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National Native American Heritage Month

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November is National Native American Heritage Month – a time to recognize and celebrate the indigenous populations of America.Illustration shows four women and lists their names, organizational affiliations, and the time, date, and location of a program.

National Native American Heritage Month was first celebrated in 1990, at Congress’ request for the President to designate the month of November “National American Indian Heritage Month.” The month of November was chosen for its significance as the conclusion of the traditional harvest season, as well as being considered a time of thanksgiving and celebration for indigenous Americans. Since 2009, November has been recognized as National Native American Heritage Month.

Each year, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior selects a theme for the month’s celebrations – past themes include tribal diversity, native pride and spirit, and revitalizing indigenous connections. The theme for 2024 is “Weaving Together: Our Past, Present and Future” which the office states “will focus on the failed policies of the past with a focus on the Federal Indian Boarding Schools and moving into the present and the work being done to address the intergenerational trauma Native people still face.” They have also, in partnership with the National Park Service, designated November 19 as “Red Shawl Day”. Red Shawl Day is intended to raise awareness of acts of violence committed against Indigenous people, particularly women, who go missing and are murdered at a rate 10 times the national average.

The history of the Federal Indian Boarding Schools has close ties with Carlisle, as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the flagship Indian boarding school in the United States. Located on land that is now part of the U.S. Army War College, the school operated from 1879-1918, with a stated mission of culturally assimilating Native American children. The legacy left behind by the Carlisle Indian School and its successors is one of dead and abused children, culture and languages stolen away, and families destroyed. To this day, survivors of the Federal Indian Boarding Schools and their families grapple with the trauma and loss fomented by these institutions.

Resources:

Library of Congress – American Indian Law Research Guide

National Park Service

Penn State University Libraries Indigenous Peoples in Pennsylvania History Research Guide

Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center

The Lost Children of Carlisle

Home From School: The Children of Carlisle

Beyond Brackeen: Active Efforts Toward Antiracist Child Welfare Policy

Study Aids

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The library provides access to several study aids to help you prepare for final exams. Below is a summary of our various electronic study aid packages. You can find these resources on the library’s website.

Please also note that the 1L Orientation Guide breaks out study resources for torts, civil procedure, and criminal law.

1. West Academic Study Aids Collection 

Video Overview 

Popular Resources 

  • Gilbert’s Law Summaries—These are outlines. They include examples, exam tips, and visual aids such as charts.  
  • Acing Series—These provide summaries of a particular topic, including checklists for analyzing issues and sample problems with solutions.  
  • Exam Pro—These are a series of practice exams followed by an answer key. There is an option to use an interactive format for answering multiple-choice questions.  
  • Step by Step Guides—These are interactive workbooks designed to prepare students for exams. They include rule statements, fill-in-the-blank spaces to help you learn terminology, short-answer Test Yourself questions, and full-length essay questions with sample answers.

Access

If you are on campus, you can use IP authentication, which means that you don’t need an individual account to access these materials. Having an individual account, on the other hand, enables you to highlight and take notes like you would in a book. Your individual account also allows you to view books and listen to audio titles offline. You can set up your personal account here using your law school email address.  

2. Wolters Kluwer Study Aid Library

(aka the Aspen Learning Library)   

Popular Resources

  • Examples and Explanations—These popular resources provide a series of hypothetical questions accompanied by detailed explanations that help you learn how to apply black letter law concepts. 
  • Emanuel Law Outlines—These outlines cover topics, cases, and black letter law. They include Quiz Yourself tests and exam tips. There is also a capsule summary that allows for a quick review of key topics.
  • Emanuel CrunchTime—These are designed for exam studying. They include flowcharts, capsule summaries, example tips, and sample questions with model answers. 
  • Glannon Guides—These explain legal topics with hypotheticals that illustrate how to apply the concepts. Both the correct and incorrect options are explained. 

Access

If you are on campus, you can use IP authentication, which means that you don’t need an individual account to access these materials. Having an individual account, on the other hand, enables you to save notes, bookmarks, highlights, favorites, share with others, print text, and create shelves. To create a personalized account, log in using the link above and then click “Register” and create your username and password. 

3. CALI 

Video Overview  

Introduction 

CALI stands for the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. Almost all law schools in the country belong to CALI, a non-profit organization that offers interactive online lessons and other learning resources.  

Types of Resources  

  • CALI Lessons—These are interactive tutorials that introduce legal concepts and then immediately test your knowledge of those concepts. More than 1,000 tutorials have been written and peer-reviewed by faculty at CALI member schools. Often, the best way to find a tutorial is to use the Subject Outline.  
  • Law School Success Lessons—CALI includes a terrific collection of tutorials on law school success and legal concepts and skills. 
  • Podcasts—Most CALI materials are interactive lessons. However, they do have a selection of podcasts on contracts, payment systems, secured transactions, law school success, and bar preparation.  

Access 

To use CALI, you must register for an individual account with a registration code. Please contact us if you need assistance accessing CALI.

 4. Lexis Digital Library

Popular Resources 

  • Mastering Series—These provide a clear discussion of topics covered in popular casebooks.
  • Questions and Answers—These include multiple-choice and short-answer questions in a topically arranged format, as well as a practice exam that covers a wide range of topics. There are explanations of multiple-choice answers and model answers for short-answer questions.

Access 

Access is available using the link above or via the library’s website. Download the LexisNexis Digital Library app from the Google Play™ store or Apple Store® to read offline.

 

New Books!!!

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Hello from the Law Library!  We want to highlight some items in our new book area. Please stop by the library to check these books out!

The Message

Call Number:  PN4874.C598A3 2024

Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,”but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.

In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

 

Tragedy on Trial: The Story of the Infamous Emmett Till Murder Trial

Call Number:  HV6465.M7C65 2024

Tragedy on Trial reveals as never before the entire and shocking story of the 1955 trial of Emmett Till’s murderers. Based on extensive research, and accompanied by photos of the trial and a “For the Record” Introduction by Lonnie G. Bunch, III (Secretary of the Smithsonian), the brisk narrative brings the story alive, revealing all its manipulations of justice, including:

  • the sheriff who from beginning to end put the fix in for the defendants;
  • the ethically conflicted county attorney who selected the jurors;
  • the successful scheme to never charge the guilty defendants with kidnapping;
  • the defense lawyers who corruptly built their case on racism of the cruelest kind;
  • the White woman who falsely accused Emmett Till, inflaming an already bigoted all-White male jury;
  • the Black witnesses for the defense who were rounded up and secretly jailed in distant jurisdictions;
  • the defense’s medical “experts” who were not experts; and
  • the defense’s closing arguments (never recorded but now reconstructed) directed to “every Anglo-Saxon” member of the jury.

Ronald Collins offers an original and in-depth account that highlights the fearless efforts of Mamie Till and the courageous friends and family who testified. Collins also uncovers the truth behind the widely read 1956 Look magazine story, correcting falsehoods that persist to this day.

 

Hate Speech Is Not Free: The Case Against First Amendment Protection

Call Number:  KF4772.H67 2024

Hate speech has been a societal problem for many years and has seen a resurgence recently alongside political divisiveness and technologies that ease and accelerate the spread of messages. Methods to protect individuals and groups from hate speech have eluded lawmakers as the call for restrictions or bans on such speech are confronted by claims of First Amendment protection. Problematic speech, the argument goes, should be confronted by more speech rather than by restriction.

Debate over the extent of First Amendment protection is based on two bodies of law—the practical, precedent determined by the Supreme Court, and the theoretical framework of First Amendment jurisprudence. In Hate Speech is Not Free: The Case Against Constitutional Protection, W. Wat Hopkins argues that the prevailing thought that hate is protected by both case law and theory is incorrect.

Within the Supreme Court’s established hierarchy of speech protection, hate speech falls to the lowest level, deserving no protection as it does not advance ideas containing social value. Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s cases addressing protected and unprotected speech set forth a clear rationale for excommunicating hate speech from First Amendment protection.

 

Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams

Call Number:  KF283.F57 2023

Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams has been the best-selling book on law exams since its original publication in 1999. It appears on summer reading lists at countless law schools, and professors often recommend it in first-year courses. What sets it apart from its competitors is its frank recognition that law exams test legal reasoning and that legal reasoning cannot be reduced to any simple “check the boxes” template. Yet law students give it high marks because it avoids abstruse lectures and instead offers a clear, readable, and often humorous guide to how lawyers and judges deploy legal reasoning in real-world disputes and how law professors test such disputes―and the reasoning required to resolve them―on law exams.

It’s therefore the best resource available for helping students successfully make the transition from undergraduate studies―where exams frequently call for “right answers”―to law school, where exams reward students for “getting to maybe” and mobilizing persuasive arguments on multiple sides of legal problems. Responding to reader feedback, the authors offer a much-anticipated second edition with new material focusing on exam preparation; drafting successful exam answers while avoiding common mistakes; and tackling multiple-choice questions.

 

The Making of Lawyers’ Careers: Inequality and Opportunity in the American Legal Profession

Call Number:  KF297.N45 2023

How do race, class, gender, and law school status condition the career trajectories of lawyers? And how do professionals then navigate these parameters?

The Making of Lawyers’ Careers provides an unprecedented account of the last two decades of the legal profession in the US, offering a data-backed look at the structure of the profession and the inequalities that early-career lawyers face across race, gender, and class distinctions. Starting in 2000, the authors collected over 10,000 survey responses from more than 5,000 lawyers, following these lawyers through the first twenty years of their careers. They also interviewed more than two hundred lawyers and drew insights from their individual stories, contextualizing data with theory and close attention to the features of a market-driven legal profession.

Their findings show that lawyers’ careers both reflect and reproduce inequalities within society writ large. They also reveal how individuals exercise agency despite these constraints.

 

Jim Crow: Voices from a Century of Struggle

Call Number:  E185.61.J56 2024

Jim Crow: Voices from a Century of Struggle, Part One brings together speeches, pamphlets, newspaper and magazine articles, public testimony, judicial opinions, letters, and poems and song lyrics—more than eighty essential texts in all—from the end of Reconstruction in 1876 to the bloody “Red Summer” of 1919.

The volume includes writing by both famous and lesser known individuals, including:

  • Ida B. Wells on the scourge of lynching
  • Richard T. Greener’s scathing critique of America’s “White Problem”
  • Charles Chesnutt on the nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment
  • Booker T. Washington’s historic Atlanta address
  • John Marshall Harlan’s eloquent and prophetic dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson;
  • Mary Church Terrell on segregation in the nation’s capital and the convict lease system
  • William Monroe Trotter’s dramatic White House confrontation with Woodrow Wilson
  • Jeanette Carter’s tribute to the men and women who fought back against white mobs in 1919

The volume also presents revealing examples of white supremacist advocacy by Nathaniel Shaler and Benjamin Tillman; testimony about the “Exoduster” migration to Kansas in the 1870s; celebrations of pathbreaking Black musicians and stage performers; writing about the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, the founding of the NAACP, and Black soldiers in World War I; and contrasting editorials from the Black and white press on prizefighter Jack Johnson and the outlaw Robert Charles.

As the teaching of our nation’s history, especially the history of race in America, becomes increasingly contested, this book will serve as a vital resource, a crucial reminder of where we’ve been, how far we’ve come, and how long the road ahead remains.

Humanizing Immigration

Call Number:  KF4819.H53 2023

Representing non-citizens caught up in what he calls the immigration and enforcement “meat grinder”, Bill Ong Hing witnessed their trauma, arriving at this conclusion: migrants should have the right to free movement across borders—and the right to live free of harassment over immigration status.

He cites examples of racial injustices endemic in immigration law and enforcement, from historic courtroom cases to the recent treatment of Haitian migrants. Hing includes histories of Mexican immigration, African migration and the Asian exclusion era, all of which reveal ICE abuse and a history of often forgotten racist immigration laws.

While ultimately arguing for the abolishment of ICE, Hing advocates for change now. With 50 years of law practice and litigation, Hing has represented non-citizens—from gang members to asylum seekers fleeing violence, and from individuals in ICE detention to families at the US southern border seeking refuge.

Hing maps out major reforms to the immigration system, making an urgent call for the adoption of a radical, racial justice lens. Readers will understand the root causes of migration and our country’s culpability in contributing to those causes.

 

Proud to Punish: The Global Landscapes of Rough Justice

Call Number:  HV7419.F38 2024

A magisterial comparative study, Proud to Punish recenters our understanding of modern punishment through a sweeping analysis of the global phenomenon of “rough justice”: the use of force to settle accounts and enforce legal and moral norms outside the formal framework of the law. While taking many forms, including vigilantism, lynch mobs, people’s courts, and death squads, all seekers of rough justice thrive on the deliberate blurring of lines between law enforcers and troublemakers. Digital networks have provided a profitable arena for vigilantes, who use social media to build a following and publicize their work, as they debase the bodies of the accused for purposes of edification and entertainment. It is this unabashed pride to punish, and the new punitive celebrations that actualize, publicize, and commercialize it, that this book brings into focus. Recounted in lively prose, Proud to Punish is both a global map of rough justice today and an insight into the deeper nature of punishment as a social and political phenomenon.

The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840 

Call Number:  KF4541.A878 2021

When the US Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of thirty years of passionate argument over the nature of government. But ratification hardly ended the conversation. For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages of newspapers. Should the nation’s borders be expanded? Should America allow slavery to spread westward? What rights should Indian nations hold? What was the proper role of the judicial branch?
In The Words that Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document’s origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America’s Constitution today.

The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them

Call Number:  KF4541.R357 2024

Some Americans today worry that the Federal Constitution is ill-equipped to respond to mounting democratic threats and may even exacerbate the worst features of American politics. Yet for as long as anyone can remember, the Constitution has occupied a quasi-mythical status in American political culture, which ties ideals of liberty and equality to assumptions about the inherent goodness of the text’s design. The Constitutional Bind explores how a flawed document came to be so glorified and how this has impacted American life.

In a pathbreaking retelling of the American experience, Aziz Rana shows that today’s reverential constitutional culture is a distinctively twentieth-century phenomenon. Rana connects this widespread idolization to another relatively recent development: the rise of US global dominance. Ultimately, such veneration has had far-reaching consequences: despite offering a unifying language of reform, it has also unleashed an interventionist national security state abroad while undermining the possibility of deeper change at home.

Revealing how the current constitutional order was forged over the twentieth century, The Constitutional Bind also sheds light on an array of movement activists—in Black, Indigenous, feminist, labor, and immigrant politics—who struggled to imagine different constitutional horizons. As time passed, these voices of opposition were excised from memory. Today, they offer essential insights.

October is LGBTQ+ History Month

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October? Don’t you mean Pride Month in June? No! There are two different month-long celebrations of LGBTQ+ people in the United States.

LGBTQ+ History Month first started in 1994. Rodney Wilson, a high school teacher, chose October because the first and second LGBT Marches on Washington were in October, and National Coming Out Day is October 11th. He also chose it because it was during the traditional school year! In 1995, the National Education Association included “LGBT History Month” in its list of commemorative months –— to great backlash –— and yet, that recognition helped spread the idea of this new “history month” idea.

A decade later, in 2006, Philadelphia’s Equality Forum created a website highlighting and celebrating the achievements of 31 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people one for every day of the month of October. They update it every year so that more and more LGBTQ+ “icons” can have positive attention drawn to them and their accomplishments (589 so far!). The inaugural year included author James Baldwin, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, actor Ian McKellen, and athlete Sheryl Swoopes.

Conversely, Pride Month arises from the first Pride march in New York City which was held on June 28, 1970, the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. That march became an annual tradition in New York City, and slowly other Pride marches were held in other locations in the United States. President Bill Clinton issued a presidential proclamation in 1999 establishing June as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” Since then Pride Month has spread across the globe.

Learn More:

Requesting Interlibrary Loans

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As a part of Penn State University, Dickinson Law students and faculty have access to vast physical and digital collections throughout the University Libraries system. However, there may be times when the resource you are looking for is not available through this system. In these instances, you can utilize Penn State’s Interlibrary Loan services to fulfill your research needs.

What is Interlibrary Loan?

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service that allows you to request materials that the University Libraries do not have. Library staff are able to fill Interlibrary Loan requests by borrowing items from other libraries outside of Penn State. These items are then shipped to the borrower’s home library where they can be checked out. Interlibrary Loan can also be used to request specific articles which are unavailable through Penn State’s databases.

How Does It Work?

If this is your first time using Interlibrary Loan, you will need to create an ILLiad account.

ILLiad logo.
ILLiad home page.
Once your account is created, there are two main ways to request material – either using WorldCat or the Submit New Requests feature on the ILLiad home page.

To use WorldCat, search their database for the item you want to request. Once you have found a copy of it, select the “View access options” button and then choose “Request Item through Interlibrary Loan.

Access from your libraries
This link will take you to a request form pre-populated with the material’s information from the WorldCat entry. Make sure all the information is correct, then submit the request.
Pre-populated book request form,
If you already know all the information needed to make your request, you can skip WorldCat and manually enter the request yourself under the “Submit New Requests” tab on the ILLiad home page.
Once your request is submitted, the ILL team will work to acquire the materials, thought not all requests are able to be fulfilled.
For more information about the Interlibrary Loan process, including frequently asked questions, visit the LibGuide!

New Supreme Court Term

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Picture of the Supreme CourtThe U.S. Supreme Court opens its new term next week. The “First Monday in October” has been the Court’s official start date for over a century and is codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2 (2012). In conjunction with the start of the new term, please see the following resources that may interest you.

Featured Resources

Library Databases

  • ProQuest Supreme Court Insight  Supreme Court Insight is a complete online collection of full opinions from Supreme Court-argued cases, dockets, oral arguments, joint appendices, and amicus briefs. Content associated with each case is compiled and organized to facilitate understanding of the judicial process and is also retrievable on a document-by-document basis.
  • HeinOnline: U.S. Supreme Court Library  Complete coverage of the official U.S. Reports bound volumes, preliminary prints, slip opinions, and books and periodicals related to the U.S. Supreme Court are included in this library.
  • HeinOnline: History of Supreme Court Nominations  This library features the complete print series Supreme Court of the U.S. Hearings and Reports on Successful and Unsuccessful Nominations of Supreme Court Justices by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Browse by Justice option allows you to see relevant works related to that Justice, including links to articles, a bibliography of other works, and links to Scholarly Articles.

Free Resources

Free News Sources

New Books!!!

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Hello from the Law Library!  We want to highlight some items in our new book area. Please stop by the library to check these books out!

Social justice pedagogies : multidisciplinary practices and approaches

Call Number:  LC192.2.S644 2023

 

 

Social Justice Pedagogies provides a diverse and wide perspective into making education more robust and useful in light of global injustices and new challenges posed by new media and communication practices, media manipulation, right-wing populism, climate crisis, and intersectional discriminations. Meant to inspire readers to see learning and teaching from a wider perspective of justice, inclusion, equity, and creativity, it argues that relational and mindful approaches to teaching and learning in specific contexts, settings, and place-based experiences are essential in how we determine the value of education. The book draws on contributions from scholars and experts who incorporate social justice into their teaching practices in different disciplines in universities across Canada, the US, and Europe. Social Justice Pedagogies uniquely presents a wide interdisciplinary perspective on social justice in education practices in order to speak to the ways in which we all want to make our research, our classrooms, and our institutions more just. It argues that pedagogy, and specifically teaching and learning, constitutes a process of building relationships between people and knowledge by fostering a learning community.

 

With power comes responsibility : the politics of structural injustice

Call Number:  JC578.M42 2024

 

What is structural injustice, and who ultimately bears responsibility for it? In answering these questions Maeve McKeown goes beyond the widely accepted narrative of unintended consequences and blameless participation to explain how power and responsibility truly function in today’s world.

Drawing on case studies from sweatshops to climate change, McKeown identifies three types of structural injustice: the pure and unintended accumulation of disparate activities; the avoidable injustice that could be ameliorated by the powerful but nevertheless continues; the deliberate perpetuation of structural processes that benefit powerful political and economic agents. In each of these, the role of power is different which changes the allocation of responsibility.

From this understanding, we can shape a deeper, more sophisticated idea of how structural injustice operates and what we as individuals can do about it. What is the political responsibility of ordinary individuals? How can ordinary individuals with very little power pressure morally responsible, powerful agents to address structural injustice? Do we have the same responsibility for historical injustice as we do for that which we see in today’s world? This is fundamental reassessment of the relationship between power, ordinary people and responsibility for structural injustice.

The Fallacies of Racism: Understanding How Common Perceptions Uphold White Supremacy

Call Number:  HT1521.S533 2024

 

Everyone has an opinion on racism. The vast majority of people would vehemently deny that they or those close to them are “racist,” yet many of the most common understandings of racism are highly problematic. “If you mean no harm, then it can’t be racist.” Yes, it can. “There are anti-discrimination laws now, so racism no longer occurs.” Incorrect. “Some of my best friends are Black, so I can’t be racist.” Not true.

In this sharp, open-minded, and witty book, sociologist Jennifer Patrice Sims succinctly addresses these problematic perceptions of racism as fallacies. Building on existing academic theories and drawing on her own cross-national research, two decades of teaching, and analyses of contemporary issues, she delves into the most common and insidious fallacies about racism. In revealing them to be rooted in what scholars call an “epistemology of ignorance,” she shows how these perceptions justify and uphold white supremacy (inadvertently or otherwise).

Accessibly written and full of concrete examples, this book will be of great value to anyone who wants to understand the common misunderstandings about racism that frustrate contemporary politics, classrooms, workplaces, and dinner tables.

Belonging without othering : how we save ourselves and the world

Call Number:  HM753.P698 2024

 

We all yearn for connection and community, but we live in a time when calls for further division along the well-wrought lines of religion, race, ethnicity, caste, and sexuality are pervasive. This ubiquitous yet elusive problem feeds on fears – created, inherited – of the “other.” While the much-touted diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are undeniably failing, and activists narrowly focus on specific and sometimes conflicting communities, Belonging without Othering prescribes a new approach that encourages us to turn toward one another in unprecedented and radical ways.

The pressures that separate us have a common root: our tendency to cast people and groups in irreconcilable terms – or the process of “othering.” This book gives vital language to this universal problem, unveiling its machinery at work across time and around the world. To subvert it, john a. powell and Stephen Menendian make a powerful and sweeping case for adopting a paradigm of belonging that does not require the creation of an “other.” This new paradigm hinges on transitioning from narrow to expansive identities – even if that means challenging seemingly benevolent forms of community-building based on othering.

As the threat of authoritarianism grows across the globe, this book makes the case that belonging without othering is the necessary, but not the inevitable, next step in our long journey toward creating truly equitable and thriving societies. The authors argue that we must build institutions, cultivate practices, and orient ourselves toward a shared future, not only to heal ourselves, but perhaps to save our planet as well. Brimming with clear guidance, sparkling insights, and specific examples and practices, Belonging without Othering is a future-oriented exploration that ushers us in a more hopeful direction.

 

Thoughtfulness and the Rule of Law 

Call Number:  K3171.W3485 2023

 

The meaning and value of the rule of law have been debated since antiquity. For many, the rule of law has become the essence of good government. But Jeremy Waldron takes a different view, arguing that it is but one star in a constellation of ideals that define our political morality, ranking alongside democracy, human rights, economic freedom, and social justice.

This timely essay collection, from one of the most respected political philosophers of his generation, is a brief on behalf of thoughtfulness: the intervention of human intelligence in the application of law. Waldron defends thoughtfulness against the claim that it threatens to replace the rule of law with the arbitrary rule of people. To the contrary, he argues, the rule of law requires thoughtfulness: it is impossible to apply a standard such as “reasonableness” on the basis of rules alone, and common legal activities like arguing in court and reasoning from precedents are poorly served by algorithmic logics. This rich compilation also addresses the place of law in protecting human dignity, the relation between rule of law and legislation, and whether vagueness in the law is at odds with law’s role in guiding action.

Thoughtfulness and the Rule of Law emphasizes the value of procedures rather than the substance or outcome of legal decisions. Challenging the view that predictability and clarity are cardinal virtues, Waldron shows that real-world controversies often are best approached using a relatively thin concept of the rule of law, together with the thoughtfulness that a legal system frames and enables.

Equal care : health equity, social democracy, and the egalitarian state

Call Number:  RA448.4.B47 2024

 

Health inequity is one of the defining problems of our time. But current efforts to address the problem focus on mitigating the harms of injustice rather than confronting injustice itself. In Equal Care, Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, MPH, offers an innovative vision for the future of health equity by examining the social mechanisms that link injustice to poor health. He also presents practical policies designed to create a system of social relations that ensures equal care for everyone.

As Berkowitz illustrates, the project of social democracy works to improve health by bringing relationships of equality to the sites of human cooperation: in civil society, in political processes, and in economic activities. This book synthesizes three elements necessary for such a project―normative justification, mechanistic knowledge, and technical proficiency―into a practical vision of how to create health equity. Drawing from the fields of medicine, social epidemiology, sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, and more, Berkowitz makes clear that health inequity is social failure embodied, and the only true cures are political. Equal Care is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of health equity.

 

The quiet coup : neoliberalism and the looting of America

Call Number:  JC573.2.U6B37 2024

 

With the nation lurching from one crisis to the next, many Americans believe that something fundamental has gone wrong. Why aren’t college graduates able to achieve financial security? Why is government completely inept in the face of natural disasters? And why do pundits tell us that the economy is strong even though the majority of Americans can barely make ends meet? In The Quiet Coup, Mehrsa Baradaran argues that the system is in fact rigged toward the powerful, though it wasn’t the work of evil puppet masters behind the curtain. Rather, the rigging was carried out by (mostly) law-abiding lawyers, judges, regulators, policy makers, and lobbyists. Adherents of a market-centered doctrine called neoliberalism, these individuals, over the course of decades, worked to transform the nation—and succeeded.

Some have claimed that the neoliberal era is behind us. Baradaran shows that such thinking is misguided. Neoliberalism is a failed economic idea—it doesn’t, in fact, create more wealth or more freedom. But it has been successful nevertheless, by seizing the courts and enabling our age of crypto fraud, financial instability, and accelerating inequality. An original account of the forces that have brought us to this dangerous moment in American history, The Quiet Coup reshapes our understanding of the recent past and lights a path toward a better future.

 

A space for us : a guide for leading Black, indigenous, and people of color affinity groups

Call Number:  HT1563.J64 2023

 

In A Space for Us, Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her over twenty years of experience leading dismantling-racism work to provide the first affinity-group guide made for BIPOC communities. This essential guide will: provide an understanding of the racial hierarchy and how it has impacted Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color differently; define and share common manifestations of internalized racial oppression; define anti-Blackness and provide skills to interrupt and address it; share rituals, practices, and sample agendas for affinity groups; provide rituals and tools for healing in BIPOC affinity groups; and provide information about how to come back together as BIPOC and white people to strategize and take collective action.

The Psychosis of Whiteness

Call Number:  HT1521.A63 2023

 

Take a step through the looking-glass to a strange land, one where Piers Morgan is a voice worth listening to about race, where white people buy self-help books to help them cope with their whiteness, where Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are seen by the majority of the population as ‘the right (white) man for the job’. Perhaps you know it. All the inhabitants seem to be afflicted by serious delusions, for example that racism doesn’t exist and if it does it can be cured with a one-hour inclusion seminar, and bizarre collective hallucinations, like the widely held idea that Britain’s only role in slavery was to abolish it.

But there is a serious side too. Society cannot face up to the racism at its heart and in its history, so the delusions, irrationalities and hallucinations it conjures up to avoid doing so can only best be described as a psychosis, with the costs being borne by the sons and daughters of that racist history. Living in a racist world is like living in a world that bears no resemblance to reality. Black and brown people suffer from a greater number of mental health difficulties too, caused in no small part by trying to survive a racist society.

Kehinde Andrews is your piercing, wry and not a little funny guide back to sanity, unpicking the absurd and outrageous lies society tells to keep up the status quo. The Psychosis of Whiteness is your lifeboat out of this topsy-turvy world.

Limitarianism : the case against extreme wealth

Call Number:  HC79.I5R63 2024

 

This will be the first authoritative trade book to unpack the concept of a cap on wealth, where to draw the line, how to collect the excess and what to do with the money. In the process, Robeyns will ignite an urgent debate about wealth, one that calls into question the very forces we live by (capitalism and neoliberalism) and invites us to a radical reimagining of our world.

Welcome New and Returning Students!

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Puppy on welcome mat

Source: iStock

Welcome new students and welcome back returning students. This post covers some of the basics of using the library’s spaces and resources.

Access and General Policies

When do I have access to the library?⮟

You may access the library 24/7 using your Penn State ID card. You must have your ID card on weekends and evenings to enter the library. Make sure you take your card with you when you leave the library during those times.

The library’s doors are usually open during the week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. On the weekends, the doors are closed, regardless of whether someone is working at the front desk.

When is the library staffed?
  • Monday-Friday: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • Sunday: noon to 6 p.m.

Check the library’s website for information about holidays and weekends.

How do I ask a question when the library is not staffed? ⮟

You can send a question to DickinsonLawLib@psu.edu. However, that email address is only monitored during regular weekday business hours.

Can I eat or drink in the library? ⮟

Drinks in closed containers are okay. Small snacks are also okay, but we ask that any food trash be removed from the library and that any spills are reported. Please be mindful of others; the library is not cleaned regularly. Food can get gross in the trash cans. This is especially true in the study rooms and on weekends. 

Can I talk in the library? ⮟

Speak softly and keep conversations short. We don’t have certain sections reserved for quiet and others for talking, as some academic libraries do. You can book a group study room to talk to your classmates.

Library Materials

What online study aids are available?⮟

You can find these resources on the library’s website.

  • West Academic Study Aids Collection: (Note: This is something different than Westlaw.) Gilbert’s Law Summaries is one of the most well-known resources in this collection. You can sign up for a personal account that allows you to highlight and add notes.
  • Wolters Kluwer Study Aid Library: You will find the very popular Examples and Explanations series in this collection. The study aids collection is similar to the West Academic Study Aids in that you can use it without an individual account, but setting up an individual account provides access to advanced features.
  • CALI: CALI stands for the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. Almost all law schools in the country belong to CALI, a non-profit organization that offers interactive online lessons and other learning resources. Your access to CALI includes over 1,000 tutorials written and peer-reviewed by faculty at CALI member schools. Using CALI requires an individual account. You need a registration code to set up that account.
  • Lexis Digital Library: This study aids collection includes the popular Mastering series. The library’s website provides access to the Lexis Digital Library. You can also download an app to use it offline.
Do we have course reserves?⮟

No, we do not offer print or electronic course reserves.

How do I check out and renew books?⮟

Books can only be checked out when the front desk is staffed. You must have your Penn State ID card. No exceptions! You can renew a book online or bring it to the front desk, and we will do it for you.

Check-Out Periods

  • Browsing and Anti-Racist Collections: 4 weeks, with a renewal option
  • Reference Works: 2 hours
  • Other Circulating Books: 1 semester
Do I have access to books from other Penn State campuses? ⮟

Yes. You can use the library catalog to locate resources at our library and other Penn State libraries. The title entry under location in the catalog indicates if materials are checked out. Place a hold on a checked-out item by clicking “I Want It” on the entry. This will reserve the book for you. It will be delivered to our library for you to pick up. (Tip: Don’t use I Want It for items in our collection.)

Can I get a copy of a book that is not held by any Penn State library? ⮟

Yes, or at least we will try our best to obtain a copy of the book for you using interlibrary loan (ILL). You must create an ILL account to borrow something from outside the Penn State library system. We will notify you electronically when all the requested items are available to be checked out.

Group Study Rooms and Printing

How many study rooms are available? ⮟

We have five study rooms on the second floor of the library. Larger groups may prefer to use rooms 202 and 203, which seat 8-10 students, respectively. Room 209 holds six students. The smaller study rooms, 207 and 208 are more suitable for groups with five or fewer people.

Can I schedule/reserve a group study room? ⮟

You can reserve a study room using your 25Live account online. You can also use 25Live to see whether or not a room is available. There are QR codes outside the study rooms that you can use to book them.

Can individuals use a group study room? ⮟

The study rooms are for group study. If you need private individual space, for example, a Zoom interview, there are reservable rooms near the Career Office. That said, the doors are not locked, so an individual may use an unoccupied study room so long as they promptly and politely vacate the room if a group wants to use it.

Where are the printers and scanners? ⮟

There is a printer near the circulation desk on the first floor. There is also a free Lexis printer on the second floor. The scanner is on the first floor.

New Books!!!

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Hello from the Law Library!  We want to highlight some items in our new book area. If you would like to check out the item, you can place a hold using the corresponding link:

Digital money demystified : go from cash to crypto safely, legally, and confidently

Call Number:  HG1710.3.E83 2023

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42281209

Arbitration : the art & science of persuasion

Call Number:  K2400.V56 2022

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42525326

Effective persuasion is an art; an art which can be learned and perfected with practice and insight into human behavior. This innovative book, written for lawyers and those interested in the science of persuasion in a legal setting, is the first to explain how key concepts from psychology, sociology, and communication science can be productively applied to the art of persuasion in international dispute resolution.

Whilst success in arbitration relies upon knowledge of the law, sound judgment, and intelligence, it is also increasingly recognized that it is dependent upon the ability to effectively communicate with other people in order to convince them of a particular point of view. These are skills that can be acquired and enhanced over time with practice and experience. The focus of this book is to provide practitioners with insights and applications of the behavioral sciences that can assist in the development of those key skills associated with success in arbitration.

Starting with an overview of the important elements of the psychology of persuasion, the book then provides recommendations and examples of how the information can be effectively utilized, with a view to providing a practical and pragmatic treatment of ideas and techniques of persuasion that lawyers can employ to enhance their advocacy skills. Prominent arbitrators from around the globe provide observations and anecdotes from their own arbitration experiences that offer context and provide the reader with fascinating insights into the experiences of some of the world’s leading arbitrators. Taken together, the structure and analysis, backed up with real-world examples, gives readers the tools to gain “the edge” when it comes to using negotiation in their dispute resolution practice.

Constitutional policing : striving for a more perfect union

Call Number:  KF4695.C66 2023

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42545830

There is not a single place in America where police and the community they serve do not exist side by side. America has always been the gold standard of democracy and freedom in the world. It has also been valued as a place where equal justice under the law is the rule and not the exception. While the nation is great in so many ways, it is not perfect. “We the people” continue to be challenged in two significant areas of development. One is in matters of “race,” and the other is in matters of “policing.” The issues of “race and policing” continue to lie at the center of our nation’s struggle to “form a more perfect union.” This book, Constitutional Policing: Striving for a More Perfect Union, examines the issues of policing in America and the pathways to achieve a level of constitutional policing that begins to address how our diverse nation and the communities we live in can become safer, more equitable, more respectful of our differences. The chapters in this book detail the legal challenges that will have to be engaged in if there is any hope of our communities becoming places where we truly are engaging the possibilities of government “of people, by the people, for the people.”

 

Rules for whistleblowers : a handbook for doing what’s right

Call Number:  KF3471.K646 2023

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42256774

Learn how whistleblowers have saved lives, stopped frauds, protected their jobs, and earned million-dollar rewards for doing the right thing in Rules for Whistleblowers, Stephen Martin Kohn’s seventh book on whistleblowing. This book is a fully updated and expanded revision of The Whistleblower’s Handbook, the first-ever comprehensive consumer guide to exposing workplace wrongdoing. Kohn’s thirty-seven rules highlight the “traps” facing whistleblowers today and address how to file anonymous cases and qualify for multi-million-dollar rewards. Kohn carefully explains complex rules and laws governing whistleblowing including the Dodd-Frank, IRS, and False Claims Acts, as well as detailed strategies for fighting retaliation. He also covers controversial issues such as taping, removing documents, and ignoring nondisclosure agreements.

Modernized laws have revolutionized the rights of employees both in the United States and internationally, enabling whistleblowers to be paid over $10 billion in rewards for doing the right thing. No employee should blow the whistle without knowing their rights. Too much is at stake.

 

Restorative communities : from conflict to conversation

Call Number:  HV8688.B658 2022

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42525324

What happens when a former political journalist, operative, and consultant in her forties loses faith in her country, moves to a foreign land to seek solace, but still can’t quite give up on the promise of America? And what if—right at that moment—a former schoolteacher and serial entrepreneur is seeking an authentic voice with a healthy amount of skepticism to help him develop a new movement he’s been building up to his entire career?

Welcome to the story of Kerra Bolton, an accomplished Black journalist who broke up with her home country over its wild identity dysphoria in 2016. Disillusioned and disgusted with America’s unwillingness to face the ugly realities of its birth and socio-political legacy, Bolton fled to the peaceful beaches of the Mexican Caribbean to soothe her wounded spirit. Little did she suspect that the seeds of her spiritual and emotional healing would come in the form of a phone call from a Pennsylvania-based educator and innovator, who had one more trick up his sleeve and believed she could help with his vision.

This book is the culmination of four years of research, interviews, writing, and outreach by Bolton, in service of helping entrepreneur and author Ted Wachtel develop a new social movement, Building A New Reality. It tells, in the context of her personal and professional struggles, the story of this unlikely collaboration that has launched a quiet revolution by conversation.

 

The constitutionalization of human rights law : implications for refugees

Call Number:  K3230.R45M45 2022

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42525984

The Constitutionalization of Human Rights Law analyses how lawyers representing refugees use human rights provisions in national constitutions to close the gap between the Law and its implementation. Focusing on five countries (Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, Uganda, and the United States) the book examines how lawyers adapt creatively to social, political, and legal contexts. Many refugee-receiving states openly reject or passively ignore their obligation
under international law to protect refugees. For this reason, cause lawyers (those who use the law to empower others) have turned to constitutionalized human rights law. While many countries likely included such provisions in their constitutions without intending to fulfill their commitments, cause lawyers have
seized on them as a more enforceable means of rights protection. This book theorizes a continuum of ever-more ambitious methods through which cause lawyers use constitutionalized human rights law to benefit refugees. Lawyers use different tools as they move along this continuum, including strategic litigation, training governmental officials in the applicable law, and various forms of informal advocacy. It makes important contributions to three strands of socio-legal literature. As to the effectiveness of human rights treaties, it provides qualitative evidence of how such treaties achieve greater significance when incorporated into national constitutions. As to refugee law, it analyses how international protections for refugees become stronger when domestic lawyers enforce them through national constitutions. And as to cause lawyering, it shows how refugee lawyers use constitutionalized human rights law to protect their clients.

Homeless advocacy

Call Number:  KF336.H66 2023

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42525990

Homeless Advocacy examines the role legal advocacy plays in preventing and ending homelessness. The book provides a history of homelessness, the current state of it in the United States, context on working with unhoused populations, and analyzes the legal issues they face through a practitioner’s lens. With these topics, ranging from criminalization of homelessness to employment barriers and affordable housing, the author provides a resource that will encourage and enable more people to advocate on behalf of unhoused populations and will serve as a guidepost to advance that advocacy.

There are many books on poverty, but this book is different and complementary as it focuses on the unhoused population and the legal challenges unique to them. It is aimed at law students, policy makers, social work students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and individual activists. It includes narratives from practitioners and those with lived experience of being unhoused.

 

Necropolis : disease, power, and capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom

Call Number:  E185.93.L6O45 2022

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/37114737

Antebellum New Orleans sat at the heart of America’s slave and cotton kingdoms. It was also where yellow fever epidemics killed as many as 150,000 people during the nineteenth century. With little understanding of mosquito-borne viruses―and meager public health infrastructure―a person’s only protection against the scourge was to “get acclimated” by surviving the disease. About half of those who contracted yellow fever died.

Repeated epidemics bolstered New Orleans’s strict racial hierarchy by introducing another hierarchy, what Kathryn Olivarius terms “immunocapital.” As this highly original analysis shows, white survivors could leverage their immunity as evidence that they had paid their biological dues and could then pursue economic and political advancement. For enslaved Blacks, the story was different. Immunity protected them from yellow fever, but as embodied capital, they saw the social and monetary value of their acclimation accrue to their white owners. Whereas immunity conferred opportunity and privilege on whites, it relegated enslaved people to the most grueling labor.

The question of good health―who has it, who doesn’t, and why―is always in part political. Necropolis shows how powerful nineteenth-century white Orleanians―all allegedly immune―pushed this politics to the extreme. They constructed a society that capitalized mortal risk and equated perceived immunity with creditworthiness and reliability. Instead of trying to curb yellow fever through sanitation or quarantines, immune white Orleanians took advantage of the chaos disease caused. Immunological discrimination therefore became one more form of bias in a society premised on inequality, one more channel by which capital disciplined and divided the population.

Legal analytics : the future of analytics in law

Call Number:  K487.T4L433 2023

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42231829

Legal Analytics: The Future of Analytics in Law navigates the crisscrossing of intelligent technology and the legal field in building up a new landscape of transformation. Legal automation navigation is multidimensional, wherein it intends to construct streamlined communication, approval, and management of legal tasks. The evolving environment of technology has emphasized the need for better automation in the legal field from time to time, although legal scholars took a long to embrace the information revolution of the legal field.

• Describes the historical development of law and automation.

• Analyzes the challenges and opportunities in law and automation.

• Studies the current research and development in the convergence of law, artificial intelligence, and legal analytics.

• Explores the recent emerging trends and technologies that are used by various legal systems globally for crime prediction and prevention.

• Examines the applicability of legal analytics in forensic investigation.

• Investigates the impact of legal analytics tools and techniques in judicial decision making.

• Analyzes deep learning techniques and their scope in accelerating legal analytics in developed and developing countries.

• Provides an in-depth analysis of implementation, challenges, and issues in society related to legal analytics.

This book is primarily aimed at graduates and postgraduates in law and technology, computer science, and information technology. Legal practitioners and academicians will also find this book helpful.

 

Digital empires : the global battle to regulate technology

Call Number:  K487.T4B73 2023

https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/42244143

The global battle among the three dominant digital powers–the United States, China, and the European Union–is intensifying. All three regimes are racing to regulate tech companies, with each advancing a competing vision for the digital economy while attempting to expand its sphere of influence in the digital world. In Digital Empires, her provocative follow-up to The Brussels Effect, Anu Bradford explores a rivalry that will shape the world in the decades to come.

Across the globe, people dependent on digital technologies have become increasingly alarmed that their rapid adoption and transformation have ushered in an exceedingly concentrated economy where a few powerful companies control vast economic wealth and political power, undermine data privacy, and widen the gap between economic winners and losers. In response, world leaders are variously embracing the idea of reining in the most dominant tech companies. Bradford examines three competing regulatory approaches–the American market-driven model, the Chinese state-driven model, and the European rights-driven regulatory model–and discusses how governments and tech companies navigate the inevitable conflicts that arise when these regulatory approaches collide in the international domain. Which digital empire will prevail in the contest for global influence remains an open question, yet their contrasting strategies are increasingly clear.

Digital societies are at an inflection point. In the midst of these unfolding regulatory battles, governments, tech companies, and digital citizens are making important choices that will shape the future ethos of the digital society. Digital Empires lays bare the choices we face as societies and individuals, explains the forces that shape those choices, and illuminates the immense stakes involved for everyone who uses digital technologies.

 

 

Returning Borrowed Research Resources to the Library

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The end of the semester is the perfect time to return any research materials borrowed from the library. Here are answers to some common questions. 

How do you return materials from interlibrary loan or items from other Penn State campus libraries?    

You can return these items to us. Place your borrowed materials on the book return cart in front of the Service Desk or on the counter.    

How do you return reference or reserve books?    

The procedure is different if you have a reference book or course reserves because the loan period is only 2 hours. You should return these items directly to library staff to ensure prompt check-in. Of course, you can renew reference and reserve books using your library account.

You will be charged overdue fines if you fail to return reference or reserve items on time.    

Can you return items without entering the library?  

Yes. There is an outdoor book return receptacle at the South Street entrance to the law school.     

Can you return books to another Penn State campus library?    

Yes. Borrowed materials may be returned to any Penn State location. Please check the library hours at the other campus for in-person returns. You can also return books to most Penn State campus libraries through an outdoor receptacle or book return slot.    

What should you do if none of these options work?     

Contact us at DickinsonLawLib@psu.edu.   

What are the library hours during the break?   

The library will not be staffed from Friday, December 22nd through Monday, January 1st, 2024.  But you can still access the building and library using your law school ID. 

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