Constitutional Law Commons^™

Reading Between The Treaties: Why The Supreme Court Must Honor The Indian Canons Of Construction, Amelia R. Wimmer

American Indian Law Journal

This Note critically examines the Indian canons of construction as interpretive tools employed by the United States Supreme Court in cases involving treaties and statutes with Tribal Nations. Ultimately tracing their origins to Worcester v. Georgia, this Note explores how the Indian canons were designed to protect tribal sovereignty, ensure the liberal construction of ambiguous provisions in favor of tribes, and prevent the abrogation of tribal land and rights. Shifts in interpretive philosophy and the rise of textualism have led to a checkered application of the Indian canons across courts. However, a continued application of the Indian canons is necessary …

The Federal Trust ​​​Responsibility ​And Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction: Restoring Justice In Tribal Nations​​​ ​, Sofia Sallas

American Indian Law Journal

Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction (SDVCJ), enacted through the Violence Against Women Act, was designed to address jurisdictional gaps that long allowed non-Indian perpetrators of domestic violence in Indian Country to evade accountability. Yet despite restoring Tribal authority, SDVCJ remains significantly under-implemented. This Note argues that this failure is not merely a policy shortcoming, but a legal one. Congress restored Tribal criminal jurisdiction while conditioning its exercise on federal funding, coordination, and institutional support. Federal agencies, however, have failed to provide the consistent infrastructure necessary for SDVCJ to function in practice. These failures breach the federal trust responsibility, which imposes …

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American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Tribal Nations As Lords Of The Fee: A Common Law Argument For Tribal Discretion In Spending Federal Forfeiture Funds, Kent A. Anderson

American Indian Law Journal

Federal criminal forfeiture is a powerful tool meeting at the nexus of criminal law and property law. Courts justify its use based on its English common law history. After seizing and selling assets, the federal government doles out payments from its Assets Forfeiture Fund to cooperating law enforcement agencies through equitable sharing agreements that bind recipients to use funds for law enforcement purposes. Tribal Nations have compelling legal and policy arguments for their entitlement to greater access to and discretion over forfeiture funds obtained through seizures in Indian country. These legal arguments are grounded in: (1) federal criminal forfeiture’s failure …

September 2024 – August 2025 Case Law On American Indians, Thomas P. Schlosser

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Real Promise For False Claims: A Whistleblower Litigation Strategy To Reward Investigative Journalism, Frank D. Lomonte

Washington Law Review

Every year, investigative reporters uncover stories of waste, fraud, and corruption, alerting the government to taxpayer ripoffs that had previously gone undiscovered or ignored. For decades, non-journalists have been reaping windfall rewards—sometimes in the millions—by using false-claims statutes to bring whistleblower actions on the government’s behalf. With news organizations struggling for their economic survival, and efforts to secure alternative financial support through government bailouts faltering, is it time for journalists to seek a share of the money they recoup for taxpayers by becoming plaintiffs?

This Article explores the possibilities, and downside risks, of using the federal False Claims Act, and …

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Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

Reimagining Legal Education: The Transformative Power Of Small-Group Instruction, Michael I. Meyerson

Seattle University Law Review

Legal education is failing its students. Those entering their first year of law school have greater anxiety and less developed reading and writing skills than ever before. The traditional large Socratic class, which was never the most effective teaching method, has become increasingly counterproductive.

This Article contends that small-group instruction provides the opportunity for superior teaching, especially for first-year law students. Recent scholarship in active learning, educational psychology, and students’ mental health demonstrates the limitations of the traditional large Socratic class experience. Building on that theoretical foundation and informed by sustained classroom experience, this Article argues that small-group pedagogy more …

Land Without Legacy: The Case For Market-Based Appraisals On Hawaiian Home Lands, Alexis C. Owens

Seattle University Law Review

The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 (HHCA) was enacted to restore Native Hawaiians to ancestral lands and promote long term economic self-sufficiency. More than a century later, that promise remains unfulfilled. This Note argues that a central but overlooked barrier lies in the HHCA’s mandated use of the replacement cost appraisal method, which systematically undervalues homestead properties by excluding market forces. In one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States, this approach suppresses home equity, the primary means of intergenerational wealth building, and restricts beneficiaries’ access to credit and financial stability. By severing the connection between …

International Law’S Forgotten Refugees—Palestinian Refugees In Egypt

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines the legal and humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian refugees who have fled to Egypt amidst the ongoing violence in Gaza. While escaping active conflict, these refugees face systemic barriers to employment and education, rendering their living conditions precarious and unsustainable. The unique legal status of Palestinian refugees stems from the fact that they have been excluded from the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, leaving them without any meaningful international protection. This exclusion is rooted in the political complexities of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and reflects a fragmented legal framework that prioritizes limited humanitarian aid over …

The History Of The Constitution Is Our Future., Maggie Blackhawk

Michigan Law Review

The Constitution of the United States establishes a government; it also stands as the fundamental law of a people. It shapes daily life, distributes power, and sets a direction for the future. And yet when we ask about the reach and meaning of the Constitution, we are increasingly told to look backward. The answers to our future are said to lie in the past.

Closing Time?, Aziz Z. Huq

Michigan Law Review

A review of No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States. By Erwin Chemerinsky.

Anti-Allyship And The Indirect Subordination Of Queer People, Richard Luedeman

Washington Law Review

This Article theorizes and interrogates anti-allyship as a central mechanism of modern subordination of queer people. While not new, anti-allyship is expanding rapidly under the second Trump administration. Defined as the deliberate imposition of legal, financial, and reputational costs on those who support queer individuals or institutions, anti-allyship is a strategy of indirect oppression. It targets not queer people directly, but the infrastructure of support on which queer communities rely: clinicians, educators, family members, researchers, and organizations. In doing so, it often evades the formal protections of civil rights law, which remain tethered to anticlassification models and status-based protections that …

Disability And Constitutional Legitimacy, Katherine A. Macfarlane

Washington Law Review

Disability classifications can take one of two forms. The more familiar form targets people with disabilities on account of their disability and harms them. This type of government classification receives deferential rational basis review and is therefore difficult to challenge. But government action that benefits people with disabilities also classifies on the basis of disability and receives rational basis review. This Article focuses on classifications that provide preferential treatment to disabled people precisely because of their disability—through disability affirmative action programs—and argues that their legitimacy is bolstered, not weakened, by the rational basis standard. It does so by distinguishing the …

Cross-Enforcing The Plain Smell Doctrine, Alexa Perez

Washington Law Review

In a state that has legalized marijuana, does a state officer have probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle based on the smell of marijuana alone, because marijuana is still prohibited under federal law? This Article is the first to consider that unsettled question. Over the last ten years, almost every state has altered the legality of marijuana in some way, either through decriminalization or legalization. Yet the possession, use, and cultivation of marijuana continue to be illegal at the federal level. Prior to these reforms, state courts generally upheld warrantless searches of vehicles based on nothing …

Presidential Noncompliance And Judicial Response: A Two-Branch Dialectic, Seth Waxman

Washington Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Speech Swept Up"—The Constitutionality Of State Prohibitions Of Conversion Therapy For Lgbtq+ Youth, Lauren A. Chivers

Washington Law Review

Since 2012, individual states have passed laws prohibiting state-licensed mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy with minor clients. Despite the breadth of research undermining its efficacy and documenting harms, the practice of conversion therapy persists. State regulation of conversion therapy—and thereby licensed professionals’ conduct with their clients—has emerged as a contentious issue for the judiciary. Most significantly, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the matter for the first time in 2026. In Chiles v. Salazar, the Court addressed a challenge to Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, confronting fundamental questions about this unsettled area of First Amendment law. …

Deaf In Prison: The Courts' Failure To Remedy Ada Violations In Prisons, Ruby Grossman

Washington Law Review

The carceral system is one of the many institutions that fails to adequately accommodate individuals with disabilities. D/deaf individuals specifically face a severe lack of resources and accommodations, pervasive mistreatment, and inadequate services while incarcerated. While the Supreme Court has recognized that individuals necessarily do not retain all their constitutional rights while incarcerated, there are constitutional rights and statutory protections with which prisons are required to comply. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one such statute. When it comes to D/deaf incarcerated individuals, the ADA requires that prisons provide reasonable accommodations so those individuals are not deprived of programs, …

It’S Not A Constitutional Crisis, It’S A Course Correction, Mark Rush

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.