Digital Commons Network^™

Climate Lies And Unjust Profits, Vanessa Casado-Pérez, Yotam Kaplan, Yael Lifshitz, Niv Meyerson

Faculty Scholarship

The climate crisis has reached a perilous tipping point. Our entrenched reliance on fossil fuels remains unchecked, as fossil fuel corporations wield their power to block meaningful reform and entrench their profits. The political horizon offers little relief—an incoming administration is poised to dismantle vital environmental protections, stripping away the few safeguards that stand between us and climate catastrophe.

In this grim landscape, communities across the nation are turning to the courts with renewed urgency, seeking justice and reform through climate litigation. Yet past efforts have fallen short, stymied by two formidable barriers. First, by centering on greenhouse gas emissions …

Plea Bargain Skepticism When Companies Kill People, Peter R. Reilly

Faculty Scholarship

In 2018 and 2019, two Boeing 737 MAX airplanes fell from the sky, killing 346 people—one of the deadliest corporate crimes in U.S. history. Instead of taking the case to trial, the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) addressed the matter by using two different alternative dispute resolution vehicles. First, Boeing was given a three-year deferred prosecution agree-ment. That deal was canceled when DOJ determined the company had breached it. Next, Boeing was given a plea bargain. This Article argues that federal courts, which are empowered to approve or reject plea deals, should be skeptical when the government turns to …

Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover: Using State Constitutions To Escape The Dead Hand Of Article V, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

Thomas Jefferson believed that “the earth always belongs to the living generation.” His constitutional approach would empower twenty-first century Americans to decide twenty-first century problems regularly determined by the United States Supreme Court. Article V, the formal method for constitutional change, seemingly relegates these decisions to the Supreme Court because amending the federal Constitution is nearly impossible.

Unfortunately, our fixation on federal constitutional law often eclipses the power of state constitutional law. State constitutions balance our relatively static federal Constitution with responsive state governments. There is no need to debate what the Framers thought about modern issues when Americans can …

The Eviction Caste System, Allison Freedman

Faculty Scholarship

The United States is facing a dire housing crisis, and most Americans agree that housing is a universal necessity. Yet under current Supreme Court jurisprudence, housing is not a fundamental right, and individuals facing housing insecurity from an eviction are generally not members of a suspect class. This is because eviction is often viewed as an individual problem and a symptom of poverty, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed is not a suspect classification. This Article disrupts the superficial narrative that eviction is an individualistic symptom of poverty, and instead views evictions from a systemic and historical perspective. It …

How Ai Destroys Institutions, Woodrow Hartzog, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy of authority and a framework for roles and rules, while maintaining legitimacy for the knowledge produced and the actions taken. Purpose-driven institutions built around transparency, cooperation, and accountability empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo. This happens through the machinations of interpersonal relationships within those institutions, which broaden …

Revocation Reconsidered: Probation Advocacy Through A Litigation Lens, Shira M. Diner

Faculty Scholarship

Being found in violation of probation has dire consequences. The person found in violation can be imprisoned, upending them from their job, family, and community. Unlike incarceration after a criminal trial, a sentence after a violation of probation is not the result of a legal process characterized by robust due process protections. It is also often not the result of a forceful and thorough defense. It is instead the consequence of a hearing where lawyers with the fixed mindset of an inevitable finding of a violation don’t engage in the same preparation that they would if it was a trial. …

Effects Of Dietary Nitrate And Caffeine On End Power And Work Above End Power During A 3 Min All-Out Test In Trained Male Cyclists, Anthony M. Hagele, Kyle Sunderland, Petey W. Mumford, Chad Kerksick

Faculty Scholarship

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of acute dietary nitrate (NO3−) and caffeine (CAF) supplementation on end power (EP) and work performed above EP (WEP) in trained male cyclists during a 3 min all-out test (3MT) on a cycle ergometer.

Methods: Fifteen healthy, trained male cyclists (28.5 ± 5.3 years, 79.2 ± 9.1 kg, VO2peak 55.2 ± 5.6 mL·kg−1·min−1) completed four exercise trials in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study design separated by 3–7 days. The four experimental conditions were placebo beverage (nitrate-depleted) + placebo capsule, nitrate-rich beetroot juice + placebo capsule (BR), …

Childhood, Likelihood, And Probative Value: A Further Call For Greater Probity And Less Childism In Evidence Law, Mae C. Quinn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Music Listening While Studying And Academic Performance Among College Students With Attention Deficit And Hyperactivity Disorder, Raihan K. Khan, Md Towfiqul Alam, Madalynn Nofplot, Sojib Bin Zaman, Catherine L. Zaman

Faculty Scholarship

Evidence on whether music listening supports academic performance, particularly among students with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), remains mixed. We explored associations between music listening while studying and academic performance (GPA: grade point average) among college students, and to evaluate whether the associations differed by ADHD status. We analyzed cross-sectional survey data from college students and conducted linear regression models with self-reported GPA as the dependent variable. Models were adjusted for sex, academic level, college affiliation, primary study location, weekly study hours, and preferred genre of music. A total of 541 students participated. Most of the students were at …

Agenda Control And Precedent, Thomas P. Schmidt

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court now has vast control over its agenda: It has the power to pick and choose not only what cases it will hear through writs of certiorari, but also what specific legal questions within those cases it will consider. As a result, the Court never revisits a precedent unless it has made a prior, discretionary choice to put the viability of a precedent on its agenda. For that reason, the Court’s powers of agenda control play a significant and underappreciated role in maintaining the continuity of the legal order. Indeed, it is no surprise that the formal …

Bad Faith Disregard Of Benefits And Science In Federal Environmental Deregulation, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Since the beginning of the Reagan administration in 1981, federal agencies have used cost-benefit analysis when making important policy decisions, especially when issuing regulations. In the years since then the methodologies have been refined and enshrined in White House guidance. The second Trump administration has upended these practices by often ignoring the benefits of regulations and only considering the costs. In doing so it often claims that there are such uncertainties about the benefits that they should be disregarded. It uses these claims in support of repealing or softening regulations that prior administrations found would save thousands of human lives.

Trust, Transparency, And The Fragile Promise Of Data Governance In The Era Of Modernization, Fallon Julia Cochlin, Regen Weber-Fares, Jami Crespo, William M. Sage, Cason Daniel Schmit

Faculty Scholarship

Public health data modernization in the United States has accelerated since COVID-19 exposed systemic weaknesses in fragmented data infrastructure and governance. Technical solutions have advanced, but legal and relational barriers still complicate data sharing across jurisdictions. Traditionally, interjurisdictional data sharing has relied on individually negotiated Data Use Agreements (DUAs), a process that is both resource-heavy and often opaque. To address this, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have proposed a Core DUA to standardize terms and reduce administrative burden. However, its success depends on trust — a fragile foundation increasingly strained by politicization, perceived lack of transparency, and controversial …

Medical-Legal Partnership As Value-Based Primary Care: Interprofessional Teamwork For Health-Related Social Needs, Jin K. Park, Andrew F. Beck, Keegan D. Warren, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

Today’s primary care physicians are being asked to address patients’ health-related social needs (HRSN) as part of their routine care practices. An aging population, with a growing complement of intersecting medical and social needs, increases this burden on primary care. Medical-legal partnerships (MLP) are interprofessional collaborations that combine clinical and legal expertise to address HRSN involving housing, public benefits, employment, and other domains remediable by civil legal assistance. A value-based approach to integrating MLP into the health system may help primary care practices more effectively address HRSN and, in turn, better balance revenue and expenses. At the practice and healthcare …

Generative Artificial Intelligence With A Human Touch: Building Hana, Conrad Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay examines how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can be integrated into legal education and public interest law practice in a way that meaningfully enhances — rather than diminishes — human judgment, professional responsibility, and access to justice. Drawing on the experience of Columbia Law School’s Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic, the Essay situates GenAI within an experiential pedagogy that emphasizes competence, ethical awareness, and collaborative problem-solving. It argues that law students and lawyers must move beyond a passive or uncritical use of GenAI tools; toward a deeper understanding of how these systems operate, the risks they pose, and …

Birthdate Phaseout, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the Nicotine Free Generation ("NFG") policy, an emerging endgame strategy for tobacco products that employs a completely novel legal design. Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death, killing almost half of its users and imposing $600 billion in social costs each year. We see two basic choices for regulating sales: prohibition or a legal age-gate, such as twenty-one, for retail sales. NFG charts a third way. Recognizing the dire harm of tobacco and the serious consequences of abrupt prohibition, NFG lays the groundwork for a gradual transition to a sales sunset. In place of the twenty-one …

The Human Right To A Healthy Environment: Corporate Responsibility In Critical Mineral Extraction, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

This paper argues that the emerging human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment should guide the governance of critical minerals by incorporating the corporate responsibility to respect human rights throughout supply chains to ensure a racially just energy transition. It frames the climate crisis within the history and political economy of racial capitalism, contending that without rights-based guardrails, mineral supply chains risk reproducing the extractive harms and racialized disparities of the fossil fuel era, including labor abuses, displacement, water depletion, and violence disproportionately borne by racialized and Indigenous communities. Methodologically, the paper combines doctrinal analysis of international norms …

An International Approach To Homelessness. Part Ii. Slums Demolition Or Upgrading?, Pranit Lanjewar, Jaroslaw Richard Romaniuk

Faculty Scholarship

In search of the best approach to eradicating homelessness in underdeveloped countries with large populations, we conducted interviews with professionals involved in different models of helping the unhoused. Although it has been established that the Housing First model combined with human services is the best model to end homelessness, the cost of housing might be prohibitive for many national governments. In situations where governments are over-whelmed by the numbers of homeless people, communities and organizations develop specific methods and practices to meet the needs of unhoused individuals. For the purpose of this paper, phenomenological research was undertaken to learn how …

Access To Justice After Medina V Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Daniel G. Aaron, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

Access to justice is “the ability of all people to seek and obtain effective remedies through accessible, affordable, … and culturally competent institutions of justice.”¹ Historically, patients and physicians have worked together to protect the integrity of medical care as well as patients’ rights by challenging unlawful government actions in court. Yet the US Supreme Court recently issued decisions that may impede access to justice, potentially empowering federal, state, and local governments to interfere with evidence-based care. We explore constraints on access to justice that may arise after Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (PPSA) (606 US 357, 2025), …

The Business Of Ai-Producing Startups: Evidence From A Worldwide Survey, James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Robert Seamans

Faculty Scholarship

We report results from a multi-year, worldwide survey of artificial intelligence (AI)-producing startups to describe the types of technologies, frameworks, data protection, and partnerships nascent firms use to develop their AI products. Analyses of our survey findings also inform how startups gather the resources to commercialize their AI applications in alignment with their entrepreneurial strategies, address competitive barriers, and respond to regulations. These data provide initial evidence of the perceived impact of these products on their customers’ tasks and industries, suggesting that these firms’ AI products not only reduce labor costs but augment human capabilities.

Nonlinear Bivariate Associations And Mononuclear Cell‐Type‐Specific Expression Level Differences In The Sting Signalling Pathway, David Kaplan

Faculty Scholarship

Understanding intracellular signalling pathways is crucial since they regulate essential functional activities. Bivariate relationships have been useful in delineating these pathways in clinical samples. In our previous studies, we have found many linear associations between pathway components, and we have interpreted these correlations as rheostatic regulators. Increases in an upstream component are correlated with a commensurate downstream increase. Here, we report a quantitative analysis of molecules in the STING pathway by assessing the variance in human peripheral blood mononuclear cell-type-specific molecular expression from patients with atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. The induction of the type I interferon track by this pathway …

The Emerging And Evolving Evidence Supporting Creatine As An Ergogenic Aid: History And Applications, Chad Kerksick, Drew Gonzalez, Jeffrey Stout, Scott Forbes, Darren Candow, Tim Ziegenfuss, Ronald Marshall, René Schwesig, Richard Kreider

Faculty Scholarship

Background

Creatine is one of the most extensively studied ergogenic aids, with over three decades of research supporting its role in exercise performance, recovery, and health.

Methods

This narrative review summarizes the historical development of creatine supplementation and evaluates evidence regarding its mechanisms, efficacy across active, athletic populations (e.g. strength, endurance, team-sport), and tactical (e.g. military, law enforcement) populations, and its safety profile.

Results

The evidence suggests that creatine enhances phosphocreatine resynthesis and cellular energy availability, resulting in consistent improvements in high-intensity exercise performance, training adaptations, lean body mass, strength, and power. Additional findings indicate that creatine may attenuate exercise-induced …

Mainstreaming Mistrust: The Shift In Us Vaccine Policy Under The Trump Administration, Sanjin Musa, Amy Estlund, Megan A. Berman

Faculty Scholarship

Department of Health and Human Services led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., represents a significant departure from long-standing public health norms. This commentary explores how historically marginalized anti-vaccine activism has moved into the mainstream of government oversight. Key actions driving this transition include the wholesale replacement of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the departure of senior CDC officials, and the public questioning of established childhood immunization schedules. Furthermore, the administration has ceased financial support for global health entities like the World Health Organization and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, while canceling funding for innovative mRNA vaccine platforms. 

These domestic policy …

Liberal Trade And President Trump: Never The Twain Shall Meet, Joel Adu-Quaye, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

This paper seeks to distinguish between two consequences of the tariff policies enacted by both Trump administrations: (1) their adverse effects on free trade and (2) the existential damage inflicted upon the transnational institutions responsible for enforcing its rules and obligations. Although difficult to quantify the latter, there is an intuitive sense that this is what matters most. The global order appears to be shifting from a rule-based framework to one characterized by increasing disorder and unpredictability. Within this new world order, actions are permissible so long as they align with the, often ill-defined, national interests of powerful nations.

Contagious Discrimination: Why Race-Blind Justice In Courtrooms Is Not Enough, Yijia Lu, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

Existing theories of discrimination focus on discrimination at the individual, societal, or organizational level. We highlight the importance of the dynamic relationship between different institutional actors who jointly give rise to discriminatory outcomes. This reveals that discrimination can be contagious: discrimination that would otherwise not occur at one institutional level can arise due to discrimination at another institutional level. Therefore, discrimination by some actors can trickle down and create disparate impacts in processes that would otherwise be free of discrimination. This phenomenon, which we term “contagious discrimination,” can manifest itself in various settings such as employment and commercial trade negotiations. …

Wealth-Based Disparities In Higher Education: Compounding Privilege, Multiplying Barriers, Rachel Moran, Jonathan D. Glater

Faculty Scholarship

This Special Issue is prompted by a confluence of developments in higher education: increasing access to postsecondary schooling overall and concurrent increasing socioeconomic inequality. After World War II, American colleges and universities began to “massify,” expanding their enrollments by opening their doors to people who previously would have found them closed. First, these institutions admitted veterans, then people of color and women (Altbach and Reisberg 2018, p. 63; Gumport et al. 1997, p. 2; Labaree 2017, pp. 106–7). The U.S. was not an outlier, and in the ensuing decades, nations around the globe saw unprecedented increases …

The Supreme Court's Policy Favoring Arbitration And Its Limits, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

While the federal policy favoring arbitration is codified in the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), the strength of that policy depends on the treatment that arbitration receives in federal courts and in the United States Supreme Court in particular.

Courts in all jurisdictions play an important role in fashioning the treatment of arbitration agreements, arbitral proceedings and arbitral awards. However, the judicial role in this regard is especially pronounced in the United States, in view of the problematic state of legislation on the subject. The federal legislation on arbitration is 100 years old and has never been meaningfully amended. The …

Can Legal Knowledge Save Lives? A Randomized Experiment In Preventive Health Screenings, Christopher Robertson, Wendy Netter Epstein

Faculty Scholarship

While the U.S. healthcare system typically imposes significant out-of-pocket costs, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires full insurance coverage for certain preventive health services (PHS), including cancer screenings, without cost-sharing. Despite this policy, one in four eligible Americans remains unscreened for breast, colorectal, and cervical cancer, which increases their risk of premature death. We hypothesize that a lack of awareness about the ACA’s free care requirement contributes to this gap and that explicitly informing patients could increase screening uptake. Additionally, we investigate whether prior experiences with medical debt deter individuals from seeking even cost-free care, reflecting a spillover effect of …

Trends And Outcomes Of Alcoholic Acute Pancreatitis In Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder Treated With Naltrexone In The United States: Before And After The Covid-19 Pandemic, Mohammad Zaahid Sheriff, Adrian Lindsey

Faculty Scholarship

Background: The role of naltrexone in improving acute alcoholic pancreatitis (AAP) outcomes in alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients, remains unclear. Aim: We aimed to assess the temporal trends in AAP incidence and the impact of naltrexone use on clinical outcomes in AUD patients. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using de-identified patient data from the TriNetX database, including all adults (≥ 18 years) diagnosed with AUD. AAP patients were then identified and stratified by naltrexone exposure. The incidence and prevalence of AAP in AUD patients were assessed pre-(March 2015–2019) and post-COVID-19(March 2020–2025). Propensity score matching (PSM) (1:1) was performed …

Large Language Models In Qualitative Analysis: Comparing Traditional And Researcher-Interpreted Approaches, Raihan K. Khan

Faculty Scholarship

Qualitative data analysis, particularly thematic analysis, is a widely used method for uncovering patterns and insights in narrative data but often faces challenges such as being resource-intensive and susceptible to researcher bias. In recent years, Large Language Models (LLMs) have emerged as promising tools to assist human coders in conducting thematic analysis, offering efficiency and scalability in processing large datasets. However, existing work primarily relies on tools like ChatGPT, raising privacy concerns—especially when analyzing sensitive healthcare data—and lacks systematic validation through comparisons with human coders. This study aims to evaluate the potential of open-source LLMs for qualitative data analysis. Semi-structured …

Amicus Brief In Trump V. Barbara: An Originalist Defense Of Birthright Citizenship, Jed Handelsman Shugerman, Evan D. Bernick

Faculty Scholarship

For nearly all of the first 235 years under the Constitution, the citizenship of every child born in the United States to alien parents, with immaterial exceptions, was a given. Then, in 2025, the Trump administration changed course. Even though the Fourteenth Amendment makes no mention of limiting birthright citizenship to the children of domiciled parents, the Government now claims that is what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” has always meant. While the Government and its amici admit that the common law recognized the citizenship of children of transient aliens, their remaining “survey of history range[s] from the constitutionally irrelevant” …