Digital Commons Network^™

J Mich Dent Assoc Oct. 2026

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

The October 2026 issue of the Journal of the Michigan Dental Association highlights advocacy, leadership, clinical practice, and practice management for Michigan dentists. The cover story examines how MDA advocacy led to the passage of Senate Bill 105, prohibiting forced virtual credit card transaction fees. Features include a profile on Dr. Raymond Gist, first Black ADA president; clinical guidance on caries management with Dr. Melissa Seibert; insights from the LEAD leadership program; and surgical mindfulness by Dr. Anish Gupta. Regular departments cover unlicensed employee legalities, supporting caregiver employees, open health insurance enrollment, and MDA organizational updates.

Introduction: A Roadmap To The Naval War With Iran, James Kraska

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

2026 Annual Justice Festival Program, Caudill College Of Arts, Humanities, And Social Sciences

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

The program for the 6th Annual Justice Festival held on October 6, 2026 on the campus of Morehead State University.

Constructive Dialogue As Civic Engagement, Andrew Sexton, Lesia Lennex

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Constructive Dialogue as Civic Engagement," given by Andrew Sexton and Lesia Lennex at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 6, 2026.

Love For Justice: Logic, Originality, Verifiability, Ethics, Joseph Casey Cosgriff

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Utopia Exercise: Interactive Workshop," given by Joseph Casey Cosgriff at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 6, 2026.

Mapping A Contested Landscape: Kentucky And The Ohio Valley Across Three Eras, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, Siriporn Peters, Sung Bae Jeon

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Mapping a Contested Landscape: Kentucky and the Ohio Valley Across Three Eras," given by Benjamin Fitzpatrick, Siriporn Peters, and Sung Bae Jeon at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 6, 2026.

Education For Social Change: Cultivating A Pedagogy Of Empowerment, Katie Goldey

Justice Festival at Morehead State University

A PowerPoint presentation, titled "Education for Social Change: Cultivating a Pedagogy of Empowerment," given by  at the Justice Festival held on the campus of Morehead State University on October 6, 2026.

The Colorado River Upper Initial Units Take Center Stage, Eric Kuhn, Anne Castle, Jack Schmidt, Kathryn Sorensen, Katherine Tara

The Traveling Wilburys of the Colorado River

In 1956, Congress authorized the Upper Initial Units—Flaming Gorge Reservoir,

Navajo Reservoir, and the Aspinall Unit (UIUs)—for a variety of water use

purposes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including compliance with the

1922 Colorado River Compact (1922 Compact). The historical record is clear

that the primary reason these reservoirs exist is to satisfy the math of the 1922

Compact and the obligations it imposed on the Upper Division States

regarding flows at Lee Ferry.

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 10.05.26, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• Four First-Year Students Named 2026–27 Murphy Fellows
• Notre Dame Law Amicus Brief Urges Supreme Court to Address Religious Exclusions in Higher Education Funding
• Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic statement in opposition to the death penalty and execution of Christa Pike
• Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic continues annual summer internship program with students from Notre Dame, St. Olaf College, Kenya, and Mexico

Student News

• 3L Aashiyana Adhikari

Faculty Briefs

• Jimmy Gurulé
• Rick Garnett
• Haley Proctor
• Jay Tidmarsh
• Derek Muller
• Nicole Stelle Garnett
• Paolo Carozza
• Patrick Corrigan
• Diane Desierto
• Carter Snead
• Sherif Girgis
• David McIlroy
• Patrick Corrigan, Maria Maciá, …

Mmu: 10/05/26-10/11/26, Student Bar Association

Monday Morning Update

This Week @ NDLS

Mass Times

Commons Daily Menu

Saint of the Week

General Announcements

Comments On Reg-119882-25, Application Of The Personal Responsibility And Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act Of 1996 To The Refunded Portion Of Certain Federal Refundable Tax Credits, 91 Fed. Reg. 53,812 (Aug. 20, 2026); Irs Docket No. Irs- 2026-1057, Islame Hosny, Addison H. Brown, Andrew E. Hoppe, Nafisa Jeb, Parker W. Kinney, Shane M. Rice, Audrey Hager, Anna Russell, Cornell Law School Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

On October 5, 2026, the Cornell Law School Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic submitted this comment letter on proposed Treasury and IRS regulations (REG-119882-25, 91 Fed. Reg. 53,812). The regulations would apply the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) to the refunded portions of the adoption tax credit, child tax credit, American opportunity tax credit, and earned income tax credit. The letter argues that Treasury has not adequately reconciled PRWORA's "qualified alien" test with the Code's residency and Social Security number rules. It also argues that Treasury has not justified treating the adoption credit as a federal public …

Whose Burden Is It Anyway? A Historical Resolution To Burden Allocation Under Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 12(B)(3), Curtis Valencia

Northwestern University Law Review

Today, venue is generally treated as secondary to jurisdiction: statutory, waivable, and concerned with where litigation should proceed, rather than whether it should proceed at all. Yet the courts of appeals remain split over a basic question of federal venue procedure: who bears the burden of proof when a defendant moves to dismiss for improper venue under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3)? Though seemingly technical, in practice, burden allocation can determine whether a suit survives.

This Note offers the first historically grounded approach to resolving Rule 12(b)(3)’s burden allocation problem and argues that the circuit majority approach rests on …

Arbitration In Name Only, Myriam Gilles

Northwestern University Law Review

Modern arbitration clauses hide a dirty secret: many don’t actually provide for genuine arbitration. These provisions masquerade as mutual commitments to fair and efficient private dispute resolution but, in truth, are mere imitations of genuine arbitration provisions. Some reserve for the drafter the power to amend or terminate the clause at will without notice or consent; others design the arbitration process to ensure bias from the start; still others depart so radically from the bilateral, informal model blessed by the Supreme Court that they scarcely resemble arbitration at all. These arrangements are arbitration in name only, falling outside the Federal …

Fake News From Fake Dudes: Why State Statutes Regulating Political Deepfakes Are Both Necessary And Constitutional, Jay Kennedy

Northwestern University Law Review

As technology advances and more Americans use the internet to get their news, AI-generated “deepfakes” have become a powerful tool for misinformation. One common use of deepfakes is to make fake, but convincing, videos of electoral candidates or government officials. Deepfakes pose particular harm to local governments and officials because, unlike federal leaders, local leaders usually do not have the financial resources to fund the counterspeech sufficient to disprove deepfakes. Thus, to help defend the integrity of local governments, this Note argues that every state should enact legislation prohibiting deepfakes of public officials and proposes a First Amendment-compliant framework for …

Originalism's General-Law Turn, Nina Varsava, Bill Watson

Northwestern University Law Review

Originalists are increasingly turning to a general-law theory of constitutional rights. Under this theory, constitutional enactment declared but did not create constitutional rights. The content of those rights was, and remains, a question of general law—a species of common law, regularly employed at the Founding, that transcends jurisdictional boundaries. This preoccupation with general law has precipitated a wave of scholarship developing general-law accounts of various constitutional rights. Yet the nature of general law itself remains poorly understood.

This Article offers a theory of general law. Using philosophical methods to reexamine early American cases and recent work in legal history, the …

Cardozo Law News Brief: October 2, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the September 18, 2026 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Professor Luís Calderón Gómez spoke to Tax Notes about tax avoidance through private placement life insurance (PPLI) and the IRS’s treatment of related private letter rulings.
• Professor Sam Weinstein was quoted in Bloomberg Law about an antitrust lawsuit challenging Mayor Mamdani’s city grocery store plan, questioning whether the proposal creates the consumer harm required for an antitrust claim.
• Professor Matthew Wansley spoke to Gothamist about Tesla’s Cybercabs and concerns over the company’s automated driving technology, and also spoke to The New York Times about legal risks associated with self-driving …

Chapter 4: Untangling The “Legal Vortex”: Transit, Tolls, And Truce In The Strait Of Hormuz, James Kraska

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Law School Announcements 2026-2027, Law School Announcements Editors

Announcements

• Officers and Faculty
• The Law School - History
• Programs of Instruction
• Curriculum
• Student Activities and Organizations
• Funds and Endowments

Where Do I Live, Again?: Finding Kentucky Geographic Information, Kurt X. Metzmeier

Brandeis School of Law Faculty Scholarship

Since the foundation of the United States, Americans have surveyed and recorded deeds to their properties in the county where they resided. However, until recently, those property surveys, as well as county maps, were the product of human surveyors drawing lines on paper. Only in the late 20th century, when satellites began surveying the globe and the internet made information readily accessible, did human maps give way to geographic information systems (GIS). This article surveys the GIS systems available to Louisville lawyers.

Student Perceptions Of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material: A Qualitative Content Analysis, Paige Horton, Amanda Isabel Osuna

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), especially generative AI and deepfake technology, has introduced new challenges in the production and dissemination of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). While existing research has examined the technological and legal implications of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, less is known about how the public, especially young adults who are most likely to use AI technologies, perceive these developments. The present study addresses this gap by examining undergraduate student perceptions of AI-generated child sexual abuse material at a medium-sized private university in the Southeastern United States. Using data from a Qualtrics survey, this study …

Empire By Gaslight, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the constitutional law of U.S. colonialism as it applies to Puerto Rico should be understood as a form of collective gaslighting. The United States has been gaslighting Puerto Ricans for a century-and-a-quarter. By defining their constitutional status as a series of contradictions — starting with defining Puerto Rico as “foreign,” but only in a “domestic sense” — the federal government has caused Puerto Ricans to question their capacity to judge their own reality, thereby solidifying U.S. power over the island and undermining Puerto Rican resistance.

Not only has the United States been gaslighting Puerto Ricans since …

Carvalho V. State [State Of Nevada], 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 62 (Oct. 01, 2026), April Kacura

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A district court violates due process when it restricts closing argument and tells the jury not to consider that someone else committed the crime, even though the evidence supports that inference.

Legal Scapegoating Of Transgender People, Democratic Vulnerability, And The Problem Of Judicial Blinders, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past decade, lawmakers have proposed an extraordinary number of restrictions on transgender people across nearly every area of public and private life — bathrooms, health care, athletics, education, identity documents, military service, prisons, and more. This Article argues that these measures are best understood as legal scapegoating, meaning the use of law to galvanize public discomfort and hostility toward a targeted group. While demagogic rhetoric can also galvanize those reactions, the concrete restrictions of a legal scapegoating effort raise two further risks, one for democratic governance and the other for judicial review. First, legal scapegoating normalizes government’s use …

A Response To How Ai Destroys Institutions, Andrew M. Perlman

SMU Law Review Forum

No abstract provided.

Why I Use Ai To Assist With Legal Scholarship, Michael J. Showalter

SMU Law Review Forum

In early 2026, I wrote a short law review article, with Claude’s junior-associate assistance, in roughly fifteen hours. I was so stunned by Claude’s effectiveness that I promptly started a law firm to replicate my productivity gains for clients. But I viewed my decision to use modern technology as unremarkable—no more surprising than a lawyer skipping the law library for Westlaw when it was invented.

Unexpectedly, my story went viral on social media and polarized the legal academy. Before anyone had read the article—its identity was not initially disclosed—some professors labeled it “plagiarism,” “academic dishonesty,” and “slop.” One simply assumed, …

Dishonorable Machines: Why And How To Resist Trial By Ai Judges, Kyle Singhal

SMU Law Review Forum

Just as humans trust human doctors to treat human ills, we trust human judges to resolve human disputes. A doctor may employ artificial intelligence (AI) tools to aid in diagnosis, but the doctor ultimately decides what to prescribe, and the doctor bears accountability for that choice. This Article argues that judging demands the same boundary: AI may assist as a tool, but it must not replace human decision-making.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in light of AI’s recent gains in its ability to process large quantities of seemingly complex material, some scholars and practitioners have contended otherwise, urging that at least some judging …

Source & Solidarity, Sari Mazzurco

Michigan Law Review

Trademark law has become the new frontier of unionbusting. Companies like Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, and Medieval Times have brought unprecedented suits against their employee unions for trademark infringement in relation to their organizing activities. This sort of litigation puts courts in the difficult position of reconciling trademark protection with unionization rights. Their attempts to apply standard trademark doctrines in this context reveal a deeper problem: Current trademark law is incoherent when applied to labor unions.

This incoherence stems from a disconnect between current trademark law and the original purpose behind its application to labor unions. This Article recovers that basis …

Old Rulings, New Reasons, Jack Boeglin

Michigan Law Review

When the Supreme Court does away with a longstanding legal principle, what should become of the hundreds, if not thousands, of precedents across the judicial system that rely upon it? Does some residual precedential value continue to attach to a decision even after its reasoning has been rejected? Or should it be overturned unless it can be upheld on a new, independently persuasive legal basis?

These are the questions courts must ask when deciding whether to “reharmonize” precedent. A court reharmonizes a past decision by supporting it on alternative grounds that better fit with changing legal or factual understandings.

The …

Fabricating The Crime Of Undocumented Presence, Eric S. Fish, Doug Keller

Fordham Law Review

In 2025, the Trump administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) declared that it is a federal crime simply to be an undocumented immigrant. Congress has enacted no such crime. Congress has made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the United States in a manner that “eludes examination or inspection.” For nearly 100 years, this “elude” offense has been understood to occur only at the moment an immigrant enters the country. But the Trump administration’s OLC has reinterpreted this crime as a continuing offense. Under this new reading, an immigrant who entered unlawfully eludes examination until the moment of …

What Can States Teach? The Right To Education After Mahmoud, Will Simon

Fordham Law Review

In the summer of 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court set new limits on what public schools could require students to learn. Mahmoud v. Taylor pitted a school district interested in promoting pluralism against religious parents who wished to withdraw their children from classroom instruction that promoted celebration and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. The Court found a violation of those parents’ constitutional right to freely exercise their religion, which both expanded the control parents can exert over their child’s public school education and increased the likelihood of similar claims going forward. As federal courts hear this newly expanded set of First …