1.
Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president
2.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
3.
Yale University
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Yale University is an American private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 in Saybrook Colony to train Congregationalist ministers, it is the third-oldest institution of education in the United States. The Collegiate School moved to New Haven in 1716, and shortly after was renamed Yale College in recognition of a gift from British East India Company governor Elihu Yale. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century the school introduced graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first Ph. D. in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools, the undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each schools faculty oversees its curriculum, the universitys assets include an endowment valued at $25.4 billion as of June 2016, the second largest of any U. S. educational institution. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States, Yale College undergraduates follow a liberal arts curriculum with departmental majors and are organized into a social system of residential colleges. Almost all faculty teach courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually. Students compete intercollegiately as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I – Ivy League, Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including five U. S. Presidents,19 U. S. Supreme Court Justices,20 living billionaires, and many heads of state. In addition, Yale has graduated hundreds of members of Congress,57 Nobel laureates,5 Fields Medalists,247 Rhodes Scholars, and 119 Marshall Scholars have been affiliated with the University. Yale traces its beginnings to An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School, passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on October 9,1701, the Act was an effort to create an institution to train ministers and lay leadership for Connecticut. Soon thereafter, a group of ten Congregationalist ministers, Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather, the group, led by James Pierpont, is now known as The Founders. Originally known as the Collegiate School, the institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, the school moved to Saybrook, and then Wethersfield. In 1716 the college moved to New Haven, Connecticut, the feud caused the Mathers to champion the success of the Collegiate School in the hope that it would maintain the Puritan religious orthodoxy in a way that Harvard had not. Cotton Mather suggested that the school change its name to Yale College, meanwhile, a Harvard graduate working in England convinced some 180 prominent intellectuals that they should donate books to Yale. The 1714 shipment of 500 books represented the best of modern English literature, science, philosophy and it had a profound effect on intellectuals at Yale. Undergraduate Jonathan Edwards discovered John Lockes works and developed his original theology known as the new divinity
4.
Stanford Law School
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Stanford Law School is a professional graduate school of Stanford University, located in the Silicon Valley near Palo Alto, California. Stanford Law has consistently been regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world, Stanford Law School employs more than 90 full-time and part-time faculty members and enrolls over 550 students who are working toward their Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. Stanford Law also confers four advanced degrees, a Master of Laws, a Master of Studies in Law, a Master of the Science of Law. Each fall, Stanford Law enrolls a J. D. class of approximately 180 students, Stanford also maintains eleven full-time legal clinics, including the nations first and most active Supreme Court litigation clinic, and offers 27 formal joint degree programs. Stanford first offered a curriculum in legal studies in 1893, when the university hired its first two law professors, former U. S. president Benjamin Harrison and Nathan Abbott, Abbott headed the new program and assembled a small faculty over the next few years. In 1900, the department moved from its location in Encina Hall to the northeast side of the Inner Quadrangle. These larger facilities included Stanford’s first law library, beginning to focus more on professional training, the school implemented its first three-year curriculum and became one of 27 charter members of the Association of American Law Schools. In 1901, the school awarded its first professional degree, the Bachelor of Laws, eight years later, Frederic Campbell Woodward became the first dean of the law school, and in 1923, the law school received accreditation from the American Bar Association. In 1924, Stanfords law program officially transitioned into a professional school when it began requiring a bachelors degree for admission. The 1940s and 1950s brought considerable change to the law school, after World War II caused the law schools enrollment to drop to fewer than 30 students, the school quickly expanded once the war ended in 1945. The decision that Stanford should remain a law school with a very limited enrollment emerged during this period. For the third time in its history, the law school relocated in the 1970s, in the 1960s and 1970s, the law school aimed to diversify its student body. Additionally, in 1966, the sought to academically diversify its student body by collaborating with the Stanford Business School to create its first joint-degree program. In 1968, Stanford appointed Thelton Henderson, future judge of the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Henderson expanded minority enrollment from a single student to approximately a fifth of the student body. Stanford Laws commitment to diversity continues today, and The Princeton Review currently ranks Stanford Law as one of the ten best law schools for minority students, earning national recognition in the 1980s and 1990s, the law school embarked on innovating its curriculum. Stanford offered new courses focusing on law and technology, environmental law, intellectual property law, in 1984, the law school launched its first clinical program, the East Palo Alto Community Law Project. By the 21st century, a new focus on interdisciplinary education emerged, in 2009, the law school transitioned from a semester system to a quarter system to align itself with Stanfords other graduate schools. Stanford Law School is known for its student-to-faculty ratio, one of the lowest in the country, the first-year class of approximately 180 students is divided into six smaller sections of 30 students each
5.
Voting rights in the United States
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The issue of voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been contested throughout United States history. Eligibility to vote in the United States is established both through the constitution and by state law. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that both houses of all state legislatures had to be based on election districts that were relatively equal in population size, under the one man, one vote principle. In 1972, the Court ruled that state legislatures had to every ten years based on census results, at that point, many had not redistricted for decades. In the early 20th century, numerous cities established small commission forms of government in the belief that government could result from the suppression of ward politics. Commissioners were elected by the majority of voters, excluding candidates who could not afford large campaigns or who appealed to a minority, the United States Constitution did not originally define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to determine who was eligible. In the early history of the U. S. most states allowed only white male property owners to vote. Freed slaves could vote in four states, men without property and women were largely prohibited from voting. Women could vote in New Jersey until 1807 and in local jurisdictions in other northern states. Non-white Americans could also vote in these jurisdictions, provided they could meet the property requirement, by 1856, white men were allowed to vote in all states regardless of property ownership, although requirements for paying tax remained in five states. On the other hand states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey stripped the free black males of the right to vote in the same period. Four of the fifteen post-Civil War constitutional amendments were ratified to extend voting rights to different groups of citizens, because of such state and local discriminatory practices, over time, the federal role in elections has increased, through amendments to the Constitution and enacted legislation. The right to vote is not explicitly stated in the U. S, Constitution except in the above referenced amendments, and only in reference to the fact that the franchise cannot be denied or abridged based solely on the aforementioned qualifications. In other words, the right to vote is perhaps better understood, in laymans terms, States may deny the right to vote for other reasons. For example, many states require eligible citizens to register to vote a set number of prior to the election in order to vote. More controversial restrictions include those laws that prohibit convicted felons from voting, another example, seen in Bush v. Gore, are disputes as to what rules should apply in counting or recounting ballots. A state may choose to fill an office by means other than an election, for example, upon death or resignation of a legislator, the state may allow the affiliated political party to choose a replacement to hold office until the next scheduled election. Such an appointment is often affirmed by the governor, the Constitution, in Article VI, clause 3, states that no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States
6.
United States Department of Justice Civil Division
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The United States Department of Justice Civil Division represents the United States, its departments and agencies, members of Congress, cabinet officers, and other federal employees. Each year, Division attorneys handle thousands of cases that collectively involve billions of dollars in claims, the Division confronts significant policy issues, which often rise to constitutional dimensions, in defending and enforcing various Federal programs and actions. The Civil Division is currently led by Principal Deputy Assistant General Benjamin C, mizer, filling the vacancy created by Assistant Attorney General Stuart F. Delery
7.
Yale Law School
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Yale Law School is the law school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. The schools small size and prestige make its admissions process the most selective of any law school in the United States, Yale has the lowest acceptance rate among all law schools. Roughly 8 in 10 admits ultimately matriculate, which marks the best yield rate among the top U. S. law schools, established in 1824, Yale Law offers the J. D. LL. M. M. S. L. and Ph. D. degrees in law, Yale Law has been ranked the number one law school in the country by U. S. News and World Report every year since the magazine began publishing law school rankings, through 2017. Yale Law School is widely considered to be the preeminent law school in the nation and is one of the most prestigious law schools in the world, Yale Law has produced a significant number of luminaries in law and politics, including United States presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton. Former president William Howard Taft was a professor of law at Yale Law School from 1913 until he resigned to become chief justice of the United States in 1921. Each class in Yale Laws three-year J. D. program enrolls approximately 200 students, Yales flagship law review is the Yale Law Journal. Another feature of Yale Laws culture since the 1930s, among both faculty and student graduates, has been an emphasis on the importance of spending at least a few years in government service, a similar emphasis has long been placed on service as a judicial law clerk upon graduation. Its 7.6,1 student-to-faculty ratio is the third lowest among U. S. law schools, Yale Law does not have a traditional grading system, a consequence of student unrest in the late 1960s. Instead, it grades first-semester first-year students on a simple Credit/No Credit system, for their remaining two-and-a-half years, students are graded on an Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail system. Similarly, the school does not rank its students and it is also notable for having only a single semester of required classes, instead of the full year most U. S. schools require. Students publish nine law journals that, unlike those at most other schools, although the Journal identifies a target maximum number of members to accept each year, it is not a firm number. Other leading student-edited publications include the Yale Law and Policy Review, the Yale Journal on Regulation, the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, and the Yale Journal of International Law. In November 2013, it was announced that a $25 million donation would bring student dormitory living back onto campus, with renovations to begin in 2018. Yale Law has been ranked the number one law school in the country by U. S. News and it is currently ranked as the second best law school in U. S and fourth in the world by the 2016 QS Rankings. Additionally, a 2010 survey of scholarly impact, measured by per capita citations to faculty scholarship, the School began in the New Haven law office of Seth P. Staples in the 1800s, who began training lawyers, by 1810 he was operating a law school. He took on a student, Samuel J. Hitchcock as a law partner
8.
Law clerk
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Judicial clerks often play significant roles in the formation of case law through their influence upon judges decisions. Judicial clerks should not be confused with legal clerks, court clerks, or courtroom deputies who only provide secretarial, Judicial clerks are generally recent law school graduates who performed at or near the top of their class. In some countries, judicial clerks are known as Judicial Associates or Judicial Assistants, in many nations, clerk duties are performed by permanent staff attorneys or junior apprentice-like judges, such as those that sit on Frances Conseil dÉtat. In English courts, they are known as Judicial Assistants, the European Court of Justice uses permanent staff attorneys and the Stagiaires. Australia, Canada, Sweden, and Brazil have notable clerk systems, most Canadian courts accept applications for judicial clerkships from graduating law students or experienced lawyers who have already been called to the Bar in Canada or abroad. Most provincial superior and appellate courts hire at least one clerk for each judge, typically students in their last two years of law school are eligible to apply for these positions, but increasingly, experienced practicing lawyers are also considered for these positions. The term typically lasts a year and generally fulfills the requirement for provincial law societies. The most prestigious clerkship available is with the countrys highest court, each Justice of the Supreme Court hires three clerks for a one-year period. The Federal Court of Appeal, which is based in Ottawa but hears cases across the country, selects 12 law clerks each year, the Federal Court also hires only one clerk per judge, or about 30 per year in total. The Court of Appeal for Ontario selects 17 law clerks, who serve one or two of the 24 Justices. The Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan hires 3 clerks, each of whom are assigned to 2 to 3 judges, successful candidates for all clerkships are usually selected based on a distinguished academic record, academic recommendations, strong research and writing skills and interviews with judges. For both the Supreme Court of Canada and the Quebec Court of Appeal, being able to work in both English and French is strongly preferred, the Tax Court of Canada hires 12 clerks annually. Many law clerks have gone on to become leaders of the profession, mr. Justice Jean Cote of the Alberta Court of Appeal was one of the very first Supreme Court law clerks, serving as a clerk in the programs inaugural year. In England and Wales, law clerks are called Judicial Assistants and it is possible to be a Judicial Assistant at the Court of Appeal and at the UK Supreme Court. Only Supreme Court Judicial Assistants are appointed for a full-time, one fixed term appointment. Since 2006 they have taken part in a long exchange in Washington DC at the U. S. Supreme Court due to a friendship between Justice Antonin Scalia and Lord Rodger of Earlsferry. Sally Kenneys article on clerks, or Référendaires, on the European Court of Justice provides one detailed point of comparison, there are some major differences between ECJ clerks and their American counterparts, largely because of the way the ECJ is structured. One key difference is that ECJ clerks, while hired by individual judges and this gives ECJ clerks considerable expertise and power
