Abstract Demands for the return of land to tribal nations have become much louder and more compelling in recent years. While “landback” has been part of federal policy for nearly a century, lawmakers and presidents from both parties have embraced landback initiatives more firmly in the last half century. But the quantity of lands returned is almost insignificant in comparison to the vast lands...
Ugly fears of unassimilated immigrants have persisted throughout American history, influencing immigration law for centuries. From Chinese exclusion in the late 1800s, to President Trump’s Muslim ban in 2017, to his continued emphasis on securing our borders today, American history is rich with examples of exclusionary immigration policies. Though many of these laws impose obstacles to entering...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Abstract Conservatorship, though viewed as a private law device, has always operated as a tool of public governance, social control, and resource extraction through the manipulation of the legal category of disability. This Article places a well-accepted Anglo-American history of conservatorship in probate law in conversation with its historical deployment by states, the federal government, and...
Abstract This Comment analyzes the racist origins and consequences of contemporary reproductive justice schemes. Specifically, it situates contemporary debates surrounding reproductive justice within the context of the Thirteenth Amendment. It examines three specific features of the contemporary landscape for reproductive rights and justice, hoping to highlight their connections to a much longer...
Abstract The fair use limitation on the scope of authorial exclusive rights is expected to be the main defense in lawsuits charging generative artificial intelligence (AI) developers with copyright infringement. These lawsuits—brought by and on behalf of some authors, artists, and copyright industry rights holders—challenge the legality of the unauthorized use of in-copyright works for purposes...
Abstract This Article explores the processes of family reunification through marriage in the West Bank and East Jerusalem under their two different legal systems, where one spouse is a Palestinian resident of the West Bank or East Jerusalem, and the other spouse is a foreign national. It argues that Israeli state institutions produce uncertainty through purposefully malfunctional, unclear, and...
Abstract This Article follows the emergence and development of Palestine Studies. Palestine Studies today is a recognized academic pathway in many universities around the world. This Article argues that Palestine Studies was born from the twin impulses of activism and scholarship which still characterizes the area of study today. Palestine Studies benefitted considerably from the developments in...