Note: Stranger than Science Fiction: The Rise of A.I. Interrogation in the Dawn of Autonomous Robots and the Need for an Additional Protocol to the U.N. Convention Against Torture
By Amanda McAllister. Full text here. As we approach the impending technological revolution of the proliferation of robots and weapons on the spectrum of autonomy, we run the risk of being “one technology behind” in anticipating the changing legal landscape in the next season of human-technology interaction. Specifically, the development and emergence of autonomous robots and…
Continue ReadingSIRI-OUSLY 2.0: What Artificial Intelligence Reveals About the First Amendment
By Toni M. Massaro, Helen Norton, & Margot E. Kaminski. Full text here. The First Amendment may protect speech by strong Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this Article, we support this provocative claim by expanding on earlier work, addressing significant concerns and challenges, and suggesting potential paths forward. This is not a claim about the state of…
Continue ReadingThe Consequences of Disparate Policing: Evaluating Stop and Frisk as a Modality of Urban Policing
By Aziz Z. Huq. Full text here. Beginning in the 1990s, police departments in major American cities started aggressively deploying pedestrian stops and frisks in response to escalating violent crime rates. Today, high-volume use of “stop, question, and frisk” (SQF) is an acute point of friction between urban police and minority residents. In numerous cities, recent…
Continue ReadingRegulating Cumulative Risk
By Sanne H. Knudsen. Full text here. Chemicals and pesticides permeate the natural world. They are woven (sometimes quite literally) into the fabric of our lives. Because chemicals are everywhere, the key to protecting public health in the chemical age is regulating cumulative risk—that is, the combined risk from exposure to multiple chemicals and pesticides through…
Continue ReadingToward a Critical Race Theory of Evidence
By Jasmine B. Gonzales Rose. Full text here. Scholars, judges, and lawyers have long believed that evidence rules apply equally to all persons regardless of race. This Article challenges this assumption and reveals how evidence law structurally disadvantages people of color. A critical race analysis of stand-your-ground defenses, cross-racial eyewitness misidentifications, and minority flight from racially…
Continue ReadingCivil Rules Interpretive Theory
By Lumen N. Mulligan & Glen Staszewski. Full text here. We claim that the proper method of interpreting the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Rules)—civil rules interpretive theory—should be recognized as a distinct field of scholarly inquiry and judicial practice. Fundamentally, the Rules are not statutes. Yet the theories of statutory interpretation that are typically imported…
Continue ReadingA Conversation Between U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Professor Robert A. Stein
The 2016 Stein Lecture. Transcript here. This piece was transcribed from a conversation between Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Professor Robert A. Stein held at the University of Minnesota Law School on October 17, 2016. Justice Sotomayor shares how her early life experiences, such as being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, shaped her worldview. She discusses…
Continue ReadingBalancing First Amendment Rights with an Inclusive Environment on Public University Campuses
By Gerald S. Kerska. Full text here. How should public universities strike a balance between First Amendment values and their mission to establish a diverse and inclusive environment? Recent events from the University of Minnesota bring this question into focus.
Continue ReadingNote: Affirmative Action: The Constitutional Approach to Ending Sex Disparities on Corporate Boards
By Julia Glen. Full text here. Women hold far fewer seats on U.S. corporate executive boards than men, despite composing nearly half of the workforce. In 2015, women held only 16.5% of the top five executive board positions in businesses on the S&P 500, and fourteen percent of all executive board positions. Internationally, governments are instituting…
Continue ReadingAcademic Freedom To Deny the Truth: Beyond the Holocaust
By Robert M. O’Neil. Full text here. The concept of academic freedom is so widely accepted and well established that it may even subvert a commitment to truth, and this freedom cannot be casually disregarded despite a speaker’s dissonance with scientific precept. So it was with Myron Ebell, then-President-elect Trump’s choice to lead the EPA transition…
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