Abstract The decision in Fisher II sustained the University of Texas’s use of race in its undergraduate admissions policy, in the face of nearly decade long attack, but on terms that reinscribed the onerous requirements of strict scrutiny on institutions utilizing any form of race-conscious policy. The debate before the Court and the rationales asserted reinforced a framework based on the notion...
Episode 3.2: Law and Disorder, Part I: The Pardon of Joe Arpaio with Professor Hiroshi Motomura
In this episode, we sit down with UCLA Law Professor and Immigration Scholar Hiroshi Motomura to talk about the presidential pardon of former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio.
Candidate Disclosure and Ballot Access Bills: Novel Questions on Voting and Disclosure
In the wake of Donald Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, legislators in at least twenty-three states have released over forty bills seeking to force presidential candidate tax return transparency. This essay addresses whether these state ballot access measures pass constitutional muster and concludes that they do.
Episode 3.1: On the ACLU and Free Speech with Professor K-Sue Park
In the season premiere of Dialectic, we sit down with Professor K-Sue Park to discuss her recent New York Times op-ed on the ACLU’s decision to defend white supremacists. Professor Park is a Critical Race Studies Fellow at UCLA Law.
Movement Lawyers in the Fight for Immigrant Rights
As immigration reform initiatives driven by established advocacy organizations in Washington, D.C., were successively defeated in the late mid to late 2000s, movement-centered organizations and newly created formations of undocumented youth mobilized against the federal-local immigration enforcement regime of the Bush and Obama administrations. Drawing on media, scholarly, and first person...
From Stop and Frisk to Shoot and Kill: Terry v. Ohio’s Pathway to Police Violence
This Article explains how a particular area of Fourth Amendment law—stop-and-frisk jurisprudence—facilitates police violence against African Americans. The Article challenges the standard account of Terry v. Ohio— the case that constitutionalized stop-and-frisk—and argues that, in addition to eroding the probable cause standard on which Fourth Amendment law has historically rested, the...
The Puzzle of Social Movements in American Legal Theory
In one of the most striking developments in American legal scholarship over the past quarter century, social movements have become central to the study of law. Why has this happened? To answer the question, this article provides an original account of progressive legal theory that reveals how the rise of social movements is a current response to an age-old problem: harnessing law as a force for...
Community in Conflict: Same-Sex Marriage and Backlash
Did backlash to judicial decisions play a destructive role in debates over same-sex marriage, as was so often claimed? The article argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell was possible not simply because public opinion changed, but also because struggle over the courts helped change public opinion and forge new constitutional understandings. The debate over same-sex marriage...