Immigration law has been described as a field of constitutional oddity. Under the plenary power doctrine, courts have deferred to government decisions on immigration policy that would plainly violate constitutional rights outside of the immigration context. Courts have wielded the plenary power doctrine as a tool of systemic racism, using it to uphold racially discriminatory immigration policies...
Privacy and the Impossibility of Borders
This Article argues that a meaningful conception of privacy renders borders illegitimate. For those present in a nation state without legal authorization, pursuit of their basic rights carries the real risk that identifying information collected will expose them to immigration enforcement. Such a phenomenon is becoming more real considering an expanding border enforcement apparatus that relies on...
Relational River: Arizona v. Navajo Nation & the Colorado
It is not every day the U.S. Supreme Court adjudicates a case about the water needs and rights of one of the Colorado River Basin’s thirty tribal nations and the trust relationship shared by that sovereign with the United States. Yet just that happened in Arizona v. Navajo Nation in June 2023. As explored in this Article, the Colorado is a relational river relied upon by roughly forty million...
A New Approach to Disability, “Mental Incapacity,” and the Right to Vote: Lessons from Abroad
The vast majority of U.S. states and many countries have laws disenfranchising those lacking “mental capacity.” Such laws discriminate against people with mental and intellectual disabilities. Based on international developments like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, some countries, including Japan and Peru, have begun questioning the need for incompetence...
Auxiliary Police in Schools
Alternative school police initiatives have recently received significant scholarly and policy attention. From their implementation throughout several school districts nationwide, many scholars, advocates, and policymakers have grappled with two key questions: What replacement for school police officers could both keep classrooms safe and does not result in profiling aimed at Black students? To...
Reestablishment of Religion and LGBTQ Rights
Abstract The disestablishment of religion, also commonly referred to as the separation of church and state or separation of religion and government, has been a salutary constitutional principle in the United States. The diminishment of the disestablishment of religion by the U.S. Supreme Court and accelerated superordination of (conservative) Christianity—like so much of the output of the Supreme...
Episode 9.3 - Shielding the Police with Joanna Schwartz
In this episode we are joined by Joanna Schwartz, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law to discuss her book Shielded, which explores the various ways in which the police are protected from accountability for misconduct.
When Disciplines Disagree: The Admissibility of Computer-Generated Forensic Evidence in the Criminal Justice System
Abstract Criminal trials increasingly rely on computer programs to generate forensic evidence. But experts in the fields of computer science and forensic science often disagree over whether programs are sufficiently trustworthy to meet the legal admissibility standards for scientific evidence. When adjudicating between these disciplines, courts overwhelmingly side with forensic experts—even when...