Whether anchor item sets varying in difficulty and discrimination affect precision of cutting score equivalents generated through judge rescaling as much as equivalents from score equating was studied with 4 groups of experts and 250 and 1,000 examinees. Results indicate the robustness of judge rescaling and its superiority over equating. (SLD)

The comparability of Angoff-based item ratings on a general education test battery made by judges from within-content and across-content domains was studied. Results with 26 college faculty judges indicate that, at least for some tests, item ratings might be essentially equivalent regardless of judge's content specialty. (SLD)

A federal appeals court ruled that judges may not dismiss handicapped-discrimination lawsuits against universities solely on the basis of official university statements that allegedly discriminatory practices are appropriate for the academic programs involved. The decision keeps alive a case in which a dyslexic student could not take a…

Presents three differing perspectives from American Bar Association members on whether television cameras should be allowed in the courtroom. Contends that cameras should be allowed with differing degrees of certainty: cameras truly open the courts to the public; cameras must be strategically placed; and cameras should be used only with the…

Presents challenges to knowledge management revealed in a 1998 study of county judges and clerks in rural Texas courts. Proposes a model for integration of knowledge management work practices in local courts into large-scale state information systems. This model emphasizes the need for a holistic, well-integrated view of local practitioners' work…

Law often appears to be in a limbo between the Social Sciences and the Humanities. Movements within legal scholarship itself, the law and economics movement and the law and literature movement, represent efforts to portray law as a social science or as a humanity. But if one looks at what lawyers do, one finds that law is more like…

This student book presents short biographies of notable women from diverse economic, ethnic, racial, social, and geographic backgrounds. Women highlighted include: (1) Helen Keller; (2) Eleanor Roosevelt; (3) Georgia O'Keeffe; (4) Julia Morgan; (5) Wilma P. Mankiller; (6) Rachel Carson; (7) Dorothea Lange; (8) Rosalyn Sussman Yalow; (9) Ella…

To discover possible correlates of decisions in desegregation cases, the social background of the judges, variables from their environments, community linkages, and school district variables are examined in Southern school-desegregation cases. Order from Manning J. Dauer, Managing Editor, Journal of Politics, Department of Political Science,…

A study analyzed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell's court opinions on First Amendment issues that affect the daily work of journalists. The results showed that he preferred compromises, guidelines, and tests to either/or solutions. Because Powell sought to balance all interests, he developed no firm theoretical position on the First…

To determine if there is a distinction between the forensics community's idea of quality and that of the general population, tournament rankings of forensics judges and those of a lay audience were compared. Undergraduate students enrolled in a variety of speech related courses were asked to attend rounds of competition at a midwest collegiate…

To consider one aspect of workplace freedom of speech--the question of authority versus freedom, this paper examines the first amendment protections of government workers. The paper looks at freedom of speech rights by using two theoretical frameworks (the natural rights view and the law and economics view) to analyze Supreme Court decisions on…

There are three systems of ethics applicable to forensics programs. The classical conception borrows from Quintilian's reference to a "good man speaking well." A second approach starts from the context of a democratic society and builds on the principles that should govern a speaker in that setting, among which are the obligation to…

A study examined the effect the presence of television cameras had on media coverage of trials. In the separate trials of two men indicted for murder in Indianapolis, much of the same evidence and many of the same witnesses were used. However, television cameras had access to one trial but not the other. Data for the study were collected by…

The standards used to evaluate after-dinner speech in forensic contests are explored in this paper. The central thesis of this theoretical article suggests that the standards generated by the Second National Conference on Forensics for the evaluation of public address are applicable to the contest event of after-dinner speaking. The paper argues…

In a 1974 Yale Law School address, United States Supreme Court Justice Stewart stated that the institutional press, as far as the Constitution is concerned, is autonomous and may publish what it knows and may seek to learn what it can. He also noted that the Court had rejected the Constitutional claim of a journalist's privilege not to reveal a…