Law and Society Commons^™

2025, Richard Delgado

Seattle University Law Review

"In a cutting and provocative social critique in one of the more extended Rodrigo Chronicles, Richard Delgado in 2025 employs skillful narrative—one of CRT’s many contributions to legal scholarship —to tell a gripping story of just how far the nation has descended into darkness with President Trump’s re-election. In Delgado’s vision, law professors—along with other political opponents of the President: immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, the underserved—have targets on their backs."

-excerpt from Kevin Johnson's review of 2025

The Preventative Care Gap: Completing The Aca’S Vision For Health, Abby Nagaich

Seattle University Law Review

This Note examines the preventive care mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the legal, political, and practical challenges that threaten its effectiveness. While the ACA significantly expanded access to no-cost preventive services, gaps remain—particularly in behavioral health, obesity management, and equitable service delivery. Ongoing litigation, potential administrative rollbacks, and shifting political leadership further destabilize this critical component of public health policy.

This Note argues that for the ACA to fulfill its original promise—and for any health framework to succeed—preventive care must be redefined as a comprehensive, early intervention approach grounded in both systemic access and patient education. It …

The Unitary Executive And The Federal Reserve, Lev Menand

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court may soon embrace an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that would significantly expand the power of the president over federal administrators and invalidate key provisions in dozens of federal statutes. A critical question is whether this interpretation—known as the unitary executive theory (UET)—would also render unconstitutional central bank independence (CBI), an arrangement where a country’s monetary policy is formulated by a semiautonomous body of experts insulated from partisan political pressure. Several justices have suggested that it would not, and a growing scholarly literature has proposed ways for the Court to distinguish the country’s central banking apparatus …

Reorganizing The Administrative State: Executive Ambition And Legislative Constraint, Jordan Graber

Fordham Law Review

Beginning in the 1930s, Congress enacted a series of statutes granting presidents the authority to initiate reorganizations of the administrative state. Under these reorganization statutes, the president determined any necessary changes in agency organization and submitted a reorganization proposal to Congress, which could approve or reject the plan. Over the next fifty years, the president and Congress worked cooperatively to promote the effective and efficient functioning of the administrative state.

Despite the successful reorganization initiatives undertaken pursuant to these statutes, Congress has not conferred reorganization authority on any president in the last four decades. As a result, the organization of …

Citizenship As Control: Lessons From Athenian Democracy And Modern U.S. Immigration Practices, Máire Sullivan

Northwestern Law Journal des Refusés

No abstract provided.

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 …

Law School News: From Textbooks To Truth: A Civil Rights Journey 3-23-2026, Naomi Zhang

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

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

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

"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 …

Wealth-Based Disparities In Higher Education: Compounding Privilege, Multiplying Barriers, Rachel Moran, Jonathan D. Glater

Faculty Scholarship

This Special Issue is prompted by a confluence of developments in higher education: increasing access to postsecondary schooling overall and concurrent increasing socioeconomic inequality. After World War II, American colleges and universities began to “massify,” expanding their enrollments by opening their doors to people who previously would have found them closed. First, these institutions admitted veterans, then people of color and women (Altbach and Reisberg 2018, p. 63; Gumport et al. 1997, p. 2; Labaree 2017, pp. 106–7). The U.S. was not an outlier, and in the ensuing decades, nations around the globe saw unprecedented increases …

All The King’S Lawyers, Rebecca Aviel

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Austrian Again Book Talk, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr), Anne Hand, Evelyn Konrad

2025–2026 Flyers

The Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights hosted a special book talk featuring author Anne Hand, discussing her memoir Austrian Again. In her book, Hand explores her journey to uncover her family’s hidden history during the Holocaust while pursuing Austrian citizenship, tracing her Austrian and Czechoslovakian roots through personal stories and historical records.

The program also featured Evelyn Konrad, Cardozo alumna and Holocaust survivor, who joined the conversation and shared her personal reflections. Moderated by Konrad, the event examined themes of identity, migration, heritage, and historical memory.

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 …

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

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 …

Incarcerated Youths In Canada And The United States: A Comparative Analysis, Grace A. Mastrangelo

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Are children, who commit adult crimes, deserving of adult punishments? According to the United Nations, not if it harms their well-being. Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) adopted by the United Nations in November 1989, states that 1) the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration of all state actions involving children, 2) governments must allot children the protection and care necessary for their well-being, and 3) governmental institutions, services, and facilities that deal with children must uphold adequate standards for the safety, health, and supervision of children. The CRC is …

Law School News: Roger Williams University Marks Fred Korematsu Day With Reflection On Rights And Responsibility 02-02-2026, Kelly Brinza, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Federalism Canons As Ordinary Interpretation, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

Northwestern University Law Review

Scholars remain generally skeptical of substantive canons of statutory interpretation even as courts continue to employ such canons in important cases. Unlike semantic canons, which help judges discern the best meaning of statutory text in context, substantive canons provide tiebreakers when the text is unclear or require special clarity in order for the text to perform certain functions. Among the substantive canons, the so-called “federalism canons” have been singled out for special scrutiny. The federalism canons are a family of canons that require courts to avoid interpreting an act of Congress to divest states of certain sovereign rights or powers—including …

The Establishment That Time Forgot: The Historical Understanding Of Religious Offenses And Their Unconstitutionality In Modern Law, Benjamin J. Citow

Northwestern University Law Review

This Note argues that religious offenses, meaning laws which penalize conduct for religious purposes, should be barred by the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, as the Clause was interpreted in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. This is because Kennedy interpreted the Establishment Clause to prohibit each of the several types of laws which early Americans associated with religious establishment—the historical practice wherein early states would adopt a religion as the state religion and pass various types of laws for its support. And religious offenses, this Note argues, were amongst the types of laws which early Americans so associated with …

Applying The Indian Commerce Clause To Indian Commerce, Adam Crepelle

Northwestern University Law Review

Indian country commerce generates tens of billions of dollars annually and is a constant source of litigation. These disputes typically revolve around jurisdictional conflicts: whether states, tribes, or both possess regulatory authority over the business operating in Indian country, particularly those involving non-Indians. Despite numerous court cases, no clear legal framework has emerged, creating pervasive uncertainty regarding fundamental issues, such as state taxation of tribal transactions and the proper forum for resolving Indian country contract disputes. Interestingly, these commercial cases overlook the Indian Commerce Clause—the constitutional provision designed to address such matters.

This Article argues the Indian Commerce Clause prohibits …

Public Rights, Democracy, And The Separation Of Powers, James L. Huffman

Marquette Law Review

This Article examines the concept of public rights in the contexts of democratic governance and the constitutional separation of powers. While the concept of public rights has a long history in Anglo-American law, over the last several decades, the term is often employed with only vague reference to its historic meanings and with little or no definition. With reliance on the centrality of the concept of rights in American constitutional government, it is commonly claimed that public rights, like private rights, can be enforced in the courts as constraints on legislative and executive actions.

In American caselaw public rights have …