Less Safe in the Ivory Tower: Campus Sexual Assault Policy in the Trump Administration

ABSTRACT

Since the late 20th century, the federal government has regulated colleges’ and universities’ handling of campus sexual and gender-based violence (CSGBV). Although the arc of history has bent toward establishing greater protections for victims of such violence, new proposed regulation by the U.S. Department of Education under the Trump administration focuses more heavily on ensuring due process rights for students accused of CSGBV. Most recently, in November 2018, U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos submitted a proposed rule change to the regulation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This article provides the historical context for this most recent proposed federal regulation of CSGBV and discusses the criticism of this proposal that, if it is implemented, students would become less safe in the ivory tower.     

From both sides now: informed consent, organ transplantation, and family-based disclosure

Drawing on the legal and social development of the right of individual patients to give informed consent to medical treatment, this article explores some implications of heroic life-saving measures in medicine that are made possibly by unprecedented advances in medical technology. Talcing cardiac transplantation as its primary example, the article examines the broader effects, both short-term and long-term, on family members as well as on the patient of this and similar types of heroic treatment. The author then offers a novel legal theory: where the heroic measure holds the risk of serious or life threatening changes, not just for the patients themselves but for their intimately connected family members as well, those members ought to have a legal right to participate in the informed consent process. The author sketches the contours of such a right and defends it in the face of various objections that may be made to it. I've looked at life from both sides now from win and lose, and still somehow it's life's illusions I recall. I really don't know life at all. (“Both Sides Now,” on Colors of the Day: The Best of Judy Collins, Electra Records 1972)     

Cultural Equivalence and Cultural Variance in Longitudinal Associations of Young Adolescent Self-Definition and Interpersonal Relatedness to Psychological and School Adjustment

Ethnic group differences in the contributions of self-definition (self-worth and efficacy) and interpersonal relatedness with parents and peers to changes in psychological and school adjustment were examined among 448 White, Black, and Latino girls and boys (11–14 years of age). Self-report questionnaires and school records were evaluated for socioeconomic and ethnic group differences in patterns of change over 1 year. Overall similarity in changes over time across ethnic groups was found for relatedness, self-definition, and psychological adjustment, although Black and Latino youth reported more overall adjustment difficulties, Black youth reported less positive relationships with parents, and lower SES youth reported less positive peer relationships than others. Ethnic group differences in changes to school adjustment, even after controlling SES, suggested a cultural variation in which often cited declines in school adjustment during middle school characterize White adolescents to a greater degree than Black or Latino adolescents. Ethnicity moderated associations of relatedness and self-definition with psychological and school adjustment such that Black and Latino youth appeared particularly vulnerable to experiences that threaten closeness and trust in relationships. Results pointed to potentially important situational and cultural differences in maladaptive and adaptive developmental processes across ethnicity.     

Adolescent Depressed Mood in a Multiethnic Sample

This research assessed whether there is an impact of race-ethnicity on depressed mood among adolescents, independent of socioeconomic status, whether gender differences in depressed mood are apparent within all race-ethnicity subgroups, and whether pubertal development influences depressed mood in a similar manner within gender and race-ethnicity subgroups. A three-stage, area probability sampling frame was utilized to select adolescents, ages 12–17 years, for an in-person interview. Depressed mood was assessed by the Children's Depression Inventory. Compared to Whites, African Americans, or Asian Americans, Latinos reported more symptoms of depressed mood, a finding that was independent of socioeconomic status. Advancing puberty was associated with depressed mood only among females, but the timing of pubertal changes, relative to ones peers, was related to depressed mood among both males and females, and among Latinos.     

Innovation Agents in the Public Sector: Applying Champion and Promotor Theory to Explore Innovation in the Australian Public Service

Innovation is critical to organisational success and is a process steered, and potentially thwarted, by individuals. However, despite the importance of public sector innovation given the complexity of policy issues faced and the sector's specific contextual features, our understanding of innovation processes in government requires expansion. This study, using in‐depth case analyses of three Australian Public Service agencies, focuses on understanding the ‘human component’ of the innovation process by drawing on both innovation champion and promotor theories to explore, through the lens of organisational power, how multiple human agents progress public sector innovations. The results highlight the key, and often tandem, roles of individuals at multiple organisational levels who work to inspire and motivate others to progress an innovation (champions) and those with specific power bases who help overcome organisational barriers to innovation (promotors).     

Determinants of interest group formation

It is widely recognized that interest groups affect both microeconomic and macroeconomic outcomes. However, few researchers have attempted to discern empirically the factors that contribute to interest group activity. This paper provides a test of several theories of group formation in a panel setting. A nation’s stability, socioeconomic development, political system, size, and diversity all appear to contribute to interest group formation, as predicted by theory.