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Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Heat Camps: Juvenile Curfews, Extreme Heat & The Eighth Amendment, Norrinda Brown

Washington and Lee Law Review

For decades, in the summertime, America has confined certain of its youth in what are essentially open-air heat camps. In city after city, camp-form is established through the enactment of warm-weather juvenile curfews which keep the youth at home or in state-sponsored centers during summer nights and, increasingly, during days as well. Local governments justify these curfews with general notions of “public safety,” including to protect the youth they confine. But the laws are not benevolent. Reducing youth mobility by curfew results in exclusion, oversurveillance, and potentially lethal heat punishment of the youth, possibly in violation of the Eighth Amendment. …

The Children’S Lawsuits: Building A Global Movement In Law And Society, Mary Christina Wood

Washington and Lee Law Review

This essay describes the Atmospheric Trust Litigation (ATL) campaign, spearheaded by Our Children’s Trust, consisting of climate cases brought by youth premised on the public trust principle and, later, on express constitutional rights. The essay characterizes the cases as (1) accomplishing a “rights turn” in environmental law by invoking constitutional claims rather than statutory claims that previously marked almost all environmental litigation; (2) establishing a unified global framework of climate responsibility by depicting the planet’s atmosphere as a global public trust asset which all governments have an obligation to protect; and (3) galvanizing a youth climate movement centered on the …

Child/Youth Climate Litigation: Tracking Children’S Rights And Children’S Impact, Aoife Daly, Liesl Muller

Washington and Lee Law Review

Children and youth have been engaging extensively in climate action around the world. They have been doing this by protesting in the streets, talking with governments, and most recently by taking climate litigation against governments and companies. In this Article, these climate cases are considered from a children’s rights perspective. Using the Youth Climate Justice database, fifty cases are analyzed to consider two aspects of climate litigation—the children’s rights involved in the case, and the significance of the outcomes of the cases. It is concluded that climate cases are a new form of child participation in society, and that child …

Alabama’S Ivf Immunity Law: A Constitutional License To Kill?, Dani Wasshausen

Washington and Lee Law Review

In today’s post-Dobbs world, states may freely define fetal “persons” and those fundamental rights afforded to them, but not without consequence. The Supreme Court of Alabama’s groundbreaking decision in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., holding that frozen embryos are “children” under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, led fertility clinics and services across the state to close. These in vitro fertilization (IVF) providers feared liability exposure because their standard practices—including embryonic fertilization, testing, cryopreservation, and transfer—inevitably result in damage or death to embryos. The Alabama Legislature swiftly responded by enacting a law granting broad civil and criminal …

Patients V. Profits: Addressing Private Equity’S Incursion On Healthcare, Michael Mccarthy

Washington and Lee Law Review

Between 2013 and 2023, private-equity-sponsored investment funds spent one trillion dollars on healthcare acquisitions, targeting hospitals, physician practices, and specialty providers. This Note examines the growing role of private equity in the US healthcare system and its implications for cost, quality, and competition.

ring struggling hospitals and medical practices much-needed capital and managerial expertise. In practice, however, prevalent private equity practices often create moral hazards by prioritizing short-term financial gains over long-term community health. Their reliance on debt, short investment horizons, and consolidation strategies can translate into higher prices, compromised care, and anticompetitive behavior. Mounting empirical studies reinforce these concerns, …

Foreword: Children And Constitutions In The Anthropocene Era, Catherine Smith

Washington and Lee Law Review

In Spring 2025, the Washington and Lee Law Review held its Lara D. Gass Symposium, Children and Constitutions in the Anthropocene Era. It consisted of a keynote address by Julia Olson, Co-Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel of Our Children’s Trust, and three panels: “Children, Climate Change, and State Constitutions”; “The U.S. Constitutions and the Meaning of ‘We the [Young] People’”; and “Youth-Powered Litigation and Global Constitutionalism.” The heavily attended Symposium was a tour-de-force in the field of children’s rights.

As climate chaos mounts, young people around the world are pressing courts to reconceptualize the meaning of liberty, equality, and …

Masthead

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Small” Voices, Big Wins: Analyzing Remedies In Children’S Climate Cases, Maria Antonia Tigre

Washington and Lee Law Review

Children’s climate litigation has emerged as a powerful tool to address the climate crisis, with young plaintiffs around the world taking governments and corporations to court to demand climate action. This Article examines successful cases—those in which relief sought by the applicants was fully or partially granted—across five continents, providing an “around the world” perspective on the evolution and impact of youth-led climate litigation. Focusing on landmark cases in Australia, Colombia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States, this analysis highlights the arguments presented by young plaintiffs and the judicial reasoning that supported the relief granted. Through a comparative …

Brief Of Civil Procedure Professors Suzette Malveaux, Alan Trammell, Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett, And Doug Rendleman As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents: Trump V. Casa, Trump V. Washington & Trump V. New Jersey, Suzette M. Malveaux, Alan Trammell, Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett, Doug Rendleman

Scholarly Articles

Nationwide injunctions are constitutional. Their core feature—courts’ power to render decisions that directly benefit nonparties—is consistent with traditional equitable practices. Accordingly, the Article III “judicial power” comprehends such remedies. Nationwide injunctions also comport with Article III’s case-or-controversy requirement, including constitutional standing.

Broad remedies are sometimes necessary, especially when government actors willfully disregard people’s rights, and the usual tools of aggregate litigation (such as class actions) are not practically available to vindicate those rights. Moreover, courts can readily navigate prudential concerns about nationwide injunctions, from fears of judge shopping to prematurely freezing the law. Courts remain attuned to these concerns, and …

Cultivating Legal Protection: Replacing Wine Labeling Regulations With Regional Certification Marks, David Corasaniti

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

While wine labeling in the United States is currently governed by a complex regulatory framework administered by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (“TTB”), intellectual property (“IP”) rights for wine producing regions could serve this core function of protecting consumers better and more efficiently. Regulating wine labeling through IP would more closely mirror the system used by the European Union, which recognizes Geographical Indications, such as Champagne, Rioja, and Bordeaux, as a unique form of IP. By deregulating American wine labeling, and encouraging wine producing regions to assert their IP rights in the form of collectively held certification …

The Impact Of Erlinger V. United States On State Recidivist Sentencing Laws, Chad Flanders

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In Erlinger v. United States, the United States Supreme Court ruled that finding that an offender had committed two felonies “on separate occasions” under the Armed Career Criminal Act had to be done by a jury, not a judge. In one respect, the decision is narrow: it is an extension of the Court’s Apprendi jurisprudence. But in another respect, the decision is far-reaching. As some state appeals courts have already realized, the decision makes unconstitutional state laws that give the judge—rather than the jury—the power to decide whether someone is a “persistent” or “habitual” offender based on whether a …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Scholars For The Advancement Of Children’S Constitutional Rights And Students Engaged In Advancing Texas In Support Of Respondents: Mahmoud V. Taylor, Catherine E. Smith, Tanya Washington, Jeremiah Chin, Sarah Medina Camiscoli, Travis F. Chance

Scholarly Articles

Amici are members of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas and United States legal scholars of children and the law, education law, family law, and anti-discrimination law.

Students Engaged in Advancing Texas is a nonprofit organization founded by young people to develop civic leadership and belonging and represents students of various faiths and identities who have an interest in the outcome of this case.

Amici draw this Court’s attention to the constitutional harms that public school students and LGBTQ+ students and students with LGBTQ+ parents would bear should the Court grant Petitioners’ injunctive relief.

Masthead

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Data Privacy At The Border: How To Balance National Security Concerns And Privacy Interests When Conducting Forensic Border Searches Of Electronic Devices, Eleni Filley

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Do you know where your phone is? Can you describe the last five pictures in your camera roll? How many websites have you visited this month? Cell phones are an extension of our person and contain some of our most private data: location, banking, loved ones, sleep statistics, reproductive information, and more. As our technology develops, so too should our laws. This Note explores the lack of privacy protections at the U.S. border and how susceptible our data is to a government search. A Supreme Court ruling recognizing the unique piece of property a cell phone represents, even at a …

Table Of Contents

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Democracy, History, And Washington And Lee, Christopher B. Seaman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

At Washington and Lee, it is customary for the new holder of an endowed professorship to deliver a public lecture called a chair talk to mark their installation. This is a lightly edited and footnoted version of Professor Seaman's chair talk on October 8, 2024, given as the new Robert E.R. Huntley Professor of Law.

Discretionary (In)Justice Continued: Discretion As A Tool To Deny Asylum, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In 2012, I published an article entitled Discretionary (In)justice: The Exercise of Discretion in Claims for Asylum. At that time, I was concerned because of a pattern I had seen of adjudicators in individual cases denying applications for asylum not on the basis of statutory eligibility but instead in an exercise of the adjudicator’s discretion. Since that time, the administrations of both the former President Trump and the now-current President Biden have used every legal tool available to them, including the exercise of discretion in asylum claims, to make it more difficult to obtain asylum and therefore to discourage …

Cannabis At Work: Navigating The Intersection Of Employment Law And Legalized Marijuana, Eva Lane

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

As states increasingly legalize forms of cannabis use, federal regulation remains stagnant. These outdated laws still hold power, undermining state-granted rights. This impact is especially felt in the employment sector. While states pass laws legalizing cannabis use, employers still have a right to a drug free workplace. Many employment agreements prohibit drug use, even if legal under state law. This Note examines recent caselaw to analyze how courts are handling the battle between state and federal government as it relates to cannabis legalization. Ultimately, the argument highlights the risk employees face – engaging in what they believe is legal behavior …

Life In Limbo: Cryptocurrency And Fosta As The Pillars Of Cyber-Trafficking, Rebecca Liu

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

As the internet continually advances into Web 3.0, human traffickers thrive in using online platforms to prey on their victims, creating a new form of human trafficking: cyber-trafficking. In 2018, Congress passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (“FOSTA”) to dampen the stringent protection that 47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”) offered to internet intermediaries in cyber-trafficking litigation. However, Congress’s intended effect in passing FOSTA failed, as courts continue to interpret FOSTA narrowly, upholding the stringent protection that Section 230 offers internet intermediaries. Beyond FOSTA’s indifferent impact, governmental bodies struggle adapting to Web 3.0’s landscape, neglecting to intervene with traffickers’ …

“Freedom Lives Hence, And Banishment Is Here”: The Weaponization Of Immigration Law To Punish Political Dissidents, Ryan Scott

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note explores the long and bipartisan history of the United States government’s weaponization of the immigration system to control, exclude, and expel percieved political enemies. The near-unlimited power that the federal government has acrrued in immigration matters has been used since the Founders’ generation to purge the country of those whose ideas and speech are seen by the powers that be as threatening or subversive. This Note traces the arc of such efforts from the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to the explusion of activists under President Trump. The Note also examines attempts to force the courts to …

Masthead

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ghosting The Crowd, Andrew A. Schwartz

Washington and Lee Law Review

Crowdfunded companies are legally bound to provide investors with an annual report—but most don’t. This “ghosting of the crowd” violates federal securities laws and raises the risk of opportunism by entrepreneurs, who are more prone to misbehave if no one is watching. Most ominously, it threatens the very viability of the investment crowdfunding market, as investors who are ghosted by one company are less likely to invest in another.

This Article reports on the embarrassing record of noncompliance with the annual report rule imposed by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (“JOBS”) Act of 2012 and Regulation Crowdfunding, and proposes a …

The Misfortune Of Attending School While Black In A Fifth Circuit State, Shelley Ward Bennett

Washington and Lee Law Review

Tens of thousands of children, including disproportionate numbers of Black children, are hit in school every year. More than 50 percent of these students live in the Fifth Circuit states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Decades of government data, including the Department of Education’s most recent reports, reveal that Black students receive alarmingly inequitable rates of corporal punishment, demonstrating this education practice to be a legal form of institutionalized racism.

This Article uniquely focuses on the archaic discipline practice’s effects on Black students in Fifth Circuit states. Fifth Circuit law addressing students’ rights in corporal punishment cases has developed into …

De-Policing: An Updated Empirical Analysis Of Crime And Federal Police Reform, Griffin Edwards, Stephen Rushin

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article builds on prior work by empirically analyzing the effect of federal intervention in local police departments on crime and clearance rates, using updated data and methodologies.

Congress passed 34 U.S.C. § 12601 (formerly 42 U.S.C. § 14141) in 1994 to give the United States Attorney General the authority to seek equitable relief against local and state law enforcement agencies engaged in patterns or practices of misconduct. Since its passage, the Department of Justice has investigated and intervened into dozens of American police departments, including some of the largest police departments in the country. Federal intervention represents one of …

Regulating Robo-Advisors In An Age Of Generative Artificial Intelligence, Daniel Schwarcz, Tom Baker, Kyle Logue

Washington and Lee Law Review

New generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools can increasingly engage in personalized, sustained, and natural conversations with users. This technology has the capacity to reshape the financial services industry, making customized expert financial advice broadly available to consumers. However, AI’s ability to convincingly mimic human financial advisors also creates significant risks of large-scale financial misconduct. Which of these possibilities becomes reality will depend largely on the legal and regulatory rules governing “robo-advisors” that supply fully automated financial advice to consumers.

This Article consequently critically examines this evolving regulatory landscape, arguing that current U.S. rules fail to adequately limit the risk that …

Preserving Pixels: The Dmca And The Quest To Preserve Video Gaming’S Legacy, Samantha Ennis

Washington and Lee Law Review

Video games have fundamentally transformed how humans learn, play, and connect, becoming essential cultural artifacts that warrant careful preservation for present and future study. Yet, video game preservation has emerged as a critical challenge for cultural institutions as the medium rapidly evolves and early works become inaccessible due to technological obsolescence and legal barriers. Without immediate action to address the limitations of current Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) exemptions for video game preservation, libraries, archives, and museums risk permanently losing access to historically significant games, with studies showing 87% of pre-2010 video games are already inaccessible. Congress should amend the …

Unraveling The War Powers Resolution’S Role In Cyber Warfare, Zach Irwin

Washington and Lee Law Review

The evolution of warfare in the digital age has transformed the battlefield. Conflicts are fought with advanced technology, and traditional combat activities grow increasingly obsolete. This shift raises a critical question: Has the existing legal framework, including foundational war powers legislation, kept pace with this technological transformation? In exploring the governance of cyber warfare under the War Powers Resolution, this Note begins by examining the unique characteristics and devastating potential of cyber warfare. The analysis then turns to the War Powers Resolution, providing a historical overview of its enactment, a textual analysis of its provisions, and an exploration of how …