Law and Politics Commons^™

The Racial Implications For Black Claimants At The Federal Arbitration Act's Centennial, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

On February 12, 1925, when President Calvin Coolidge signed into law an Act to make arbitration agreements "valid, irrevocable, and enforceable," no person could have expected that this new statute would ever apply to claims by Black litigants. A century later, that law, now referred to as the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), has evolved to encompass disputes involving a broad array of claimants and processes where businesses enforce pre-dispute agreements to arbitrate. In examining whether Black claimants (businesses, consumers, and importantly, workers) may benefit from using arbitration, this Article investigates how the FAA, as enacted, never intended to address their …

Lowering Of The Lowered: The ‘Spectacular’ Construction Of ‘Humiliation’ In The Indian Prevention Of Atrocities Act 1989, Ashna Singh

National Law School of India Review

The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is the only law in India that explicitly recognises caste-based insults or hate speech as an offence. In doing so, it captures the distinctive harm of such speech as humiliation. This article focuses on Section 3(1)(r) of the Act and argues that this recognition is significantly qualified by the “public view” requirement. Drawing on socio-political scholarship on humiliation, I show that judicial interpretation of this requirement has produced an extra-legislative condition of spectacularity. Courts tend to read caste-based humiliation through the paradigm of visible, overt, and collective atrocity, …

Negligent Hiring: Recidivism And Employment With A Criminal Record, Benjamin Pyle

Northwestern University Law Review

This Article tackles a difficult legal and policy challenge— reducing the impact of criminal records on job applicants’ chances in a manner that does not spur more discrimination—by looking at how another area of law, tort liability, impacts employers’ decision-making. It uses theoretical and empirical methods to study the most common reason employers report being reluctant to hire workers with a criminal record: legal liability generated by the tort of negligent hiring. While the purpose of the tort is ostensibly to protect and make whole those harmed when an employee misbehaves in a foreseeable manner, I show that, in practice, …

Broadcasting Bigotry: A Proposal To Revive Group Defamation And Hold Modern Media Accountable For The Disparagement Of Asian Americans, Dominic Roschival

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Winging It: Convergence, Convivencia, And Belonging Of Latina Lawyers, Verónica C. Gonzales

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Firm Silence, Katrina Lee

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

At The Crossroads: Private Litigation And The Fate Of Sections 2 And 208 Of The Voting Rights Act, Aviva D. Kohn

Fordham Law Review

For six decades, private plaintiffs have stood at the center of Voting Rights Act (VRA) enforcement, bringing an overwhelming majority of the suits challenging discriminatory voting practices nationwide. Most federal courts have allowed private plaintiffs to sue for relief under the VRA. However, in 2023 and 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit broke from this pattern, holding that neither section 2 nor section 208 of the VRA permits private litigants to sue for relief. The Eighth Circuit’s decisions rest on a narrow reading of congressional intent, a rigid application of Alexander v. Sandovaland Gonzaga University …

"In Better Times": The Basis Of Representation And The Forgotten History Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Jessica I. Gorovitz

Fordham Law Review

Over the past several years, the U.S. Supreme Court has incorporated history into the analysis of unenumerated individual rights, like abortion, and enumerated ones, like the right to keep and bear arms. But it has not incorporated history into its approach to individual rights claims of racial discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause, a methodological gap the Court has left unexplained. Rather, it has held that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment is to prevent racial classifications, largely citing its own precedent, eschewing the Amendment’s history. This approach conflicts with section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Resilient Dispute Resolution Systems For International Energy Conflicts, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Seattle University Law Review

Energy-related conflicts are on the rise, spanning diverse issues such as the impacts of rare mineral mining on local communities, the impacts of sanctions on energy investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the impacts of expanded subsidies on the electric vehicle and solar panel industries. Increasingly, companies, communities, and governments are clashing over the challenges of pursuing disparate and sometimes competing energy policies. This Article argues that dispute resolution mechanisms in the energy investment sector must be fundamentally rethought. Traditional semi-adjudicatory models, which focus on winners and losers, fail to accommodate the complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary energy …

Restricting Data Flows Is A Sign Of Weakness, Nikolas Guggenberger

Seattle University Law Review

There has been a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the free flow of data across borders.  In less than a decade, the United States has transitioned from condemning barriers to digital trade to constructing a digital fortress of its own. It passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban affecting 170 million U.S. users, citing national security concerns about its ties to China and the potential for data surveillance and content manipulation. Upon legal challenge by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court affirmed the ban’s constitutionality. Recent federal legislation …

Product Nationality And Corporate Identity, Trang (Mae) Nguyen

Seattle University Law Review

Global supply chains have long depended on a deceptively technical device: the attribution of a “nationality” to goods. A trade law principle, rules of origin assign products an “economic passport” that governs how they are treated at the border, including what markets they may enter and which tariff rates apply. In recent years, however, product nationality has taken on a new and far more ambitious role. As U.S. trade policy increasingly intersects with national security and human rights policy, policymakers rely on nationality-based measures to police supply chain linkages, curb geopolitical issues, and discipline firms for their links to forced …

Global Supply Chain Resilience In Emerging Technologies: A Case Study Of Bitcoin Mining, Kishanthi Parella, Carla L. Reyes

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has put into motion bold plans in critical and emerging technologies to bolster its national and economic security.  For example, the federal government created a national bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other cryptocurrency; while several states have committed to or are considering similar goals.  However, the security of these reserves is dependent on two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains, relating to the physical components needed for Bitcoin mining, and data supply chains, relating to the complex and layered logistical network of actors that create input into the software …

Third-Party Funding: Balancing Transparency, National Security, And Access To Justice, Victoria Shannon Sahani

Seattle University Law Review

Many lawmakers who have recently become aware of the multi-billion-dollar global third-party funding industry are raising new national security concerns that further complicate preexisting, longstanding debates about transparency, disclosure, access to justice, and the best way to regulate third-party funding. In response, this Article briefly asserts three main points relating to the question of how best to regulate third-party funding. First, this Article explains the third-party funding industry, including its global regulatory landscape and how it serves three distinct populations: consumers, businesses, and law firms. Second, this Article explains that third-party funding is one tool that can help expand access …

The Field Of International Business Transactions Law, Kathleen Claussen

Seattle University Law Review

This Article studies the evolution of the scholarly subfield referred to as the law of “international business transactions” (IBT). It reviews data on academic articles, courses, textbooks and other signifiers of the growth of this research area. Beginning around 1960, scholars began to use the term “international business transactions” and by the 1980s, several law schools were offering a course by that title. A handful of dedicated textbooks soon followed. These data reflect a gradual increase in research on the topic of IBT, particularly in the United States, but also considerable diversity of subject matters covered by those works. The …

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Seattle University Law Review

For the past three decades, a transnational reparations movement has unfolded across Northeast Asia. Hundreds of victims—assisted by attorneys, academics, and activists—seek remedies from Japan for various atrocities committed during World War II, colonialism, and other historical injustices.  They press their claims in street protests, legislative hearings, dramatic performances, and other fora.  The “comfort women” are the best known of these claimants; their global redress campaign ex-tends from noisy protests outside of Japan’s embassy in Seoul, to mute statues in raucous boroughs of Berlin.  More obscure, though larger in number, were the roughly one million Koreans who performed forced labor …

Navigating Compliance In A Geopolitical Era: The Case Of Chinese Multinationals In The United States, Ji Li

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines how Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) approach compliance in the United States amid deepening geo-political rivalry and intensified regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on original survey data, this Article maps variations in compliance structures, staffing, and governance mechanisms across Chinese firms and identifies key determinants such as industry-specific regulatory intensity, listing status, and organizational imprinting from headquarters. The analysis employs a dual institutional framework to explain how compliance systems emerge from the interplay between host-state regulatory demands and home-state institutional legacies, producing hybrid structures that blend local adaptation with headquarters-driven replication. Findings reveal that while certain compliance features—such as committee …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Approaches To Shaping International Outer Space Law And Norms, Ariel G. Silverman

Seattle University Law Review

This article explores convergences and divergencies in the United States and PRC’s responses to the stalemate in the United Nations over the future of outer space resource governance. I do so by systematically analyzing these leading space-faring nations’ policy-positions and tactics deployed to shape norms around three substantive areas of outer space resource governance: rights of ownership and scope of utilization of space resources, mechanization of the “benefits sharing” principle, and the rights and responsibilities of the private sector. I theorize that these leading space-faring nations have adopted divergent approaches due to their differing historical relationships with international law and …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Policing Agency Data Trusts, Barry Friedman

Northwestern University Law Review

Policing agencies are indiscriminately collecting, retaining, and using vast quantities of personal data from people who are suspected of no unlawful conduct whatsoever. This has caused expressions of concern or caution from many quarters, including—notably—the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In a declassified report, the Office of the DNI stated that massive amounts of data are being collected “on nearly everyone that is of a type and level of sensitivity . . . that could be used to cause harm to an individual’s reputation, emotional well-being, or physical safety.”

This practice of universal data collection presents a conundrum. As many …

Brief For Amici Curiae Immigration Law Scholars In Support Of Petitioner-Appellee, Supporting Affirmance, Lindsay Nash

Amicus Briefs

Amicus curiae brief filed by immigration law scholars, including Cardozo School of Law Professor Lindsay Nash, in Herrera Avila v. Bondi. The brief examines the scope of mandatory immigration detention under the Immigration and Nationality Act and argues that 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A) applies to noncitizens seeking admission at the border rather than individuals apprehended within the interior of the United States.

Beyond Bathrooms: The Far-Reaching Consequences Of Denying Gender Identity In Adams V. School Board Of St. Johns County, Jeffrey Sun, Regina Umpstead Pratel

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

INTRODUCTION: The transgender community continues to face discrimination in United States society, and legal protections are unlikely to change anytime soon. Understanding the broader context of these challenges helps explain why some instances of discrimination in public schools may be overlooked or even supported by public officials. An examination of recent judicial rulings concerning transgender students’ access to restrooms corresponding with their gender identity—situated within the broader convergence of national legal and social developments—provides critical insight into the structural barriers faced by transgender students within the educational system and transgender individuals in society at large. Significantly, the growing visibility of …

Making Room For Cultural Humility In An Anti-Dei Space, Shelley Ward Bennett

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

This Article analyzes the intersection of state anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) laws and the American Bar Association (ABA) Standard 303(c)’s cross-cultural competency education mandate and offers suggestions for how these policies can coexist. The surge in anti-DEI laws issued in twenty states over the last four years has created challenges and uncertainty for public law schools and their professors seeking to include cultural competency instruction in their curriculum. Though some have expressed concerns that the requirements of state anti-DEI laws and Standard 303(c) may conflict, this Article proposes that such a conflict should not be presumed because Standard 303(c) …

A New Playbook: The Procedural Resilience Of Oregon’S Rooney Rule In The Wake Of Students For Fair Admissions V. Harvard, Jada I. Cook

CMC Senior Theses

This article evaluates the constitutionality of Oregon’s codified Rooney Rule considering the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard. Passed in 2009, the Oregon mandate requires public universities to include at least one minority applicant in the interview process for all head coaching vacancies. By analyzing the architectural origins of the Rooney Rule within the National Football League (NFL) and the systemic racial exclusion it sought to dismantle, this research explores whether interview-stage mandates, that are applied at the state level, can survive the rigorous application of the strict scrutiny standard. …

Who Makes The Jury? Demographics And Decision-Making In The Jury Process., Ana B. Pons

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Within the American judicial system, juries have played a central role in promoting representation and fairness in the courtroom. However, limited information exists on whether prosecutorial decisions during jury selection, jury composition, or jury behavior differ based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Following PRISMA guidelines, this scoping review synthesizes 48 peer-reviewed articles published between the 1940s and 2026 to examine whether prosecutorial decision-making and jury outcomes vary based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Findings indicated that men are disproportionately selected …

Mariano Torres And Lester Wilson V. James Carlson, Et. Al., Brief Of Amicus Curiae Center For Jewish Legal Studies In Support Of Plaintiffs-Appellants And Reversal, Rona Kaufmann, Lee Wolosky, Andrew J. Lichtman, Machol Benmelech

Law Faculty Publications

Amicus curiae the Center for Jewish Legal Studies (“CJLS”)¹ is an academic organization dedicated to establishing and advancing the emerging field of Jewish Legal Studies, which examines the intersection of law and Jewish peoplehood. CJLS convenes legal and interdisciplinary scholars whose research examines antisemitism and anti-Zionism across historical periods and ideological movements, including how ostensibly political language can express hostility toward Jews as a people. Through this scholarship, CJLS develops historical and legal frameworks that assist courts in recognizing and evaluating contemporary manifestations of anti-Jewish discrimination.

Examining Reproductive Equity In The Post-Roe United States, Yali Pang, Anna Grace Causey, Nakeina E. Douglas-Glenn, Research Institute For Social Equity Rise

Research Institute for Social Equity

Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, state-level variation in reproductive rights policy is associated with substantial geographic inequities in access to abortion and reproductive health care across the United States. The adoption of restrictive or protective reproductive rights policies is closely tied to legislative control, underscoring the political drivers of reproductive inequity. The evidence suggests that advancing reproductive equity will require coordinated national, state, and local response to strengthen healthcare infrastructure, reduce economic barriers, and establish durable legislative protections for reproductive rights.

Distributional Reinforcement Theory, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As Donald Trump’s assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) reveals, the concept of racial equality is sufficiently malleable that what used to be viewed as remedies for discrimination against racial minorities can now be recharacterized as reverse discrimination against the White majority. Such recharacterization is possible because the concept of equality itself lacks any stable meaning that exists independent of one’s normative preferences about race. In a democracy, normative disputes are properly resolved through the political process, unless there is some representation reinforcement defect that makes judicial intervention necessary to ensure compliance with our second order constitutional equality principle. …

Values Primacy & Total Governance Through Activism, Carliss N. Chatman, Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, public companies swift-ly pledged sweeping equity commitments—only to abandon them under political and market pressure. These reversals were not aberrations. They were opportunistic, performative, and reactionary marketing responses. They expose a governance regime in which stakeholder interests are structurally reversible because they remain doctrinally optional, lacking the institutional interlock needed to create binding accountability across stakeholder roles.

This Article explores how stakeholder power is already embedded in corporate governance through interlocking initiatives grounded in shared values. Stakeholder activism—boycotts, proxy votes, viral campaigns—is not merely expressive; it is an overlooked form of governance. Drawing …