May 19, 2020
The current epicenters of COVID-19 in the United States are our jails and prisons, which has come as no surprise to public health experts and criminal law scholars who have predicted this entirely predictable tragedy for months now. Until recently, Cook County Jail, in Chicago, had the largest number of cases in a single location….
May 14, 2020
The fight for civil rights in the United States has historically focused on equal access to physical spaces: schools, workplaces, lunch counters, hotels, voting booths. This emphasis is understandable, because these were the places where people learned, worked, socialized, and voted. Civil rights activists made clear that people who are excluded from, or exploited in,…
April 20, 2020
Introduction In our earlier post, we described how the legal bases for countries’ coronavirus responses typically fall into three broad categories. First, some countries have declared a state of emergency under their constitutions, which allow them to take special measures, including restrictions of civil liberties, for the duration of the emergency. Second, some countries have…
April 17, 2020
Introduction The fight against COVID-19 has led many countries, including liberal democracies, to take extraordinary measures that would undoubtedly be constitutionally problematic in normal times. Around the world, we have witnessed entire countries being locked-down, with mass surveillance of cellphones, suspended religious services, restricted travel, and military-enforced curfews. While these measures are widely supported by…
April 15, 2020
COVID-19 in the United States is a national health and economic crisis, and it requires an all-hands-on-deck-approach. Our system of federalism of which we are rightly proud is poorly suited to these comprehensive national efforts. The vexing situation of states competing against one another to collect suitable PPE equipment puts this into sharp relief. So,…
April 13, 2020
The shortage of ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) in parts of the country has raised the most acute equality concerns regarding the treatment of people who are gravely ill. Some jurisdictions have more protective and life-saving equipment on hand than others do, but this pre-crisis distribution is a product of many factors beyond existing…
Daniel B. Rodriguez is the Harold Washington Professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. From 2012 to 2018, he served as dean of the law school. He has previously…
Deborah A. Sivas is the Luke W. Cole Professor of Environmental Law at Stanford Law School, where she directs the Environmental Law Clinic and the Environmental and Natural Resource Law…
Mila Versteeg is the Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Miller Center.…
