Advocates of colorblindness doctrine argue that the time has come to look beyond racial categories. In October 2003, Californians voted against an initiative premised on the idea that eliminating the state's power to collect racial data would further the advancement of equality. This Comment proposes that even if the initiative is recast in revised form and wins a majority of California's popular...
Unhappy Cows and Unfair Competition: Using Unfair Competition Laws to Fight Farm Animal Abuse
Most farm animals suffer for the entirety of their lives, both on the farm and at the slaughterhouse. While there are state and federal laws designed to protect these animals from abuse, such laws are rarely enforced by the public officials who have the authority to do so. Animal advocacy groups have taken matters into their own hands by utilizing state unfair competition laws, including...
In Search of a Theory for Constitutional Comparativism
Constitutional comparativism—the notion that international and foreign material should be used to interpret the U.S. Constitution—is gaining currency. Yet proponents of this practice rarely offer a firm theoretical justification for the practice. This Article contends that constitutional comparativism should be examined from the perspective of constitutional theory. The use of comparative and...
Administering Crime
Although agencies are the dominant force in criminal law today, existing scholarship has largely failed to analyze how these bodies perform as agencies. We know little about how the institutional design of these agencies affects their output or whether the politics of regulation are different when an agency is responsible for the regulation of criminal justice issues as opposed to traditional...
Is Consent Necessary? An Evaluation of the Emerging Law of Cohabitant Obligation
In the United States today, unmarried cohabitants have no obligations to each other unless they have contracted to assume such obligations. “Conscriptive” rules that base the obligations of cohabitants on status instead of contract have been adopted in a number of other nations, and the American Law Institute has advocated adoption of the conscriptive approach in the United States. This Article...
A New Approach to the Wine Wars: Reconciling the Twenty-first Amendment With the Commerce Clause
At a time when consumers enjoy an unprecedented level of access to the goods of their choice, why does a patchwork of state laws prevent equal access to one class of goods: alcoholic beverages? The not-so-simple answer lies in the history and application of section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment, and in the tension between the Twenty-first Amendment and the Commerce Clause. Spearheaded by...
"You Are Now Free to Move About the Country": Why Bankruptcy Lawyers Should Be Free to Engage in Multijurisdictional Practice
For bankruptcy professionals, particularly transactional attorneys, the ability to practice nationwide without the fear of breaking ethical and legal standards is surprisingly not a given. While litigators can be granted temporary pro hac vice admission, there is no equivalent safe harbor for the transactional bankruptcy attorney. Fewer than fifteen states have adopted any rule allowing for...
After Grutter: Ensuring Diversity in K-12 Schools
The Supreme Court held in Grutter v. Bollinger that the attainment of a diverse student body could justify the use of race in admissions decisions in higher education. This decision did not, however, address whether student body diversity could justify race-conscious student assignment policies at the public primary and secondary school level. Several circuit courts dodged this issue prior to...