Newsworthy

Artificial Intelligence is Exploding but Governance of the Technology Lags Miserably Behind 

February 28, 2020

In both the government and private sectors, technology using artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere.  It has been incorporated across a variety of industries and has become an essential part of daily life for many.  AI has an immensely powerful influence over people today; it influences many spending decisions people make, including travel, entertainment, personal purchases such as clothing, and food.  While AI continues to advance rapidly in complexity, the same cannot be said for the [...]

Supreme Court to Decide Whether Sexual Orientation is a Protected Class in the Workplace

February 16, 2020

The United States Supreme Court heard some of the most anticipated legal issues of the October court term.  Among these cases, the Court will decide whether Title VII in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), one of the fundamental federal employment discrimination statutes, covers sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace.  Currently, Title VII explicitly prohibits discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.  The statute has never been [...]

North Carolina: The Last Frontier for Equality in Domestic Violence Protections for Same-Sex Couples

February 8, 2020

North Carolina is the only state that does not recognize equivalent domestic violence protection for same-sex couples as it does for opposite-sex couples.  See Am. Bar Ass’n, Domestic Violence Civil Protection Orders (CPOs), (2014).  Chapter 50B domestic violence protection orders are restricted to only opposite-sex dating relationships in North Carolina.  N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50B-1(b).  The resulting discrimination against the unprotected and vulnerable parties in same-sex dating [...]

What Monopoly Can Teach Us About Cash Bail Reform: Recent Efforts, Pros and Cons, and the Community Response

January 31, 2020

“Go to Jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.” Jail is one of the most-landed on spaces in a typical game of Monopoly.  However, for many Americans, Monopoly jail is the closest they will ever come to being behind bars.  The latest Department of Justice statistics available on the jail population in America places the jail incarceration rate as of 2017 at 0.229 percent of the U.S. population (based on the number of confined inmates in local jails per [...]

Student Servitude: The Pedagogy and Peonage

January 24, 2020

“A man in debt is so far a slave.”[1] These are the words Ralph Waldo Emerson uses in his 1860 essay, Wealth, to succinctly lay bare the concept of debt. Though Mr. Emerson likely did not foresee the looming—and now present—crisis of student loan debt in the United States, his words encapsulate the existence of more than 44 million Americans today. These citizens, saddled by student loan debt, are trapped in an indentured state of existence. Consider that figure in this context: it is [...]

Desegregation in K-12 Schools in North Carolina Today

January 18, 2020

The New Hanover County Board of Education has proposed a plan to redistrict elementary, middle, and high school districts for the 2020-21 school year. The plan utilizes a variety of factors, one of which is the racial make-up of neighborhoods in New Hanover County. This would be a new method of desegregation in modern society, one of which has never been tested under the United States Constitution and the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court. The proposed plan will likely be [...]

Opinion: Garner and Wake Forest’s Parade Cancellations May Be Unconstitutional

January 13, 2020

The towns of Garner and Wake Forest cancelled their 2019 Christmas parades after the Sons of Confederate Veterans announced that the group planned to include floats in the parades.  Wake Forest Police Chief Jeff Leonard explained that the town cancelled the parade because the town feared that the Sons of Confederate Veterans would draw protests from outsiders.  Chief Leonard explained: Groups that contact us about their plans to protest tend to follow our rules and regulations.  We’re [...]

Climate Change and the Constitution: The Right to a Clean Environment   

January 10, 2020

Climate change is an issue that has recently come to the forefront of discussion in both the United States and the rest of the world.  Commonly, climate change is debated through the lens of politics, social policy, or economic principles.  The legal field has not yet delved as deeply into the issue.  Until recently, many have hoped to combat climate change through legislation and lifestyle changes.   However, individuals, activists, and other groups around the country have now turned to [...]

Back to the drawing board: Why repealing Obamacare piece-by-piece does more harm than good for health care reform

November 29, 2019

Nearly a decade following the passage of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), the American health care delivery system continues to face many of the same problems that the “Obamacare” reforms sought to address.  Prior to the ACA, 50 million Americans were without health insurance—more than 16 percent of the population.  Health care represented 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, and costs were increasing faster than inflation rates. The Act sought [...]

Is that Legal Hemp or Illegal Marijuana? Essential Differences and the Consequences of Treating Them the Same

November 22, 2019

The 2019 North Carolina Farm Bill looks to ban smokable hemp throughout the state.  The North Carolina House of Representatives and Senate are at odds choosing a date to ban smokable hemp.  One side wants to accommodate law enforcement’s request to ban hemp, while the other side wants to make sure local farmers are protected. The legalization of smokable hemp creates issues in relation to law enforcement’s ability to establish probable cause based on the odor or appearance of marijuana.  [...]

What Would Howard Do?

October 18, 2019

As I walked into the office of Howard Cummings, I immediately noticed something that captured my attention. In the back corner of his office sat a wooden candy dispenser with an upside-down Mason jar screwed on the top. Propped against the side of that candy jar was a black Sharpie message written on a yellow piece of card-stock paper that said, “What would Howard do?” For some reason, I couldn’t forget that candy jar. Maybe because of the personal nostalgia attached to similar candy [...]

Micro-Lending with a purpose: A closer look at Kiva

October 4, 2019

What is Kiva? Organizations like Kiva, Heifer International, and Accion International, are leading the charge in the global effort towards financial inclusion.  These microfinancing organizations are helping to provide disadvantaged individuals and businesses with the financial tools to improve their lives and their communities. Officially launching in 2005, Kiva is a 501(c)(3) U.S. non-profit based in California.  As a person-to-person crowdfunding platform, Kiva connects everyday Americans [...]

Words matter: Overcoming discrimination with dignity in how we discuss mental illness

September 27, 2019

The notion of being “politically correct” has been in the spotlight for a substantial period of time, consistently generating an ever-expanding list of terms that are better excluded from polite conversation.  I’m sure we can all think of words and phrases that were perfectly acceptable, even preferred, during our respective childhoods that have since fallen out of favor, being deemed cruel, unkind, dismissive, or disparaging.  I’m equally sure that we all know someone who, at some [...]

Aging US population reaches new milestones: Need for legal services for older adults dramatically increasing

September 13, 2019

Maine recently hit a crucial milestone, which many were unaware of: A fifth of the state’s population is over the age of sixty-five.  The World Bank has defined this milestone as a phenomenon called “super-aged.”  This milestone makes Maine the state with the oldest population in the United States; however, Maine is just the “tip of the spear,” as stated by a reporter at The Washington Post quoting Ai-jen Poo, the co-director of Caring Across Generations. Maine will not be the only [...]
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