By: MaryAnn Grover, Editor-in-Chief The Richmond Public Interest Law Review welcomes you to the PILR Blog. As we begin our second year of blogging, we also enter our twenty-second year of publishing scholarly articles addressing the serious issues that occupy the minds of those who work in the public interest. This year we are lucky to welcome nineteen new staff members. They come to us … Continue reading Welcome Back!
By: Snapper Tams, L’18 In June of 2017, the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) closed Powhatan County’s Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, one of the final vestiges of a decades long transition toward more punitive juvenile punishments.[1] All children housed at Beaumont were transferred to Chesterfield County’s Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center, the only remaining statewide facility for youths in the Commonwealth.[2] Prior to 2005, … Continue reading Virginia Shifts to Treatment-Focused Approach in Juvenile Justice
By: Gianna Fienberg, L’19 The University of California at Berkeley is considered to be a bastion of free speech.[1] Berkeley started the Free Speech Movement in 1964, when students held a sit-in to protest restrictions on free speech at the University that prevented students from distributing flyers about major political issues, such as the Civil Rights Movement or the Vietnam War.[2] Today however, some conservatives … Continue reading Overbreadth in UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Battle
By: Brittany Barnett, L’19 The United Nations defines human trafficking as having three elements: an act, a means, and a purpose: “(i) an “action”, being recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons; (ii) a ‘means’ by which that action is achieved (threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or a position of vulnerability, … Continue reading Consent: A Loophole in Human Trafficking Law
By: MaryAnn Grover, L’19 2017 has been described as a historically catastrophic year by the agency tasked with dealing with those catastrophes.[1] In 2017, almost eight percent of the United States population was affected by significant natural disasters, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) received more registrations for their Individual Assistance program than were received for Hurricanes Rita, Wilma, Katrina, and Sandy combined.[2] In … Continue reading FEMA: What Happens When the Well Runs Dry?
By Halley Taylor, L’19 The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), was created in 1997 to provide health insurance to children and, in some states, pregnant mothers in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private insurance.[1] Today, CHIP provides approximately 8.4 million children and 370,000 expectant mothers with health insurance[2], including 65,000 children and 1,100 expectant mothers … Continue reading Children’s Health Insurance Program Extended for Six Years
By: Riley Henry, L’19 “Due to the temporary shutdown of the federal government that began at 12:01 a.m., January 20, all Library of Congress buildings are now closed and all public events are canceled until further notice.”[1] This declaration is the notice that greets visitors on the Library of Congress’s website.[2] Since the federal government shutdown on Saturday, thousands of “nonessential” federal workers have been … Continue reading Who Works When The Government Shuts Down?
By: Allison Tinsey, L’18 In April, the Richmond Public Interest Law Review published my comment on the right of private action in healthcare discrimination cases.[1] In that article, I reviewed the nondiscrimination provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) (“section 1557”),[2] and its complementary regulations promulgated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) (“final rule”).[3] As discussed, the … Continue reading Update on ACA Section 1557 Litigation & Regulations
By: Rachel Lugay, L’19 “We cannot expect our children to raise themselves up in schools that are literally falling down.”[1] In 1997, former President Bill Clinton addressed the overwhelming number of school buildings in disrepair calling it “a serious national concern.”[2] The unhealthy and unsafe conditions of American public schools have been a mostly unresolved issue for decades.[3] At the heart of the problem are … Continue reading Modernization for Equal Education
By: Kristin Godsey, L’18 In Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court held that mandatory life without parole sentences are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders because they violate the 8th Amendment.[1] Miller involved two cases where a fourteen-year-old was sentenced to a mandatory term of life without parole.[2] Both sentencing schemes at issue did not allow judges or juries to consider youthful factors and impose a lesser … Continue reading Juvenile Sentencing: Approaches After Miller
