Praise for In Chambers:
“This new collection of essays, including some by former clerks, takes readers inside justices’ chambers for a look at clerkship life. . . . The best parts of the book are the ...behind-the-scenes descriptions of life at the court.”— Associated Press
“An excellent book . . . It’s interesting for many different reasons, not the least of which as a reminder of how much of a bastion of elitism the Court has always been.”— Atlantic Monthly
In his earlier books, In Chambers and Of Courtiers and Kings, Todd C. Peppers provided an insider’s view of the Supreme Court from the perspective of the clerks who worked closely with some of its most important justices. With Of Courtiers and Princes, he concludes the trilogy by examining the understudied yet equally fascinating role of lower court clerks—encompassing pioneering women and minorities.
Drawing on contributions from former law clerks and judicial scholars—including an essay by Ruth Bader Ginsburg—the book provides an inside look at the professional and personal bonds that form between lower court judges and their clerks. While the individual essays often focus on a single judge and his or her corps of law clerks, including their selection process, contributions, and even influence, the book as a whole provides a macro-level view of the law clerk’s role in the rapidly changing world of lower federal and state courts, thereby offering an unusual yet crucial perspective on the inner workings of our judicial system.
"I got my first job working in a toy store when I was 41 years old." So begins sociologist Christine Williams's description of her stint as a low-wage worker at two national toy store chains: one ...upscale shop and one big box outlet. In this provocative, perceptive, and lively book, studded with rich observations from the shop floor, Williams chronicles her experiences as a cashier, salesperson, and stocker and provides broad-ranging, often startling, insights into the social impact of shopping for toys. Taking a new look at what selling and buying for kids are all about, she illuminates the politics of how we shop, exposes the realities of low-wage retail work, and discovers how class, race, and gender manifest and reproduce themselves in our shopping-mall culture. Despite their differences, Williams finds that both toy stores perpetuate social inequality in a variety of ways. She observes that workers are often assigned to different tasks and functions on the basis of gender and race; that racial dynamics between black staff and white customers can play out in complex and intense ways; that unions can't protect workers from harassment from supervisors or demeaning customers even in the upscale toy store. And she discovers how lessons that adults teach to children about shopping can legitimize economic and social hierarchies. In the end, however,Inside Toylandis not an anticonsumer diatribe. Williams discusses specific changes in labor law and in the organization of the retail industry that can better promote social justice.
On the Make Luskey, Brian
01/2010, Letnik:
1
eBook
In the bustling cities of the mid-nineteenth-century Northeast, young male clerks working in commercial offices and stores were on the make, persistently seeking wealth, respect, and ...self-gratification. Yet these strivers and "counter jumpers" discovered that claiming the identities of independent men - while making sense of a volatile capitalist economy and fluid urban society - was fraught with uncertainty. In On the Make, Brian P. Luskey illuminates at once the power of the ideology of self-making and the important contests over the meanings of respectability, manhood, and citizenship that helped to determine who clerks were and who they would become. Drawing from a rich array of archival materials, including clerks' diaries, newspapers, credit reports, census data, advice literature, and fiction, Luskey argues that a better understanding of clerks and clerking helps make sense of the culture of capitalism and the society it shaped in this pivotal era.
A coming-of-age memoir evoking farm, mining, and small-town life in Alabama’s Tuscaloosa County as the world transitions from the Great Depression to World War II
In the 1930s, the rural South ...was in the throes of the Great Depression. Farm life was monotonous and hard, but a timid yet curious teenager thought it worth recording. Aileen Kilgore Henderson kept a chronicle of her family’s daily struggles in Tuscaloosa County alongside events in the wider world she gleaned from shortwave radio and the occasional newspaper. She wrote about Howard Hughes’s round-the-world flight and her horror at the rise to power in Germany of a bizarre politician named Adolf Hitler. Henderson longed to join the vast world beyond the farm, but feared leaving the refuge of her family and beloved animals.
Yet, with her father’s encouragement, she did leave, becoming a clerk in the Kress dime store in downtown Tuscaloosa. Despite long workdays and a lengthy bus commute, she continued to record her observations and experiences in her diary, for every day at the dime store was interesting and exciting for an observant young woman who found herself considering new ideas and different points of view.
Drawing on her diary entries from the 1930s and early 1940s, Henderson recollects a time of sweeping change for Tuscaloosa and the South. The World through the Dime Store Door is a personal and engaging account of a Southern town and its environs in transition told through the eyes of a poor young woman with only a high school education but gifted with a lively mind and an openness to life.
High levels of phthalates in name-brand cosmetics products have raised concerns about phthalate exposure and the associated risk for cosmetics sales clerks. We assessed the exposure and risk of ...phthalates in 23 cosmetics, 4 perfume, and 9 clothing department store sales clerks. We collected 108 urine samples pre- and post-shift and analyzed for phthalate monoesters through liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization–tandem mass spectrometry. Phthalates in 32 air samples were collected and analyzed through gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Demographic characteristics and information on the exposure scenarios were obtained through questionnaires. Principal component analysis, cluster and risk analysis were applied to identify the exposure profile and risk of phthalate.
Median post-shift levels of urinary mono-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (MEHP) and monomethyl phthalate (MMP) were significantly higher than the corresponding pre-shift levels in cosmetics group (53.3 vs. 30.9 μg/g-c for MEHP; 34.4 vs. 22.5 μg/g-c for MMP; both P < 0.05) and the post-shift levels of urinary MMP was significantly higher than the corresponding pre-shift levels in perfume group (26.6 vs. 14.9 μg/g-c, P < 0.05). Median levels of air diethyl phthalate (DEP) in cosmetics (1.77 μg/m3) and perfume (1.75 μg/m3) groups and di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) in perfume group (6.98 μg/m3) were higher than those in clothing group (DEP: 0.89; DEHP: 2.16 μg/m3). Over half of cosmetic (70%) and perfume sale clerks had exceeded cumulative risk of phthalate exposure for anti-androgenic effect. We concluded that cosmetic and perfume workers had increased risks of reproductive or hepatic effects for DBP and DEHP exposure. We suggest that not only inhalation but dermal exposure is important route of phthalate exposure for cosmetics and perfume workers.
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•Cosmetics and perfume sales clerks had higher levels of urinary MEP, MBP and MEHP.•Higher levels of air DEP and DEHP were measured in cosmetics and perfume sales regions.•Increased and exceeded risk of phthalate exposure in cosmetic workers should be concerned especially for DBP, DEP, and DEHP.•Inhalation and cosmetics use on skin could be critical routes of phthalate exposure in cosmetics and perfume sales clerks.
Increased Risk for Phthalate Exposure in Cosmetic and Perfume Sales Clarks.
It is my great good fortune to have been asked to comment on the remarkable Article 'Law Clerk Selection and Diversity: Insights from Fifty Sitting Judges of the Federal Courts of Appeals' by Judge ...Jeremy D. Fogel, Professor Mary S. Hoopes, and Justice Goodwin Liu. Drawing on a rich vein of data gathered pursuant to a carefully crafted research design and extensive interviews, the authors provide the most detailed account to date regarding the selection criteria used by federal appeals court judges to select their law clerks. The authors pay special attention to the role that diversity plays in picking law clerks, an important element that heretofore has not been fully explored. Before sharing my thoughts about the Article, I want to offer a short history lesson on the lack of diversity among law clerks in the federal and state courts. The employment barriers facing women, ethnic minorities, and Jewish law clerks throughout the twentieth century help place in context the current interest judges have in hiring candidates from diverse backgrounds; I believe that this interest includes an appreciation of the value of diversity, a sincere desire to rectify discriminatory hiring practices from earlier generations of judges, and a concern that not expanding clerkship selection criteria will draw public scrutiny. I will then turn my attention to Fogel, Hoopes, and Liu's findings and offer some thoughts about future research questions.
Research Exercise: Constitutionality under the Due Process Clause of large punitive damages award. Research Exercise: Constitutionality under the Due Process Clause of police refusing to enforce a ...domestic violence restraining order. Research Exercise: Constitutionality under the Due Process Clause of the Immigration and Naturalization Service detaining a lawful permanent resident without bail while removal proceedings are pending.
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