care Organization (“MCO”) refuses to pay for treatment, often because the insurer is playing a game of denial, delay and deceit to help the company avoid issuing big outgoing paychecks. Allegedly, private insurers are making payment decisions rather than medical decisions. This creates an issue because the denial of insurance coverage is often equivalent to a denial of medical care to the patient. The beneficiaries, of course, can always visit a different doctor not covered by the insurance policy if the insurer denies their claims, but this would be at the beneficiaries’ own cost, and most people cannot afford the huge expense.
Comparative Adoption Approaches of Missouri and Kansas: Termination of Parental Rights and Equitable Adoptions by Najmeh Mahmoudjafari
ComparativeAdoption Approaches
At the very least, there is one thing that unifies the states on their adoption policies: it is encouraged. The battles are in the details. Kansas and Missouri are wonderful examples of how two states can differ in their adoption policies, albeit having similar geographic and demographic make-ups. This note will discuss two key differences between Missouri and Kansas adoption laws: (1) the termination of parental rights during an adoption and (2) the use of equitable adoptions. The purpose of this note is to show that, arguably, Missouri has a better approach to the analysis of terminating parental rights; however, in regards to equitable adoption, Kansas has a more plausible argument against equitable adoption.
Numbers Never Lie by Tyler Hargis
Numbers Never Lie
Over the last twenty-years, public support for legalizing medical and recreational marijuana use has increased substantially, leading to a growing number of states enacting marijuana laws that clash with federal drug law. Increasing opposition to federal marijuana prohibition has become a popular topic of debate across America. An aspect of the marijuana debate of lesser notoriety however, is the multiple failed efforts to change the Schedule I status of marijuana through the drug classification provisions of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
This note looks at that process with a narrow focus on the classification scheme for determining the abuse potential of a drug. Part I briefly discusses the CSA’s classification of drugs and describes the evidence the DEA relies on for assessing AP of a drug. Part II then presents a more in depth evaluation of this evidence and argues that removal of marijuana from the CSA is proper, as it does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any of the schedules.
Ending the War on Death and Embracing End-of-Life Quality Concerns: The Affordable Care Act’s Failure to Address End-of-Life Health Care by Leah Miyamoto
Embracing End of Life Concerns
The war on death has not yet been won. Everyone, so far, has died and the American way of death is expensive. Although death is guaranteed for every human being, end-of-life costs for Americans can be high and often do little to improve the quality of death and dying. With 52.3 million beneficiaries adding up to $583 billion in health care expenditures in 2013 alone, Medicare faces the seemingly impossible feat of creating a sustainable health care system. Medicare’s high financial burden stems from America’s inability to balance the expensive, rapidly increasing advances in medicine with the need to embrace death thereby improving end-of-life care.
Although the US spends the most money per capita for total care after age 65, we rank poorly in comparison to the rest of the world in end-of-life quality. The international community has developed creative solutions to improve accessibility to end-of-life care with scarce resources, even in developing countries.
Review Can Wait: Orders Denying Pro Se Plaintiffs’ Requests for the Assistance of Council Should Only be Reviewed After Final Judgments by Nicholas Draper
Review Can Wait
Two correctional officers sprayed Kevin Ward with pepper spray during an altercation in which Ward refused to comply with orders. The correctional officers sprayed Ward, a prisoner at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Missouri, multiple times, initially when Ward refused to allow the officers to place him in handcuffs and again after a nurse determined Ward could endure more pepper spray.
Ward filed suit one month after the incident in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Ward alleged that the two correctional officers and the nurse violated his civil rights by using excessive force and by failing to provide him with medical care. Ward filed his complaint pro se, or without the assistance of a lawyer, and asked the trial court for appointed counsel three different times. There is no “constitutional or statutory right to appointed counsel” in civil cases. Nevertheless, Ward requested the assistance of counsel because he said he needed “counsel to assist with preparing his case for trial” and that he could not “litigate his case without professional assistance.” The district court denied each request. Ward appealed the denial to the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.
Progressive or Problematic? Kansas House Bill 2117 and Border War Tax Competition by Chelsea Braun
Progressive or Problematic
House Bill 2117, signed by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback on May 22, 2012, calls for significant tax cuts to boost the economy and encourage businesses to move to Kansas.
The bill makes two significant changes regarding income taxes. It lowers individual income tax rates, and it provides deductions that eliminate income taxes on non-wage business operating income for businesses taxed as pass-through entities. These businesses (including LLC’s, S corporations, partnerships, farms, and sole proprietorships) are generally taxed on the income “passed through” to the tax return of the business owner, and thus taxed under the individual income tax.
Business owners usually pay themselves a salary taxed as wage income on their income tax return. Additional profit above and beyond the business’s cost of doing business is reported as one of several forms of business income on the business owner’s tax return (federal tax Schedules C, E, and F) and also taxed under the personal income tax. The Kansas House Bill 2117 exempts this non-wage income from taxation, a change that will eliminate income tax on 191,000 businesses.
Voter Competence and the Exile of Donald Trump by Casey Crawford
Voter Competence
The 2012 presidential election was the most expensive election in U.S. history. The Federal Election Committee reported that the election cost approximately $7 billion. Ellen Weintraub, the FEC Chairwoman stated that candidates spent an estimated $3.2 billion, political parties spent $2 billion, and political action committees another $2.1 billion. Observers of the election coverage undoubtedly recognized that the media often spent countless (and expensive) amounts of national airtime on seemingly far-fetched election topics that had little to do with the candidates’ policies or positions on issues. Donald Trump frequently graced the populace with his interviews with various media outlets that were aimed at garnering support for the proposition that President Barack Obama was possibly not a natural born citizen of the United States and therefore ineligible for the office of the presidency. This “birther” movement gained so much popularity, that in 2011, 25% of Americans believed the President Obama was not a natural-born citizen. While this distraction kept many people busy, another large portion of the election coverage was dedicated to Governor Mitt Romney’s release of his federal tax returns.
Mechanic’s Liens in Missouri and Kansas: Why Building in Kansas is Better for Business than Building in Missouri by Anna Connelly
Mechanics Liens in Missouri and Kansas
Imagine the following hypothetical: Dan wants to build a larger commercial property in the Kansas City area that he projects will be one of the largest shopping and entertainment districts by the time the work on the property is finished. The project is a complicated one that will take at least five years to build and will cost well over $100 million to complete.
Dan is the CEO of XYZ commercial development company (XYZ) in Kansas City and the first thing he does is consult with his team of developers to get each person’s thoughts on the project. His team likes Dan’s initial idea. The company decides to move forward with the research phase of the development. … Read the full text …
Racist Racism: Complicating Whiteness Through the Privilege and Discrimination of Westerners in Japan by Dagmar Rita Myslinska
Full Text
With no anti-discrimination legislation, strong Confucian-inspired in- group mentality, and a belief in their mono-ethnicity, Japan is marred by a culture of widespread discrimination. Although it has ratified the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and guarantees equality in its Constitution, all those who differ from the closely circumscribed norm are excluded culturally, and legally. Whites’ position in this milieu is complicated because of the West’s unique historical relationship with Japan, and due to the perception of white global dominance. Although admired and arguably privileged over other outsiders, Caucasians are nevertheless mocked and discriminated against—openly, frequently, and with impunity. The concept of racism, as funneled through critical race theory’s (“CRT”) reliance on homogeneous white privilege, lacks dialectic space to address their experiences of discrimination. Yet both CRT analytical tools and desire for praxis, and Confucian respect for human dignity have much to offer in expanding discrimination discourse, exposing the concept of racism as Western-centric, supporting equality, and giving voice to victims who do not fit the victim norm. In the process, this enlarged theoretical and analytical space can help alleviate Japan’s labor shortage, prompting multi-faceted reforms, and achieving true Confucian harmony and democracy. I propose to create new discourse, situated within expanded CRT and whiteness studies, while providing analytical coverage to a group of Caucasians rarely mentioned in popular or scholarly literature. Definitions of “the other” and “white privilege” need to move away from monolithic notions of race and power, which are white-centric and racist themselves.
UMKC Law Review 