The Death of the GID Exclusion: Williams v. Kincaid Revitalizes the ADA for Trans Litigants

Introduction Kesha Williams is a transgender woman with gender dysphoria who spent six months incarcerated in the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in Virginia. When Williams first entered the facility, she was assigned to women’s housing and given the uniforms typically provided to female inmates. However, upon learning that Williams had not undergone transfeminine bottom surgery, prison deputies stripped Williams of her female undergarments and transferred her to the men’s side of the facility. There, Williams was harassed by other… Read More

Power for the People: Recognizing the Constitutional Right to Vote for President

Introduction On January 6, 2021, a mob attacked the United States Capitol to overthrow the certification of the legitimately elected president and install the election loser, Donald Trump. Before this, there was another coup attempt. Trump and his team pressured state legislators and officials not to certify legitimately elected presidential electors, and to instead certify fake electors for Trump. This was based on the theory that the Constitution grants states “plenary power” to select presidential electors, even if this means… Read More

Justice Theater in the Criminal Law Curriculum

Introduction For the last half-century, law students have been required to take a criminal law course that ostensibly trains them to think critically about the justifications for criminal punishment. The same students have then gone on to serve as central actors in a system of mass incarceration that millions of Americans today view as profoundly unjust. How did this happen? A number of legal scholars, notably including Alice Ristroph in her 2020 Article “The Curriculum of the Carceral State,” have… Read More

“Today, the Constitution Prevails”: A History and Legacy of Constitutional Racism 

Introduction In a decision that surprised almost no one, the United States Supreme Court struck down the affirmative action programs at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina. The majority opinion recounted a jurisprudential history that started with the Fourteenth Amendment, jumped to Plessy v. Ferguson, and lingered on the progeny of Brown v. Board of Education. The opinion hailed Brown as the ultimate triumph, the case that spelled the beginning of the end of racism in America. It… Read More

Condensing the Alphabet Soup: Missed Administrative Rulemaking Concerns in U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission v. Alpine Securities Corporation

Introduction For decades, the political landscape in the United States, characterized by deadlock in Congress and increasingly polarized relations among the country’s major political parties, has put the responsibility of keeping the government functioning in the hands of the administrative state. An absence of regular, substantive legislation (and a President willing to sign the bills given to her by Congress into law) leaves the advancement of meaningful policy to the rulemaking functions of federal executive agencies. Agency rules, developed pursuant… Read More

“Swifties” or Swift Suppression? How Police Officers Exploit Copyright Law and Practice Online to Evade Public Accountability

Introduction The video recording of the tragic killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers had an immediate and profound impact on the public. The video held essential evidentiary value in the prosecution of Floyd’s killers, as it told a very different story than what the police officers had made the situation out to be. It was by no means the first recording of police misconduct that generated significant attention from the public, but it remains among the most notable.… Read More

in New York? The AFFH Mandate in an Era of Land Use Reform

Introduction New York is experiencing a severe housing affordability crisis. This crisis is driven by a housing supply shortfall decades in the making. The state’s housing shortage exacerbates economic, racial, and regional inequalities, and harms the economy by limiting growth. New York’s struggles with housing affordability reflect a national surge in housing costs since the pandemic that has disproportionally impacted communities of color. Yet, in many respects, the crisis in New York is worse than that in other states with… Read More

Backdating #MeToo

Introduction The #MeToo movement radically altered the way that people think about workplace sexual harassment. For decades, women were expected to tolerate a broad range of sexualized conduct at work. However, the revelation of Harvey Weinstein’s misdeeds in late 2017, followed by the exposure of countless other bad actors, dramatically shifted the social narrative regarding appropriate workplace behavior. Conduct that employees once ignored or overlooked suddenly became the basis for vociferous objection; the perfunctory responses to harassment that many employers… Read More

Crypto-Native Credit Score: Between Financial Inclusion and Predatory Lending

Introduction Decentralized credit scoring has surfaced as a new approach in the ever-evolving consumer credit space. While drawing parallels to traditional credit scoring, decentralized credit scoring sets itself apart by evaluating the financial activity and behavior of users within the blockchain ecosystem. Blockchain technology has been fueling this transformation and serving as the backbone for a diverse range of financial products and services collectively known as decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi lending, in particular, has been thriving in recent years. However,… Read More

Faculty Handbook as Contract

Introduction Colleges and universities, like other employers, typically have in place policies that govern the employment relationship with their faculty. Many such policies—policies against employee misconduct or policies on accommodations for persons with disabilities—are comparable to what employees might encounter outside of academia. Most higher education institutions also have in place policies that are more unique to academia, such as policies establishing shared governance bodies, affirming academic freedom as a core value, or outlining procedures on the granting and revocation… Read More