Justice Holmes’ majority opinion in Buck v. Bell justified the sterilization of inmates at public mental health institutions as constitutional. It is unmistakable to any modern-day audience that such a verdict runs contrary to the tenets of liberty, equality, and protection from governmental abuse upon which our country’s democratic system was founded. And yet, due to the ambiguity of the language within the Fourteenth Amendment, Holmes was able to distort its meaning to first categorize citizens into two hierarchical groups that the Court found either more or less worthy of constitutional rights, and second, to actually bestow that different level of legal protection onto each of those groups. Although not cited as precedent in the decision itself, the unexplained assumptions made in Bell that different groups of citizens can have different rights and that the definition of a legal protection can be malleable is an extrapolation of the logic established in an earlier decision in Minor v. Happersett, which designated women as citizens but denied them the right to vote. These cases display that the 14th Amendment is not a sufficient remedy to protect unenumerated rights…

The right to own private property without government interference is one of the most important rights for US citizens. However, the United States government’s eminent domain power enables it to acquire private property for public goods like highways, public parks, government offices, and other “public uses.” The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment constrains the government’s eminent domain power: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The definition of “public use” for eminent domain became contentious in Kelo v. New London (2005) when the then-distressed municipality of New London, Connecticut, seized various private properties for an economic revitalization plan that would be executed by private developers. In doing so, New London aimed to take advantage of the incoming pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s potential to increase jobs and tax revenues by developing shopping centers, state parks, new neighborhoods, and more. Although the city believed all citizens would benefit from the “public purpose” of economic revitalization, private property owners sued New London for abusing its eminent domain power by selling their seized property to private developers, and the case reached the Supreme Court. Precedents in Berman v. Parker (1954) and Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984) expanded the interpretation of “public use” to include “public purpose.” Thus, the Court followed precedent and found that the city’s taking of private property for private economic development fulfilled a “public purpose,” ruling in favor of New London in a 5-4 ruling. Based on the flawed precedents and abuses of the Takings Clause leading to the Kelo decision in favor of New London, it is clear that, when governments transfer private property to private entities through eminent domain, there is no public accountability for achieving public use.

Artificial intelligence has rapidly permeated many aspects of our lives, including the cars we drive, the search engines we use, and even the legal institutions under which we live. The temptation to make great use of the technology is understandable. After all, machine learning models can process vast amounts of information far quicker than a human ever could, thus opening the door for use cases in easing the burden of clerical work and performing legal research, and predictive algorithms can even be used to estimate outcomes of trials. In machine learning, there are two major ways to classify models based on their interpretability. The first types are called black box models, which tend to be more complex at the expense of the ability to ascertain how the model calculated its output. The second types are called white box models, which tend to be simpler and therefore easier to interpret in their decision-making process. Although black box models tend to be more prominent in their usage due to their ability to capture more complicated trends in data, their prevalence underscores a sinister problem in machine learning applications to law: bias…

Ranging in places from bathrooms to motel rooms, molkas, the Korean abbreviation for “hidden cameras,” have created a wave of outrage for their use in voyeuristic crimes. In 2018, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office of the Republic of Korea recorded approximately 6,800 known cases of crimes involving the illicit filming of others. Furthermore, celebrity involvement in molka cases, such as famous K-pop singer and personality Jung Joon-young falling prey to molkas, have fueled South Korea’s #MeToo movement. South Korea has developed various laws related to privacy and digital sex crimes to face this criminal offense. However, with the lack of limitations on the accessibility of molkas, weak policies regarding privacy and digital sex crimes, and biased judgment against victims in court, greater action must be taken to address this issue…

For centuries, war has stripped millions of people of their human rights. Civilians are regularly collateral damage to war, and those responsible are either held accountable after the atrocities have occurred or, sometimes, never. The intersection between human rights violations and war is broad, and the law behind it has fluctuated heavily over the past century. This article will analyze the international law which organizations like the International Criminal Court employ in instances of war, and use case studies such as the current Ukraine-Russia war to examine when action has been taken. War makes international law a much more complex territory, which allows some crimes to go overlooked or unpunished…

Less than a decade after the landmark ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) affirmed the right to same-sex marriage, a New York City judge deciding a rental dispute argued that Obergefell’s “problem” is that it did not go far enough. In September of 2022, Judge Karen May Bacdayan presided over West 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill (2022, a housing court case concerning three men: Markyus O’Neill, and the married couple Scott Anderson and Robert Romano). The three asserted that they were in a multi-partner relationship. In her decision, Bacdayan held that the three men could possess a “family-like relationship” that would legitimize the ability of O’Neill, the unmarried third partner, to renew the lease on a rent-controlled apartment in Anderson’s name. Bacdayan’s argument relied heavily on the precedent set by both Obergefell and its predecessor, Braschi v. Stahl Associates Co. (1989); she simultaneously praised both decisions for “open[ing] the door for consideration of other relational constructs'' and condemned them for their adherence to a “majoritarian, societal view” that refused legitimacy to multi-person unions. Despite her references to these precedents, Bacdayan ultimately understates the degree to which the logic of Obergefell is fundamentally compatible with her expanded definition of family structure…

Despite lowering youth incarceration rates in recent years, the United States still puts more of its children behind bars than any other similarly-developed industrialized country. Over 60,000 minors were held in youth detention centers in 2011, while around 95,000 children were tried as adults and sent to adult jails and prisons. Studies on Finland, Japan, and Sweden show that these countries incarcerate almost no minors. Differences in crime statistics do not explain this dramatic contrast, as U.S. rates of juvenile violent crimes are only marginally higher than those in the aforementioned nations. So why does America stand out among other liberal democracies with respect to its treatment of minors disobeying the law? In this article, I will explore two key reasons behind America’s punitive stance on juvenile offenses. First, the presence of law enforcement officials looms large in American public schools. Zero-tolerance discipline policies and other stringent practices have given rise to a phenomenon known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Second, the majority of states in the U.S. have laws that allow juveniles to be tried as adults and facilitate the transfer of young offenders to criminal prosecution. In my article, I will also acknowledge the considerable progress that has recently been made in reducing juvenile confinement and propose ways to further solidify these positive developments…

Currently, the United States does not require companies to provide consumers with any legal basis for collecting their data. More than that, as big tech companies are constantly training and releasing AI-based language models, the federal government still has not established any fundamental principles of data protection. The arbitrary governance on different AI models poses a real threat to every individual’s data shared on the internet. To combat this unconsented invasion of privacy, the US should implement a universal data protection model that would establish stricter limitations to its largest data-collecting corporations, as well as ensure and widen the fundamental rights of the consumer…

As the Supreme Court considers striking down affirmative action, it is more important than ever to revisit the origins of the Constitution’s color-blind doctrine. First conceived of in Justice John Marshall Harlan’s seminal dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), colorblindness has assumed a near sacred place in Constitutional tradition — a place so sacred that a strict, if not simply conservative, interpretation might necessitate a ruling on the unconstitutionality of affirmative action. But is colorblindness — and, by proxy, the seeming death of affirmative action — really so intertwined and inherent to the Constitution? Behind presumed self-evidence of the color-blind doctrine lies a sublegal debate between Harlan and the oft-forgotten plaintiff himself, Homer Adolph Plessy. This article unearths the tension that lies behind the dissent, fleshing out Plessy’s novel conception of race as a form of property and Harlan’s subsequent struggle with constructing the color-blind model in response to Plessy. The resulting analysis suggests that the venerated color-blind doctrine was not the automatic, self-evident manifestation of Constitutional principles but rather the byproduct of a subjective disagreement about the definition of race — a conclusion that is rich with implications for the fight over race-conscious policies even in the case that affirmative action falls.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the fastest-growing fields of technology in 2023. With the release of ChatGPT, the public now has hands-on access to some of the most powerful technology in the history of humankind. This widespread access to AI technology has the potential to inspire tremendous innovation. However, the rise of AI also raises fundamental questions regarding U.S. intellectual property (IP) law. What is an inventor? Does it have to be human? Can AI, a set of algorithms, be equated with a human scientist or engineer? This article seeks to answer those questions and more. To do so, it proposes that U.S. IP law define a new category for AI technology, enabling IP law to avoid a complex revamp of its fundamental definitions and statutes. In addition, this article proposes that intellectual property rights be split among three entities: the AI itself, the creator of the AI, and the owner(s) of the data on which the AI was trained.

Students in 21st-century America bear witness to an unprecedented increase in requests for the removal and restriction of books and curricula from schools. The erupting movement to censor books across U.S. public schools reveals an indeterminate territory inhabited by students’ rights to read and access information in school. Looking back on the Supreme Court’s fractured decision in The Board of Education v. Pico (1982), the underpinning of prevalent parental arguments against educational suitability and vulgarity becomes clear. This article unearths the shortcomings of using standardless language to define the First Amendment rights of students, particularly when partisan actors wield ambiguity to control narratives taught to students.

As environmental issues continue to plague the planet, factory farming has been a main contributor to the damage. In the United States, factory farming and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have been operating with little to no transparency with the public. Animal rights activists and environmentalists have been fighting for American citizens to see the reality of the meat production industry. However, laws referred to as ag-gag laws block these individuals from exposing the agriculture industry. The majority of ag-gag laws have specific clauses in them that prevent non-employees from reporting on the functionality of factory farms in the state. Although some state ag-gag laws have been found to be unconstitutional, others still remain in place and unchallenged. Ag-gag laws violate the Constitution on the basis of the Free Speech Clause and Free Press Clause of the First Amendment; therefore, those still in place should be outlawed in their respective states.

Too often, conversations about reparative justice for those who have experienced social injustice are prematurely ended on grounds that reparative justice is not a feasible concept. However, historical analysis indicates that reparations are undoubtedly feasible, as they have been achieved legally through global courts, legislatures, and multilateral treaties. Unfortunately however, these historical examples of reparative justice have fallen short of achieving full acknowledgement and amelioration of harm due to systematically undercompensating survivors. This article suggests that conversations surrounding reparative justice ought to shift from focusing on feasibility to focusing on how to best style reparations in order to achieve justice, based on what has been gleaned from attempts at reparative justice throughout history.

Corporate directors were not always held personally liable for regulatory non-compliance. Recently, that has changed. In the land of corporate law, flowers are blossoming. But not sunflowers and orchids; instead, “cases alleging oversight failures… [are] blooming like dandelions after a warm spring rain.” A landmark 2019 expansion of directory liability by the Delaware Supreme Court in Marchand v. Barnhill is to thank, and it’s gaining traction. Professor Bainbridge of UCLA Law School, cited in a recent Court of Chancery opinion, wondered if the expansion might “swallow the whole of corporate law.” As a result, corporate directors now need not only wear the hats of director and auditor, but also regulator. In a world where independent government agencies with authority to enforce compliance already exist, such a change is redundant and stifling to corporate function at best, and an invitation of moral hazard at worst. The government already regulates; let directors get back to business…

This article analyzes the connection between the substantive due process clause and the Equal Protection Clause. It describes how this intersection is critical in protecting the rights of marginalized communities, namely members of the LGBTQ+ community in their fight for marriage equality, in America. It goes through a series of common refutations to substantive due process given by textualists and explains why these fall short of what they aim to do and force originalists to argue for an unequal America. The thesis is that many conservative justices—especially originalists and textualists—believe substantive due process is judicial overreach. Substantive due process decisions, however, have created an unwritten constitution providing critical protection for LGBTQ+ rights that would otherwise be easily reversed and restricted. Decisions made under this framework must be defended against conservative attempts to reduce substantive due process’ power.

One major tenet of American antidiscrimination law has long stood in the way of adequately addressing issues of environmental injustice; the centering of impact over intent. More specifically, under the Civil Rights Act, plaintiffs experiencing environmental injustice in the form of racially stratified toxic pollution must prove that polluters intended to yield discriminatory impacts with their actions, as opposed to the fact that polluters yielded discriminatory impacts. This burden of proof placed on plaintiffs has offered institutional polluters near impunity, which is so devastating because of the health crisis caused by environmental injustice. In order to protect the health and well-being of Black and Brown communities, the U.S. legal system must begin to center discriminatory impacts over discriminatory intent, especially in cases of point-source polluting facility siting. Luckily, the Environmental Justice For All Act, currently before the U.S. Senate tackles this very issue of impact over intent, indicating its worthiness of wide constituent support.

Food Sovereignty, Food Insecurity, and Food Apartheid are prominent issues on U.S. Reservations. The U.S. has historically and currently acted against Indigenous Tribes, weakening their political agency and legalizing the avoidance of national responsibilities that a government has to its people. Historical issues of several U.S. offenses against Indigenous tribes have gone unresolved and attempts to eradicate the population of Indigenous People have been unaddressed, continuing to assault the lives of Indigenous people today. Physical and Cultural genocide is still occurring for Indigenous people as a result of food insecurity and governmental laws, policies, and regulations making cultural diets inaccessible.

Prior to the landmark Clean Water Act of 1972, industrial facilities frequently used lakes and oceans as sites of chemical waste disposal, and cities often used local rivers to dump raw sewage. Today, as the government’s primary tool for water quality control, the Clean Water Act has decreased the rate of wetland loss and keeps 700 billion pounds of pollutants out of U.S. waters each year. In 1948, the Federal Water Pollution Act served as the first major U.S. law directed towards water quality control, and became commonly known as the Clean Water Act in 1972 following critical amendments that paint the law’s current dimensions. Recently passing its 50th anniversary, however, the Clean Water Act grapples with legislative setbacks that challenge its goals to have zero discharge of pollutants and water that is “fishable” and “swimmable.” Though the Clean Water Act has made substantial headway in maintaining the integrity of the nation’s waters, areas of the legislation’s structure, including its neglect of nonpoint source pollution and its ambiguous jurisdictional scope, have created detrimental loopholes for continued water pollution, which can and should be addressed.

The blockade of Gaza is an ongoing land, sea, and air blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel for 15 years. The blockade has been the subject of mass criticism, with the media and human rights experts labeling it a humanitarian crisis. This paper conducts a jurisprudential analysis of the blockade of Gaza through a positivist lens to analyze whether Israel has breached existing legal obligations. HLA Hart, one of the world’s leading jurists on legal philosophy, presents his theory of legal positivism in his seminal work The Concept of Law. Recontextualising Hart’s views in the modern context reveals that international law amounts to a legal system consisting of posited laws. Therefore, by violating international humanitarian law and disobeying the UN Security Council Resolution 1860, Israel has violated a valid law and breached a legal duty.

In the past few months, the use of ChatGPT has become widespread due to its uniquely open access. Suddenly artificial intelligence (AI) is available for everyone to use. This has brought up a pressing question that has been brewing for a while but now seems more urgent: what role will AI play in our society moving forward, and what roles are appropriate for intelligent machines? In many cases, it may be that artificial intelligence can take on parts of a job while ultimately leaving a human at the wheel. It will become important to apply the correct model of AI to different contexts. White box models are explainable in human terms and allow biases to be identified. Black box models use algorithms that are too complicated or hidden to be understood by humans. In the legal profession, AI will become an important tool for lawyers in tasks that can be automated, such as document review, contract drafting, legal research, and assessments of success likelihood in particular cases.