
The Anti-Constitutional Attack on Birthright Citizenship
Trump’s executive order is not merely unconstitutional. It is an effort to perpetrate the very evils that abolitionists and Republicans sought to eradicate from our constitutional order.
Trump’s executive order is not merely unconstitutional. It is an effort to perpetrate the very evils that abolitionists and Republicans sought to eradicate from our constitutional order.
This past Friday, the Supreme Court granted cert in a case that concerns the first religious charter school in the United States. But this case is not merely about school choice or religious freedom — it also reflects a broader contest over how law structures public responsibility and private power.
The Supreme Court’s unanimous affirmation of the TikTok Ban reveals a dangerous weakness in the First Amendment: its failure to protect against government repression that targets the economic infrastructure of speech, rather than speech itself — precisely the kind of repression that is likely to be a hallmark of the second Trump presidency.
Faced with increasingly dire housing challenges, tenants and organizers have called on federal administrative agencies to impose rent regulations, curb discriminatory screening practices, and limit the grounds for eviction. But will such regulations survive in a post-Chevron world? And, if not, might they nevertheless serve long-term fair housing goals?
American courts exercise authority beyond U.S. borders, including over foreign governments, all the time. To most observers, this is simply a consequence of increasing economic globalization and legal modernization, which untethered jurisdiction from territory. But this is a mistake. Law has not become divorced from territory but instead actively remapped it; it has not merely responded to globalization, but actively produced it.
The Supreme Court’s recent administrative law decisions represent a fundamental shift in both political and economic power. In response, we must not settle for simply restoring the status quo ante. Instead, the task for an LPE approach to the administrative state requires answering a more foundational question: what would effective, equitable, and democratic governance look like?
Earlier this year, in an effort to limit judge-shopping, the Judicial Conference adopted a policy requiring judges to be assigned through a district-wide random selection process. The rejection of this policy by judges in the Northern District of Texas is one sign among many that the judiciary is unfit to regulate itself.
Eviction courts are ruthlessly efficient, with the average trial lasting less than two minutes. Yet this speed comes at the expense of tenants’ due process and other rights, while its benefits primarily accrue to landlords. When civil justice reform is taken up in the name of efficiency, eviction courts challenge us to ask: what, or whom, does efficiency sacrifice?
Civil procedure is political economy all the way down. Helen Hershkoff, Luke Norris, and Judith Resnik kick off a symposium on the subject by describing the promise of procedure to further equal treatment and accountable decision-making, as well as how such aspirations are undercut by resource disparities and efforts to replace the use of courts with private arbitration.
Unlike most modern constitutions, the U.S. Constitution famously lacks any social welfare rights. At least, it did until 2018. Over the past five years, the Ninth Circuit has created a right unique in the American constitutional tradition: an effective license for homeless individuals to sleep on public lands.
Next month, the Supreme Court will decide whether it is constitutional for cities to punish unsheltered people for sleeping outside, even when the city fails to provide any safe alternative. Yet, no matter how the court rules, homeless people will still face significant threats from cities.
A ruling that tech companies don’t have to comply with neutral regulations would not just block two sloppy laws, it would put a block on politics itself. This is a moment for the Court to stand back and allow democracy to work its clumsy, painful magic.
Here’s the terrifying reality: our power-hungry, ultra-conservative Supreme Court will stifle attempts by the government to address climate change, gun violence, racial inequality, and many other pressing problems. Democrats, meanwhile, are unlikely to win back control of the Court until 2065. Given this, it’s past time to take seriously the following question: what to do about the courts? Thankfully, we have just the open course for you.
Since the early 1990s, the United States has created a scheme of laws allowing private parties to sue individuals, organizations, and foreign countries for acts of terrorism in U.S. courts. While these laws have primarily been used to target and harass Palestinians, the recent spate of violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank presents a potential if unexpected opportunity: to turn the tables on terrorism torts.
Louise Seamster, Blake Emerson, Marshall Steinbaum, Ryann Liebenthal, Jonathan Glater, Persis Yu, and Luke Herrine offer their initial reactions to the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation program.