Changing the Student Loan Dischargeability Framework: How the Department of Education Can Ease the Path for Borrowers in Bankruptcy
By Pamela Foohey, Aaron S. Ament, & Daniel A. Zibel. Full Text. The United States’ consumer bankruptcy system supposedly gives “honest but unfortunate” individuals “a new opportunity in life with a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of preexisting debt.” Access to bankruptcy’s discharge of debt is especially important in…
Continue ReadingEntrenched Racial Hierarchy: Educational Inequality from the Cradle to the LSAT
By Kevin Woodson. Full Text. For my contribution to this special issue of the Minnesota Law Review, I will attempt to situate the problem of black underrepresentation at America’s law schools within the broader context of racial hierarchy in American society. The former has generated an extensive body of legal scholarship and commentary, centering primarily…
Continue ReadingThe Nineteenth Amendment as a Generative Tool for Defeating LGBT Religious Exemptions
By Kyle C. Velte. Full Text. In the summer of 1920, women gained the right to be free from discrimination in voting when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. One hundred years later, in the summer of 2020, LGBT people gained the right to be free from discrimination in the workplace when the U.S. Supreme Court…
Continue ReadingReclaiming the Long History of the “Irrelevant” Nineteenth Amendment for Gender Equality
By Tracy Thomas. Full Text. The Nineteenth Amendment has been called an “irrelevant” amendment. The women’s suffrage amendment has been deemed insignificant as a constitutional authority, reduced to a historical footnote. In the Supreme Court canon, it has been diminished as a text that “merely gives the vote to women.” With the accomplishment of that…
Continue ReadingVoting is a Universal Language: Ensuring the Franchise for the Growing Language Minority Community in Minnesota
By Terry Ao Minnis. Full Text. Minnesota has long held a reputation for being proactively pro-democratic and on the cutting edge of breaking down barriers to the ballot box and making voting more accessible. At the same time, no matter how well a state is doing, its election administration can always be improved. Addressing a…
Continue ReadingGlass Ceilings, Glass Walls: Intersections in Legal Gender Equality and Voting Rights One Hundred Years After the Nineteenth Amendment
Symposium Foreword by Jessica Szuminski. Full Text. The Nineteenth Amendment was a milestone for women’s rights but has often been criticized for being passed at the expense of people of color. Though a significant milestone, the Nineteenth Amendment was certainly not an endpoint for equality for women and in voting rights. In the one hundred…
Continue ReadingAn Overlooked Dimension to OIRA Review of Tax Regulatory Actions
By Kristin E. Hickman. Full Text. In April 2018, the Treasury Department and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement reversing an exemption and providing for the first time that significant tax regulatory actions would be subject to OIRA review under Executive Order 12866. The transition to the Biden…
Continue ReadingThe Rule of Reason as a Discovery Procedure: A Response to Ramsi Woodcock’s Hidden Rules of a Modern Antitrust
By Geoffrey A. Manne. Full Text. In The Hidden Rules of a Modern Antitrust, Ramsi Woodcock argues that courts’ systematic use of the rule of reason, which underpins most of contemporary antitrust law, effectively amounts to an unwarranted blanket exemption from liability for potentially egregious practices. According to Woodcock, this is due to the interaction between…
Continue ReadingWinning What’s Owed: A Litigative Approach to Reparations
By Daniel P. Suitor. Full Text. The continuing effects of slavery are still felt by millions of Black Americans today. A century-and-a-half after the formal end of their enslavement, Black people still suffer the deleterious effects of systemic racism in fundamental areas of their lives. The persistent disparities in health, economic, education, and carceral outcomes…
Continue ReadingWhose Data Anyway? The Inconsistent and Prejudicial Application of Ascertainability in Data Privacy Class Actions
By Nathan Webster. Full Text. Data breaches are increasingly common. As the frequency of data breaches increases, so too does the frequency of data privacy class action suits. However, as plaintiffs overcome longstanding obstacles to class certification, new challenges are emerging. One issue poses a particular challenge for data privacy plaintiffs: the heightened ascertainability requirement.…
Continue Reading