Reconciling Ideals: Restorative Justice as an Alternative to Sentencing Enhancements for Hate Crimes
By Olivia Levinson. Full Text. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (“the Act”) was seen as a significant step forward in legal protections for LGBTQ+ people and racial minorities. It expanded the federal definition of hate crimes to include gender, disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and made…
Continue ReadingRethinking Contemporary Counter-Piracy Policy
By Hugh Fleming. Full Text. Traditional piracy often evokes the image of swashbuckling sailors, independent from the rest of society and roaming the seas to seek their fortune. The image has been heavily romanticized by Hollywood and other sources of popular folklore, much like the cowboys in the western United States. In reality, modern piracy…
Continue ReadingHow the COVID-19 Pandemic Has and Should Reshape the American Safety Net
By Andrew Hammond, Ariel Jurow Kleiman, and Gabriel Scheffler. Full Text. The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered an unprecedented shock to the United States and the world. It is unclear precisely how long this crisis, which is both epidemiological and economic, will last, and it is difficult to gauge the extent and direction of the changes…
Continue ReadingNavigating College Athlete Endorsements Around School Sponsorships
By Campbell Sode. Full Text. Colleges generally resist formal employment relationships with their athletes. But pending NCAA rules that will allow college athletes to solicit third-party endorsements are a game-changer. College athletic departments have lucrative partnerships with companies like Nike. These school sponsors derive significant intrinsic value from the fact that millions of fans will…
Continue ReadingLegal Writing’s Harmful Psyche
By Kevin Bennardo. Full Text. This essay argues that many in the legal writing discipline view themselves in a way that is harmful to the discipline’s success. First, the essay establishes that many legal writing professors view themselves as victims of oppression within the legal academy. Second, it relies on social psychology research to demonstrate…
Continue ReadingReconstruction in Legal Theory
By George Rutherglen. Full Text. This essay examines the well-known difficulties encountered by legal theorists in offering a justification for Brown v. Board of Education in the immediate aftermath of the decision. It locates these difficulties in the inadequacy of legal theory at the time, which had taken a turn away from normative principles towards…
Continue ReadingCase-Linked Jurisdiction and Busybody States
By Howard M. Erichson, John C.P. Goldberg, and Benjamin C. Zipursky. Full Text. Abstract: Beginning with Justice Ginsburg’s 2011 opinion in the Goodyear case—and echoed in Justice Thomas’s 2014 opinion in Walden v. Fiore and Justice Alito’s 2017 opinion in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court—the Supreme Court has suggested that the distinctiveness of specific personal…
Continue ReadingNonessential Businesses and Liability Waivers in the Time of COVID-19
By Zahra Takhshid. Full Text. Abstract: States are gradually reopening after months of lockdown. However, the risk of exposure to the deadly COVID-19 virus still remains. While states would like to have the economy up and running, the price that small businesses may be forced to pay following possible coronavirus personal injury lawsuits may drive…
Continue ReadingBostock, LGBT Discrimination, and the Subtractive Moves
By Andrew Koppelman. Full Text. Abstract: In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment, covers discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The dissenting Justices, following the reasoning of several Court of Appeals judges, embraced…
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