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Full-Text Articles in Law
Roberts's Revisions: A Narratological Reading Of The Affirmative Action Cases, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
Roberts's Revisions: A Narratological Reading Of The Affirmative Action Cases, Angela Onwuachi-Willig
Faculty Scholarship
In a seminal article published nearly twenty years ago in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Professor Peter Brooks posed a critical yet underexplored question: "Does the [flaw [n]eed a [n]arratology?"5 In essence, he asked whether law as a field should have a framework for deconstructing and understanding how and why a legal opinion, including the events that the opinion is centered on, has been crafted and presented in a particular way.6 After highlighting that "how a story is told can make a difference in legal outcomes," Brooks encouraged legal actors to "talk narrative talk" …
Introduction: Securing Reproductive Justice After Dobbs, Aziza Ahmed, Nicole Huberfeld, Linda C. Mcclain
Introduction: Securing Reproductive Justice After Dobbs, Aziza Ahmed, Nicole Huberfeld, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
When we conceptualized this symposium, Roe v. Wade1 was still the law of the land, albeit precariously. We aimed to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary by exploring historical, legal, medical, and related dimensions of access to abortion as well as the challenges ahead to secure reproductive justice. With the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on May 2, 2022, we shifted to mark the dawn of a new era. In the nearly identical official opinion announced on June 24, 2022,2 Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority (6-3), overturned Roe and …
(Re)Criminalizing Abortion: Returning To The Political With Stories, George J. Annas
(Re)Criminalizing Abortion: Returning To The Political With Stories, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
Abortion stories have always played a powerful role in advancing women’s rights. In the abortion sphere particularly, the personal is political. Following the Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, abortion politics, and abortion storytelling, take on an even deeper political role in challenging the bloodless judicial language of Dobbs with the lived experience of women.
Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health: Undermining Public Health, Facilitating Reproductive Coercion, Aziza Ahmed, Dabney P. Evans, Jason Jackson, Benjamin Mason Meier, Cecília Tomori
Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health: Undermining Public Health, Facilitating Reproductive Coercion, Aziza Ahmed, Dabney P. Evans, Jason Jackson, Benjamin Mason Meier, Cecília Tomori
Faculty Scholarship
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health continues a trajectory of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence that undermines the normative foundation of public health — the idea that the state is obligated to provide a robust set of supports for healthcare services and the underlying social determinants of health. Dobbs furthers a longstanding ideology of individual responsibility in public health, neglecting collective responsibility for better health outcomes. Such an ideology on individual responsibility not only enables a shrinking of public health infrastructure for reproductive health, it facilitates the rise of reproductive coercion and a criminal legal response to pregnancy and abortion. This commentary …
Continuous Reproductive Surveillance, Michael Ulrich, Leah R. Fowler
Continuous Reproductive Surveillance, Michael Ulrich, Leah R. Fowler
Faculty Scholarship
The Dobbs opinion emphasizes that the state’s interest in the fetus extends to “all stages of development.” This essay briefly explores whether state legislators, agencies, and courts could use the “all stages of development” language to expand reproductive surveillance by using novel developments in consumer health technologies to augment those efforts.
Against The Chenery Ii "Doctrine", Gary S. Lawson, Joseph Postell
Against The Chenery Ii "Doctrine", Gary S. Lawson, Joseph Postell
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court’s 1947 decision in SEC v. Chenery Corp. (“Chenery II”) is generally taken as blanket authorization for agencies to make law through either adjudication or rulemaking if their organic statutes permit both modes. We think this is an overreading of the doctrine. The decision in Chenery II need not be read so broadly, and there are good reasons to read it more narrowly. The most important reason is that agency lawmaking through adjudication presents serious constitutional concerns involving due process of law and subdelegation of legislative power, at least if the agency action deprives people of life, liberty, …
Two Approaches To Equality, With Implications For Grutter, Keith N. Hylton
Two Approaches To Equality, With Implications For Grutter, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
The question “what is equality?”, applied to the distribution of resources across races, suggests the following answer: when there appears to be no need for a policy that focuses on improving the welfare of one race relative to another. There is another way to approach the same question: equality is when traditionally-recognized paths to advancement do not give preference to or disadvantage an individual because of his race. Notice the difference here is between end-state and process-based notions of equality, a distinction Nozick emphasized in his examination of justice in distribution. Nozick rejected end-state theories of justice in distribution. I …
The Ghosts Of Chevron Present And Future, Gary S. Lawson
The Ghosts Of Chevron Present And Future, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
In the October 2021 term, the Supreme Court decided six cases involving federal agency interpretations of statutes, at least five of which seemingly implicated the Chevron doctrine and several of which explicitly turned on applications of Chevron in the lower courts. But while the Chevron doctrine has dominated federal administrative law for nearly four decades, not a single majority opinion during the term even cited Chevron. Three of those cases formalized the so-called “major questions” doctrine, which functions essentially as an anti-Chevron doctrine by requiring clear congressional statements of authority to justify agency action on matters of great legal and …
Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann
Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann
Faculty Scholarship
The question presented in Loper Bright Industries v. Raimondo1 is “[w]hether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.” The Court denied certiorari on another question focused on the merits of the case,2 indicating that at least four of the Justices are anxious to revisit or at least clarify Chevron. It’s about time, although it’s far from certain that the Court will actually follow through with the promise the certiorari grant indicates.3 …
The Anti-Innovation Supreme Court: Major Questions, Delegation, Chevron And More, Jack M. Beermann
The Anti-Innovation Supreme Court: Major Questions, Delegation, Chevron And More, Jack M. Beermann
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court of the United States has generally been a very aggressive enforcer of legal limitations on governmental power. In various periods in its history, the Court has gone far beyond enforcing clearly expressed and easily ascertainable constitutional and statutory provisions and has suppressed innovation by the other branches that do not necessarily transgress widely held social norms. Novel assertions of legislative power, novel interpretations of federal statutes, statutes that are in tension with well-established common law rules and state laws adopted by only a few states are suspect simply because they are novel or rub up against tradition. …