Vanessa Aponte Vanessa Aponte

Ethical Considerations for the Duty to Warn/Protect

A healthcare provider must maintain confidentiality when it comes to protecting information about their client. Laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) make sure of this. Additionally, the Hippocratic Oath sworn by doctors mentions a need to respect the privacy of their patients. However, what are the limits of confidentiality? Does a therapist have a duty to warn of impending danger from a patient to a third party? The therapy of a patient creates the ability for the therapist to potentially foresee dangers that threaten others. But, by warning others, a physician or therapist breaks the confidentiality of the patient and breaches the Hippocratic Oath…

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Vanessa Aponte Vanessa Aponte

An Insight into Hate Crime Legislation

In 1998 at a local bar, a young Wyoming college student named Mathew Sheapard was approached by two men who pretended to be gay. The two men offered Mathew a ride home, and drove him to a rural area. They then proceeded to tie him up to a fence along the country road, and beat him to the point of crushing his skull. Similarly, James Byrd Jr. was approached by three men who took him to a remote area where he was beaten severely and then tied by the ankles of a pickup truck where he was dragged for miles till his death. These heinous murders where both not convicted as hate crimes, due to hate crime laws being nonexistent in the states Byrd and Shepard were murdered in…

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Vanessa Aponte Vanessa Aponte

The Possibility of Defunding the Police

On May 25, 2020, the world witnessed the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. The world wanted justice, but the police did nothing. Soon, people took to the streets all across the country demanding justice for Floyd. However, when the government finally decided to act, their actions felt underwhelming. The people deserved more. Floyd deserved more. Now the narrative has changed, and people want a change in how policing is structured altogether. This change ushers the possibility of defunding the police, which aims to move funds away from the police and into the community…

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Vanessa Aponte Vanessa Aponte

Vanessa Guillen - Break the Chain of Silence by Removing the Chain of Command

Garnering national attention, Specialist Vanessa Guillen’s disappearance have sparked conversation about the military’s protocol for handling cases of sexual assault and harassment. From trending hashtags to national marches and petitions demanding a change in policy, the feedback is clear: there must be change. To better explore and understand the effect of the situation, we will first go over the basic facts of Guillen’s disappearance, look into how sexual assault/harassment is handled in the military, and explore the possible new changes for reform…

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DACA: Paving the Way for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Amid mass protesting for the rights of one marginalized group, there was a huge legal victory for another. On June 18, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in a 5-4 decision. This decision blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind the program, meaning that the hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients across the country are now safe from deportation. However, this ruling did not support DACA so much as it chastised the Trump administration’s rescission of the program. Since the Court did not rule about the merits of DACA, President Trump will likely attempt to rescind it again, leaving DACA recipients in legal limbo…

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