Both emerging claims of constitutionally protected cognitive liberty and expanding state efforts to address alleged psychological harms associated with technology use necessitate deeper thinking about state interests that might be sufficient to justify regulation of constitutionally protected cognitive activity. Drawing from precedent recognizing state interests in other contexts, this Piece suggests a research agenda of five challenging questions...
CLR Forum
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court’s adoption of the history and tradition test required analysis of historical gun and abortion regulations that produced two unacknowledged problems. First, history and tradition analysis revealed opposing historical traditions but implicitly required the Court to affirm a singular tradition. Second, because...
Freedom of thought has long been revered as a fundamental right, yet its doctrinal contours have remained underdeveloped. Two recent Supreme Court decisions—National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA) and 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis—suggest a nascent but expansive free thought jurisprudence, one that increasingly shields religious actors not just from government interference in belief but also compliance...
Taylor Swift’s songs inspire generations of fans to sing and dance about love and to “shake . . . off” heartbreak. Swift’s hard-earned “reputation” for being a savvy music mogul inspires other creative spirits to be “fearless” in their artistic endeavors. But unless these artists are songwriters and musicians, they should keep their “eyes open” when selling their works, as they may see “red” when they discover their tax...
Since the Supreme Court’s District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, lower federal courts have wrestled with Second Amendment claims raised by categories of people excluded from gun possession. Among those cases, several have been brought by noncitizens challenging their prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), the federal criminal ban on possession by unlawfully present noncitizens. In the post-Heller § 922(g)(5) cases,...
In recent years, a growing number of litigants and scholars have argued that—despite the usual rule in federal court that only final orders are appealable—interlocutory orders denying church-autonomy defenses under the First Amendment can be appealed immediately. Proponents ground their claims in the belief that church autonomy provides religious institutions with an immunity from suit, rather than with a mere defense to liability. As a result,...
Police departments often adopt new surveillance technologies that make mistakes, produce unintended effects, or harbor unforeseen problems. Sometimes the police try a new surveillance technology and later abandon it due to a lack of success, community resistance, or both. Critics have identified many problems with these tools: racial bias, privacy violations, opacity, secrecy, and undue corporate influence, to name a few. A different framework...
In the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, museums are in possession of cultural objects that were unethically taken from their countries and communities of origin under the auspices of colonialism. For many years, the art world considered such holdings unexceptional. Now, a longstanding movement to decolonize museums is gaining momentum, and some museums are reconsidering their collections. Presently, whether to return such looted cultural heritage...
In March 2024, police killed Ryan Gainer, a Black teenager with autism, in his California home after his family sought help during a behavioral crisis. Several months later, police killed Sonya Massey, a Black woman experiencing a mental health crisis, in her Illinois home. This Comment examines the failure of U.S. privacy law to protect disabled people of color in their homes, using the deaths of Ryan Gainer and Sonya Massey as case studies. Through...
Engaging with the sociocultural dimensions of race and racism across U.S. history is essential when creating, critiquing, and reforming the law. Building on Robin West’s exploration of the law and culture movement, this Piece introduces a novel “hermeneutic” project that reads Black American culture throughout U.S. history to gain critical insights into the nature and function of law in America. Black American culture, deeply rooted in the...