Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

We Shall Overcome: The Evolution Of Quotas In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of Samba, Stella Emery Santana

Seattle University Law Review

When were voices given to the voiceless? When will education be permitted to all? When will we need to protest no more? It’s the twenty-first century, and the fight for equity in higher education remains a challenge to peoples all over the world. While students in the United States must deal with the increase in loans, in Brazil, only around 20% of youth between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four have a higher education degree.

The primary objective of this Article is to conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of the development, implementation, and legal adjudication of educational quota systems within …

Students For Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action And Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity?, Steven A. Ramirez

Seattle University Law Review

The Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater …

Same Crime, Different Time: Sentencing Disparities In The Deep South & A Path Forward Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Hailey M. Donovan

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The American obsession with crime and punishment can be tracked over the last half-century, as the nation’s incarceration rate has risen astronomically. Since 1970, the number of incarcerated people in the United States has increased more than sevenfold to over 2.3 million, outpacing both crime and population growth considerably. While the rise itself is undoubtedly bleak, a more troubling truth lies just below the surface. Not all states contribute equally to American mass incarceration. Rather, states have vastly different incarceration rates. Unlike at the federal level, …

How To Interpret The Securities Laws?, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In discussions of the federal securities laws, the SEC usually gets most of the attention. This makes some sense. After all, it is the agency charged with administrating the securities laws and regulating the industry as a whole. It makes the majority of the laws; it engages in enforcement actions; it reacts to crises; and it, or sometimes even its individual commissioners, intervene publicly in policy debates. Often overlooked in such discussion, however, is the role of the Supreme Court in shaping securities law, and a new book by Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson demonstrates why this is an oversight. …

Memories Of An Affirmative Action Activist, Margaret E. Montoya

Seattle University Law Review

Some twenty-five years ago, the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) led a march supporting Affirmative Action in legal education to counter the spate of litigation and other legal prohibitions that exploded during the 1990s, seeking to limit or abolish race-based measures. The march began at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel, where the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) was having its annual meeting, and proceeded to Union Square. We, the organizers of the march, did not expect the march to become an iconic event; one that would be remembered as a harbinger of a new era of activism by …

Religious Freedom And Diversity Missions: Insights From Jesuit Law Deans, Anthony E. Varona, Michèle Alexandre, Michael J. Kaufman, Madeleine M. Landrieu

Seattle University Law Review

This Article is a transcript of a panel moderated by Anthony E. Varona, Dean of Seattle University School of Law. During the panel, Jesuit and religious law school deans discussed what law schools with religious missions have to add to the conversation around SFFA and the continuing role of affirmative action in higher education.

The Sffa V. Harvard Trojan Horse Admissions Lawsuit, Kimberly West-Faulcon

Seattle University Law Review

Affirmative-action-hostile admissions lawsuits are modern Trojan horses. The SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case—Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., decided jointly—is the most effective Trojan horse admissions lawsuit to date. Constructed to have the distractingly appealing exterior façade of a lawsuit seeking greater fairness in college admissions, the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case is best understood as a deception-driven battle tactic used by forces waging a multi-decade war against the major legislative victories of America’s Civil Rights Movement, specifically Title VI and Title VII …

Verses Turned To Verdicts: Ysl Rico Case Sets A High-Watermark For The Legal Pseudo-Censorship Of Rap Music, Nabil Yousfi

Seattle University Law Review

Whichever way you spin the record, rap music and courtrooms don’t mix. On one side, rap records are well known for their unapologetic lyrical composition, often expressing a blatant disregard for legal institutions and authorities. On the other, court records reflect a Van Gogh’s ear for rap music, frequently allowing rap lyrics—but not similar lyrics from other genres—to be used as criminal evidence against the defendants who authored them. Over the last thirty years, this immiscibility has engendered a legal landscape where prosecutors wield rap lyrics as potent instruments for criminal prosecution. In such cases, color-blind courts neglect that rap …

Going Forward: The Role Of Affirmative Action, Race, And Diversity In University Admissions And The Broader Construction Of Society, Steven W. Bender

Seattle University Law Review

The third annual EPOCH symposium, a partnership between the Seattle University Law Review and the Black Law Student Association took place in late summer 2023 at the Seattle University School of Law. It was intended to uplift and amplify Black voices and ideas, and those of allies in the legal community. Prompted by the swell of public outcry surrounding ongoing police violence against the Black community, the EPOCH partnership marked a commitment to antiracism imperatives and effectuating change for the Black community. The published symposium in this volume encompasses some, but not all, the ideas and vision detailed in the …

After Affirmative Action, Meera E. Deo

Seattle University Law Review

This is a time of crisis in legal education. In truth, we are in the midst of several crises. We are emerging from the COVID pandemic, a period of unprecedented upheaval where law students and law faculty alike struggled through physical challenges, mental health burdens, and decreased academic and professional success. The past few years also have seen a precipitous drop in applications to and enrollment in legal education. Simultaneously, students have been burdened with the skyrocketing costs of attending law school, taking on unmanageable levels of debt. And with the Supreme Court decision in SFFA v. Harvard, we are …

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

Senate Bill 2-A: The Laws It Changed And Its Impact On Past, Present, And Future Claims, Michael A. Cassel

St. Thomas Law Review

Florida was admitted as the 27th state on March 3, 1845. For the majority of its existence as a state, consumer protections have been a cornerstone of Florida insurance law. In 1893, as the state grew, the Florida legislature enacted the first statute which authorized the recovery of reasonable attorney fees against life and fire insurance companies. In 1982, recognizing the need for further consumer protections, Florida created the Civil Remedy statute authorizing a first-party civil action against insurers due to bad faith conduct; however, despite such consumer protections remaining necessary to “level the playing field” between corporations and consumers, …

Where's The Sense In Hill V. Gateway 2000?: Reflections On The Visible Hand Of Norm Creation, Shubha Ghosh

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cognition And Common Sense In Contract Law, Beverly Horsburgh, Andrew Cappel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Of Contract, Culture, And The Code: Judge Easterbrook And The Cheyenne Indians, John M. Conley

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Re-Tooling Marine Food Supply Resilience In A Climate Change Era: Some Needed Reforms, Robin Kundis Craig

Seattle University Law Review

Ocean fisheries and marine aquaculture are an important but often overlooked component of world food security. For example, of the seven billion (and counting) people on the planet, over one billion depend on fish as their primary source of protein, and fish is a primary source of protein (30 percent or more of protein consumed) in many countries around the world, including Japan, Greenland, Taiwan, Indonesia, several countries in Africa, and several South Pacific island nations. Marine fisheries and marine aquaculture have been subject to a number of stressors that can undermine world food security, including overfishing, habitat destruction, and …

Scuttling Iuu Fishing And Rewarding Sustainable Fishing: Enhancing The Effectiveness Of The Port State Measures Agreement With Trade-Related Measures, Anastasia Telesetsky

Seattle University Law Review

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) is a substantial threat to global food security and a recurring problem for global fishery managers already facing difficult baseline situations exacerbated by climate change, including warming oceans and increasing acidification. There is nothing historically new about IUU fishing; there have always been poachers who take advantage of operating in the shadows of legal commercial fishing. What is new is the extent to which marine poaching has industrialized. It is estimated that 19% of the worldwide value of marine catches are unlawful. The problem is not limited to developing states. For example, even …

The Dangerous Right To Food Choice, Samuel R. Wiseman

Seattle University Law Review

Scholars, advocates, and interest groups have grown increasingly concerned with the ways in which government regulations—from agricultural subsidies to food safety regulations to licensing restrictions on food trucks—affect access to local food. One argument emerging from the interest in recent years is that choosing what foods to eat, what I have previously called “liberty of palate,” is a fundamental right. The attraction is obvious: infringements of fundamental rights trigger strict scrutiny, which few statutes survive. As argued elsewhere, the doctrinal case for the existence of such a right is very weak. This Essay does not revisit those arguments, but instead …

Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain: Concealment, Revelation, And The Question Of Food Safety, Denis W. Stearns

Seattle University Law Review

Despite knowledge that commerce in food is a profit-driven enterprise, the public has consistently put great faith in the wholesomeness and safety of the food being purchased. To some extent, such faith is necessary, even if not always justified. In making the decision to put a bite of food in one’s own mouth, or the mouth of a friend or family member, a form of faith or trust must accompany the act of eating. For who would knowingly eat food suspected to be unsafe? But that is precisely what millions of people do every year, with a great many of …

Keynote Remarks: Re-Tooling Law And Legal Education For Food System Reform: Food Law And Policy In Practice, Emily M. Broad Leib

Seattle University Law Review

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today and to take part in this symposium on the important role law schools and lawyers can play in changing our food system. Food preferences and food choices are incredibly personal, but the way we produce and consume food, and its impacts on our environment, public health, and the safety of ourselves and others, make it a pressing societal issue as well.

Giving Slaughterhouses Glass Walls: A New Direction In Food Labeling And Animal Welfare, Zak Franklin

Animal Law Review

Modern industrial animal agriculture and consumer purchasing patterns do not match consumers' moral preferences regarding animal welfare. Cur­rent production methods infiict a great deal of harm on animals despite widespread consumer preference for meat, dairy, and eggs that come from humanely treated animals. Judging by the premium pricing and market shares of food products with moral or special labels (e.g., 'cage-free,' 'free range,' and 'organic'), many consumers are willing to pay more for less harmful products, but they are unable to determine which products match this preference. The labels placed on animal products, and the insufficient government oversight of these …

Vaccines And The Law, Michael Sanzo Ph.D.

Pepperdine Law Review

The last twenty years have seen a sea-change in the area of proving causation in the toxic tort setting, with courts demanding stronger, scientifically tested evidence. At the same time, a closely related debate has been raging about separating cause from coincidence under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act compensation program for injuries that might have been the result of vaccinations. The Vaccine Act created a no-fault compensation fund financed by a tax on childhood vaccines to address harms resulting from those vaccines. Unfortunately, Congress gave little direction with regard to the level of causal certainty that would be required …

Burning Down The House Or Simply Rolling The Dice: A Comment On Section 621 Of The Dodd-Frank Act And Recommendation For Its Implementation, Joshua R. Rosenthal

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Section 621 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act modifies the Securities Act of 1933 to prohibit the underwriter, placement agent, initial purchaser, or sponsor, or any affiliate or subsidiary of any such entity of an asset-backed financial product from betting against that very product for one year after the product’s initial sale. The rule prohibits anyone who structures or sells an asset-backed security or a product composed of asset-backed securities from going short, in the specified timeframe, on what they have sold, and labels such transactions as presenting material conflicts of interest. This Comment discusses traces …

False Advertising, Animals, And Ethical Consumption, Carter Dillard

Animal Law Review

In light of the fact that today’s consumers often want their products to be created in the most environmentally-, globally-, and animal-friendly ways possible, unethical sellers sometimes succumb to the incentive to persuade consumers that goods were created more ethically than they actually were. This article investigates the ways that consumers can protect themselves from false advertising through the use of federal and state agencies, independant review, federal and state courts, and private attorneys general actions.