During her twenty-five-year tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor became one of the most admired figures in American public life. A recent biography by historian and journalist Evan Thomas chronicles her extraordinary personal qualities, remarkable professional journey, and constructive brand of patriotism. In this Book Review, a former O’Connor clerk describes a legacy in three parts: a lived example of how to thrive in...
No. 7
In June 2015, the Supreme Court decided Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. and held that disparate impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act. Four years later, in August 2019, the Department of Housing and Urban Development published a proposed rule purporting to align the agency’s regulations with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fair Housing Act in Inclusive...
A fundamental question for corporate bankruptcy law is why it exists in the first place. Why are there special rules that apply only in financial distress? The conventional law-and-economics answer—known as the Creditors’ Bargain Theory—identifies two core purposes of bankruptcy law: recreating a hypothetical ex ante bargain and respecting creditors’ nonbankruptcy entitlements.
This Article challenges...
The categorical approach, which is a method federal courts use to ‘categorize’ which state law criminal convictions can trigger federal sanctions, is one of the most impactful yet misunderstood legal doctrines in criminal and immigration law. For thousands of criminal offenders, the categorical approach determines whether a previous state law conviction—as defined by the legal elements of the crime—sufficiently matches...
Can genetic tests determine race? Americans are fascinated with DNA ancestry testing services like 23andMe and AncestryDNA. Indeed, in recent years, some people have changed their racial identity based upon DNA ancestry tests and have sought to use test results in lawsuits and for other strategic purposes. Courts may be similarly tempted to use genetic ancestry in determining race. In this Essay, we examine the ways in which DNA...
In 2019, the Supreme Court slammed the federal courthouse doors on partisan gerrymandering claims from contested state redistricting plans in Rucho v. Common Cause. Yet racial gerrymandering claims remain justiciable. Judicial review of contested redistricting plans is therefore suspended in a state where racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional at the same time that partisan gerrymandering is nonjusticiable, leaving federal courts in...
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...