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Full-Text Articles in Law

Law School News: A Juneteenth Message From The Dean, Gregory W. Bowman Jun 2021

Law School News: A Juneteenth Message From The Dean, Gregory W. Bowman

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.


The Second Founding And The First Amendment, William M. Carter Jr. Jan 2021

The Second Founding And The First Amendment, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

Constitutional doctrine generally proceeds from the premise that the original intent and public understanding of pre-Civil War constitutional provisions carries forward unchanged from the colonial Founding era. This premise is flawed because it ignores the Nation’s Second Founding: i.e., the constitutional moment culminating in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and the civil rights statutes enacted pursuant thereto. The Second Founding, in addition to providing specific new individual rights and federal powers, also represented a fundamental shift in our constitutional order. The Second Founding’s constitutional regime provided that the underlying systemic rules and norms of the First Founding’s Constitution …


Racialized Bankruptcy Federalism, Rafael I. Pardo Jan 2021

Racialized Bankruptcy Federalism, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

Notwithstanding the robust national power conferred by the U.S. Constitution’s Bankruptcy Clause, the design and administration of federal bankruptcy law entails choices about the extent to which non-bankruptcy-law entitlements will remain un-displaced. When such entitlements sound in domestic nonfederal law (i.e., state or local law), displacing them triggers federalism concerns. Considerations regarding the relationship between the federal government and the nation’s smaller political subdivisions might warrant preserving nonfederal-law entitlements even though their displacement would be authorized pursuant to the bankruptcy power. But such considerations might also suggest replacing those entitlements with bankruptcy-specific ones. Some scholarship has theorized about the principles …


Amending A Racist Constitution, William J. Aceves Jan 2021

Amending A Racist Constitution, William J. Aceves

Faculty Scholarship

Ours is a racist Constitution. Despite its soaring language, it was founded on slavery and a commitment to racial inequality. This vision is etched in the constitutional text, from the notorious Three-Fifths Clause to the equally repugnant Fugitive Slave Clause. And despite the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments, the Constitution retains these vestiges of slavery in its fabric. After 230 years, it is time to remove these troubling provisions from the Constitution. This Essay offers a radical departure from prior constitutional practice. Instead of appending yet another amendment that would simply require readers to ignore the offending language, this …