Published Student Articles 2010
The New York City Law Review is proud to honor the student scholars publishing in the Law Review this year.
Jonathan F. Harris
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Bradley Parker
Paula Z. Segal
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Megan Stuart
Jonathan F. Harris
Worker Unity and the Law: A Comparative Analysis of the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Hope for the NLRA's Future, 13 N.Y. City L. Rev. (forthcoming in 2010).
Jonathan Harris, the 2009-2010 Associate Editor for the Public Interest Practice section of the New York City Law Review, has written a note that compares the federal courts' and Congress's treatments of the National Labor relations Act (NLRA)-an act meant to protect workers' collective rights by encouraging worker unity and collective bargaining-and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)-meant to protect workers' individual rights through minimum wage and hour standards. Jonathan's note focuses on the Acts' relative coverage of employees and employers, demonstrating how Congress and the courts have decreased the scope of coverage under the NLRA, while increasing the scope of coverage under the FLSA. Jonathan hypothesizes that these trends result from a broader attempt by business interests, long dominant in national politics, to divide workers. Business interests figure that individual workers' fighting for minimum rights that are already statutorily guaranteed under the FLSA is less dangerous than workers using the NLRA to collectively co-determine, along with their employers, the terms and conditions of their employment. This concrete comparison between the two Acts is essential in understanding the modern effectiveness of federal statutory worker protections.
Additionally, Jonathan's note discusses the future of the NLRA. Some labor activists argue for repealing the NLRA because it has become an obstacle to worker organizing. The note responds to this call for the NLRA's demise by demonstrating how, despite its systematic dismantling over the years, the NLRA is still a very powerful tool to support worker organizing.
Jonathan's note is particularly timely, given these difficult economic times and organized labor's essential role in lifting the working class and middle class into positions of financial security. Additionally, this Congress may be considering the Employee Free Choice Act, discussed in Mr. Jonathan's note, which would reverse many of the incursions into the NLRA and bring federal labor policy back to its core mission of encouraging worker organizing.
Jonathan has a unique and multidisciplinary perspective on federal labor law, having worked as a full-time organizer in the labor movement for several years. He was involved in many union campaigns and saw both positive and negative effects of labor law on organizing efforts. Since starting law school, Jonathan has closely studied both the NLRA and the FLSA, and has directly assisted workers attempting to enforce their rights under both Acts. He plans to continue this work after law school as a Skadden Fellow at Manhattan Legal Services. In writing this note, Jonathan consulted with CUNY Law Professor Shirley Lung, former National Labor Relations Board Member Dennis P. Walsh, and Penn State Law Professor Ellen J. Dannin.
Jonathan is a 2010 recipient of the prestigious 2010 Burton Award for Distinguished Legal Writing for his note.
Bradley Parker
Material Support and the First Amendment: Eliminating Terrorist Support by Punishing Those With No Intention to Support Terror?, 13 N.Y. City L. Rev. (forthcoming in 2010).
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Abuse of the Material Witness: Suspects Detained as Witnesses in Violation of the Fourth Amendment, 36 Rutgers L. Rec. (2009).
Brad Parker is a third-year student at CUNY. He participated in the International Women's Human Rights Clinic in his third year and has worked on various domestic and international human rights issues. In law school, he studied international criminal law, international human rights law, and Islamic law at the American University in Cairo. He worked on child rights issues affecting children in the Middle East, such as the denial of fair trial rights and arbitrary detention, while interning at Defence for Children International-Palestine Section in Ramallah. During his third-year he worked as a law clerk at the plaintiff-side firm of Outten & Golden, a firm representing employees in all areas of employment law. After graduation, Brad seeks to use progressive human rights lawyering to challenge systemic discrimination and to enforce violations of international labor rights. Brad is an Associate Articles Editor of the New York City Law Review.
Brad's article discusses the federal terrorism support statutes that ban and criminalize the provision of material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTO). Specifically, the article focuses on how the laws have been broadly reinterpreted and applied outside of their original scope following the September 11 attacks. He argues that the prohibition should be viewed as a violation of the First Amendment because in certain cases the terrorism support statutes are not in accord with Scales v. United States and Brandenburg v. Ohio. The broad interpretation of the material support prohibitions is a throwback to McCarthyism and unconstitutionally criminalizes the provision of advice only when offered to certain disfavored political organizations. He asserts that material support statutes should be narrowly drawn, requiring specific intent to further the illegal aims of an FTO in order to prevent misguided prosecutions against individuals that have no intention to support the illegal aims of a designated FTO.
Paula Z. Segal
A More Inclusive Democracy: Challenging Felon Jury Exclusion in New York, 13 N.Y. City L. Rev. (forthcoming in 2010).
Paula Z. Segal is a second-year student at CUNY Law School. Before starting law school, she taught English to Speakers of Other Languages in CUNY's Adult and Continuing Education Program and was a teacher trainer. At CUNY Law, she has continued to build on her teaching experience as the Coordinator of the Street Law Team - bringing Know Your Rights Workshops to public school students and community groups throughout the five boroughs. She is particularly interested in working through law, education, and organizing to equalize conditions of life in different places in the city and beyond. She works on issues of access to healthy food and green space, education and participation in the mechanisms of "democracy." Her paper on felon jury exclusion developed out of a research project she started as a Haywood Burns Intern at Community Service Society of New York in the summer following her first year of law school. She is grateful to Professor Ruthann Robson for her guidance in turning this research into a scholarly article.
Megan Stuart
Housing is Harm Reduction: The Case for the Creation of Harm Reduction Based Termination of Tenancy Procedures for the New York City Housing Authority, 13 N.Y. City L. Rev. (forthcoming in 2010).
Megan Stuart is a proud 2009 CUNY Law graduate. While at CUNY, she was able to learn about various aspects of poverty law through the Economic Justice Project, independent studies, and amazing professors. Megan likes walks down housing court hallways, sunsets over Brooklyn from the welfare hearing office, and conversations in the NYCHA hearing waiting room. Megan is currently a Staff Attorney at the Urban Justice Center, where she is able to represent tenants at NYCHA termination hearings.
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