Neighborhood Councils as Antidote to Minority Political Marginalization?

In many of America’s major cities, a sense of hopelessness and cynicism discourages political participation, especially by members of minority groups.  Disengagement, in turn, undermines accountability and facilitates corruption, which exacerbates public cynicism. 

How can the vicious circle be broken?  In a new paper on SSRN, Matt Parlow argues that neighborhood councils — “new substructures of local government that aim to involve citizens in the decision- and policy-making processes” — have the potential to raise the engagement level of minority citizens with local government.  He uses Detroit to illustate the problems of local government corruption and minority political marginalization in American cities, while pointing to Los Angeles as an example of a city that has had some recent success with neighborhood councils. 

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How Women Lawyers Avoid the Likeability v. Competence Trap

In a series of recent papers, Andrea Schneider has explored the “likeabilty v. competence” trap that seems to confront many women in leadership and professional positions.  In her view, the trap is typefied by media coverage of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in the 2008 election.  Clinton was commonly portrayed as competent, but unlikeable, and Palin the reverse.

Now, Andrea has a new paper that discusses some of her own empirical research showing that women lawyers seem largely to avoid the trap, at least in negotiation settings.  She and her coauthors consider why this might be and how women lawyers might avoid the trap in other settings. 

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New Law Review Comments Cover Social Networking, Wind Farms, Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Open Records Law, and Purchase Money Security Interests

Now available online, the recently published student comments in the Marquette Law Review cover a wide range of topics.  They include Nathan Petrashek’s comment on the impact of online social networking on Fourth Amendment privacy.  Since social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace attract both criminals (e.g., sexual predators, identity thieves) and the police who investigate them, the question whether users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their voluntary disclosures under the well-established Katz test is poised to become a significant issue in the near future.  Petrashek relies on Fourth Amendment doctrine, as well as the First Amendment right of association and good public policy, to argue that user content should be shielded from police scrutiny in the absence of a warrant.

Meanwhile, Marvin Bynum’s Golden Quill-winning comment addresses the feasibility of establishing offshore wind farms in Lakes Michigan and Superior. 

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