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Full-Text Articles in Law
Replacing Notorious: Barret, Ginsburg, And Postfeminist Positioning, Calvin R. Coker
Replacing Notorious: Barret, Ginsburg, And Postfeminist Positioning, Calvin R. Coker
Faculty Scholarship
This essay offers a rhetorical reading of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings to make sense of how widespread outrage over replacing the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative idealogue was resolved through the invocation of postfeminist motherhood. I argue that GOP Senators and Barrett herself positioned her nomination as the achievement of feminist goals, justified through rhetorics of choice and the idealization of (white) motherhood. These strategies cement Barrett as the logical and defensible successor to both Ginsburg’s seat and her legacy of feminist work. I conclude with the implications of this circulation of postfeminist motherhood, with focus on …
Justices Citing Justices, Jay D. Wexler
Justices Citing Justices, Jay D. Wexler
Faculty Scholarship
Scholars have long paid attention to how often and for what reasons Supreme Court justices cite law review articles and academic books in their opinions. More recently, a new area of scholarship has begun to look at how Justices create their own lines of “personal precedent” through not only their prior opinions but also their academic writings. At the intersection of these two areas of inquiry lies questions of how often and for what reasons Supreme Court justices cite the journal articles and books of the various justices sitting on the Court, including their own. With the exception of one …
The Need For An Asian American Supreme Court Justice, Vinay Harpalani
The Need For An Asian American Supreme Court Justice, Vinay Harpalani
Faculty Scholarship
In her insightful Comment on Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina (hereinafter SFFA cases), Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig critiques Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion for its “simplistic understanding of race and racism.” She interrogates the “doxa” — the “unexamined cultural beliefs” that structure the majority’s narrative on racial experiences. Onwuachi- Willig elucidates how Chief Justice Roberts accepts whiteness as a tacit norm and ignores the marginalization of people of color. She contrasts this with the “fuller” history of American racism brought forth by Justices …
Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann
Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann
Faculty Scholarship
The question presented in Loper Bright Industries v. Raimondo1 is “[w]hether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.” The Court denied certiorari on another question focused on the merits of the case,2 indicating that at least four of the Justices are anxious to revisit or at least clarify Chevron. It’s about time, although it’s far from certain that the Court will actually follow through with the promise the certiorari grant indicates.3 …
The Anti-Innovation Supreme Court: Major Questions, Delegation, Chevron And More, Jack M. Beermann
The Anti-Innovation Supreme Court: Major Questions, Delegation, Chevron And More, Jack M. Beermann
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court of the United States has generally been a very aggressive enforcer of legal limitations on governmental power. In various periods in its history, the Court has gone far beyond enforcing clearly expressed and easily ascertainable constitutional and statutory provisions and has suppressed innovation by the other branches that do not necessarily transgress widely held social norms. Novel assertions of legislative power, novel interpretations of federal statutes, statutes that are in tension with well-established common law rules and state laws adopted by only a few states are suspect simply because they are novel or rub up against tradition. …
Political Equality, Gender, And Democratic Legitimation In Dobbs, Aliza Forman-Rabinovici, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Political Equality, Gender, And Democratic Legitimation In Dobbs, Aliza Forman-Rabinovici, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Faculty Scholarship
This Article examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, demonstrating how the Court deploys new arguments about women’s political equality — alongside long-standing arguments about federalism and judicial minimalism — to legitimate the overruling of Roe v. Wade. In contending that abortion rights are better determined by legislatures, the Dobbs Court advances a thin conceptual account of democracy and political equality that ignores a range of anti-democratic features of the political process that shape abortion policy — such as partisan politics and gerrymandering — as well the absence of women in the …
Navigating Between "Politics As Usual" And Sacks Of Cash, Daniel C. Richman
Navigating Between "Politics As Usual" And Sacks Of Cash, Daniel C. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
Like other recent corruption reversals, Percoco was less about statutory text than what the Court deems “normal” politics. As prosecutors take the Court’s suggestions of alternative theories and use a statute it has largely ignored, the Court will have to reconcile its fears of partisan targeting and its textualist commitments