“If I can be provocative, shouldn’t this study be done in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatment, no intensive care, a bit like some studies on AIDS or among prostitutes. We try things, because we know they . . . are highly exposed and they don’t protect themselves. What do you think about that?” Jean-Paul Mira, […]
CLR Forum
Introduction When a Louisiana state court set Ronald Egana’s bail at $26,000, Egana’s mother and close friend did what hundreds of thousands of arrestees do each year: They sought the services of a commercial bail bondsman. Blair’s Bail Bonds agreed to post Egana’s bail in exchange for a twelve-percent nonrefundable premium, the state-approved rate in […]
Introduction In the landmark decision McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court held that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation in eastern Oklahoma had never been disestablished by Congress, and it thus remained “Indian country” under federal law for purposes of criminal jurisdiction. This decision also carried the potential to alter the regulatory landscape of Oklahoma in […]
The COVID-19 crisis has tragically revealed the depth of racial inequities in the United States. This Piece argues that the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on racial minorities is a symptom of a failing approach to public health, one that privileges individual behaviors over the structural conditions that generate vulnerability and inequitable health outcomes. Despite clear racial disparities in illness and deaths, the...
Does the Constitution guarantee a habeas Privilege or not? Even though the Supreme Court appeared to answer this foundational habeas question in Boumediene v. Bush, it seemed to have unceremoniously rescinded that answer in DHS v. Thuraissigiam. This Piece, using Thuraissigiam as a starting point, links this...
In Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., the Supreme Court resurrected a nineteenth-century copyright doctrine—the government edicts doctrine—and applied it to statutory annotations prepared by a legislative agency. While the substance of the decision has serious implications for due process and the rule of law, the Court’s treatment of the doctrine recognized an invigorated role for courts in the development of copyright law through...
Business corporations long ago rejected the idea of unaccountable directors running firms with only their consciences to keep them in check. Yet unaccountable boards are the norm in the nonprofit sector. This need not be the case. The laws of all fifty states and the District of Columbia provide a template for accountability in nonprofit governance: membership statutes. These statutes define the roles and responsibilities of nonprofit members,...
In Borrowing Equality, Professor Atkinson deftly demonstrates Congress’s nonsensical bifurcation of the twin concepts of “credit” and “debt,” whereby it celebrates and encourages the former and regulates and punishes the latter. She then shows that, in refusing to acknowledge the harmful consequences of indebtedness while legislating credit-based solutions to inequality, these credit policies in fact entrench the very hierarchies...
Introduction Recent developments, such as incidents of legalized discrimination against Black expatriates, tourists, and students in China, raise questions about why Black scholars and legal practitioners are largely absent from global debate over how China’s laws and legal institutions function. Despite the Supreme Court’s opinion that U.S. law schools and the legal community benefit from […]
United States trademark law requires that a mark be used in commerce for it to qualify for registration at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Applicants prove that they have met the use requirement by submitting to the PTO photographic specimens of their use of the mark in commerce. This Piece reports the results of new empirical work showing that an appreciable number of U.S. trademark applications originating in China...