Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Social work has deep roots in and a commitment to social justice and eliminating and addressing the oppression of people of diverse backgrounds. This commitment is based on the National Association of Social Work 2021 Code of Ethics. In order for social workers to learn how to ethically challenge social injustice with cultural humility, they need to develop a high level of self-awareness, or critical consciousness (Freire, 2003) and commitment to marginalized groups. This makes the role of a social work educator a critical one. Social work educators have their own biases and experiences of oppression and privilege. In order to support and prepare social work students with the skills of self-awareness and cultural humility, the educator must analyze their pedagogy, such as the inclusion of Black, Indigenous, and People of color (BIPOC) authors, the use of open dialogue, and engagement in creating and supporting brave spaces, while accurately describing social work history. Specifically, social work educators need to be aware of their social positioning in which oppression and/or privilege shape their realities, since this impacts their sense of self and teaching practices. This proposal seeks to apply qualitative research methods to investigate whether social work educators' social positioning and the associated privilege or oppressive experiences are important to understand their pedagogical and instructional practices/strategies relative to antiracism.

White supremacy fundamentally organizes society in its own image. It places itself at the top of a social hierarchical order where everything defaults to its own likeness and desires. In this dissertation, I deconstruct the nature of White supremacy and highlight the conventions of Black horror that interrogate it as evil and monstrous. In the chapters that follow, I do this through a close reading of the television series Lovecraft Country (Misha Green, USA, 2020) and underline how Black horror brings to the surface the everyday experiences of Black subjects in a racist society. While several commentators had claimed that with the presidency of Barack Obama we had moved into a post-racial society, cultural texts like Lovecraft Country show that such claims are disconnected from reality.#White Supremacy #White Monstrosity #Whiteness as evil #Black horror.

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The purpose of this study was to deconstruct how and to what extent white faculty members resisted upholding white supremacy culture (WSC; Okun, 1999) during a critical event (Mertova and Webster, 2019) in their service learning and community-engaged (SLCE) practice. There are many critiques of SLCE practices, especially due to the perpetuation of colonization (Hernandez, 2017), assumptions based in racism and classism (Green, 2003), Whiteness (Applebaum, 2016; Leonardo, 2002) and characteristics of white supremacy culture (Okun, 1999). These topics have received more attention over the past decade, but there is still significantly less research on actions taken by SLCE faculty to actively resist perpetuating them (Mitchell et al., 2012). Guided by critical event narrative inquiry (Mertova and Webster, 2019) and framed by both first- and second-wave Critical Whiteness Studies (Jupp and Badenhorst, 2021), six participants were engaged in two empathetic interviews to answer the following research questions: 1. What impact has the examination of their own Whiteness had on white faculty members' SLCE praxis? 2. How did white faculty members resist upholding Whiteness (Leonardo, 2002) and characteristics of white supremacy culture (Okun, 1999) during critical events in their service learning and community-engaged (SLCE) practice? 3. How do white faculty members continue to resist Whiteness and WSC in their SLCE praxis despite barriers, challenges, and tensions they have faced on their campuses and within their communities in doing so? Critical narrative analysis (Langdridge, 2007) was used to deconstruct the faculty members' experiences during these critical events (Mertova and Webster, 2019) in their SLCE practice. Findings relate to the importance of considering the setting, context, and impact of action taken within specific academic fields as well as the field of service learning and community engagement more broadly. / Doctor of Philosophy / Service Learning and Community Engagement (SLCE) describes the ways in which faculty and students engage with off-campus community organizations for the supposed benefit of all involved. The assumption is that students explore and experience topics they learn about in their classes, faculty members can have more direct impact with their teaching and research, and community partners reap the benefits of this student involvement and faculty engagement. There are many concerns, however, about the presence and perpetuation of colonization (Hernandez, 2017), assumptions based in racism and classism (Green, 2003), Whiteness (Applebaum, 2016; Leonardo, 2002) and characteristics of white supremacy culture (Okun, 1999) through SLCE. These topics have received more attention over the past decade, but there is still significantly less research on actions taken by SLCE faculty to actively resist perpetuating them (Mitchell et al., 2012). The purpose of this study was to explore the ways that white faculty members addressed these topics in their own teaching, research, and service work. Through two interviews each of the six participants shared more about their own identities and the impact these had on their development and experiences. They also provided context about their academic fields, the relationships they have with their community partners, and the ways in which they have taken action to address the topics of Whiteness and the characteristics of white supremacy culture in their SLCE. The findings of this study relate to the importance of considering the setting, context, and impact of action taken within specific academic fields as well as the field of service learning and community engagement more broadly.

Many people assume that when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates a federal statute as unconstitutional, the Court's decision establishes binding precedent that narrows the U.S. Congress's available options. This thesis examines whether Congress has in practice been able to effectively circumvent Supreme Court precedents while still acting consistently with such precedents in a narrow sense by not repassing an identical statute. More specifically, this work explores whether the U.S. Congress was able to repass new statutes similar to those previously invalidated by the Rehnquist Court (1986-2005). To more fully probe this issue, this study examines how often Congress has responded in such a manner, how successful Congress was in replicating the initial invalidated statute's breadth and potency, the success of the amended statute's subsequent implementation or whether the new statutes survived judicial scrutiny, and lastly, whether legislative policy goals or Court precedents prevailed. The research focused on the Rehnquist Court because it invalidated an unprecedented 34 federal statutes. This analysis found that Congress offered 11 proposals, but only repassed four statutes attempting to replicate the initial invalidated statutes. Nevertheless, in the four instances of successful reenactment, Congress was able to achieve, in practice, indistinguishable potency and breadth in two statutes and identical potency with significantly narrower breadth in one statute. This work is significant because it demonstrates that occasionally Congress has utilized available tools—in this case repassing analogous statutes—to effectively counter Supreme Court precedents. The Supreme Court is not always the exclusive or irrevocable arbitrator of constitutional controversies. / Master of Arts

Neoliberalism operationalizes the White Supremacist narrative of meritocracy in spaces like no-excuse charter schools in order to coerce teachers to obediently turn out data that is productive for investors, at the expense of both teachers and Black and Brown students’ humanity. This dissertation defines the coercion teachers experience as a process of mechanization, whereby they are inducted into the narrative of meritocracy and threatened with material loss if they do not comply. However, contrary to current research that illustrates their repeated mechanization, I draw from my own experiences as a teacher at a no-excuse charter school to assert that teachers in these spaces do have the capacity to enact anti-racist teacher agency and resist. This dissertation therefore asks, How do educators at no-excuse charter schools engage anti-racist teacher agency to negotiate mechanization and the narrative of meritocracy? Over the course of 13 months, I engaged with six self-described social justice-oriented teachers from three schools across two New Jersey cities through a methodology I developed called critical storying. Functioning in two parts--The Spiral and Speculation--critical storying first pays attention to participants' affective tensions through dialogic spiraling in order to identify mechanizations they experience, and ways the negotiate those mechanizations. Then, using participants’ own narrative imagining, I wrote each participants’ story centering them as a cyborg protagonist confronting and overcoming a core mechanization. The findings, as well as the framework and methodology developed for this study, contribute to research concerned with no-excuse charter schools, anti-racist teacher agency, speculative fiction, and dismantling White Supremacy from school systems.

The legislative supremacy of Parliament, a dominant characteristic of the Westminster system of government, has for a long time been the basic norm of South African constitutional law. In line with the Westminster prototype, the South African judiciary did not have the power to review the substantive validity of legislation. The creation of a new order, based on a supreme Constitution which entrenches fundamental rights and gives the courts the power to review not on! y the procedural validity but also the substantive validity of legislation, has brought about a significant change. This thesis examines the role of the South African judiciary during the transition from a system of legislative supremacy to one of constitutional supremacy and judicial review. The thesis is based on the interim Constitution of 1993. The entrenchment of fundamental human rights in the Constitution implies a greater role for the judiciary. The judiciary has to apply and interpret the human rights provisions vigorously and fearlessly. The human rights provisions have to be applied and interpreted with a keen awareness that a system of constitutional supremacy differs materially from one of legislative supremacy. In a system of legislative supremacy the intention of the legislature is paramount; in a system of constitutional supremacy the Constitution is supreme and overrides all laws, including Acts of Parliament, which are in conflict with it The doctrine of legislative supremacy has in the past led to a literalist and mechanical application of law; this has had a negative impact on the constitutional role of the South African judiciary. The provisions of a Constitution, especially its human rights provisions, are framed in wide and open ended terms; these need to be elaborated before they can be applied; the nature of these provisions, their purpose and the larger objects of the Constitution are important. The interpretation of the provisions of a supreme Constitution is incompatible with a literalistic and mechanical approach. A purposive and liberal or generous approach is called for. A framework and approach to the interpretation and application of South Africa's Bill of Rights are suggested in the thesis. / Constitutional International and Indigenous Law / LL.D.

Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / Civil-military relations play an important role in Africa as these relations strongly influence the processes of development and democratisation. This thesis examines civil-military relations in Nigeria and Tanzania, as these two countries have experienced very different ‘patterns of influence, control, and subordination between the armed forces and the wider social environment’. Most theories of civil-military relations have been formulated by Western scholars and this study investigates if these theories are applicable to Nigeria and Tanzania. As only two cases are under focus, this thesis does not aim to dismiss any of the theories or to develop new theory; rather, I suggest new aspects and factors that should be included when studying African civil-military relations. The theoretical framework includes theories by Huntington, Finer, and Janowitz, as well as theories by more recent scholars. After presenting the history of civilmilitary relations in Nigeria and Tanzania, I analyse the theories’ validity in the two cases by evaluating five hypotheses based on these theoretical frameworks. The thesis concludes that even though the prevailing theories contain factors that are very important in the two countries and in Africa in general, it is important to keep the specificity of African countries in mind when studying their civil-military relations. The domestic context and internal factors in both Nigeria and Tanzania are very significant. The importance of identity and the economic situation should especially receive more attention in theories addressing civil-military relations in Africa. There is a strong interrelationship between the various theories, and as a result a holistic approach including all factors, actors and aspects should be used when studying civil-military relations in Africa and elsewhere.

The legislative supremacy of Parliament, a dominant characteristic of the Westminster system of government, has for a long time been the basic norm of South African constitutional law. In line with the Westminster prototype, the South African judiciary did not have the power to review the substantive validity of legislation. The creation of a new order, based on a supreme Constitution which entrenches fundamental rights and gives the courts the power to review not on! y the procedural validity but also the substantive validity of legislation, has brought about a significant change. This thesis examines the role of the South African judiciary during the transition from a system of legislative supremacy to one of constitutional supremacy and judicial review. The thesis is based on the interim Constitution of 1993. The entrenchment of fundamental human rights in the Constitution implies a greater role for the judiciary. The judiciary has to apply and interpret the human rights provisions vigorously and fearlessly. The human rights provisions have to be applied and interpreted with a keen awareness that a system of constitutional supremacy differs materially from one of legislative supremacy. In a system of legislative supremacy the intention of the legislature is paramount; in a system of constitutional supremacy the Constitution is supreme and overrides all laws, including Acts of Parliament, which are in conflict with it The doctrine of legislative supremacy has in the past led to a literalist and mechanical application of law; this has had a negative impact on the constitutional role of the South African judiciary. The provisions of a Constitution, especially its human rights provisions, are framed in wide and open ended terms; these need to be elaborated before they can be applied; the nature of these provisions, their purpose and the larger objects of the Constitution are important. The interpretation of the provisions of a supreme Constitution is incompatible with a literalistic and mechanical approach. A purposive and liberal or generous approach is called for. A framework and approach to the interpretation and application of South Africa's Bill of Rights are suggested in the thesis. / Constitutional International and Indigenous Law / LL.D.

Les juridictions constitutionnelles ont sans doute de larges compétences interprétatives. Toutefois, l’ampleur de ces compétences varie dans les différents ordres juridiques selon l’aptitude que les autres organes et autorités de l’Etat peuvent adopter devant ces interprétations. Une juridiction constitutionnelle a une suprématie interprétative dans un Etat en particulier si ses interprétations doivent être obligatoirement respectées et appliquées par tous les autres organes et autorités de l’Etat. Si ses interprétations sont seulement obligatoires pour quelques autorités, cette juridiction constitutionnelle a simplement une compétence interprétative supérieure vis-à-vis de ces autorités. Afin d’identifier les plus larges compétences interprétatives des juridictions constitutionnelles, la démarche comparative est hautement recommandée parce qu’elle permet de distinguer plus facilement les limitations que ces juridictions peuvent rencontrer dans leurs ordres juridiques respectifs. Ainsi, en suivant cette démarche, seront identifiées l’ampleur des compétences interprétatives des juridictions constitutionnelles française et colombienne et leurs répercussions dans chacun de leurs Etats. / Constitutional jurisdictions should have wide interpretative powers. However, the scope of these competences varies in different legal systems depending on the ability of other authorities to adopt such interpretations. A constitutional court has interpretative supremacy in a particular State, if its interpretations are binding for all other departments of the State. If its interpretations are just binding for some authorities, this constitutional court would simply have a superior interpretative competence toward those authorities. In order to determine the broader interpretative powers of the constitutional courts, the comparative approach is highly recommended because it makes easier to distinguish the limitations that these jurisdictions may encounter in their respective legal systems. In this way, the scope of the interpretative powers of the French and Colombian constitutional courts will be identified as well as their repercussions in each of its states.