Law Commons^™

North Carolina’S Superintendent Of Public Instruction: Defining A Constitutional Office, Andrew P. Owens

Andrew P. Owens

In 2009 a superior court case determined the fate of the Governor’s initiative to streamline education leadership by promoting a State Board of Education member while greatly reducing the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s powers. The judge’s decision in favor of Superintendent Atkinson turned on “the inherent constitutional authority” of her office; yet no one really knows what authority is inherent to the office, where that authority derives, or how to go about analyzing the office’s constitutional role. In short: what does it mean to be the Superintendent of Public Instruction? This paper explains the origins and meaning of the Superintendent …

Suspect Classification And Its Discontents, Susannah W. Pollvogt

Susannah W Pollvogt

Suspect classification analysis and the associated tiers of scrutiny framework are the primary doctrinal features of contemporary equal protection jurisprudence. How plaintiffs fare under these twin doctrines determines the ultimate fate of their equal protection claims. But neither doctrine finds firm footing in precedent or theory. Rather, a close examination of the United States Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence reveals these doctrines as historically contingent and lacking in any principled justification. But rather than disregard the contributions of these cases altogether, this Article mines that same body of law not for the discrete doctrinal mechanisms developed in each case, but …

Neoliberalism And The Law: How Historical Materialism Can Illuminate Recent Governmental And Judicial Decision Making, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Neoliberalism can be understood as the deregulation of the economy from political control by deliberate action or inaction of the state. As such it is both constituted by the law and deeply affects it. I show how the methods of historical materialism can illuminate this phenomenon in all three branches of the the U.S. government. Considering the example the global financial crisis of 2007-08 that began with the housing bubble developing from trade in unregulated and overvalued mortgage backed securities, I show how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which established a firewall between commercial and investment banking, allowed this …

Defenseless Self-Defense: An Essay On Goldberg And Zipursky's Civil Recourse Defended, Alan Calnan

Alan Calnan

In a recent symposium published by the Indiana Law Journal, Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky offer a spirited defense of their theory of civil recourse, which sees the tort system exclusively as a means of empowering victims of wrongs. This essay assails that defense, finding it curiously defenseless in three related respects. First, civil recourse’s key tenets are particularly vulnerable to criticism because they are quietly reductive, inscrutably vague, and highly unstable. Second, even in its most coherent form, civil recourse theory literally lacks any meaningful explanation of the defensive rights at play within the tort system. …

The Legal Impact Of Emerging Governance Models On Public Education And Its Office Holders, Robert A. Garda Jr., David Doty

Robert A. Garda

The idea that changing the formal structure of governance can lead to better schools is rooted in American political and intellectual history. Politicians, career educators, parents, business leaders, and investors continue to wrangle over the control of public schools all across the country. With these battles for control have come more lawsuits, more laws, and more administrative regulations dictating the governance structures of educational institutions. Indeed, one could argue that, in recent years, debates over how schools and school districts should be governed have subsumed the curriculum debates over how and what children should be taught. Leadership matters, and therefore …

Teaching The U.S. V. Windsor Same Sex Marriage/Equal Protection/Doma Case, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Corey A Ciocchetti

The same sex marriage cases are proving to be the hottest of topics during a very eventful Supreme Court term. The U.S. v. Windsor case is a fitting vehicle to cover the topic. These slides help tell the story and can be used to teach the case as well as important constitutional law issues such as: (1) equal protection, (2) federalism, (3) executive discretion to defend federal laws, (4) incorporation and more.

Judicial Independence In Post-Conflict Iraq: Establishing The Rule Of Law In An Islamic Constitutional Democracy, David Pimentel, Brian Anderson

David Pimentel

Contemporary Iraq is facing the full range of challenges that come with post-conflict transitional justice, including “paving the road toward peace and reconciliation” and establishing a functional state, characterized by the Rule of Law. Prospects for the establishment of an independent judiciary in Iraq are obstructed by a number of factors, including (1) how to apply the explicit recognition of the law of Islam in the Iraqi Constitution, (2) the inability to pass legislation on the Federal Courts of Iraq, leaving several provisions of the Iraqi Constitution unimplemented, and other critical elements of judicial independence unaddressed, including provisions for tenure, …

Mexico's Gun Control Laws: A Model For The United States?, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This article explicates Mexico’s constitutional right to arms and Mexico’s main gun-control statute, the Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives (Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos). Along the way, the article notes various proposals to move U.S. gun laws in a Mexican direction.

Part II of this article is an English translation of the Mexican constitution’s guarantee of the right to arms, as well as predecessor versions of the guarantee.

Part III explains the operation of Mexico’s gun-control system and provides some historical and statistical information about gun ownership and gun smuggling in Mexico.

Part IV describes some …