This Week in the Law Library ... Feb. 10, 2025

This week in the law library we're teaching advanced legal research, highlighting love in the law, celebrating Black History Month, and previewing Ohio Supreme Court oral arguments.

Monday, Feb. 10, 2025

Advanced Legal Research: Transactional
Instructional & Reference Services Librarian Laura Dixon-Caldwell
Room 135
9:00am – 9:55am

Advanced Legal Research: Ohio
Associate Director Susan Boland
Room 135
10:05am – 10:55am

Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025

Advanced Legal Research: Fiction and Fact
Research Instructional Services Librarian Shannon Kemen
Room 107
10:05am – 11:00am

In honor of Valentine's Day, check out our display on The Law of Love!

Family Law in Perspective (Concepts & Insights)

Available via the West Academic Study Aid subscription, this book continues the focus of providing students, practitioners, and observers with insight into the ever-changing parameters of laws pertaining to family structure and responsibilities. Specifically, this book addresses, among other topics, nonmarital cohabitation, establishment of paternity, premarital and marital contracting, assisted reproductive technology, marriage, and divorce. Recent cases and federal and state statutes address specific topics such as surrogacy agreements, division of marital and nonmarital property upon dissolution of cohabitation or divorce, child support guidelines, and establishing custody rights through parenting agreements or what is considered in the best interest of the child. And there is a continuation of discussion illustrating equal protection, liberty interest, and free exercise in the context of same-sex relationships, the safety of partners and children, and termination of parental rights and possible adoption of minors.

Family Law: Examples & Explanations

Available via the Aspen Learning Library, this study aid identifies and explores new trends in family law practice. It includes central topics such as alternative dispute resolution, domestic violence, alternative reproduction, premarital agreements, and professional responsibility. Analysis is first provided for a topic and then examples are given to help students understand the analysis. A series of problems at the end of each section or chapter assist you in testing your understanding. Answers are provided for these problems.

Understanding Family Law

Available via the LexisNexis Digital Library, this text includes coverage of both traditional and nontraditional families, nonmarital and postmarital contracts, annulment, paternity and legitimacy, procreation rights, contraception, abortion, sterilization, artificially assisted conception, adoption and termination of parental rights. Understanding Family Law explains specific family law issues, such as intrafamily tort immunity and liability, medical care for child and spouse, wrongful life and wrongful birth, domestic violence, PINS, ethical issues for the lawyer, alternative dispute resolution, equitable distribution, community property, and child custody and visitation.

Family Law Research Guide

This guide provides a quick overview of general and law materials related to families and domestic relations. It covers browsing for materials by call number range, using encyclopedias for background research and how to locate articles, textbooks, treatises, statutory law, administrative materials, agency publications, legislative histories and websites of interest. The guide can be used by students, faculty members, lawyers, and the general public.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Family Law

Available on Westlaw, this volume explores the principle and history of international human rights law. It addresses questions regarding the sources of human rights, its historical and cultural origins and its universality. It evaluates the effectiveness of procedures and international institutions in enforcing and ensuring compliance with human rights. This volume investigates the underlying structural principles that bind together the internationally-guaranteed rights and provide criteria for the emergence of new rights. It also evaluates whether the international human rights project has made a difference in the lives and well-being of individuals and groups around the world.

The Story of Obergefell v. Hodges

The National Constitution Center presents a video featuring Carrie Johnson discussing The Story of Obergefell with Jim Obergefell and Debbie Cenziper.

The Road to Loving v. Virginia

This digital exhibit from the Virginia Memory site by the State Library of Virginia traces state anti-miscegenation laws and the challenges to these bans on interracial marriage. At the time of the US Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, sixteen states still had bans on interracial marriage. Even after Loving v. Virginia, it took decades before the laws were repealed. In 2000, Alabama became the last state to repeal its statute.

This year’s theme for Black History Month is "African Americans and Labor." According to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, “[t]he theme, 'African Americans and Labor,' intends to encourage broad reflections on intersections between Black people’s work and their workplaces in all their iterations and key moments, themes, and events in Black history and culture across time and space and throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora..”

2025 Black History Month Proclamation

Black History Month Origins

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, founder of the organization now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History External (ASALH), began Negro History Week in 1926. In 1975, President Ford issued a Message on the Observance of Black History Week. In 1976, ASALH and President Ford extended it to Black History Month and presidents presidents continued to honor Black History Month through messages. Public Law 99-244 designated February 1986 as "National Black (Afro-American) History Month.” Since 1996, presidents have issued annual proclamations for and Congress has passed resolutions honoring Black History Month.

University of Cincinnati Events  

Monday, February 10, 2025

Black FUTURE Month Uncommon Read
Viral Justice with Cassandra Jones
Join every Monday in February to read about the relationships between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, and health and justice.
12:30pm
Taft Research Center

Lift Every Voice & Sing-A-Long
Join the AACRC Choir, the Black Faculty Association, and the Department of Africana Studies in paying homage to James Weldon Johnson’s eloquent poem-turned-hymn that was recognized in 1919 by the NAACP as the “Negro National anthem,” and is today still celebrated as the "Black National Anthem."
12:01pm
TUC Atrium

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

The Black Future Month 2025 Mini-Movie Festival presents a film every Tuesday in February. This week's film is If Cities Could Dance.
If Cities Could Dance is KQED Arts and Culture’s award-winning video series featuring dancers across the country who represent their city’s signature moves.
6:30pm - 8:30pm
TUC Cinema

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Drink 'N Think S'More
Ludlow Wines will host Dr. Holly Y. McGee every Wednesday in Black History Month for a 4-part lecture series on everything you've ever wanted to know about African American History but were hesitant to ask.
Geographic Racism and Systemic Inequality in America
Urban and rural environments can produce different landscapes for racial discrimination, and this conversation considers societal responses to crises such as medical experimentation, drug epidemics, and natural disasters
6:30pm
Ludlow Wines

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Black FUTURE Month Diaspora Studies Series
Cassandra Jones on Black Speculative Feminisms: Memory & Liberated Futures in Black Women's Fictionp
1:30-3:30pm
Taft Research Center

Friday, February 14, 2025

The Joseph and Frances Jones Poetker Thinking About Music Lecture Series
An Acoustemology of the Poetics of Protest in Urban Afro-Cuban Music
Pablo Herrera-Veitia, University of Toronto
1:30-3:30pm
Taft Research Center
Co-sponsored by College-Conservatory of Music

Problems in the Paradox: Morehouse College and the High Costs of Grooming Black Male Respectability
Saida Grundy, Boston University
3pm
TUC 419

Black Future Month 2025 Concert Series
Baoku Moses, AfroBeat
7pm
AACRC

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Historical Black Church Sunday Services
Join UC's Department of Africana Studies each week at select churches in Greater Cincinnati to celebrate Black FUTURE Month!
New Life Missionary Baptist Church
6434 Simpson Ave, 45224
11am
*meet in lobby 10 mins prior to service for group Bearcat seating*

5 More Resources to Help You Celebrate Black History Month

American Archive of Public Broadcasting, Televising Black Politics in the Black Power Era: Black Journal and Soul!

A collection of episodes from Black Journal, the first nationally televised public affairs program produced for, about, and by Black Americans has been released by The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between WGBH and the Library of Congress. Largely unseen since they aired between 1968 and 1977, the 59 episodes have been digitized from archival tape in the Library’s collection and are now available to stream for free online. Topics addressed by the series include the Black Power Movement, Black nationalism, the “Black is beautiful” movement, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, the African diaspora, the Black student movement, Pan-Africanism, the media’s representation of Black people and more. Black Journal was produced first by National Educational Television (NET), the precursor to PBS, and later by WNET in New York.

Black Film Archive

Black Film Archive is dedicated to making historically and culturally significant films made from 1898 to 1999 about Black people accessible through a streaming guide with cultural context. For Black History Month they are featuring 28 films for the 28 days of Black History Month.

Black History Month Films on Demand (UC students, staff and faculty only)

Films on Demand includes searchable newsreels, educational films, and documentaries on the topics of race, racism, social inequality and justice, and more.

Black History Month on Kanopy (UC students, staff and faculty only)

University of Cincinnati Libraries subscribes to Kanopy Streaming video titles. Access more than 14,000 streaming videos: films, documentaries, and must-see movies. All currently licensed films are available for immediate viewing. 

PBS, What to Watch this Black History Month

Celebrate Black History Month this year with a closer look at the lives of various Black Americans who have made indelible marks on history with their artistry, professional achievements, and community activism.

You can view the live stream of oral arguments on the Court’s website or see them after the arguments take place in the Ohio Channel archives.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

State ex rel. Gatehouse Media Ohio Holdings II, Inc. v. Stark Cnty. Health Dep't. - whether a police officer can be considered a “victim” under the term’s definition in the Ohio Constitution and whether a police officer’s identity can be withheld from a public record if the officer became a victim while performing official duties. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

In re P.M.S. - what constitutes evidence of force in a rape case. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Boggs State ex rel. v. Cleveland - whether the definitions of “airport,” “landing field,” and “air navigation facility” include land adjacent to an airport that is in the airport’s approach plan. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Crozier v. Pipe Creek Conservancy, LLC - whether “Root of Title” is fixed as that title transaction most recent to be recorded as of a date forty years prior to the time when marketability is being determined. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Aramark Corp. v. Harris - whether a food services provider meets the definition of “agent” under the state’s commercial activity tax law when it purchases food and supplies for its client and gets reimbursed by the client.  Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Ohio Council 8, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v. Lakewood - whether parties to a collective bargaining agreement can seek enforcement of an arbitration clause in court.  Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

State v. Staffrey - whether offenders serving sentences under pre-Senate Bill 2 sentencing statutes are ineligible for judicial release under Ohio Rev. Stat. 2929.20 and whether offenders serving indefinite sentences under pre-Senate Bill 2 sentencing statutes are not “eligible offenders” under Ohio Rev. Stat. 2929.20(A)(1)(a). Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

State v. Morris - (1) whether the case of Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778 (2009), regarding the right to an attorney under the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment, applies to right-to-counsel cases under the Ohio Constitution; (2) whether the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches at the initial appearance when a complaint has been filed against a defendant, but the defendant hasn’t been indicted; and (3) whether the suspect in this case unambiguously requested an attorney during a police interrogation.  Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Thursday, February 13, 2025

State v. Coker - whether the state has to introduce witness testimony describing “sexual conduct” as including penetration for each time period in a rape charge, or whether one description of the alleged sexual conduct can be applied to all of the time periods. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Z.J. v. R.M. - whether Ohio Rev. Stat. 2903.211(A)(1) requires a victim to actually experience mental distress or only believe that the stalker will cause the victim physical harm or mental distress, for a court to issue a civil stalking protection order. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Disciplinary Couns. v. Grendell - whether the Board of Professional conduct's recommendation that Judge Grendell be suspended from the practice of law for 18 months and immediately suspended from judicial office, complete eight hours of judicial ethics education and pay the costs of the proceeding should stand. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

State v. Jones - whether an appellate court abused its discretion when it denied the prosecutor's request for leave to appeal the granting of a new trial despite the prosecution complying with rule requirements and showing evidentiary support of the claimed errors. Court News Ohio Oral Argument Preview

Posted Feb. 10, 2025 by Susan Boland

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