Constitutional Law Commons^™

The Right To Record Police Must Be Clearly Established, Cole S. Manion

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Presidents, Opinions, And Independent Officers, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

The Opinions in Writing Clause is a persistent textual problem for the claim that Article II implies an indefeasible removal power: If the Framers believed they had given the president an unconditional removal power, why would they also specify a lesser power merely to ask for opinions? New historical research confirms this textual problem was also contextual: early state constitutions, the Ratification debates, and the First Congress indicate that the Opinions Clause’s original public meaning signaled independence of department heads, or at least the possibility of congressional requirements like good cause.

Legal scholars have already shown that the texts of …

The Cost Of Our Constitutional Rights: An Examination Of Prison Medical Treatment For Hepatitis-C, M. Abigail Schueler

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Solutions Lies In Prevention: How Implementing Preventative Human Trafficking Education Into Public High Schools Is The Key To Abolishing Human Trafficking, Rachael Beller

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Equality Can Stick With Bostock: A Call To Expand The Equal Protection Clause To Include Discrimination Against Transgender People's Bathroom Usage, Jackson B. Hurst-Sanders

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Truth Comes Before Reconciliation: An Exercise In American Truth-Telling, Hannah Fidler

Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice

No abstract provided.

Roots In South Omaha: Navigating Identity, Culture, And Justice, Natalia Lopez

Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Nicholas L. Marti

Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice

No abstract provided.

2025-26 Masthead (Volume 2, Issue 1), Njaj Editorial Board

Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice

No abstract provided.

Objective Deliberate Indifference Only: Pretrial Detainees' Fourteenth Amendment Substantive Due Process Rights Demand Protection In The Context Of Mental Illness And Substance Use Disorder, Jessica Lewis

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Law Review Symposium: Prisoners' Rights: Protecting Civil Liberties Behind Bars & Beyond 11-7-2025, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Reckoning With Antisemitism In History And Tradition, Nathaniel Shaw Hay, Isaac Barnes May

Pepperdine Law Review

“History and tradition” has become a watchword of modern constitutional interpretation, shaping Supreme Court jurisprudence and framing ongoing debates over the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet this interpretive framework remains under-theorized in one critical respect: how should it grapple with the prejudices embedded in the very traditions it invokes? This Article examines that question through the lens of anti-Jewish discrimination in Anglo-American law, using this history as a case study to examine both the perils and promise of relying on history as a source of constitutional authority. For centuries, the common law excluded Jews from full civic participation in …

The Voting Rights, Race, Redistricting, & The Future Of U.S Democracy, Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy, Cardozo American Constitution Society (Acs), Sophia Lakin, Wilfred Codrington, Michael Li, Jarret Berg, Carl Unegbu

2025–2026 Flyers

No abstract provided.

The Voting Rights Act, Race, Redistricting, And The Future Of U.S. Democracy, Wilfred U. Codrington Iii, Sophia Lankin, Michael Li, Jarret Berg, Carl Unegbu, Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy

2025 Event Invitations

Join us for a timely and critical moderated conversation on the future of American democracy as leading experts on U.S. voting rights Wilfred Codrington III (Cardozo School of Law), Sophia Lankin (ACLU), Michael Li (Brennan Center for Justice), and Jarret Berg (VoteEarlyNY) unpack the ongoing legal battles shaping representation in the United States, most notably the fight over continued viability of the Voting Rights Act. The conversation will be moderated by Carl Unegbu.

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Book Review: Robert J. Jarvis, The Neglected Amendments Of The U.S. Constitution: Text, History, And Interpretation, Jonathan E. Moore

ConLawNOW

This essay offers an engaging review of the casebook, The Neglected Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, by Professor Robert Jarvis. While most lawyers, and many nonlawyers, could readily identify many of the “big twelve” constitutional amendments, few are familiar with the other fifteen. This book focuses on the neglected fifteen, arguing they deserve sustained attention as historically and politically important today. Topics include several amendments potentially going in play, such as the Twenty-second limiting the president to two terms, Twenty-fifth on presidential succession and disability, Twenty-seventh on congressional pay raises, and the Ninth on rights retained by the people. …

The Role Of The Preamble: Evidence From The Constitutional Convention And The Ratification Debates, Stuart Ford

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article explores the role of the Preamble in constitutional interpretation by looking at how it was perceived at the founding. It does this in three ways. First, it explores how preambles were used in eighteenth-century America. At the time, preambles were almost universally understood to be key to interpreting the laws and constitutions they preceded. This shared understanding forms the backdrop against which the Preamble was received by the founding generation. Second, it looks at the records of the Constitutional Convention for evidence of what role the drafters expected the Preamble to serve. Unfortunately, the records of the Convention …

Causation’S Due Process Dimensions, Cassandra Burke Robertson, Charles W. “Rocky” Rhodes

Texas A&M Law Review

For decades, courts have grappled with the tension between compensating victims of mass harms and maintaining fairness to defendants when causation is difficult to prove. This Article argues that the Supreme Court’s due process jurisprudence provides a relevant framework for navigating this tension. We contend that the Court over the last three decades has established a consistent Fourteenth Amendment due process approach in punitive damages and personal jurisdiction cases, which is rooted in antecedents tracing to the nineteenth century and relies on a nexus of interests that balances individual rights, state interests, and federalism concerns. This framework, we argue, has …

It Takes A Village . . . But Let The Teenagers Vote, Joseph Fishkin

Notre Dame Law Review

In their article Give Parents the Vote, Kleinfeld and Sachs argue that we ought to give parents extra votes to cast by proxy on behalf of their minor children. In this response, I argue that their proposal misconceives the nature of voting itself. Unlike a child’s personal medical or financial decisions, which we entrust to those most responsible for a child’s care, voting is a collective act by which a political community makes collective choices. Each of us is obligated to cast our vote in the way we think best for the whole community. And each voter—whether a parent …

Habeas Corpus And Void Judgments, David Kinnaird

Notre Dame Law Review

In a string of recent opinions, Justice Gorsuch and Justice Thomas have posited that postconviction relief upon a writ of habeas corpus was historically unavailable except where the judgment of conviction was issued by a court lacking jurisdiction. In light of this history, Justices Gorsuch and Thomas have argued for a reconsideration of the modern scope of the writ, which generally allows for relitigation of alleged constitutional error in the course of criminal trial.

This Article argues that Justices Gorsuch and Thomas have the history half right. They are correct to assert that a valid judgment of conviction was a …

Give Parents The Vote, Joshua Kleinfeld, Stephen E. Sachs

Notre Dame Law Review

Many of America’s most significant policy problems, from failing schools to the aftershocks of COVID shutdowns to national debt to climate change, share a common factor: the weak political power of children. Children are twenty-three percent of all citizens; they have distinct interests; and they already count for electoral districting. But because they lack the maturity to vote for themselves, their interests don’t count proportionally at the polls. The result is policy that observably disserves children’s interests and violates a deep principle of democratic fairness: that citizens, through voting, can make political power respond to their interests.

Yet there’s a …

Give Young Adults The Vote, Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos

Notre Dame Law Review

Joshua Kleinfeld and Stephen Sachs make a significant contribution to the literature on children’s disenfranchisement by describing and defending parental proxy voting: empowering parents to vote on their children’s behalf. The authors’ democratic critique of the status quo is particularly persuasive. Children’s exclusion from the franchise indeed distorts public policies by omitting children’s preferences from the set that policymakers consider. However, Kleinfeld and Sachs’s proposal wouldn’t do enough to correct this distortion. This is because contemporary parents diverge politically from their children, holding, on average, substantially more conservative views. The proxy votes that parents cast for their children would thus …

What Is Voting For?, Joshua Kleinfeld, Stephen E. Sachs

Notre Dame Law Review

Responding to these views requires some reflection on the nature of voting and parenting both. At root, Stephanopoulos and Fishkin don’t think parents are the right people to represent their children politically, and we do. We unpack these theoretical differences as to both voting and parenting in Part I. In Part II, we address Stephanopoulos’s and Fishkin’s concrete policy proposals.

A last note: While our response below naturally focuses on points of disagreement, as that is the way of these things, that focus shouldn’t detract from the crucial fact that all four of us—from different political perspectives—think the status quo …

Appropriations By Any Other Name: The Illegality And Unconstitutionality Of Supplemental Environmental Projects, Andrew Olson

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note fleshes out the history of SEPs and the recent arguments against them. First, Part I traces the history of SEPs, from the early use of third-party payments, through the development of formal policies governing SEPs, to the Trump and Biden administrations’ dueling approaches to them. Then Part II explains what’s wrong with SEPs. Expanding on the arguments made in the various Justice Department memoranda, this Note argues that SEPs contravene both the Miscellaneous Receipts Act (MRA) and the Antideficiency Act (ADA). Next, the Note argues that while their illegality might be remedied by statute, SEPs also present deeper—and …

New Judicial Federalism And The Establishment Clause: Classroom Ten Commandments As A Case Study In State Constitutional Protection, Caroline Mala Corbin

Articles

Louisiana recently enacted a law requiring a Ten Commandments display in every public school classroom from kindergarten to college. Forty-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a nearly identical attempt to introduce Christianity into the public schools violated the Establishment Clause—the clause in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment that requires some degree of separation between church and state.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has since reduced the Establishment Clause to a shadow of its former self. It replaced doctrinal tests that protected religious minorities with a history and tradition test that is easily manipulated and that presumes the …

A Comparison Of Inadequate Doctrines: The Canadian “Honour Of The Crown” And The U.S. Federal Trust Responsibility, Jennifer Pahre, Cara Shanahan, Emma Troy, Brooke Conklin

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This article critically examines and compares the Canadian doctrine of the "honour of the Crown" and the United States' federal trust responsibility as legal frameworks intended to protect the rights and interests of Indigenous peoples. Through historical and doctrinal analysis, the authors argue that both doctrines, while rooted in fiduciary ideals, have been reinterpreted by courts and policymakers in ways that prioritize governmental interests over those of Indigenous communities. The U.S. trust responsibility, once grounded in treaty obligations and sovereign-to-sovereign relations, has devolved into a vague, largely unenforceable moral and legal obligation, allowing for unilateral federal and state action that …

The Sovereign Acre, Match Dawson

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

What if the next constitutional crisis is not declared from a presidential podium but tyranny forged into a deed? Not a contested election. Not a rogue legislature. Not even a runaway court. This time, it is quieter—with a deed signed and title passed, a new sovereign is crowned in private ink. Across the country, billionaire land grabs are redrawing the map of municipal governance itself. As wealthy elites and corporate oligarchs carve out private enclaves—from the privatized contract city of Sandy Springs, Georgia, to the unsettling governance of The Woodlands, Texas—we bear witness to public sovereignty giving way to …

Upcycled And Rightful: Navigating Trademark Law And The Circular Economy, Irene Calboli, Gabrielle Armstrong

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article elaborates on the practice of upcycling and argues that upcycling should be considered a lawful practice under current trademark rules in the United States. Upcycling is the process of taking existing products lawfully sold on the market, in most instances, used products, and giving these products a second life by adding additional elements and decorations or by using the still viable product parts to create new products altogether. Because of its focus on reusing existing products or product parts, the practice of upcycling has become increasingly popular, also because it promotes circular and environmentally friendly production practices. However, …

Presidentialism In Post-Conflict Kachin Constitution: Political Imagination, Institutional Realities, And Executive Design, Dashi Blessing Seng Htoi Lu

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between cultural identity, political imagination, and constitutional design in the Kachin context, focusing on the strong preference for presidentialism among political thinkers and interim constitution drafters. Rooted in traditions of armed resistance, charismatic leadership, and the desire for visible sovereignty, presidentialism is widely viewed as the most viable executive model for a post-conflict Kachin future. Yet this preference is often shaped more by symbolic ideals than by a clear understanding of the structural demands of democratic governance.

At the heart of this vision lies the expectation of a strong president: directly elected, culturally rooted, and …

The Progression Of Deinstitutionalization And Its Effects On The American South: A Judicial Analysis Of 20th-Century United States Supreme Court Decisions, Eva-Marie V. Jones

Honors College Theses

This thesis explores the effects of four landmark Supreme Court cases on the deinstitutionalization movement in the American south. Previous literature frequently discusses the legislative implications of this era; however, no law is applicable without the interpretation and application of the judiciary, which so often contextualizes the greater public perspective. Rarely has an analysis of judicial decisions involving psychiatric care merged with regional focus, and certainly not in a format accessible to the average individual.

From unmarked graves to abandoned infrastructure, the legacy of historic psychiatric care in the United States has been largely obscured – yet its consequences continue …