Archive for 'Miami Herald'

El 26 de marzo, Profesor Gabilondo salió en el programa Dinero de CNN en Español para analizar Hollingsworth v. Perry y United States v. Windsor, dos casos en Tribunal Supremo que impugnan las restricciones federales y estatales sobre el matrimonio civil por parte de personas del mismo sexo.

“Nuestra Constitución reconoce dos distintas fuentes de derecho – una democrática y la otra judicial.  La mayoría de las leyes se promulgan a través de la primera por los procesos mayoritarios, i.e., las legislaturas estatales y el Congreso.  Pero cuando el demos se convierte en una turba, la única forma de proteger a las minorías de los abusos mayoritarios es a través de una intervención judicial en la cual una corte – típicamente federal – acredita los derechos del individuo.  Eso es lo que está en juego en los casos Perry y Winsor.”

La entrevista se puede ver aquí: FIU on CNN en Español (Part 1) y FIU on CNN en Español (Part 2)

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In the following op-ed that appeared in the March 3, 2013, edition of the Miami Herald, FIU Law Professor Peggy Maisel makes the case that Medicaid expansion is the right thing to do in Florida.

Florida should agree to Medicaid expansion

by Cheryl L. Holder and Peggy Maisel

Fifty-year-old Miami-Dade County resident Mr. G worked every day. “I have always provided for my family,” he says proudly. Unfortunately, his job provided no health insurance and he and his wife could not afford to pay for the family plan at her job.

When he started losing weight and feeling weak, he went to a Broward County hospital ER where, with a white blood cell count near 1,000,000 and golf ball sized lymph nodes, he received the diagnosis of Stage IV Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. The hospital stabilized his condition and discharged him to continue care in Miami–Dade County.

With no health insurance, he then waited one month for an appointment in the Jackson Clinic and even longer to see an oncologist, both of which worsened his prognosis from 72 months (stage 1) to 19 months (stage IV)

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In a recent Miami Herald article, Florida International University College of Law Professor George Knox is quoted on how contemplative activities that allow people to focus upon the moment and release internal stress, reduce anger and allow for civil behavior.

George Knox is the Director for Professionalism and Ethics at FIU Law, and will lead a conference on mindfulness titled “Professionalism Matters” on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013.

Mindfulness making its way into the mainstream

By Marcella McCarthy

Scott Rogers’ office isn’t that of a typical law professor. A bookshelf is piled high with books on meditation rather than legal tomes. A round table is surrounded by bamboo chairs, where Rogers invites students to sit for 10 minutes to quiet the mind.

Rogers practices mindfulness, which involves paying attention in a particular way, on purpose and in the present, often through breathing techniques. The practice, which has roots in Buddhism and spiritual growth, is increasingly being studied by scientists and the medical profession as a way to reduce stress and enhance one’s health…

Read more at MiamiHerald.com »

The following op-ed by first-year FIU Law student Frandley Julien, The high cost of staying out of politics in Haiti, originally appeared in The Miami Herald on November 2, 2012. Frandley Julien was coordinator of the Initiative Citoyenne, a civic group in Cap-Haitien, Haiti in 2001-04.

Haiti has never been a better illustration than now of Edmund Burke’s quote that “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” Traditionally, a huge portion of the country’s population has always prided itself in belonging to the “silent majority,” leaving the political scene to vagabonds and the bravest of serious souls. An understandable — albeit, not excusable — reason is the fact that Haiti’s successive dictatorial regimes, particularly the Duvaliers, have raised the killing of political opponents to the level of a national sport. Being in the silent majority was a manifestation of our survival instinct at its best.

However, well-educated citizens of good will should have known that their choice to generally refrain from participating in the political process would lead the country exactly where it is now, with successive incompetent governments and the exponential deterioration of the population’s living conditions. Moreover, the premise that abstention from politics would guarantee longevity could not be farther from the truth today. Quiet, law-abiding citizens are killed, kidnapped, raped on a daily basis in today’s Port-au-Prince; everybody is at the mercy of the all-powerful gangs.

During the past couple of months, there have been more and more protests against President Martelly’s stewardship of the country. Instead of listening to the population’s grievances expressed through numerous street demonstrations, the president, upon returning from the United Nations, countered with a march of his own, leading a crowd of his partisans and state employees through the nine miles separating the international airport from the National Palace.

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In the following opinion piece published in the June 30th edition of the Miami Herald, FIU Law Professor Elizabeth Price Foley assesses the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The decision, says Foley, undermined the healthcare law even as it upheld it.

Elizabeth Price Foley serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for Justice Florida Chapter. She is also the Institute for Justice Chair in Constitutional Litigation and Professor of Law at Florida International University College of Law.

Healthcare act survives, but it’s a tattered quilt

BY ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY

The Supreme Court delivered a surprising and mixed opinion on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The most controversial provision of the Act — the so-called “individual mandate” to buy health insurance — was deemed unconstitutional as a regulation of commerce yet constitutional as a tax. The Act’s mandatory Medicaid expansion — extending coverage to an estimated 16 million poor individuals who can’t afford private insurance — was declared unconstitutional, allowing states to “opt out” of the expansion.

Upholding the individual mandate as a tax was the big shocker. No other lower court had ruled the mandate was sustainable as a tax, and supporters of the law — from President Obama to former House speaker Nancy Pelosi to Senate majority leader Harry Reid — had repeatedly and vigorously insisted that the ACA did not raise taxes.

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WLRN/Miami Herald news reporter and producer Kenny Malone will host FIU Law Professor Manuel A. Gomez. Professor Gomez will discuss the lawsuit filed in Miami federal court against Aroldis Chapman, a left-handed pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds. Aroldis Champan, who defected from Cuba, has been sued for $18 million by a Cuban-American man who blames the player for his imprisonment on the communist island. The lawsuit claims that Chapman falsely accused Danilo Curbelo Garcia of involvement in human trafficking, leading to his 2008 arrest and conviction in Cuba.

Professor Gómez teaches international and comparative law as well as complex and transnational litigation-related courses at the College of Law.

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In the Miami Herald, FIU Law Professor Ediberto Román is quoted on whether retroactivity is applicable for defendants who say their lawyers did not warn them of the deportation risk of taking a plea deal.

Professor Román is a nationally-acclaimed scholar and an award-winning educator with broad teaching interests and an extensive scholarship portfolio. His principal research interest involves analyzing the construction and interpretation of constitutional law and immigration policy.  His work may be best described as traditional in its structure and use of authority, but critical in its perspective. Román’s research necessarily deals with the intersection of, on the one hand, citizenship law, immigration law, public international law, and constitutional law and, on the other hand, theoretical perspectives based on classic philosophy, neo-liberal theory, critical race theory, post-colonial studies, Diaspora literature, and social theory generally.

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Cammy Clark, of the Miami Herald, profiles FIU Law School Professor Elizabeth Price Foley’s third book, The Tea Party: Three Principles.

FIU law professor publishes third book on the constitution

Despite graduating with a history degree from Emory University, Elizabeth Price Foley knew little about the U.S. Constitution when she worked on healthcare legislation for two Democratic congressmen.

It was not until the early 1990s — when she left Capitol Hill to attend law school in Tennessee — that she discovered just how little she knew or had cared about the country’s founding legal document.

“I realized all the work I was doing on the Hill was kind of ludicrous,” she said. “I was operating under a knowledge vacuum, with no cognizance of whether the bills I were writing and promoting were constitutional. … The attitude was do what we want to do and let the courts stop us.”

Today, Foley, 46, of Key Largo, calls herself a “constitutional geek.” She can speak passionately for hours about the 224-year-old evolving document.

“She is one of constitutional law’s rising stars,” said Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law.

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