User:DomOats52/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Digital Literacy

 * The history of Digital Literacy is interesting; it began in response to mostly wartime propaganda. However, I would suggest that there could be more information added to this early history, including whether or not there is any "digital literacy" that came from earlier periods.
 * The article itself seems to be organized succinctly and logically.
 * In terms of bias, there is not one readily apparent . Nevertheless, I would suggest that the article could include a separate section discussing any controversies/misconceptions regarding Digital Literacy. There are certainly sections that make reference to controversies, such as the "Digital Divide"; but I do wonder whether or not this is enough.
 * The very first footnote link, "Entering the Digital Literacy Era" does not work, as it links to an error page. I did not test all the links, but I did not find any others that had this same error.
 * Many sources seem to originate from published studies, converted into PDFs. Most everything, however, appears to be correlated with a source of some kind, which is good.
 * Something that could be potentially added: Images. If it is true that digital literacy originated as a response to propaganda, then there should be some images of said propaganda; or, there could be just more generic images. As it is, the article is rather lackluster and unappealing to look at.
 * The article is a part of several WikiProjects, including WikiProject Education, Wiki Project Linguistics, and WikiProject Computing. In all of these categories, it has received a Class-C rating.
 * Did not connect the relevance of the article to the Digital Divide section.

Background
After the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in both Brown v. Board of Education and Brown II that racially segregated schools in the United States were unconstitutional, many states began the arduous process of desegregating their public school systems. Prior to this case many of these initial efforts to desegregate were done primarily in the southern states, as segregation by law was far more common than in the northern states.

However, in one northern school district located in Denver, Colorado, there had been evidence of de facto school segregation almost 15 years after the Brown ruling. The Park Hill school district was accused of maintaining this de facto segregation by means of attendance zones, optional zones, and mobile classroom units. But in April of 1969, a plan was put forth by the superintendent of the school board to begin desegregating public schools in the Denver Area by means of integrated busing.

However, two months later after these plans were introduced, a new superintendent was voted in to power over the incumbent. The new superintendent cancelled the previous integration plan all together.

Less than two weeks later, a group of parents brought suit against the Park Hill School District, alleging that the entirety of the Denver school system was guilty of racial segregation and was therefore in violation of their 14th Amendment right to Equal Protection of the laws. The defending party rejected this claim, asserting that even if it was true that the Park Hill School District was guilty of racial segregation that did not mean that all other school districts in the Denver area were likewise guilty.

Holding
Writing for the majority, Justice William Brennan ruled against the Denver School District authority and held that "where, as in this case, a policy of intentional segregation has been proved with respect to a significant portion of the school system, the burden is on the school authorities (regardless of claims that their 'neighborhood school policy' was racially neutral) to prove that their actions as to other segregated schools in the system were not likewise motivated by a segregative intent." Thus, the evidence of segregation in the Park Hill District was determined to be of such significance that it implicated the entire Denver school system as a result.

In relation to the fact that much of the segregation at question was a result of a de facto nature for ten years, the Majority also held that, "if the actions of school authorities were to any degree motivated by segregative intent and the segregation resulting from those actions continues to exist, the fact of remoteness in time certainly does not make those actions any less 'intentional'."

Holding (condensed version for right box)

 * The holding established a prima facie case of unlawful segregative design on the part of school authorities, and shifted to those authorities the burden of proving that other segregated schools within the system were not also the result of intentionally segregative actions.

Feminist interventions in the philosophy of law
Feminist interventions in the philosophy of law concerns the examination and reformulation of traditional legal systems in order to better reflect the political, social, and economic concerns of women, which also includes various other minority and ethnic groups. Though it draws heavily from feminist legal theory, feminist interventions in the philosophy of law differs from the more common feminist jurisprudence as it seeks to explain the justification that a government has in interfering with the lives of its citizenry. Accordingly, then, feminist interventions in legal philosophy specifically addresses the relationship and rationale between a judicial system’s exercise of power and its effects on female citizens. While particular views vary greatly, most feminist interventions in the philosophy of law operate under a belief that many contemporary legal systems are predicated on patriarchal notions of masculinity that results in a system of deeply-rooted bias and inequality.

Rule of Law
The rule of law is generally defined as the fundamental principle that both government and its citizens all operate under a system of general and fair rules. In relation to feminism, feminist philosophers of law typically perceive the current iteration of the rule of law as an institution that perpetuates primarily patriarchal norms, or in terms of power relationships that have been primarily been dominated by males. As such, they perceive the current normativity of law as perpetuating male values as the status quo. Though feminists maintain several different positions in terms of how to address these issues, it is almost universally agreed that these patriarchal structures cannot be properly challenged until their underlying biases are fully exposed.

Role of intervention by ideology
As in traditional feminist jurisprudence, feminists hold several competing philosophical positions in regards to ways the law should work to better accommodate women.

Cultural Feminism:
Cultural feminists contend that the solution to attaining legal equality must come from procedural reform that embraces the differences between men and women. The challenge here derives from acknowledging various differences between men and women without further reinforcing gendered-stereotypes or promoting sexist practices. As such, the government must intervene insofar as it promotes laws that embrace only the immutable differences between the sexes--such as pregnancy--with the ultimate goal being equal recognition to women's moral voice of caring and communal values.Specifically, where women emphasize the importance of relationships, contexts, and reconciliation of conflicting interpersonal positions, men emphasize abstract principles of rights and logic. Thus, cultural feminists see their intervention into law as a means to achieve balance and reconciliation between the two.

Liberal Feminism:
Liberal feminists believe women and men possess the same rational capabilities. Therefore, women should have equal opportunity as men to the extent that some liberal feminists believe there should be no legal distinctions between men or women. Accordingly, the law’s role, according to the liberal feminist, should strive for the utmost parity between men and women. This is because liberal feminists believe that women have long been denied the same bodily autonomy that has been enjoyed by their male counterparts. Such issues manifest themselves in the form of the debate on whether or not the law ought to legally recognize industries like prostitution as a legitimate entity.

Another noteworthy area in law where parity is specifically desired is in the “standards of reasonableness” that are used in criminal, contract, and tort law, which liberal feminists argue are predicated on masculine assumptions of what is “reasonable.” Thus, liberal feminists seek to articulate how this masculine norm accordingly affects those aspects of law in regards to judging women or other feminine groups as “reasonable” in trial.

Furthermore, liberal feminists also place a particular value on intersectionality theories. The primary reason for this growing movement is that keeping categories such as race and sex separate often made such persons "invisible" by making it more difficult to exact equality for persons who were oppressed for their gender, race, or class.

Dominant Feminism:
Dominant, or radical, feminists maintain that there are differences between men and women, but these differences do not derive from innate differences between men and women; rather, such differences come as a result of women being subjugated by men in larger society. As such, it is not merely enough to embrace the differences between men and women: sexual equality under the rule of law must be established upon a female paradigm that cannot simply be an addition to the current paradigm of masculinity. In terms of philosophical interventions, dominant feminists contend that a systemic reevaluation must take place within any legal system that operates to subjugate women. Moreover, the law must be constructed in such a way that it does not work to a disparate effect of either sex.

Yet, some radical feminists even contend that it is fundamentally flawed to have a paradigm based upon only women, because this mistakenly implies women as all having the same interests, identities, needs, and values, because doing so tends to privilege the preferences and viewpoints of privileged white women. Instead, feminist analysis should focus on the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation and their treatment by law. Still others seek policies or modes of analysis that use both men and women, of all kinds of background, as the starting point of analysis, and design rules for workplaces, families, politics, and society that are fully inclusive of these backgrounds.

Notable Feminist Legal Interventionists

 * Catherine Mackinnon is a prominent American legal activist who graduated from Yale Law School. Her work focuses on sexual equality, women's rights, and various feminist interventions into the law in areas like pornography, prostitution, and politics. She is currently a professor of law at the University of Michigan.
 * Martha Fineman is the founder of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project. She is a prominent legal scholar who received her law degree from University of Chicago. Much of her work and scholarship has been especially focused in the area of family law.
 * Kim Lane Scheppele is a professor of Comparative Law and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. While her expertise is primarily Hungarian politics, Scheppele wrote an essay in 2004 arguing that current tort and criminal law standards of a “reasonable person” are predicated on being a “reasonable man."