But the public health workforce shortage existed long before the outbreak. The real issue isn’t about a deficit of skilled workers available to enter the health care worker pipeline with hopes to work their way up to higher-paying jobs in the sector. The problem is job quality…

As law professors and legal professionals, we felt compelled to respond to the current moment by bringing our collective experience in labor and civil rights law to bear on urgently needed reforms in policing. We formed a study group to consider possible changes to law enforcement labor relations with the goal of proposing politically feasible reforms that could be quickly implemented and would meaningfully address some of the grave problems in policing…

“Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” This is the title of artist Paul Gauguin’s final painting, done in 1897. As a former student of art history turned lawyer, the title of this piece has been circling in my head recently. These questions are particularly important for attorneys, since we are in many…

Gurupreet Kaur, a six-year-old Sikh girl, died while attempting to cross the southern border into the United States in June 2019. She had traveled from India with her mother and had hoped to reunite with her father, who was already seeking asylum in New York. Gurupreet and her mother were in their final stretch of walking from Mexico to Arizona, but their journey together ended in the Arizona desert when they separated while trying to find water to survive the unbearable heat. Many immigrants have perished in that same strip of desert while attempting to enter the United States.

This blog post will describe how law schools are pipelines for government positions in America, while also being institutions that have engaged in discriminatory practices. I conclude by providing seven actions that law schools can take to work towards remedying a history of discrimination and ensuring that the legal profession reflects the diversity of our society…

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…

It has become common, for example, for churches to demand that their ability to gather for worship not be considered less essential than the operation of liquor stores in those states that have designated the latter as “essential” businesses. In other words, these churches argue that the First Amendment does not permit states to prioritize pinot noir over prayer. Judges hearing these…

As November elections loom, incumbents have responded to nationwide protests by advancing a panoply of police reform measures. Some of these proposals are gaining momentum. This Article addresses the constitutional challenges that await federal reform efforts by discussing three of the more popular proposals…

While the failures of the ADA have been many, its successes have been paradigm shifting. This commentary is meant to celebrate those successes, and to wish that paradigm shifting law a happy thirtieth birthday…

Deciding how and whom to protect during this crisis is a quintessentially political choice—among the most central of the current moment. But as these cases show, relief funding during a crisis not only can’t avoid First Amendment scrutiny—the newly expanded funding might actually be what prompts scrutiny of programs that previously spent decades flying under courts’ radar…

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.

The rule of law, arguably the most cherished political ideal, remains elusive in many corners of the world. Since its formation in the mid-eighteenth century, Afghanistan has experienced episodes of “rule by law,” “rule of man,” and “rule of gun” much more so than the rule of law. This Article contributes to the literature by exploring the nexus between the rule of law and legal education in developing…

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…

Waiting to appoint a Supreme Court justice until after an election is just another way to tie the Court’s makeup to majoritarian and democratic processes. But is this sentiment right—is the Court, in fact, procedurally majoritarian? To answer this question, I explored the appointment and confirmation process behind each of the nine sitting Justices…

Because American families’ finances are unlikely to recover as soon as the crisis ends, debt collection brought by the COVID-19 crisis also will not dissipate anytime soon. Even after the crisis ends, the need to implement comprehensive, longer-lasting solutions will remain. As we detail below, these solutions largely fall on the shoulders of the federal government, though state attorneys…

On multiple fronts, Americans are pursuing President Trump’s tax returns: a senator through legislation, a district attorney and congressional committees through investigation, and voters through protest and persuasion. None have succeeded.

Do lower-income parts of the U.S. have more mobile homes than higher-income ones? One might think so, based on a 2013 report from BBC News. This report found that “comparing the top 10 mobile home states with the 10 most deprived states suggests a loose correlation,” although it does not provide a way of substantiating such a claim at the sub-state level…

To provide a roadmap for federal vote-by-mail lawsuits related to COVID-19, this Article outlines many of the possible claims that advocates can bring in federal court to challenge states’ failure to provide mail ballots to voters. Where clear tests and guidelines for necessary evidence are absent from the case law, we propose our own…