Modern Statutory Interpolation: Correcting Court-Made Deficiencies in Title VII Law
By Jordan Boudreaux. Full Text. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a monumentally important piece of legislation that ensures all Americans can enjoy a fair workplace, free of discrimination. Even so, the federal circuits remain split on a significant aspect of Title VII’s interpretation. Notably, in some circuits, employees can still…
Continue ReadingThe Good, the Bad, and the Unconstitutional: State Attempts to Solve the Defendant Class Action Problem
By Tyler Blackmon. Full Text. While the overwhelming majority of class action lawsuits filed in this country are plaintiff class actions—with named plaintiffs representing larger classes of plaintiffs—Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure technically permits plaintiffs to sue a named defendant representing a class of defendants as well. However, such suits are…
Continue ReadingTwo Is Not Always Better than One: Concurrent Criminal Jurisdiction in Indian Country and the Withering of Tribal Sovereignty Following McGirt and Castro-Huerta
By Marina Berardino. Full Text. There is a violence epidemic plaguing the Native American population across the country. Native women are disproportionality victimized by both sexual and non-sexual violence—over eighty-five percent of Native women are expected to be victims of intimate partner violence, stalking, or sexual violence at some point in their life. Most often,…
Continue ReadingPlatform Unions
By Charlotte Garden. Full Text. How should we regulate social media platforms to prevent harmful treatment of users? Regulators, advocates, and scholars have grappled with this problem for years. Many proposed solutions, ranging from improving privacy disclosures, to promoting competition between platforms, to requiring platforms to pay users for their data, are at best incomplete.…
Continue ReadingFixing Disparate Prosecution
Shima Baradaran Baughman and Jensen Lillquist. Full Text. America’s system of public prosecution is broken. Prosecutors who charge harshly or disparately are shielded from any consequences or recourse, and defendants are left with few options. This asymmetry in power results in prosecutors singlehandedly maintaining mass incarceration in the United States and leads to some states…
Continue ReadingContract Customization, Sex, and Islamic Law
By Rabea Benhalim. Full Text. Common law has historically deemed marriage and sex outside the right to contract. Yet, couples increasingly use contracts to provide legal rights to the unmarried in a variety of contexts ranging from same-sex relationships to surrogacy. Islamic law, on the other hand, has always conceived of marriage and sexual relationships…
Continue ReadingArticle III and Indian Tribes
By Grant Christensen. Full Text. Among the most basic principles of our federal courts is that they are courts of limited jurisdiction, exercising only those powers delegated to them in Article III. In 1985 the Supreme Court inexplicably created an exception to this constitutional tenet and unilaterally declared a plenary judicial power to review the…
Continue ReadingAnimal Plaintiffs
By Matthew Liebman. Full Text. From endangered Hawaiian songbirds to dolphins deafened by Navy sonar to a neglected horse named Justice, nonhuman animals increasingly appear as plaintiffs in lawsuits alleging their subjection to extinction, abuse, and other injustices. These cases are far more than mere novelties or publicity stunts; they raise important jurisprudential questions about…
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