The law student confounded by the simple question, “What is justice?” now sits in an exceptional moment of reckoning. The question is not a facetious one, despite the grave irony of being asked in a country built on stolen land by stolen people, where even the most publicly adored jurist can callously dismiss an indigenous nation by wagging at “embers of sovereignty that long ago grew cold…

On September 30, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown approved Senate Bill 826 (SB 826), requiring female representation on California-based companies’ corporate boards. SB 826 is the mandatory version of Senate Concurrent Resolution 62, which in September 2013 urged California companies to increase female representation on their boards to between one and three women, depending on…

In Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, which was decided by the Supreme Court on June 18, 2020, the Court determined that the rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is judicially reviewable and that it was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act…

Police reform or abolition? This blog post discusses the history of the police institution in the United States, several possible reforms, and then the demands of abolitionist groups, to begin to imagine a future without police.

COVID-19 is indeed a global emergency, but for millions of families, the lack of social support in the United States has been an emergency for a long time. This isn’t a new problem, only one that is newly visible in this simultaneous health care crisis for everyone. Perhaps the long-term comparative welfare of families in industrialized countries with minimally adequate social support and the few, like the United States, without it, will show the folly of ignoring this emergency for too long…

President Trump has proven oddly reluctant to make full use of federal emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic. The reasons for the delay are puzzling, given his enthusiasm for using emergency powers in other settings. Fortunately, the harm caused by his lackluster response to the coronavirus has been somewhat mitigated by the decentralized nature of the U.S. federal system for addressing epidemics. Where the federal government has faltered, state governments have stepped up to address the challenge with social distancing orders and stay-at-home orders…

First, what can and can’t the government do in restricting liberties to stop the spread of COVID-19? Second, what is the respective constitutional authority of the federal and state governments in dealing with the pandemic?

The pirates of the 21st century plunder more than the pirates of the 18th century ever did. Copying and distributing content worth billions of dollars online, modern-day pirates cost movie studios, music companies, and content creators an astronomical amount of money.[1] While Internet pirates have traded in their cutlasses and ships for keyboards and high-definition copies of “Blade Runner,” the impact…

Although the political branches have broad authority over immigration, they are still subject to constitutional limits. Thus, courts have routinely reviewed and curtailed immigration policies when they do not adequately protect the rights of noncitizens. In Castro v. Department of Homeland Security, the Third Circuit refused to conduct such a review by…

During the Great Recession, as public outcry grew against unions and public employee pensions, the “California Rule” for public employee pensions came under attack. Under the California Rule, a pension statute forms a contract between the state and its employees on the employee’s first day of work, and safeguards past and future pension…

Lying somewhere in the murky waters of constitutionality, the independent government agency has risen in the last century to be a favored tool of Congress to address complex policy issues. For instance, following the 2008 financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an independent government agency that centralized oversight of…

Do voters have a First Amendment right to take ballot selfies? In the 2016 presidential election, it was illegal in eighteen states for voters to take photos with their completed ballots. Some of these laws are over 100 years old. In this post, I consider the state of the law regarding prohibitions on ballot selfies and how the Supreme Court might evaluate pending challenges to them…

In his first months in office, President Donald Trump has used executive action in a multitude of policy areas. He instituted a ban on entry into the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries for ninety days, elevated his chief political strategist to the National Security Council, and fast-tracked the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Although President Trump’s pace of…

Soon, we may be living in “a world without Chevron.“ If confirmed for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch could spark a sea change in administrative law by overturning Chevron, the doctrine under which courts afford deference to an administrative agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. Such a change would be ill-advised. Removing the power of agencies to interpret…