NULR 1L Writing Competition: Fong Yue Ting v. United States (Critique)

NULR 1L Writing Competition: Fong Yue Ting v. United States (Critique)

Photo by Miko Guziuk on Unsplash The idea of diversity has influenced some of our country’s most important judicial decisions. We asked Northwestern 1Ls to write about a case they studied in their first year of law school that has affected their opinion about diversity in the legal system. Meher was one of the winners. Of the cases covered in Constitutional Law tracing the expansion of federal power, none is more germane to the current national discussion on immigration and race…

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Sources of Rights: Originalism and Thayerism

Sources of Rights: Originalism and Thayerism

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash At Northwestern University Law Review’s Symposium on Originalism 3.0, Professor Steven Calabresi presented a paper critiquing a Thayerian approach to judicial handling of unenumerated rights. The session was moderated by Professor James Pfander, with commentary by Professor Jamal Greene of Columbia University Law School. Professor Calabresi described James Thayer’s influential 1893 Article, The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law, which posited that federal courts should only strike down laws that are…

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Grounding Originalism: A Panel Discussion Moving from Legal Theory to Legal Practice

Grounding Originalism: A Panel Discussion Moving from Legal Theory to Legal Practice

          Photo by Anthony Garand on Unsplash Is originalism correct? What might make it so? Grounding Originalism, a forthcoming Essay by Professors William Baude and Stephen E. Sachs, tackles these questions by moving from legal theory to legal empirics in an effort to provide a coherent story of our law. On Friday afternoon, November 5, 2018, Professors Baude and Sachs were joined by Professor Michael Ramsey in a panel discussion about Baude and Sachs’s piece, Grounding Originalism….

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Moving the Great Debate on Originalism Theory Forward

Moving the Great Debate on Originalism Theory Forward

Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash Georgetown Law’s Professor Lawrence B. Solum discussed his forthcoming article, Originalism versus Living Constitutionalism: The Conceptual Structure of the Great Debate,at the recent Northwestern University Law Review 2018 Symposium: Originalism 3.0. Professor William Ewald from the University of Pennsylvania provided commentary, and Northwestern Law Professor Joshua Kleinfeld moderated the panel. Professor Solum began the discussion by sharing his inspiration for the article. While this article comprises part of a larger scholarly work in defense…

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Truth, Lies, and Climate Change

Truth, Lies, and Climate Change

Notwithstanding the established death toll of 2,975 people in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, President Trump persists in asserting that it is limited to double digits. But Trump is hardly the first national leader to prevaricate when it comes to the consequences of extreme weather. World leaders lie about the costs and consequences of extreme weather and climate change because they are motivated to do so, and—with the exception of blatantly false statements like Trump’s—their lies are difficult to expose….

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The Poison Pills: Is Trump Negotiating NAFTA’s Dissolution?

The Poison Pills: Is Trump Negotiating NAFTA’s Dissolution?

Following informal talks in Washington at the beginning of April, NAFTA negotiators missed another deadline when they were unable to resolve key issues in the renegotiation in time for the Summit of the Americas. Missing deadlines due to deadlock has been a recurring theme of the renegotiation process, which began back in August 2017. Since calling NAFTA the “worst trade deal ever made,” President Donald Trump has pursued an aggressive negotiation strategy, which appears to tip the balance of the…

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From Somers to Winter: Chilling Internal Whistleblowing in Private Companies

From Somers to Winter: Chilling Internal Whistleblowing in Private Companies

On February 21, 2018, the Supreme Court issued its opinion for Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers—a landmark decision denying Dodd-Frank anti-retaliation protection for internal whistleblowers in private companies. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, intending to “promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system.” The law came eight years after Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)—an act that empowered whistleblowers to play a pivotal role in catching corporate fraud in public companies and…

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Section 230 and Fake News

Section 230 and Fake News

Facebook brands itself as a company that aims to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” However, following the 2016 presidential election, the social media platform has come under growing scrutiny as part of a larger concern of Russian interference in the election. That concern is culminating this week with Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testifying in Congress regarding Facebook’s alleged violations of user privacy in its dealings with the political data mining…

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Opioid Litigation Nationwide May Leave States with New Funding to Combat the Epidemic

Opioid Litigation Nationwide May Leave States with New Funding to Combat the Epidemic

As the country continues its efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, states are poised to receive new sources of funding from lawsuit settlements with drug distributors. Following the success of a claim in 2007 against Purdue Pharma, hundreds of plaintiffs—ranging from small towns and counties to larger cities and states—are joining the wave of litigation. To speed up the process, many of these cases have been consolidated; one federal judge in the Northern District of Ohio is currently presiding over…

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Article III Standing in Biometric Privacy Suits

Article III Standing in Biometric Privacy Suits

As the use of biometric technology has grown increasingly prevalent in our everyday lives, the legal issues surrounding its use have rapidly developed. Ranging from facial recognition technology employed by social media providers to fingerprint technology adopted by employers, biometric technology has important societal implications. While many find ease and benefit in its uses, others sense a justifiable wariness over its proliferation. Biometric technology consists of an individual’s private and unique biologic identifiers. Such information in the hands of large…

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