Law Commons^™

The Costs Of Dissent: Protest And Civil Liabilities, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the civil costs and liabilities that apply to individuals who organize, participate in, and support protest activities. Costs ranging from permit fees to punitive damages significantly affect First Amendment speech, assembly, and petition rights. A variety of common law and statutory civil claims also apply to protest activities. Plaintiffs have recently filed a number of new civil actions negatively affecting protest, including "negligent protest," "aiding and abetting defamation," "riot boosting," "conspiracy to protest," and "tortious petitioning." The labels are suggestive of the threats these suits pose to First Amendment rights. All of these costs and liabilities add …

Self-Determination In American Discourse: The Supreme Court’S Historical Indoctrination Of Free Speech And Expression, Jarred Williams

Honors Theses

Within the American criminal legal system, it is a well-established practice to presume the innocence of those charged with criminal offenses unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a judicial framework-like approach, called a legal maxim, is utilized in order to ensure that the law is applied and interpreted in ways that legislative bodies originally intended.

The central aim of this piece in relation to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is to investigate whether the Supreme Court of the United States has utilized a specific legal maxim within cases that dispute government speech or expression regulation. …

We Have To Defeat The Myth Of The Stolen Election. We Risk Destroying Our Democracy If We Don't, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

February 24, 2021: It Is Not Clear Whether Republicans Really Believe The 2020 Election Was Stolen--This Week's Column, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ It Is Not Clear Whether Republicans Really Believe the 2020 Election Was Stolen--This Week's Column“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Incitement, Insurrection, Impeachment: Inside The Second Trump Impeachment, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Whitehouse, Cicilline To Offer 'Inside View' Of 2nd Trump Impeachment Trial 02-17-2021, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

February 10, 2021: The San Francisco School Board Was Wrong To Remove Washington And Lincoln--This Week's Column In The Capital-Star, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The San Francisco School Board Was Wrong to Remove Washington and Lincoln--this week's column in the Capital-Star“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The San Francisco School Board’S Vote Removing Lincoln’S, Washington's Names Was Wrong. Here's Why, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

February 9, 2021: God And The Pandemic, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “God and the Pandemic“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Constitution And Democracy In Troubled Times, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

Does textualism and originalism approach positively impact democracy?

Introduction – 2019 Constitutional Cases At The Supreme Court: Up Close And In Person, Sonia Lawrence

Articles & Book Chapters

From the vantage point of Summer 2020, 2019 seems almost a mirage. The conditions created across Canada by government and individual responses to COVID-19 were all but unimaginable when 2019 drew to a close, and the legal issues that preoccupy those interested in constitutional and public law now revolve around rapidly evolving rules and policies designed to protect public goods like health and health care. Questions of profound significance to constitutional lawyers, such as the location of limits on state powers, the appropriate roles and relative competencies of courts and governments, the place of state law in creating the good …

February 5, 2021: New York Review Letter To The Editor Concerning Originalism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ New York Review Letter to the Editor Concerning Originalism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Military Service And Offending Behaviors Of Emerging Adults: A Conceptual Review, Christopher Salvatore, Travis A. Taniguchi

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

Focusing on the United States, this paper examines the impact of military service for the cohort of individuals that have experienced the social factors that characterize emerging adulthood as a unique stage in the life course. We argue that military service, as a turning point, may act differently in contemporary times compared to findings from past research. This difference is driven by changes in military service, the draft versus volunteer military service, and the prevalence of emerging adulthood. As a background, we describe emerging adulthood, examine how emerging adulthood relates to crime and deviance, explore the impact of military life …

The Establishment Clause: Its Original Public Meaning And What We Can Learn From The Plain Text, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

Modern times in church-state relations began in 1947 with the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education. The justices in both the majority and dissent said they were interpreting the Establishment Clause based on the intent of the founding generation. However, rather than looking to Congress’s lawmaking in the summer of 1789 that led to the First Amendment, the justices relied on the Virginia disestablishment from four years prior, as well as the efforts of just two statesmen, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

For the next half century, the High Court’s search was for events and prominent …

Illiberalism And Authoritarianism In The American States, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Federalism contemplates subnational variation, but in the United States the nature and significance of that variation has long been contested. In light of the recent turn, globally and nationally, toward authoritarianism, and the concurrent sharp decline in public support not merely for democracy but for the philosophical liberalism on which democracy rests, it is necessary to discard or to substantially revise prior accounts of the nature of state-to-state variation in the U.S. All such accounts implicitly presuppose a common commitment, across the political spectrum, to the core tenets of democratic liberalism, and consequently that subnational variations in policy preferences and …

Are We Still Not Saved? Race, Democracy, And Educational Inequality, Lia Epperson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Thirty-four years ago, in his seminal book, "And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice," Derrick Bell provided a critical view of American history and constitutional jurisprudence to illustrate the challenges the United States faces in reaching true equality. In his enlightened observations about the structure of our republic, Bell refers to “the American contradiction.” To see true progress toward meaningful equality, he contends, we must reckon with the challenging truth of our history—that we are a nation founded on this “constitutional contradiction”... In his work, Professor Bell argued that this American contradiction, “shrouded by myth,” serves …

“Trumping” Affirmative Action, Vinay Harpalani

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay examines the Trump administration’s actions to eliminate affirmative action, along with the broader ramifications of these actions. While former-President Trump’s judicial appointments have garnered much attention, the Essay focuses on the actions of his Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. It lays out the Department of Justice’s investigations of Harvard and Yale, highlighting how they have augmented recent lawsuits challenging race-conscious admissions policies by Students for Fair Admissions. It considers the timing of the DOJ’s actions, particularly with respect to Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. It examines the strategies used by …

Protesting In America, Timothy Zick

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Pa. Rep. Mike Kelly Came Closer Than You Think To Stealing The Election For Trump, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

California V. Texas: The Denouement Of The Affordable Care Act's Legal Challenges?, Rachel Sereix

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

In February of 2018, Texas and nineteen other states filed suit against the federal government seeking to have the entire ACA struck down. In the consolidated case California v. Texas, the Court is considering four questions: First, whether Texas and the individual plaintiffs have standing to challenge the individual mandate; Second, whether the Tax Cut and Jobs Act renders the individual mandate unconstitutional; Third, whether the rest of the ACA can stand even if the mandate is unconstitutional; Finally, if the entire ACA is found invalid, whether the Act should be unenforceable nationwide or whether it should only be unenforceable …

January 28, 2021: Miike Kelly Got Closer Than People Think To Stealing The Election For Trump, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Mike Kelly Got Closer than People Think to Stealing the Election for Trump“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Constitution, The Common Good, And The Ambition Of Adrian Vermeule, Sotirios Barber, Stephen Macedo, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

Public trust in the U.S. government has declined steadily over the last sixty years, from 73% in 1958 to 17% in 2018 (Pew 12/9/20). Public support for the U.S. Constitution has remained higher. When support for the government dipped to an all-time low of 15% in 2010, support for the Constitution stood at 74%. But the gap has narrowed. From 2010 to 2017 support for the Constitution fell from 74% to around 50%—a drop of 24 points in seven years (AP/NCC 8/12; Rasmussen 2017). These figures suggest that if Americans continue to believe that their government isn’t working, they’ll eventually …

Ford Motor Company V. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court: Redefining The Nexus Requirement For Specific Jurisdiction, Brittany Day

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Review Of Federal Tax Legislation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yoseph M. Edrey

Law & Economics Working Papers

What does the Constitution mean when it says that “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States” (US Const. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1)? The definition of “tax” for constitutional purposes has become important in light of the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in NFIB v. Sebelius, in which Chief Justice Roberts for the Court upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act under the taxing power. This has led to commentators questioning …

Defending "Universal Vacatur" - Nationwide Injunctions For Administrative Law, Michael E. Herz

Online Publications

The nationwide injunction has seized the imagination of courts and law professors in recent years. Not surprisingly, JOTWELL’s pages screens have given it extensive attention. Recent jots have described important work by Samuel Bray (twice), Amanda Frost (also twice), Russell Weaver, and Alan Trammell that attacks, defends, or theorizes nationwide (or “universal”) injunctions. Jack Beermann, in praising Bray and Frost, did have one complaint: “As an administrative law nut, I wish they both grappled more with the meaning of the APA’s instruction that reviewing courts should ‘hold unlawful and set aside’ unlawful agency action.” Mila Sohoni has now filled that …

January 11, 2021: Pa. Senate Republicans Need To Seat Dem. Jim Brewster--This Week's Column In The Pennsylvania Capital-Star, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Pa. Senate Republicans Need to Seat Dem. Jim Brewster--this week's column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Pa. Senate Republicans Need To Seat Sen. Jim Brewster, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The Future Of Materialist Constitutionalism, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This is a review essay of Camila Vergara, Systemic Corruption (Princeton 2020). In this lively and important book, Vergara argues that corruption should be given a structural definition, one that connects corruption with inequality and is plebeian rather than elitist. After surveying the work of thinkers from Machiavelli to Arendt, she proposes a set of solutions grounded in the civic republican tradition.

I press several points in my essay. First, Vergara's linkage of corruption with inequality is promising, but introduces tension between a general problem (domination of the many by the few) and a more specific problem (the domination of …

Law School News: Professor Gonzalez Is 2020 Rhode Island Lawyer Of The Year 01/11/21, Barry Bridges, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Pure Privacy, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

n 1890, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis began a storied legal tradition of trying to conceptualize privacy. Since that time, privacy's appeal has grown beyond those authors' wildest expectations, but its essence remains elusive. One of the rare points of agreement in boisterous academic privacy debates is that there is no consensus on what privacy means.

The modern trend is to embrace the ambiguity. Unable to settle on boundaries, scholars welcome a broad array of interests into an expanding theoretical framework. As a result, privacy is invoked in debates about COVID-19 contact tracing, police body cameras, marriage equality, facial recognition, …