September 17, 2018
In last Term’s Janus v. AFSCME, the Supreme Court ruled that union agency fees—payments that all public employees were required to make to labor unions—violated the employees’ First Amendment rights. Since Janus, several commentators have pointed out that agency fees are not the only mandatory payments deducted from public employees’ paychecks. In most states, public…
Constitutional Law, Second Amendment
August 7, 2018
Big Data rekindles the debate over the original meaning of the Second Amendment The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In District of Columbia v. Heller, the dissenting Justices contended that…
Election and Voting Law, Supreme Court
July 31, 2018
The Roberts Court’s election law jurisprudence is a puzzle to scholars of the Court. The conservative Justices purport to approach their task modestly, invoking analogies to baseball umpires and the duty to call balls and strikes. But their work product is inconsistent with this purported aspiration. The Roberts Court seems to have particular views about…
Administrative Law, Civil Rights, Education Law
July 30, 2018
In a move with significant implications for federal civil rights enforcement, the Department of Education has halted investigations into several large for-profit institutions widely accused of defrauding students. This decision sends an even clearer message that the Department of Education stands on the side of corrupt corporations rather than with students. Its decision allows these…
Constitutional Law, Election and Voting Law, Supreme Court
July 24, 2018
The fate of our democracy may very well hang on the vote of Justice Kennedy’s replacement. If a newly constituted Supreme Court were to overrule (or limit to a vanishing point) Roe v. Wade, it would only matter if state legislatures restricted abortion rights. Undocumented men and women brought to this country as children and…
In her seven years in office, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye has emerged as one of the country’s leading advocates for equal access to justice, transparency, and the reformation of…
Alexandra D. Lahav is the Ellen Ash Peters Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. Her book, In Praise of Litigation (Oxford 2017) makes the case that litigation…
Lisa Graybill oversees the SPLC’s work to reverse the “new Jim Crow” and eliminate the structural racism entrenched in the policing, sentencing, imprisonment, and post-conviction practices of states in the…
