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…
Headnotes
Defining Common and Individual Issues in Class Actions: What a Reasonable Jury Could Do
Defining Common and Individual Issues in Class Actions: What a Reasonable Jury Could Do By Aaron D. Van Oort and John L. Rockenbach Full essay here. The distinction between common and individual issues is the single most important concept in the modern class action, and…
The Supreme Court’s Opinion in SEC v. Jarkesy Has the Potential To Be Extremely Destructive
The Supreme Court’s Opinion in SEC v. Jarkesy Has the Potential To Be Extremely Destructive By Richard J. Pierce, Jr. Full essay here. In this essay, Professor Pierce describes the legal framework within which the Supreme Court decided whether an agency could adjudicate a class…
Substance over Symbolism: Do We Need Benefit Corporation Laws?
BY CHENG-CHI (KIRIN) CHANG. Full essay here. Benefit corporation laws have gained traction as mechanisms to integrate societal and environmental objectives into business operations, yet they are arguably superfluous within the existing legal framework. The prevailing belief that corporations must prioritize shareholder wealth above all…
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
Can President Trump Be Sued for Defamation Because of His Personal Tweets?
CAN PRESIDENT TRUMP BE SUED FOR DEFAMATION BECAUSE OF HIS PERSONAL TWEETS? By: Alex Walsdorf, Volume 101 Staff Member If you happen to visit President Trump’s private Twitter page,[1] you will notice his affinity for tweeting. Some of his tweets, at least on their face,…
Hiring Shouldn’t Give License for Firing
HIRING SHOULDN’T GIVE LICENSE FOR FIRING: AFFORDING THE SAME ACTOR INFERENCE APPROPRIATE WEIGHT By: Bailey Drexler, Volume 101 Staff Member In 1991 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals articulated what would come to be known as the “same actor inference” in the context of employment…
See You in Court
SEE YOU IN COURT: ANALYZING JUDGE GORSUCH’S VIEWS ON THE SEPARATION OF POWERS By: Nathan Rice, Volume 101 Staff Member Judge Neil M. Gorsuch has been cast into a political warzone since his nomination on January 31 to fill the late Antonin Scalia’s now long-vacant…
Comparing and Contrasting the Legal Challenges to President Trump’s Travel Ban
COMPARING AND CONTRASTING THE LEGAL CHALLENGES TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TRAVEL BAN By: Richard Canada, Volume 101 Staff Member In the whirlwind first month of Donald Trump’s tenure as President, perhaps no issue has been as controversial or received as much attention as the Executive Order…
Legal Analysis of Trump Executive Order on Refugees
LEGAL ANALYSIS OF TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER ON REFUGEES By: Stephen Meili, Clinical Professor in Law, University of Minnesota Law School† On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued an Executive Order (“Order”) curtailing entry to the U.S. by immigrants, non-immigrants and refugees in three significant ways:…
Defying Conservationist Ethics
DEFYING CONSERVATIONIST ETHICS: A LOOK AT PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ENERGY PLAN By Karrah Johnston, Volume 101 Staff Member Over the course of his presidential campaign, President Donald Trump routinely championed former President Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation legacy. Trump continually asserted that he would follow in the “great…
Microsoft Corp. v. United States
MICROSOFT CORP. V. UNITED STATES: SHOULD CONGRESS REVISE THE STORED COMMUNICATIONS ACT? By: Adam Frudden, Volume 101 Staff Member On July 14, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its ruling in the case of Microsoft Corp. v. United States.[1] The long-awaited…
The Presidential Clemency Power and Chelsea Manning
THE PRESIDENTIAL CLEMENCY POWER AND CHELSEA MANNING: AN ORIGINALIST PERSPECTIVE By: Caitlin Opperman, Volume 101 Staff Member On his last day in office, President Obama commuted the sentences of 330 people serving time for drug offenses, bringing the total number of commutations issued throughout his…
Unprecedented
UNPRECEDENTED: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S DIVIDED LOYALTIES By: Emily Atmore, Volume 101 Staff Member Donald Trump’s prominence as an international businessman has raised widespread concerns about conflicts of interest in his newest venture: as President of the United States.[1] Legal experts have relied on a little known…
Reading the Tea Leaves of Pretextual Protectionism
READING THE TEA LEAVES OF PRETEXTUAL PROTECTIONISM: THE FUTURE OF THE U.S.-CUBA RELATIONSHIP By: Charles Barrera Moore, Volume 101 Lead Online Editor In the wake of the death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, both President Obama and President Trump acknowledged that the United States is…
