CategoryDiscourse

Abstract The federal government is increasingly weaponizing 18 U.S.C. § 111, originally enacted to protect federal officers from assault, in order to punish speech, protest, and dissent. But § 111 cannot be read to criminalize all resistance to federal authority, particularly when civilians reasonably mistake officers for private aggressors or respond to unlawful, excessive force. Through...

Abstract Stateless persons, those that lack a legal connection to any nation, are among the most vulnerable people in the world. While stateless persons have always lived among us, the United States has not generally contributed to a significant expansion of the stateless population. This Essay explores an underexamined ramification of Trump administration policies that seek to redefine...

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Each year, the UCLA School of Law presents the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching to an outstanding law professor. On Wednesday, April 23, 2025, this honor was given to Professor Iman Anabtawi. UCLA Law Review Discourse is proud to continue its tradition of publishing a modified version of the ceremony speech delivered by the award recipient.

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Some members of Congress propose to make it a crime to publish the name of a federal official with the intent of obstructing that official’s law or immigration enforcement duties. This Essay considers whether the lawmakers’ bill, the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act, is consistent with the First Amendment. It is not.

Abstract Scientific studies show that implicit biases operate insidiously in the legal system, often harming disfavored social groups. Helpfully, the Equal Protection Clause prohibits government discrimination, which logically would include actions driven by implicit bias. District Court Judge Clyde Cahill found just that in the 1994 case United States v. Clary, which struck down the sentencing...

Abstract It is no secret that public defenders across the country struggle with arguably excessive caseloads that limit the effectiveness of the representation they can provide. Excessive caseloads force public defenders to triage cases, a practice which is regarded as unethical because it creates a conflict of interest among a lawyer’s existing clients. In order to avoid excessive caseloads...

Abstract This Article employs the Law Review’s Discourse symposium on my book, Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment, as a starting point to foreground and elaborate on an idea that I reference in that text: police power abolition. The Article begins by describing the central insight that motivates Unreasonable—namely, that simply limiting the frequency with which the...

Abstract On the day he was sworn in for a second term, President Donald Trump issued pardons and commutations to all of his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This sweeping act of clemency gave legal effect to a longstanding grievance: since the attack, which disrupted congressional certification of his 2020 election defeat, President Trump has consistently glorified the...

Abstract Constitutional law is the lodestar for law teaching in the United States and is often referred to as the supreme law of the land. But how are this and related bodies of law to be taught? And what should law students learn when ideological shifts in the Supreme Court lead to radical shifts in Constitutional interpretation? This Essay uses the Dobbs case as the epitome of the Supreme...

Abstract The Fourteenth Amendment’s equality and liberty clauses have been subjected to more judicial review, and opining, than most others. In this still-ongoing interpretative process, successive generations of (mostly) white male federal judges have exploited the unenumerated review power based chiefly on their personal ideological predilections to dismantle reconstructive laws for more than a...

Abstract Law professors, particularly those who teach Property or Constitutional Law in the United States, should center public accommodation law in our pedagogy. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023), the Supreme Court has provided new impetus and fresh material by which to guide our students to contemplate, and join in, the intergenerational struggle over law’s meaning and its...

Abstract A recent shift in the constitution of the personnel on the U.S. Supreme Court has resulted in a “supermajority” of conservative justices that have significantly shifted key constitutional doctrines in a manner not seen in recent history. This shift is illustrated by at least three significant cases: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), Students for Fair...