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Cardozo Law News Brief: October 16, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the October 16, 2026 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Professors Jessica Roth and Sam Weinstein discussed the Justice Department’s investigation of the White House press pool and its implications for antitrust law and First Amendment protections.

• Professor Alexander Reinert spoke to Spectrum News about qualified immunity and a California law allowing lawsuits against federal officers.

• Professor Gabor Rona spoke to Truthout about President Trump’s rhetoric toward Iran and international humanitarian law.

Faculty news includes:

• Professor Michael Pollack presented his book Sidewalk Nation at several academic and transportation events.

• University Professor Michel Rosenfeld participated in international academic discussions on …

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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 …

Lord Of All I Survey: United States As Imperial Trustee Of The Insular Territories, Dolace Mclean

Cardozo Law Review

This Article examines the language of colonization established in the seminal Supreme Court case of Downes v. Bidwell, which has resulted in America’s five existing overseas territories becoming long-term colonies of the United States. Downes was decided in 1901, and it set up the U.S. Supreme Court’s Insular Cases jurisprudence in which the territories are considered unincorporated into the United States and therefore are subject to Congress’s plenary authority through the Territorial Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court has had a few opportunities to overrule the Insular Cases but has declined to do so. This Article argues …

The Insular Cases “Are Not A Life Preserver”: The Covenant And Self-Determination In The Northern Mariana Islands At Fifty, Neil Weare

Cardozo Law Review

The Insular Cases—Supreme Court rulings from the early 1900s addressing the constitutional status of U.S. Territories—are facing what Justice Neil Gorsuch has called “a long overdue reckoning.” In 2022, Gorsuch declared that the Insular Cases “deserve no place in our law” because they “have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed, stating that the Insular Cases “were premised on beliefs both odious and wrong.” Together, these Justices—who do not agree on much—expressed a shared “hope [that] the Court will soon recognize that the Constitution’s application should never depend on . . . …

Chevron Usa Inc. V. Plaquemines Parish: Did The Removal Clarification Act Of 2011 Abrogate The “Causal Nexus” Requirement For Removal Pursuant To 28 U.S.C. § 1442—The Federal Officers Removal Statute?, E. Farish Percy

Cardozo Law Review

On June 16, 2025, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish to address whether the causal-nexus requirement survived the Removal Clarification Act of 2011’s amendment to 28 U.S.C. § 1442, the federal officer removal statute (FORS). The consolidated cases before the court include some of the more than forty civil cases that were brought by Louisiana parishes against various oil companies seeking to hold them responsible for the loss and deterioration of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands caused by the oil companies’ alleged violations of a Louisiana state permitting law. The cases were filed in 2013 and …

The New Investment Horizon For The National Football League, Sam Nacht

Cardozo Law Review

In August 2024, the National Football League became one of the last major North American sports leagues to permit private equity investment in its member teams. The league’s new bylaws, however, impose significant restrictions on this investment: only six pre-approved private equity funds may invest, each purchase is capped at a ten percent equity stake, and all investments are subject to a minimum six-year lock-up period. While these restrictions reflect the league’s understandable caution about outside influence, they may have inadvertently created a significant antitrust problem. This Note argues that the NFL’s private equity bylaws constitute an unreasonable restraint of …

Territorial Inequality In A Warming World: The Icj’S Climate Opinion And The Future Of Self-Determination For Puerto Rico, Ashley Olita Nemeth

Cardozo Law Review

This Article examines how climate change and Puerto Rico’s territorial status operate as mutually reinforcing constraints on the archipelago’s right to self-determination. While Puerto Rico is highly exposed to intensifying climate impacts, its status as an unincorporated U.S. territory limits its ability to respond, resulting in federal control over fiscal policy, disaster recovery, and economic regulation, as well as exclusion from international climate finance mechanisms. Together, these structural limitations create a “climate-colonial feedback loop” in which environmental harm deepens political and economic dependency, further undermining adaptive capacity and autonomous development. The Article advances a two-part analysis. First, it demonstrates how …

Rewriting Downes V. Bidwell, Rose Cuison-Villazor

Cardozo Law Review

This Essay engages in a thought experiment. Employing the “rewriting” approach to Supreme Court cases recently used by legal scholars, this Essay provides an alternative version of the case considered most important among the Insular Cases—Downes v. Bidwell—where the Supreme Court adopted the territorial incorporation doctrine to hold that Puerto Rico is “foreign to the United States in a domestic sense.” To this day, Downes and the other Insular Cases serve as precedent for the proposition that the constitutional rights of U.S. territorial residents may be treated differently. But how would the Supreme Court have ruled if it employed Critical …

Empire By Gaslight, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus

Cardozo Law Review

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 annexation, but it has …

Doctrinal Interregnum In The Law Of United States Territories, Anthony M. Ciolli

Cardozo Law Review

The past decade witnessed an unprecedented renaissance in interest in the constitutional treatment of U.S. territories. Once derided as “a marginal debate about marginal places” or “‘a footnote within a footnote’ of an already niche field,” law journals published a staggering seventy articles between 2022 and 2023 focused on the law of the territories. The American Bar Association, whose founder Simeon Baldwin played an instrumental role in laying the foundations for the racist Insular Cases, and which itself actively discriminated against the territories for more than a century, passed numerous resolutions repudiating many of its past positions. Even Congress, after …

Cardozo Law News Brief: September 11, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the September 11, 2026 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Professor Matthew Wansley was quoted in The New York Times about Tesla’s Cybercab and the challenges of developing a reliable automated driving system.
• Professor Luis Calderón Gómez spoke to The Washington Post about the Trump administration’s proposal to remove tax exemptions from schools that consider race in admissions and the potential for legal challenges.
• Professor Zalman Rothschild spoke to Gothamist about New York’s vaccine requirements and renewed constitutional challenges to vaccination mandates.
• Adjunct Professor Gary Galperin was quoted in Newsweek about the Lindsay Clancy mistrial and the possibility of …

Cardozo Law News Brief: July 31, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the July 10, 2026 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Interim Dean of Students Francesca Acocella received the National Association of Law Student Affairs Professionals’ (NALSAP) Core Four Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to law student affairs.
• Professor Jessica Roth spoke to Bloomberg about the Supreme Court’s Cook, Slaughter, and birthright citizenship decisions, discussing their implications for the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Professor Michael Pollack was quoted in Bloomberg about the legal history of sidewalks and responsibilities for their maintenance, and also appeared on CNN to discuss a viral story about community sidewalk construction.
• Adjunct Professor Gary …

Support The Icc As A Vital Court Of Last Resort For Victims Of Grave International Crimes, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Gabor Rona

Online Publications

This public statement, issued on International Justice Day (July 17, 2026), affirms support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an independent judicial institution and a court of last resort for victims of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Signed by more than 100 organizations and individuals, including legal scholars, practitioners, human rights advocates, and civil society organizations, the statement expresses concern over efforts to undermine the ICC's independence and functioning. It calls on the United States to reaffirm its longstanding commitment to the rule of law, judicial independence, and international accountability, emphasizing the importance …

Preemption Of State Fraudulent Transfer Law By The Bankruptcy Code, David G. Carlson

Articles

The article argues that state law tort claims based on fraudulent transfers are preempted by the Bankruptcy Code. It contends that allowing such tort claims to persist interferes with a bankruptcy trustee's ability to achieve universal settlements and recover assets, as the trustee cannot guarantee immunity from third-party tort liabilities.

Algorithmic Tax Ownership, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, Dmitry Erokhin

Articles

Tax ownership is a crucial concept for determining tax liabilities, compliance, and enforcement. However, neither the courts nor the IRS has provided clear guidance on how to analyze it. Since the Supreme Court first outlined a twenty-six-factor test for determining tax ownership in Frank Lyon Co. v. United States in 1978, this multifactor test has remained largely unchanged, and there has been no further guidance from the courts or the IRS to this day. Even tests with shorter lists of factors only add to the confusion regarding compliance and enforcement, as there is no clarity on which factors are most …

The Corporate Restructuring Machine: Introducing An Open Platform Approach To Workouts, Horst Eidenmüller, Jared Mayer

Articles

Out-of-court corporate reorganizations, or “corporate workouts,” allow dispersed investors with differing interests to coalesce and strike deals to successfully reorganize distressed companies. Corporate workouts, however, suffer from a host of well-known problems, creating “process fragility.” Current bargaining dynamics limit the instances in which corporate workouts can be used, narrow the kinds of deals that can be made, and invite opportunistic and other socially costly behavior. Yet the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution is here; how can it help parties navigate corporate workouts?

In this Article, we argue that AI is well situated to help increase the efficiency of corporate workouts. Based …

Exploring The Limits Of Qualified Immunity Under Harlow’S Discretionary Function Test, James E. Pfander, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

No abstract provided.

2026 Commencement Exercises, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Commencement Programs

Order of Exercises

Processional:

Felix Wu, JD, PhD, Vice Dean, Professor of Law, Herald

Presiding: 

Selma Botman, PhD, Provost and Vice President for  Academic Affairs, Yeshiva University, Chief Marshal

Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, President, Yeshiva University

National Anthem: 

Cantor Ira W. Heller, JD, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Class of 2008

Remarks: 

Melanie Leslie, JD, Dean, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Class of 1991

Commencement Address: 

Hon. Rowan D. Wilson, Chief Judge of the State of New York and the New York Court of Appeals

Student Remarks: 

Quentin Decurnes, LL.M. Class Speaker, Class of 2026

Basya Bates, …

The Class Of 2026'S Achievements Celebrated At Commencement Awards Ceremony, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

Cardozo School of Law honored members of the Class of 2026 during its annual Commencement Awards Ceremony, recognizing outstanding academic achievement, leadership, public service, legal writing, advocacy, and contributions to the law school community. The ceremony celebrated recipients of numerous faculty- and donor-sponsored awards prior to commencement.

Cardozo Law News Brief: May 15, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the May 15, 2026 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Cardozo Law announced the addition of three new faculty members: Mridula Raman, Stefen R. Short, and Fregine Sheehy, further strengthening the law school’s teaching, scholarship, and clinical programs.
• Professor Wilfred Codrington III spoke to Bloomberg Law about Voting Rights Act litigation and recent redistricting decisions, criticizing the Supreme Court’s approach to election law disputes.
• Professor Jessica Roth spoke to CNN and The Guardian about the South Carolina Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions and the implications of a potential retrial.
• Professor Michael Pollack …

Clihhr Leads Push For Regulatory Scrutiny Of Amazon Mining Project, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

The Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR), in collaboration with the University of Toronto's International Human Rights Program, filed requests with U.S. and Canadian securities regulators seeking investigations into alleged misrepresentations related to Brazil Potash's proposed mining project in the Brazilian Amazon. The initiative highlights concerns regarding Indigenous rights, environmental impacts, and investor disclosure.

Cardozo Law News Brief: May 1, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the May 1, 2026 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• Maurice Q. Robinson ’09 was honored at the 16th Annual BALLSA Celebration for his leadership, service, and commitment to creating opportunities for future generations.
• Professor Lindsay Nash was quoted in The New York Times about Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s immigration enforcement tactics, raising concerns about constitutional violations tied to administrative warrants.
• Professor Wilfred Codrington III spoke to USA Today and Newsweek about recent Supreme Court redistricting cases and their implications for state authority.
• Professor Jacob Noti-Victor co-authored an op-ed in The Atlantic examining copyright law and generative AI amid …

Agency Fact-Making, Haiyun Damon-Feng

Articles

Modern administrative-law scholarship, theory, and doctrine generally conceptualize agencies as engaging in three primary functions: rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudication. This understanding of agencies has informed deep debates surrounding the power, independence, and constitutional legitimacy of the administrative state. But the prevailing account is incomplete. It overlooks a fourth core function of the administrative state: its fact-making, or epistemic, function. Across the administrative state, agencies create and disseminate information in ways that are uniquely comprehensive and uniquely powerful. Agencies’ epistemic outputs include the census generated by the Census Bureau, repositories of public-health information maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and …

Vaccines, Religious Liberty, And The Gvr As Doctrinal Signal, Zalman Rothschild

Articles

This Essay proceeds in four Parts. Part I traces the doctrinal baseline, showing that vaccines have long functioned as the limit case for religious liberty. Part II briefly describes the doctrinal changes of the COVID-19 era — the Supreme Court’s expansion of religious equality doctrine, and its emergency-docket denials that left vaccine mandates formally unresolved — before explaining why the GVR in Miller signals a different move: the extension of the religious liberty framework to vaccine mandates, bypassing the comparability analysis that had allowed most courts to sustain them under the equality model. Part III turns to Miller itself and …

Joint Bank Accounts: Who Needs Them?, Reid K. Weisbord, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

Joint bank accounts, once known as a “poor man’s will,” emerged more than a century ago as a probate avoidance device. This Article contends that joint accounts no longer serve a useful estate planning function, and they pose an unacceptably high risk to banking consumers because the legal framework governing lifetime ownership rights is deeply flawed and underdeveloped. Courts typically apply one of two prevailing models for allocating lifetime rights: (1) the traditional joint tenancy approach, which presumes equal ownership of account funds by each party; and (2) the Uniform Probate Code’s approach, which presumes ownership in proportion to each …

The Impact Of Ai Companions On Family Law, Clare Huntington

Cardozo Law Review

People of all ages and backgrounds regularly use AI companions—virtual friends, lovers, and confidantes powered by artificial intelligence. As a new form of relationship, this development poses novel doctrinal and policy questions for family law. As a doctrinal matter, what does child neglect look like when a parent delegates caretaking to an AI companion? How should standards for elder neglect adapt to the widespread use of robotic caregivers? Should lawmakers impose mandatory reporting requirements on therapy bots if children share experiences of abuse or neglect? And can people designate an AI companion as a health care proxy? As a policy …

Adoption And The Illusion Of Choice After Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health, Solangel Maldonado

Cardozo Law Review

Thalia, a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two, has struggled with a substance use disorder for several years. Her children, ages five and seven, are in foster care. Thalia was homeless when she learned that she was fourteen weeks pregnant. She wanted to have an abortion, but her state banned abortions after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The closest abortion care provider in a neighboring state was 400 miles away, and a medical (non-surgical) abortion was no longer an option.

Unable to access abortion care, Thalia was forced to carry the pregnancy to term. Her …

The Green Amendment As A Substantive Canon, Blake Zimmerman

Cardozo Law Review

State-level environmental rights amendments, commonly referred to as “Green Amendments,” embody inspired ideals of the environmental conditions owed to all. Their aspirational language—promising a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations—intuits bold action. Nonetheless, when leveraged as a standalone cause of action, the Green Amendment’s ability to exact substantive outcomes has proven less inspired, and jurisprudence in the three Green Amendment states—New York, Pennsylvania, and Montana—reveals several shortcomings. These include that the Green Amendment has been interpreted as providing only procedural rights, the Green Amendment generally does not reach private parties, the Green Amendment’s broad language begets circumspect …

The Rhythm Of Reform, Michael Waldman

Cardozo Law Review

This year, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence. In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense. Paine was an immigrant who had arrived only two years before. The pamphlet went viral, a widely bootlegged bestseller with 120,000 copies sold in its first three months in print. It galvanized support for independence and argued that the collection of colonies should become a republic. Paine wrote: “[I]n America THE LAW IS KING.”

Is that still true? We are finding out.

Today our Constitution and the institutions of self-government face extraordinary pressure. In the first two months of 2026 alone, …

Nonmarriage? Rethinking Religious Marriage In Modern States, Shahar Lifshitz

Cardozo Law Review

This Article examines the civil regulation of religious marriage in liberal democracies. While legal scholarship has extensively explored nonmarital intimate relationships, it has paid comparatively little attention to couples who regard themselves as married under religious law without corresponding civil status, as well as couples who remain religiously married following a civil divorce. These arrangements, prevalent among religious minorities such as Orthodox Jews and Muslims, often generate significant legal and personal harms, including exclusion from civil protections, economic vulnerability, and constrained exit from intimate relationships.

This Article develops a structured analytical framework grounded in three liberal perspectives. The individual-rights perspective …