CategoryDiscourse

The second Trump administration has prompted widespread concern about the health of our constitutional republic. Attacks on political rivals, higher education, the media, and civil liberties raise fundamental questions about what can check the rise of authoritarianism in the United States. Can the Constitution save the republic? Can the Fourth Amendment help protect individual liberties? This...

Racial inequality in the military justice and discharge systems remains one of the least examined yet most consequential civil rights issues of our time. Black servicemembers are far more likely than their white peers to receive “bad paper” discharges, which are punitive separations that strip them of essential veterans’ benefits, from VA health care to the GI Bill. These discharges, often the...

This Essay argues that the Twenty-Second Amendment is enforceable by the states against any two-term president—including Donald Trump—who attempts to evade its requirements and seek an extraconstitutional third term. Whether Trump actually seeks such a term is an open question, though he professes to be serious about doing so, and allegedly sees multiple methods for appearing on the ballot. The...

Abstract The federal government is increasingly weaponizing 18 U.S.C. § 111, originally enacted to protect federal officers from assault, in order to punish speech, protest, and dissent.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...

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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 Thursday, April 14, 2024, this honor was given to Dean Russell Korobkin. UCLA Law Review Discourse is proud to continue its tradition of publishing a modified version of the ceremony speech delivered by the award recipient.

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...