Law Commons^™

The Federal Government's Role In Local Policing, Farhang Heydari, Barry Friedman, Rachel Harmon

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

For far too long, the federal government has failed to exercise its constitutional authority to mitigate the harms imposed by local policing. Absent federal intervention, though, some harmful aspects of policing will not be addressed effectively, or at all. States and localities often lack the necessary capacity and expertise to change policing, and many states and localities lack the will. This Article argues for federal intervention and describes what that intervention should look like.

The Article begins by describing three paradigmatic areas of local policing that require federal intervention to create real change: excessive use offorce, racial discrimination, and the …

(E)Racing Speech In School, Francesca I. Procaccini

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Speech on race and racism in our nation’s public schools is under attack for partisan gain. The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment teaches a lot about the wisdom and legality of laws that chill such speech in the classroom. But more importantly, a First Amendment analysis of these laws reveals profound insights about the health and meaning of our free speech doctrine.

Through a First Amendment analysis of “anti-critical race theory” laws, this essay illuminates the first principles of free speech law. Specifically, it shows that the First Amendment offers little refuge to teachers or parents looking to …

Title Ix Vs. Ncaa: A Gameplan For Championship Equity, Leigh E. Friestedt

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In 1972, Congress enacted Title IX of the Education Amendments Act (Title IX) to prohibit sex-based discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” While the original legislation did not stipulate “athletics,” Title IX has had a profound impact on intercollegiate sports by expanding the athletic opportunities for women as a covered “program or activity.” However, fifty years after the enactment of Title IX, there are still significant disparities between men’s and women’s intercollegiate athletics, most notably at the high-profile National College Athletics Association (NCAA or Association) Championships.

In 2021, the NCAA hosted the men’s and women’s …

Time To Slapp Back: Advocating Against The Adverse Civil Liberties Implications Of Litigation That Undermines Public Participation, Jennifer Safstrom

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Defamation law is a catchall term encompassing civil claims for reputational harm to an individual, including slander and libel. Defamation claims originated in English common law and have since evolved within the American legal system. Scholars have characterized the law of defamation as “a forest of complexities, overgrown with anomalies, inconsistencies, and perverse rigidities” and as a “‘fog of fictions, inferences, and presumptions.’” Amid these inherent variations and complexities of defamation law and litigation — including the largely state-specific nature of tort law development — emerges a disturbing trend across jurisdictions. In the modern era, defamation claims have been used …

The Perils Of Asian-American Erasure, Matthew P. Shaw

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Affirmative action, particularly its most well-known variant, race-conscious college admissions practices, has long occupied a precarious position in constitutional jurisprudence of equal protection and statutory antidiscrimination law. As a policy matter, affirmative action practices are necessary to reduce the impact of durable structural barriers to opportunity that have been imposed on members of identifiable racial groups because of their race. Legally, they’re on far less secure footing.

As a constitutional matter, these measures have been summarily divorced from any reparative purpose since the “diversity rationale” emerged from Regents of the University of California v. Bakke as the only compelling interest …

Felony Financial Disenfranchisement, Neel U. Sukhatme, Alexander Billy, Gaurav Bagwe

Vanderbilt Law Review

Individuals with prior felony convictions often must complete all terms of their sentence before they regain voter eligibility. Many jurisdictions include legal-financial obligations (“LFOs”)-—fines, fees, and/or restitution stemming from convictions-—in the terms of the sentence. Twenty-eight states, governing over 182 million Americans, either directly or indirectly tie LFO repayment to voting privileges, a practice we call felony financial disenfranchisement.

Proponents of felony financial disenfranchisement posit that returning citizens must satisfy the financial obligations stemming from convictions to restore themselves as community equals. Moralism aside, others claim low rates of electoral participation among those with felony convictions imply such disenfranchisement is …