Law Commons^™

Rethinking The Fundamentals: Applying The Evolving Standards Of Decency Test To The Court’S Evaluation Of Fundamental Rights., Nick Wolfram

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In 1910, the Supreme Court recognized in Weems v. United States that a constitution “must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth.” This principle led to the creation of the Court’s two-pronged “evolving standards of decency,” test: (1) evidence of an objective indicia of a national consensus, and (2) the reviewing court’s own independent judgment. To this day the Court has yet to apply this test outside of the Eighth Amendment context. But can the “evolving standards of decency,” test identify and protect other fundamental rights? This Article explores how the Court could apply the …

Masthead

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Editor-In-Chief’S Foreword, Megan Stupi

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

The Ninth Circuit’S Rfra Standard Of “Substantial Burden” As Applied To Native American Sacred Sites, Erik Renner

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

This paper focuses on the Ninth Circuit’s understanding of the “substantial burden” standard under RFRA as it is applied to Native American sacred site cases. This paper looks at the old Ninth Circuit’s standard as set out in Navajo Nation, and its new standard as set out in Apache Stronghold. By understanding how the courts, specifically the Ninth Circuit, have limited their definition of the “substantial burden” under RFRA in sacred site cases, this paper will argue that the standard should be expanded to include “preventing religious exercise.” This expansion of what is a “substantial burden” under RFRA will better …

Masthead

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Advancing Academic Freedom Through State Constitutional Protections, Karlie M. Bischoff

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

The Unbearable Inevitability Of Content Regulation, Jerome O’Callaghan

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

The Cycle Of Delegitimization: Lessons From Dred Scott On The Relationship Between The Supreme Court And The Nation, Jonathon J. Booth

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

This Article examines how Chief Justice Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford sparked a cycle of delegitimization that parallels contemporary debates about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy crisis. Part I explicates how one family’s fight for freedom in Missouri reached the Supreme Court, the resulting radical decision, and the nation’s reaction to show the initial stages of this cycle. Part II examines the impact of Dred Scott on politics and law during the James Buchanan administration (1857–1861). During this period, the federal government, Southern states, and some Western territories swiftly implemented the decision, for example by expelling free Black residents. …

How American Society And Law Continue To Undermine People With Disabilities Seeking Education And Employment, Angelica Guevara

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Our Founders specifically identified education as necessary to economic success and full participation in our democracy and society. However, the Supreme Court held in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez that education in America is not a constitutional right; instead, it is a commodity that few can afford. Then, in 2023, Biden v. Nebraska exposed the direct result of that ruling: the average American––regardless of their disability status––struggles to pay back their student loans, even when they have a well-paying job. The student debt crisis significantly impacts the economic future of students with disabilities, who make on average sixty-six …

Will The New Roberts Court Revive A Formalist Approach To Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence?, Roger Antonio Tejada

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

While all Chief Justices leave behind distinctive periods of judicial thought and practice, the quantitative and qualitative data presented in this article show that the Roberts Court in particular stands out in the development of Fourth Amendment precedent. The key cases that shaped the search and seizure doctrine before and during his rise show that, contrary to what many may expect, Chief Justice Roberts will likely oversee limited, pro-defendant decisions that could grant additional legitimacy to the Court’s crime-control jurisprudence. On the other hand, the new Justices’ voting records and writings suggest that there are several potential coalitions that could …

Executive Power And Patronage: Lessons From Puerto Rico, Stephen A. Plass, Naomy M. Rivera

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Conservatives have made reforming the civil service a top priority, and this was exemplified by former President Donald Trump’s open opposition to job protections that federal civil servants enjoy. President Trump and others who advance a unitary executive theory, pledged to reshape the civil service by amassing appointment, disciplinary and removal powers in the president, although this would make a patronage system more feasible. To this end, President Trump issued an executive order that exposed many career federal civil service workers to a spoils system. This came on the heels of other executive orders that reduced existing workplace protections for …

Privacy Mismanagement: Privacy Harms, Digital Market Monopolies, And Antitrust Law, Kristie Lam

UC Law Journal

Privacy self-management fails to protect consumer privacy. In the advent of the Internet, individuals had the option to tailor how their personal data was used throughout digital markets. However, since the digital markets are dominated by a few large conglomerates, namely Meta and Google, consumers have little choice to determine how they will use the internet in the face of the blatantly decreasing quality of privacy protection. The lack of adequate privacy protections in the digital markets harms consumers and erodes democratic institutions. Given the societal ramifications of consolidated digital markets on consumers, antitrust laws are the appropriate mechanism to …

Weep The People, Leti Volpp

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Kkk, Immigration Law And Policy, And Donald Trump, Kevin Johnson

UC Law Journal

Many Americans know the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) for its horrific acts of violence directed at African Americans. Although generally overshadowed by that violence, the KKK’s vilification of other groups, including immigrants and religious minorities, long has been central to its quest for white Anglo-Saxon supremacy. This Essay analyzes the enduring legacy of the KKK’s immigration philosophy on contemporary American immigration law and politics. Some modern anti- immigrant advocates champion remarkably similar policies to the Klan’s with racial animus on full display. Former President, and the 2024 Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump is an example.

Bowling With Bumper Rails: How Firearms Examiners Have Duped The Courts And Generated Low Error Rates Only By Avoiding Challenging Comparisons, Richard E. Gutierrez

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Political Representation And Economic Rights In The Shadows Of Citizenship, Allison Brownell Tirres

UC Law Journal

In recent years, the remarkable movement for the political rights of undocumented youth—the so- called “DREAMers”—has catalyzed a critical conversation about the economic rights of all noncitizens. A growing number of states have amended their laws in response to advocacy by and for this particular group of noncitizens. This Essay situates this modern legal development in a broader conceptual and historical frame. It reflects on the relationship between economic rights and political aspirations in this movement, as well as in two other key legal developments in immigration history: the passage of anti-Asian alien land laws in the 1910s and 1920s, …

The Importance Of Counting All Immigrants For Apportionment And Redistricting, Tye Rush, Samuel Hall, Matt A. Barreto

UC Law Journal

How are non-citizens counted and accounted for in representation? Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that all whole persons residing in a state are to be counted for apportionment and districting. Courts have interpreted Section 2’s requirement to include women (before the Nineteenth Amendment), non-citizens, and people under 18 years old. Yet today, some states are attempting to exclude non-citizens from apportionment and representation by using a citizen population calculus. This stands in contrast to more than 225 years of practice and to nearly all modern legal interpretations of representation. In landmark 1960s cases such as Wesberry v. Sanders …

Epilogue: Uc Law Journal – Rice Symposium, Ming Hsu Chen

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

From Uc Hastings To Uc Law Sf: An Examination Of The Renaming Process And Analysis Of Institutional Identity, Oliver Cheng

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Bruen And Its Expansion Of The “Right To Carry” On Terry As A Law Enforcement Tool, Kshitij Mehta

UC Law Journal

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court expanded the right to carry firearms, specifically handguns, outside the home. Due to the Court’s conservative rulings, combined with lax and open firearm regulatory regimes in several jurisdictions, gun violence continues to create catastrophic consequences in communities across the country. At the same time, law enforcement agencies already struggle to maintain public safety and public trust under current policing systems. With the rise of firearms in the streets, law enforcement will likely resort to, and double down on, their current use of stop and frisk under …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Black Equal Citizenship And Residential Segregation In The Supreme Court’S Race Jurisprudence, Gabriel J. Chin

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Daca’S Stratified Tracks For Economic Mobility And Lessons For Addressing Immigrants’ Long-Term Inequality, Els De Graauw, Shannon Gleeson

UC Law Journal

Since 2012, the politically tenuous Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has provided temporary deportation relief and work authorization to over eight hundred thirty-five thousand undocumented young people who fit certain criteria. This Essay draws on one hundred fifteen interviews with DACA applicants in California, New York, and Texas during the heyday of the program to better understand its impacts on recipients’ school and work experiences. We confirm many of the key benefits DACA status has provided to recipients, notably opening doors for them educationally and professionally.

However, our research also confirms DACA’s uneven impacts. Those without four-year college …

The Racial Triangulation Of Asian American Achievement, Vinay Harpalani

UC Law Journal

This Essay employs Professor Claire Jean Kim’s racial triangulation framework to examine how Asian Americans are racialized via academic achievement. It argues that there are two components to the racial triangulation of Asian American achievement. On one hand, Asian Americans are valorized as a “model minority”. We are praised for our achievement and cast as a model for other groups of people of color to follow. This ignores both the different histories of oppression that various groups of color have faced and the vast diversity of experiences among Asian Americans. But on the other hand, Asian Americans are also viewed …

Why Do In-State Plaintiffs Invoke Diversity Jurisdiction?, Scott Dodson

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional rationale of federal diversity jurisdiction is to protect out-of-state parties from the risk of an appearance of state-court bias in favor of an in-state adversary. Yet a strikingly high percentage—more than 50 percent—of original domestic-diversity cases are filed by in-state plaintiffs. Why these in-state plaintiffs invoke diversity jurisdiction is a question that has largely been ignored in the literature. Drawing on docket data and an original dataset based on responses to a survey sent to more than twelve thousand attorneys who represented in-state plaintiffs in domestic-diversity cases, I find that these plaintiffs can be grouped into roughly three …

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UC Law Science and Technology Journal

No abstract provided.

Amazon’S Algorithmic Rents: The Economics Of Information On Amazon, Ilan Strauss, Tim O’Reilly, Mariana Mazzucato

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

Amazon’s maturing e-commerce platform has seen its business strategy evolve from growth at any cost to a “quest for profit”, underpinned by its burgeoning $37.7bn advertising business. Through advertising, Amazon compels its captive third-party merchant ecosystem to pay for one of its most valuable assets – customer attention. Advertising leverages Amazon’s unique position as a discovery platform. Discovery is governed by Amazon’s algorithms — the nerve centre of its conduct and a critical guide to market structure. Algorithms are the principal market institution coordinating exchange online, yet often escape market investigations.

Prevailing doctrine assumes that platform rent extraction, via algorithmic …

Masthead

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

No abstract provided.

A Government Branch Of Its Own: Reining In The Power Of The Regents Of The University Of California, Veronica Gray

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The University of California system is the crown jewel of American public universities. However, Californians have virtually no say over University of California policies. At the University of California’s inception, the drafters of the 1879 California Constitution envisioned a school system controlled by a Board of Regents who are largely insulated from politics. The autonomy from elected officials and the public allows the Regents to have nearly full control over a public good. The Regents’ autonomy and control over the University of California system has led to conflict between the Regents, the public, and state legislators regarding land use, labor, …

The Spy In Your Pocket: Montana’S Tiktok Ban And The Federalism Limits Of State-Level Foreign Policy, Wei Luo

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In May 2023, Montana became the first state in America to ban the social media app TikTok. This article proposes a two-prong analytical framework for evaluating the federalism limits of Montana’s TikTok ban (SB 419) and similar laws that other states might enact in the future. The first prong is a mandatory constitutional analysis of whether the state law runs afoul of restrictions on states’ foreign policy powers. These limits are threefold— Article I, Section 10, preemption, and the dormant Commerce Clause. This article focuses on federalism limits that only the states face and does not explore other constraints that …