Abstract This Article argues that sex workers are silenced when they attempt to contribute to lawmaking processes. As a result, they are unable to contribute their knowledge in a meaningful way. The consequence is that laws reflect only one perspective of life in the sex trades: the prostitution abolitionist position that all sex work is inherently a form of violence against women. Without the...
Abstract After centuries of colonial subordination, Black and Brown former colonies are still fighting to achieve the fruits of decolonization. The traditional theory is that former colonies will emerge from the colonial period with the legal mandate and international recognition needed to chart their own futures. But, for those Black and Brown British colonies that achieved political...
Abstract Copyright law generally prohibits copying. Contemporary art has increasingly come to rely on copying. Thus, the two are on a collision course—or so the traditional argument goes. This purported clash between the law and creative practice seemed to reach its apex in the Supreme Court’s recently decided Warhol v. Goldsmith, which refused to find that Warhol’s famous brand of unlicensed...
Abstract Immigration detention is one of the most active sites of struggle for justice in the United States, and the First Amendment may be an underutilized tool in the movement to abolish immigration detention. When people detained by ICE organize against the unjust conditions they endure, they routinely experience repression and retaliation for their speech. While some of ICE’s retaliation...
Abstract This Comment delves into the fundamental right to familial association and integrity in the United States, tracing its historical significance and its erosion in the criminal legal system. Focusing on the Ninth Circuit’s case, United States v. Magdaleno, it scrutinizes a supervised release condition that restricts interactions with siblings, revealing a potential avenue for family...
Abstract In Professor Mari Matsuda’s article Voices of America: Accent, Antidiscrimination Law, and a Jurisprudence for the Last Reconstruction, Professor Matsuda identifies a doctrinal puzzle in the courts’ approach to accent discrimination cases: Courts recognize that accent discrimination can be a form of national origin discrimination, yet courts are overly deferential to employers’ claims...
Abstract For generations, marginalized communities have been impacted by discriminatory land use, zoning, and property valuation policies, from redlining in the 1930s to the siting of undesirable land uses that persists today. Because of these policies, marginalized communities are forced to contend with low property values, substandard infrastructure, and increased health risks. The very same...
Abstract This Article makes the empirical and legal case for redefining the concept of patent “progress” to include the promotion of a diversity of innovators and inventors, and not just innovation. Based on a survey of the empirical literature, it details four plausible mechanisms by which diverse innovators improve innovation: novelty, non-obviousness, (overcoming) conflict, and numerosity. It...
Abstract Incarceration has become the norm for those who assert their innocence. A staggering number of defendants are incarcerated prior to the adjudication of their cases—a reality that has become a central paradox of an American criminal justice system which holds axiomatic the presumption of innocence. Recent attempts to address pretrial mass incarceration through bail reform and the COVID-19...
Abstract Ableism forms the scaffolding of our immigration laws, policies, and practices, but the operation of this pervasive form of exclusion has been grossly unacknowledged and understudied until now. In 1882, Congress first codified the exclusion of defective bodies by declaring that, “any lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public...
Abstract As jurisdictions across the country grapple with the urgent need to redress the impact of mass incarceration, there has been renewed interest in reforms that reduce the harms punishment inflicts on women. These "gender-responsive" reforms aim to adapt traditional punishment practices that, proponents claim, were designed "for men." The push to change how we punish based on gender...
Abstract In this Comment, I examine the ways the United States has managed its borders and population through health-based exclusions that often serve as a proxy for race-based exclusions. I look specifically at how two sexually-transmitted infections (STIs)—syphilis and gonorrhea—became and remain grounds for inadmissibility. Since 1891, certain noncitizens entering the U.S. must be screened for...
Abstract No one deserves to die just because they use drugs. Yet, policies and practices in jails and prisons around the country continue to facilitate the death, pain, and suffering of people who use drugs by refusing to properly screen and medically manage withdrawal for persons in custody. In Estelle v. Gamble, the U.S. Supreme Court established a constitutional right for incarcerated persons...
Abstract Recently, scholars have uncovered many ways in which our traditional understandings of the U.S. Constitution have failed to grapple with American empire and colonialism. This work has shown that the nation’s history of mistreating Indigenous peoples is constitutive of its legal order. In this Article, I provide evidence of a similar kind of imperialistic effect in the realm of statutory...