Law Commons^™

The Difference Narrows: A Reply To Kurt Lash, Randy E. Barnett, Evan D. Bernick

Notre Dame Law Review

We thank the Notre Dame Law Review for allowing us to respond to Kurt Lash’s reply to our critique of his interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. We could forgive readers for having difficulty adjudicating this dispute. When Lash argues, evidence always comes pouring forth, and the sheer volume can overwhelm the senses. We sometimes have a hard time following his arguments, and we are experts in the field. We can only imagine how it seems to those who are otherwise unfamiliar with this terrain.

So, in this reply—with a few exceptions—we will avoid piling up any new evidence …

The Privileges Or Immunities Clause, Abridged: A Critique Of Kurt Lash On The Fourteenth Amendment, Randy E. Barnett, Evan D. Bernick

Notre Dame Law Review

In earlier writings, both of us have expressed sympathy for the view that the Privileges or Immunities Clause affords absolute protection to unenumerated rights, such as those contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and authorizes Congress to enact protective legislation. Neither of us, however, has engaged with Kurt Lash’s most recent and unique two-class interpretation of the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause in the depth that it deserves. Nor have we evaluated his recent efforts to demonstrate that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process of Law Clause empowers the federal courts and Congress to protect unenumerated …

The Enumerated-Rights Reading Of The Privileges Or Immunities Clause: A Response To Barnett And Bernick, Kurt T. Lash

Notre Dame Law Review

In their new article, The Privileges or Immunities Clause, Abridged: A Critique of Kurt Lash on the Fourteenth Amendment, Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick insist that this historical evidence does not support the enumerated-rights reading. Instead, Barnett and Bernick embrace what I call the “fundamental-rights” reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. This view maintains that the Clause should be understood as protecting a set of absolute rights nowhere expressly enumerated in the text of the Constitution, for example the unenumerated economic right to contract or to pursue a trade.

Rather than agreeing with John Bingham, Barnett and Bernick …

Rediscovering Corfield V. Coryell, Gerard N. Magliocca

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article reveals new details about Corfield v. Coryell based on archival research. In 2017, the author found Justice Washington’s original notes on Corfield in the Chicago History Museum. The most important revelation about Corfield is that the Justice was initially inclined to hold that the state law his decision upheld was, in fact, unconstitutional under the Privileges and Immunities Clause. The notes also say that he saw Livingston v. Van Ingen as the leading precedent on the Privileges and Immunities Clause and backed Chancellor Kent’s view in that case that the Clause articulated a nondiscrimination rule for out-of-state citizens …

De Facto State: Social Media Networks And The First Amendment, Paul Domer

Notre Dame Law Review

In Marsh v. Alabama, a Jehovah’s Witness was arrested and convicted of trespassing for proselytizing on a public sidewalk that nonetheless was, like everything else in the “company town,” privately owned. The Court reversed, holding that the First and Fourteenth Amendments applied against a private actor if it exercised all the powers and responsibilities traditionally associated with a government—policing, utilities, and traffic control, for example. Writing for the majority, Justice Black declared, “The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the …

The Double-Edged Sword Of Parens Patriae: Status Offenders And The Punitive Reach Of The Juvenile Justice System, Madison C. Jaros

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note will argue that, despite the fact that adjudication as a status offender has the potential to lead to punitive outcomes, the rehabilitative rationale of parens patriae that lies behind the status offender designation ensures that juveniles charged under this category are not afforded the procedural protections that they are due under the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. This conundrum—that the rehabilitative rationale meant to protect juveniles actually leaves them more vulnerable to punishment—is not confined to the status offender context. Instead, the juvenile system as a whole suffers from the failures that result from promises of rehabilitation made by …

The Fundamental Right To Education, Derek W. Black

Notre Dame Law Review

New litigation has revived one of the most important questions of constitutional law: Is education a fundamental right? The Court’s previous answers have been disappointing. While the Court has hinted that it might recognize some minimal right to education, it has thus far refused to do so.

To recognize a fundamental right to education, the Court would have to overcome two basic problems. First, the Court needs an originalist theory for why our Constitution protects education, particularly since the word education does not even appear in the Constitution. Second, the right to education implicates complex questions regarding its scope. Those …