Articles, Essays, & Tributes
Diversity Messaging After Affirmative Action
By NANCY LEONG. Full Text. Appendix here. Many colleges and universities communicate publicly that they value racial diversity—a practice this Article will call diversity messaging. Yet growing hostility to race-consciousness by courts, legislators, and other public figures has made diversity messaging increasingly fraught. This Article examines empirically whether law schools changed their diversity messaging following…
Investor Justice
By NICOLE IANNARONE. Full Text. There is a systemic flaw in the investor protection landscape. Unrepresented investors face off against well-resourced repeat- player firms that almost always have lawyers. While consumers face similar challenges in civil courts, in forced securities arbitration, the decisionmaker may not have a law degree, is prohibited from conducting any outside…
Unpunishment Purposes
By MEREDITH ESSER. Full Text. Sentencing scholarship often begins by exploring the traditional purposes of punishment: deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. However, little scholarship exists addressing how these four punishment purposes apply in the post- sentencing or second-look contexts. Further, abstract theories of sentencing can often seem sterile and disconnected from the realities of how…
Debt, Work, and the State
By KATE ELENGOLD. Full Text. In every state and the District of Columbia, an individual who owes a debt to the state can lose their license to work. Without the ability to make a living, it is much harder to pay off debt. Although using occupational license restrictions as a debt collection tool appears nonsensical,…
Law for the Rich
By ALEX RASKOLNIKOV. Full Text. With top incomes and wealth reaching historic highs, scholars and politicians have proposed new taxes and novel legal rules aimed at reversing the emergence of the new Gilded Age. Yet while new taxes target the rich directly by imposing greater burdens only on those with incomes or wealth above multi-million-dollar…
Notes
Definite Convictions: United States v. Alt and the Seventh Circuit’s Prohibition on Defining “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”
By SAMUEL BUISMAN. Full Text. The Seventh Circuit prohibits judges and attorneys from defining “beyond a reasonable doubt” to jurors. While United States v. Alt crystalized this prohibition in early 2023, the circuit has effectively banned definition of the phrase for much longer. Yet, a growing consensus of psychological research into the standard reveals that…
As Punishment for Arrests: Involuntary Servitude Under the Housekeeping Exception to the Thirteenth Amendment
By ELISSA BOWLING. Full Text. The Thirteenth Amendment reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Yet, in contemporary American jails and prisons, pretrial detainees have been forced to perform…
May Contain Peanuts, Eggs, and a “Natural” Solution: How to Challenge Food Manufacturers’ Harmful Use of Precautionary Allergen Labels
By JJ MARK. Full Text. Food allergies are one of the most pressing health issues of our time. Around thirty-three million Americans currently have food allergies, thirteen million of which are severe or life-threatening. These numbers continue to increase at alarming rates, with an estimated one in thirteen children being diagnosed with food allergies every…
Protecting Minnesota’s Whistleblowers: Ending the Application of McDonnell Douglas to the Minnesota Whistleblower Act
By EDDIE C. BRODY. Full Text. Whistleblowers are critical to society, speaking out to protect the public from corporate and government wrongdoing. Employers often retaliate against employees who speak out, attempting to deter employees from blowing the whistle. Whistleblower protection statutes seek to protect those who suffer from retaliation, providing a judicial remedy for whistleblowers.…
Forgotten Victims: Exploring the Right to Family Integrity as a Form of Redress for Children of Wrongfully Convicted Parents
By EMILY BYERS OLSON. Full Text. Almost five million children in the United States have had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. Children who grow up with an incarcerated parent face immense challenges, including mental health issues, problems at school, economic hardship, and the propensity to participate in criminal activity themselves. When…
“Key” Tam: Giving Teeth to Federal Data Security Enforcement
By BRANDON STOTTLER. Full Text. Data breaches wreak havoc on data-handling entities, weigh heavily on the minds and hearts of breach victims, and elude the efforts of regulators and scholars alike. Since 2005, declared the “Year of the Data Breach,” every year has seen an increase in the number and impact of breaches. Data breaches…
150 Years of Detox: How Inadequate Dietary Supplement Regulation Undermines Consumer Safety in the Weight Loss Industry
By CHLOE CHAMBERS. Full Text. Prior to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the American food and drug market was a proverbial “wild west,” fraught with charlatans, snake oil salesmen, and manufacturers cutting costs at the expense of consumers. The Pure Food and Drug Act, along with the Food, Drug,…
Headnotes
Commodification, Precarity, and Identity: A Review of Professor Bridget Crawford’s Taxing Sugar Babies
By TESSA DAVIS. Full text.
The Liminality of Transactional Relationships
By VICTORIA J. HANEMAN. Full Text.
Tax Talk and Taxing Sugar Babies
By BLAINE G. SAITO. Full Text.
John Roberts’ Supreme Court: The Triumph of Partisanship and Ideology Over Precedent
By DAVID SCHULTZ & JACOB BOURGAULT. Full Text.
Critical Curriculum Design: Teaching Law in an Age of Rising Authoritarianism
By RACHEL LÓPEZ. Full Text.
A Great American Gun Myth: Race and the Naming of the “Saturday Night Special”
By Jennifer L. Behrens and Joseph Blocher. Full Text. At a time when Second Amendment doctrine has taken a strongly historical turn and gun rights advocates have increasingly argued that gun regulation itself is historically racist, it is especially important that historical claims about race…
Refining the Dangerousness Standard in Felon Disarmament
By Jamie G. McWilliam. Full Text. To some, 18 U.S.C. 922(g) is a necessary safeguard that keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous persons. To others, it strips classes of non-violent people of their natural and constitutional rights. This statute makes it a crime…
“Proven” Safety Regulations: Massachusetts 1805 Proving Law As Historical Analogue for Modern Gun Safety Laws
By Billy Clark. Full Text. Concerned by the public health threats posed by certain firearms, the Massachusetts legislature enacts a law to set safety standards for firearms in the Commonwealth. Firearm dealers across the State, including some of the leading manufacturers of the day, not…
Curbing Gun Violence Under PLCAA and Bruen: State Attorney General–Driven Solutions to the Surging Epidemic
By David Lamb. Full Text. At the same time that the deadly toll of gun violence continues to grow in the U.S., now taking nearly 50,000 lives per year, federal lawmakers and courts have increasingly constrained government authorities’ tools for fighting the epidemic. Pursuant to…
De Novo Blog
INOCULATION INJUSTICE: A FEDERAL RESPONSE TO VACCINE LINE JUMPING
By: Annika Beck, Volume 105 Staff Member The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a variety of antisocial behaviors, from profiteers filling warehouses with disinfectants[1] to tenants demanding sexual favors from clients who are behind on rent.[2] Now that COVID-19 vaccines are available for those at highest…
HAS THAT NATION SIGNED?: HOW THE TENTH CIRCUIT’S DECISION IN MOBLEY CAN RESULT IN SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL PARENTAL KIDNAPPING
By: Cole Benson, Volume 105 staff member The case of United States v. Mobley was decided by the Tenth Circuit on August 21, 2020.[1] Mobley held that defendant parents who are found guilty for international kidnapping are not liable for restitution under 18 U.S.C. §…
STOPPING GAMESTOP’S “GAMESTONK”: WHY COURTS MUST CONFRONT GAMESTOP COLLUDERS AND PROHIBIT OPEN-MARKET MANIPULATION
By: Casey Epstein, Vol. 105 Note & Comment Editor INTRODUCTION Throughout January and into February, online traders frantically purchased GameStop stock, driving the down-on-its-luck company’s stocks into the stratosphere.[1] The GameStop investors—primarily small-scale Reddit users—have openly colluded against large hedge funds with short positions…
TWIST IT, PULL IT, BOT IT: DEVUMI, BOTS, AND THE END OF THE FTC’S POLITICAL NEUTRALITY
By: Lee Silberberg, Vol. 105 Staffer The FTC has broad authority under § 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act to protect consumers from, “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce[.]”[1] Under this grant of power, the FTC has the broad power…
NOBODY WINS WITH SILENCE: WHY STATE GOVERNMENTS SHOULD LEVERAGE COVID-19 RELIEF TO DETER WORKPLACE GAG ORDERS
By: Frances Daniels, Volume 105 Staff Member INTRODUCTION The year 2020 has brought an unprecedented level of stress into the life of the average U.S. citizen;[1] a global pandemic, a highly polarized political election, civil unrest in the wake of the killing of George Floyd,…
DEFAMATION IN 280 CHARACTERS OR LESS: HOW DEFAMATION CASE LAW SHOULD EVOLVE TO HOLD POLICE ACCOUNTABLE FOR HARMFUL TWEETS
By: Eura Chang, Volume 105 Staff Member On June 1, 2020, people across the nation took to the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and police brutality.[1] That same day, the Columbus Police Department (CPD), located in…
ACCESS DENIED: @REALDONALDTRUMP AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
By: Emilie Erickson, Volume 105 Staff Member Although former-President Obama revolutionized using social media for political mobilization,[1] President Trump’s use evolved Twitter into a real political tool “fully integrated . . . into the very fabric of his administration.”[2] From claiming voter fraud[3] to announcing…
WHEN VIRAL VIDEOS BECOME A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: TIKTOK INC. V. TRUMP
By: Haille Laws, Volume 105 Staff Member On August 23, 2019, President Donald Trump tweeted that “American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing . . . your companies [home] and making products in the USA.”[1] In…
BUT I WANT TO BE FIRST: A COURT’S CURIOUS CHOICE OF REMEDY TO MINNESOTA’S CHALLENGED BALLOT ORDER STATUTE
By: Billy Price, Volume 105 Staffer Before a single general election ballot was cast, commentators were already referring to the 2020 election as “on track to the be the most litigated ever,”[1] thanks in large part to lawsuits concerning the complexities of voting during the…
AN UNEQUAL RIGHT TO VOTE: WHY COURTS SHOULD HOLD THAT DISPROPORTIONATE ALLOCATIONS OF BALLOT DROP BOXES AND POLLING PLACES VIOLATE THE EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE
By: Elliot Ergeson, Volume 105 Staff Member Voter suppression is a prominent issue in American elections.[1] One mechanism by which States engage in voter suppression is by closing or limiting the number of polling places in certain areas.[2] During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, many voters…
