Washburn Law Journal
Editor's Note
Volume 42, No. 2 (Winter 2003)
In the second issue of this volume, we are pleased to present a variety of work. Leading off this issue is Professor Caroline Keenan’s article entitled A Plea Against Tort Liability for Child Protection Agencies in England and Wales from the 2000 Ahrens Tort Law Seminar. Professor Keenan, who teaches at Durham University, takes an in-depth look at the possible effects of tort liability on child protection agencies in England and Wales. She concludes that family law is more useful than tort law in dealing with supposed problems in these agencies.
Next, we have collected two essays critiquing the Kansas Supreme Court’s In re Estate of Gardiner decision. In this case, the court was asked to address the status of transsexuals and others who cannot easily be cast as men or women. Declining to recognize such categories, the court decided that sex classifications under Kansas law include only males and females and that the determination is based upon one's genitalia at birth. Professor William Kitchin from Loyola College looks at these issues from a brain sciences perspective in The Fundamental Right to Be Free of Arbitrary Categorization: The Brain Sciences and the Issue of Sex Classification. He asserts that the traditional classification based upon genitalia violates the Constitution and should be discarded for a system that includes one’s brain structure.
Professor Thomas Wm. Mayo from the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law also takes issue with the court's Gardiner decision in Sex, Marriage, Medicine, and Law: "What Hope of Harmony?" Professor Mayo contends that medical knowledge and understanding of sex classification has advanced dramatically in recent years. He opines that the court should have taken advantage of these advances instead of relying upon the traditional classifications.
Continuing the local theme, third-year Washburn University School of Law student Amanda J. Kiefer’s Note looks at the history and development of the Kansas Blue Sky Law in Kansas Blue Sky Is Not on the Market: The Deconstruction of Public Choice Theory Through the Lens of the Kansas Blue Sky Law. Ms. Kiefer asserts that the creation and continuing vitality of the nation’s first blue sky law was due in large part to the unique cultural climate of Kansas.
Completing this issue are four Comments critiquing cases from the United States Supreme Court written by second-year students at the Washburn University School of Law. Lori M. Church analyzes capital punishment for mentally retarded individuals in Mandating Dignity: The United States Supreme Court’s Extreme Departure From Precedent Regarding the Eighth Amendment and the Death Penalty. Drug testing of high school students is addressed by Sara N. Huerter in Out of Bounds: The United States Supreme Court Allows Suspicionless Drug Testing of Students Engaging in Extracurricular Activities. Sarah E. Miller looks at the Court’s recent case involving the Kansas sexually violent predator law in Out of Control: An Ambiguous Decision Raises the Question of Exactly Who Has Control. Finally, Preserving Federalism or Perverting Constitutional Principles: A Conservative Critique of the Conservative Majority by Donald H. Snook addresses state sovereign immunity.
G.C.G.
