Abstract Prohibitions on gender-affirming care for minors in the United States came to a head in the last few months, with the issuance of an Executive Order by the Trump Administration that threatens to penalize institutions that provide such care. While about half of all American states ban such care, the Order seeks to ensure that such care becomes unavailable nationwide. On cue, numerous...
Dependency Law: The Punishment of Performance
Abstract What does a family look like? In recent years, societal understandings have generally grown more inclusive of different kinds of familial structures, including queer families, blended families, interracial families, working mothers, and caregiving fathers. But traditional notions of family roles and expectations still loom large in public consciousness. Critical drivers of this...
The Objective Batson Standard: Can a New Step Three Address the Problem of Implicit Bias?
Abstract Washington courts have attempted to prevent the issues created by implicit bias in jury selection by adopting an objective Batson standard. However, since its adoption, Washington courts have failed to apply this “objective standard” in either (1) a consistent manner or (2) in a manner in line with the standard’s plain text and purpose. In fact, recent Washington appeals court decisions...
Predisposed: Race, Disability, and Death Investigations
Abstract Disability, preexisting conditions, or underlying conditions might seem like uncontroversial factors to cite when determining an individual’s cause of death. However, many death investigators have also cited these conditions in deaths caused by state violence or neglect. For example, a 2021 study found that medical examiners cited sickle cell trait, a gene mutation, as a cause or...
The Law of Racial Resentment
Abstract Racial resentment, stemming from perceptions that one racial group has unfairly lost opportunities to another, has profoundly shaped decades of affirmative action law. Affirmative action programs emerged in the 1960s to counteract racial discrimination and expand opportunities for racial minorities. However, some white applicants soon viewed these programs with resentment, believing they...
White Comfort and the Constitution
Abstract The psychological comfort of white Americans is essential to the sustenance of white supremacy. The relationship between white psychological comfort and the U.S. Constitution is rich, and yet it has gone almost entirely unexplored in legal scholarship. In fact, the term “white comfort” is grossly undertheorized in law journals; few even mention the phrase, and none define it in a context...
Colorblind Immigration Racism
Abstract The Fifth Amendment equal protection doctrine has never been effective at curtailing racialized harm in immigration law. While not expressly drafted to address racially differential impact, the administrative law doctrine known as arbitrary and capricious review has the potential to enable courts to set aside discretionary immigration enforcement decisions as arbitrary and capricious...
The Class Action After Trump v. CASA
Abstract To every court to consider its merits, Donald Trump’s order purporting to end birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented parents violates the Fourteenth Amendment. But in Trump v. CASA, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a “universal” injunction that had shielded all children from the order’s enforcement. The federal courts had issued dozens of universal injunctions before...