CategoryVolume 72

Abstract What does a family look like? In recent years, societal understandings have generally grown more inclusive of different kinds of familial structures, including queer families, blended families, interracial families, working mothers, and caregiving fathers. But traditional notions of family roles and expectations still loom large in public consciousness. Critical drivers of this...

Abstract Washington courts have attempted to prevent the issues created by implicit bias in jury selection by adopting an objective Batson standard. However, since its adoption, Washington courts have failed to apply this “objective standard” in either (1) a consistent manner or (2) in a manner in line with the standard’s plain text and purpose. In fact, recent Washington appeals court decisions...

Abstract Disability, preexisting conditions, or underlying conditions might seem like uncontroversial factors to cite when determining an individual’s cause of death. However, many death investigators have also cited these conditions in deaths caused by state violence or neglect. For example, a 2021 study found that medical examiners cited sickle cell trait, a gene mutation, as a cause or...

Abstract Racial resentment, stemming from perceptions that one racial group has unfairly lost opportunities to another, has profoundly shaped decades of affirmative action law. Affirmative action programs emerged in the 1960s to counteract racial discrimination and expand opportunities for racial minorities. However, some white applicants soon viewed these programs with resentment, believing they...

Abstract The psychological comfort of white Americans is essential to the sustenance of white supremacy. The relationship between white psychological comfort and the U.S. Constitution is rich, and yet it has gone almost entirely unexplored in legal scholarship. In fact, the term “white comfort” is grossly undertheorized in law journals; few even mention the phrase, and none define it in a context...

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...