Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has handed down a series of rulings that demonstrate the degree to which the First Amendment can be used to thwart economic and social welfare regulation—generating widespread accusations that the Court has created a “new Lochner.” This introduction to the Columbia Law Review’s...
Constitutional Law
Many have argued that the United States’ two major political parties have experienced “asymmetric polarization” in recent decades: The Republican Party has moved significantly further to the right than the Democratic Party has moved to the left. The practice of constitutional hardball, this Essay argues, has followed a similar—and causally related—trajectory. Since at least the mid-1990s, Republican officeholders have been more likely...
Shortly after John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, President Andrew Johnson directed that Booth’s alleged coconspirators be tried in a makeshift military tribunal, rather than in the Article III court that was open for business just a few blocks from Ford’s Theatre. Johnson’s decision implicated a fundamental constitutional question that was heatedly debated throughout the Civil War: When, if ever, may the federal...
Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provides a seldom-used path to federal preclearance of changes to state and local voting practices. It allows a federal judge, upon finding that a jurisdiction violated the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendment, to require that jurisdiction to submit for preapproval any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting.” Originally intended...
Introduction In 1961, James Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi. Although he was eminently qualified, he was rejected. The University had never admitted a black student, and Meredith was black. Represented by Constance Baker Motley and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), Meredith brought suit in the United States District […]
This Note examines the constitutionality of age-based handgun-purchase restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (Heller I). Part I explores Second Amendment jurisprudence since the Founding and provides an overview of current federal and state firearms restrictions. It also reviews current challenges in the courts to federal prohibitions on firearms purchases and possession by classes...
Since the Supreme Court’s invalidation of anti-gay marriage laws, scholars and advocates have been debating the LGBT movement’s near-term strategies and priorities. This Article joins that conversation by developing the framework for a national campaign to repeal or invalidate anti-gay curriculum laws—statutes that prohibit or restrict the discussion of homosexuality in public schools. Anti-gay curriculum laws expose LGBT students to...
Constitutional rules are norms whose application depends on an interpreter’s identification of a set of facts rather than on her exercise of practical judgment. This Article argues that constitutional interpreters in the United States tend to resolve ambiguity over constitutional rules by reference to originalist sources and tend to resolve uncertainty over the scope of constitutional standards by reference to nonoriginalist sources. This positive...