Columbia Law Review

Protests are woven into the history and social fabric of the United States. Whether the topic involves racial inequity, abortion, police brutality, oil and gas pipelines, war, or allegedly stolen elections, Americans will voice their opposition—occasionally, in frightening or destructive ways. Politicians, in turn, have a history of using their lawmaking power to discourage protest by creating crimes like unlawful assembly, riot, civil disorder,[...]

The full text of this Foreword can be found by clicking the PDF link to the left.

In an era of reckoning and resistance, this Symposium Piece journeys through the rich terrain of Black protest and Afrofuturist imagination, uncovering a radical legal tradition rooted in historical defiance and visionary possibility. By analyzing Black resistance—from insurrections against slavery to today’s racial justice movements—through an Afrofuturist lens, it identifies three key dimensions of Black protest in the United States: perversion,[...]

College campuses across the country celebrate their legacies of creating free speech guarantees following student protests from the mid-1960s to early 1970s, even though colleges had minimal tolerance of such protests at the time. As part of the New Left’s vision for a different society, students, sometimes joined by faculty, demanded an end to the Vietnam War and war industry research, fought for Black and ethnic studies departments, and protested[...]

The Columbia Law Review’s Karl Llewellyn Lecture series cele­brates pioneers in the law who have innovated and challenged legal theory. The second annual Lecture was delivered by Howard University School of Law Professor Justin Hansford on November 15, 2024, as the opening address at the Review’s Symposium on the Law of Protest. A transcript of Professor Hansford’s Lecture is published in this Issue. [...]

From April 2016 until February 2017, thousands of people gathered along the Cannonball River on the border of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In response, state officials tried to close down roads leading to the Reservation, considered legislation that would immunize drivers who struck protesters with vehicles, and arrested hundreds of peaceful demonstrators. The #NoDAPL protests built[...]

The functional absence of the Assembly Clause in First Amendment law and constitutional discourse fundamentally distorts our analysis of the proper scope of constitutional protection for political assemblies. This Symposium Piece develops a much-needed independent Assembly Clause doctrine. An independent Assembly Clause doctrine would not only be consistent with the text and original understanding of the Founders but also allow for a jurisprudence[...]

The growth of private companies in the realm of carceral healthcare services has significant implications for plaintiffs seeking to challenge disability discrimination perpetrated during their incarceration. As the face of disability discrimination changes in carceral facilities, so should the legal remedies that hold them to account. This Note outlines the cur-rent scope of disability antidiscrimination litigation in prisons, jails, and detention[...]