A guide to the EEOC's final regulations on the Americans with Disabilities Act

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently issued its final regulations on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Although the regulations offer some guidance for employers on how to comply with the Act, they fail to provide specific answers to the many complicated compliance questions that will surely arise. Further, the regulations are almost totally silent on certain critical issues related to insurance, workers' compensation, and potential conflicts between ADA obligations and terms of collective bargaining agreements. The EEOC has essentially left the resolution of many important ADA questions to case-by-case determination and the litigation process.     

Social science and the Courts

Social scientists have increasingly become involved in the submission of amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs in legal cases being decided by state and federal courts. This increase has triggered considerable debate about the use of briefs to communicate relevant social science research. This article evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various methods of summarizing social science research for the courts. It also reviews the procedures for submitting briefs developed by the American Psychology-Law Society which, in collaboration with the American Psychological Association, has submitted its first brief inMaryland v. Craig, a case recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.The authors wish to thank James Ogloff, Kathy Roesch, and Claudia Worrell for their comments on an earlier draft     

Selective pregnancy reduction: medical attitudes, legal implications, and a viable alternative

"Selective pregnancy reduction" is a medical procedure used to reduce a multiple pregnancy, often a multiple pregnancy induced by in vitro fertilization or drug therapy. In such instances, healthy embryos are sacrificed in order to maximize the chances of survival of the remaining embryos or to allow the mother to choose the number of babies she wishes to deliver. Physicians appear to rely on Roe v. Wade in assuming the legality of the procedure, although such an assumption may be erroneous. Rather than continue to implant an excessive number of pre-embryos, the American Medical Association and the Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology should adopt guidelines similar to those established by the Voluntary Licensing Authority in London, which limit the number to be inserted to a maximum of three. Careful ultrasound monitoring could ensure that no more than three embryos implant when fertility drugs are used. Such practices would help physicians avoid the many moral, ethical, legal, and philosophical problems caused by selective pregnancy reduction.     

Child witnesses and the confrontation clause

InMaryland v. Craig, the United States Supreme Court relied heavily on a brief prepared by a committee of the American Psychology-Law Society on behalf of the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA brief concluded that sexually abused children may be particularly vulnerable to distress in the legal process, especially when forced to confront the defendant face to face, and that such acute distress may be inconsistent with the state's interests in promotion of reliable testimony and child welfare. APA also argued that psychological theory and research provide foundations for individualized determination of the need for measures to protect children from face-to-face confrontation. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AFE06051 00002     

The relationship of abuse and witnessing violence on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory with black adolescents

A number of social and psychological factors present in most adolescent parents place them at high risk for abusive behavior toward their children. However, current child abuse potential measures do not include adolescent samples as part of the psychometric data base. Consequently, the purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether a Black adolescent sample would perform differently than an adult nonabusing sample on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP), and (2) to examine the relationship between history of abuse or witnessing violence to scores on the CAP. Results revealed that Black adolescents scored significantly higher than the adult normative sample on the CAP; consequently, cutoff scores need to be empirically established for adolescents. Additional analyses indicated that a history of abuse, as well as a history of witnessing violence, are associated with a high potential for abuse.     

Circumventing formal structure through commitment: Presidential influence and agenda control

Although the formal institutional structure that defines the temporal order of play in a policy game between the Congress and President ought to provide Congress with agenda power, the President is traditionally treated as the dominant player in this relationship. We show that if the President can make clear-cut commitments, presidential commitment can counter the dominance hierarchy and the complexion of equilibrium outcomes. Thus, the details of political interactions (in particular, the possibilities for commitment) may be as important as the formal specification of institutional structure.We thank Peter Aranson, David Austen-Smith, Ed Campos, Gerry Faulhaber, Art Frank, Ken Koford, William Riker, Janet Pack, the anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the University of Delaware, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Rochester for helpful comments, subject to the usual caveat. We also thank Joel Friedlander and Harold Dichter for research assistance.