Even in a century notable for oratory, Frederick Douglass’s capacities as an orator were astonishing. He was a master of words, whether spoken or written.

Thank you for inviting me to participate in this symposium. I want to thank David Blight, in particular, for this rich and provocative Essay. It was fascinating for me to learn that he has come over to the position of my friends James Oakes and Sean Wilentz, with whom I have argued about the concept of the antislavery American Constitution.

Born a slave on the eastern shore of Maryland and spending the first twenty years of his life in bondage, Frederick Douglass possessed no conventional education. He did not spend a single day of his life in schools of any kind. His “education” came from people around him, from books, from journalism, from wide reading, and finally, from his personal experience and relationships.

In June of 2022, the Supreme Court reversed two hundred years of precedent in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, holding in a 5-4 opinion that states have concurrent criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country.

It is virtually a tenet of modern federal jurisdiction that judges, at least when they are acting as judges, are inappropriate defendants in civil suits. Yet on rare but salient occasions, state judges might be the sole or primary party responsible for violating the constitutional rights of citizens, for instance by imposing excessive bail or by opening their courtrooms to oppressive private suits like those under Texas’s Senate Bill 8 bounty regime.

In the past ten years, lower federal courts have quietly but regularly abstained from hearing federal claims challenging state court procedures, citing concerns of comity and federalism. Federal courts have dismissed a broad range of substantive challenges tasked to them by Congress, including those under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Almost all national constitutions contain one or more ways to disqualify specific individuals from political office. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution incorporates at least four overlapping pathways toward disqualification. This power of disqualifying specific individuals or groups stands at the heart of the complex project of maintaining democratic rule.

This Note analyzes the various approaches to legislating against coercive control and ultimately recommends against criminalizing the behavior, as such efforts could cause backlash against survivors and are likely to disproportionately affect marginalized communities.

Los Angeles is experiencing an unprecedented “Mulholland Moment”: a period of bustling enterprise, skyrocketing socioeconomic inequality, and dwindling water resources. After years of yellow lawns and increasing water use restrictions, Angelenos are thirsty for local, reliable, and affordable water supplies even as climate change and prolonged periods of drought become the norm.

Each year, Child Protective Services (CPS) investigates over one million families. Every CPS investigation includes a thorough, room-by-room search of the family home, designed to uncover evidence of maltreatment. Most seek evidence of poverty-related allegations of neglect; few ever substantiate the allegations.

Property technologies (PropTech) are innovations that automate real estate transactions. Automating rental markets amplifies racial discrimination and segregation in housing. Because screening tools rely on data drawn from discriminatory—and often overtly segregationist—historical practices, they replicate those practices’ unequal outcomes in the form of algorithmic redlining.

Both formal policies and informal norms encourage a consumerist vision of American belonging, with credit/debt as a primary means of consumption. Consequently, debt-based consumption implicates dignity in the American market society.

This Article argues that “punishment exemption”—the assumption that criminal punishment is exempt from traditional constitutional scrutiny—has no legal basis. Drawing on original empirical research, this Article first exposes a maze of modern non-carceral punishments that infringe on constitutional rights, justified by nothing more than the assertion that they are punishment and therefore permissible.

Despite the increased attention on executive compensation generally, little scholarship has focused on executive perquisites: benefits granted only to executives above and beyond their salary and untied to their job performance. Since 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has refused to update its disclosure requirements…

Each year, hundreds of thousands of workers enter the United States on H-2 temporary worker visas for low-wage, seasonal employment. These workers are each legally tied to their U.S. employer in industries largely outside of public view, such as agriculture, food processing, construction, landscaping, amusement, and forestry. Although H-2 visa workers are integral to the U.S. economy, exploitation against them and systemic violations of their legal rights are rampant.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted the crisis low-wage immigrant and migrant (im/migrant) workers face when caught in the century-long collision between immigration enforcement and workers’ rights. Im/migrant workers toil in key industries, from health care to food production, that many now associate with laudable buzzwords such as “frontline” and “essential.” But these industries conceal jobs that pay little, endanger workers’ health and safety, and have high rates of legal violations by employers. Im/migrant…

Although the Bankruptcy Code is facially neutral, the consumer bankruptcy discharge provisions produce anomalies that run counter to bankruptcy’s internal principles of not forgiving debt that is based on misconduct or that implicates a public policy concern. For example, the discharge provisions allow some individuals to discharge debt that stems from civil rights violations or tortious discrimination. In contrast, the Bankruptcy Code precludes some debtors from debt relief based on narrow views of misconduct or misconceptions about moral hazards.

In the United States, law condemns poor people to their fates in states. Where Americans live continues to dictate whether they can access cash, food, and medical assistance. What’s more, immigrants, territorial residents, and tribal members encounter deteriorated corners of the American welfare state. Nonetheless, despite repeated retrenchment efforts, this patchwork of programs has proven remarkably resilient. Yet, the ability of the United States to meet its people’s most basic needs now faces an unprecedented…

Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) with the express purpose of limiting the number of consumer debtors eligible to file a Chapter 7 case, which typically lasts only a few months and eliminates the debtor’s unsecured debts. Under BAPCPA, bankruptcy courts…

Nearly twenty percent of consumers self-identify as suffering from a food allergy or sensitivity, and over 30 million people in the United States have medically proven food allergies. Food allergies cause over 200,000 emergency room visits annually in the United States alone. Among these severe allergen-related food incidents, nearly three-quarters arise at restaurants.