Regulatory enforcement is only as good as the standards to be enforced. I argue here that subjective standards formerly in place at the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and the United States Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) were imbued with the White-centric beliefs of its designers and enforcers. Drawing on critical race…

When President Donald Trump launched an assault on diversity training, critical race theory, and The 1619 Project in September 2020 as “divisive, un-American propaganda,” many law students were presumably confused. After all, law school has historically been doctrinally neutral, racially homogenous, and socially hierarchical. In most core law school courses, colorblindness and objectivity…

Qualified immunity has faced trenchant criticism for decades, but recent events have renewed focus on this powerful defense to liability for constitutional violations. This Article takes aim at the roots of the doctrine—fundamental errors that have never been excavated. First, this Article demonstrates that the Supreme Court’s qualified immunity jurisprudence is premised on a flawed…

For over forty years, scholars and advocates have responded to the criminalization of homelessness by calling for a “right to shelter.” As traditionally conceived, the right to shelter is a positive right—an enforceable entitlement to have the government provide or fund a temporary shelter bed for every homeless individual. However, traditional right-to-shelter efforts have failed…

Blood often serves as the basis for identity for many groups in the United States. Native Americans, however, are the only population in which blood is a requirement for collective belonging and can be the determining factor for whether one receives tribal benefits and services. Many Tribal Nations use blood quantum, the percentage of Indian…

The immigration system operates through the looming threat of the arrest, detention, and removal of immigrants from the United States. Indiscriminate immigrant arrests result in family separation. Immigrants languish in carceral facilities for months or even years. For most undocumented immigrants, there is no available pathway to citizenship. To protest this injustice, undocumented immigrants…