In this episode of Dialectic, UCLA Law Lecturer at Law Sanford Williams shares his personal story about his journey to working at the FCC. The episode explores the nature of the FCC, its decision-making process as an administrative agency, and some of the most current important topics in telecommunications that the FCC is examining. Dialectic UCLA Law Review · Professor Sanford Williams: Friends...
The Civilization Canon
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...
Women’s Suffrage, Black Suffrage, and Lessons for Today
Abstract Recent elections in the United States have commanded national and international attention with voting rights becoming a leading concern for Americans. Though the American public and the judicial and political institutions that represent the American people understand the importance of voting to the health of a democracy, the voting rate among eligible voters in the United States pales in...
The Legal Foundations of Extractive Power
Abstract Over the last decade, the United States has become the world’s top producer and leading exporter of oil and gas—a change with dramatic geopolitical and climate implications. At the root of this ascendency is a legal framework around oil and gas extraction in the United States that empowers extractive industry to dismantle community opposition, undermine local governance, and entrench...
The Consequences of Mythology: Supreme Court Decisionmaking in Indian Country
Abstract Ilanoli isht unowa. We tell our own stories. A single historical event has many stories. Although this nation’s official chronicle expected and even hoped for Indigenous peoples to fade away, we are still here. Our histories are marked by resistance, survival, sovereignty, and renaissance. Only now, in the later stages of the American experiment, do our histories have the chance to...
Demand for Compensation and Call for Solidarity
Expedited Expungement and Its Limits: AB 2147 as a Peak of Progress
Abstract In September 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 2147, a bill creating an expedited expungement process for prisoners in California’s Conservation Camp Program. This bill purportedly removed a barrier that kept formerly incarcerated firefighters locked out of postrelease employment as professional firefighters. Experts and fire camp workers alike praised the...
Free Speech Versus the First Amendment
Free Speech Versus the First Amendment The digital age has widened the gap between the judge-made doctrines of the First Amendment and the practical exercise of free speech. Today, speech is regulated not only by territorial governments but also by the owners of digital infrastructure. This has made First Amendment law less central and the private governance of speech more central. When the free...