Category: Issue 5

Article

Has the Alien Tort Statute Made a Difference?: A Historical, Empirical, and Normative Assessment

Christopher Ewell, J.D., Yale Law School (2022); Oona A. Hathaway, Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of Law, Yale Law School & Ellen Nohle, J.S.D. Candidate, Yale Law School (2023)

The Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which allows aliens to file civil suit in U.S. courts for violations of the law of nations, has been considered by many to be one of the most important legal tools for human rights litigation in the United States and perhaps even the world. The effectiveness of this tool, however,…

Oct 2022

Article

Antidiscrimination and Tax Exemption

Alex Zhang, Law Clerk, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. J.D., Yale Law School; Ph.D., Yale University

“The Supreme Court held, in Bob Jones University v. United States, that violations of fundamental public policy—including race discrimination in education—disqualify an entity for tax exemption. The holding of the case was broad, and its results cohered with the ideals of progressive society: the government ought not to subsidize discrimination, particularly of marginalized groups. But…

Oct 2022

Note

A Response-Dependent Perspective on the Theory of Insanity

Bruno Patrick Babij, B.A., Stanford University, 2018; M.Phil., University of Cambridge, 2019;
J.D., Cornell Law School, 2022

“This Note has three parts. The first introduces the idea of response-dependent responsibility in more detail. The second part argues that the traditional tests for insanity assume the view of responsibility the response-dependent account sought to correct and that the failure of these tests to provide satisfactory results follows from that assumption. The third part…

Oct 2022

Note

“F*ck School”? Reconceptualizing Student Speech Rights in the Digital Age

Hannah Middlebrooks, J.D., Cornell Law School, 2022; B.A. in English, French, and Women’s Studies, University of Georgia, 2017

“This Note will examine the impact that the nationwide shift to online distance learning due to the pandemic has had on K12 public school students’ First Amendment speech rights. I will begin with the four foundational Supreme Court cases about on-campus student speech. Next, I will briefly examine the federal circuit split regarding off-campus student…

Oct 2022

Article

Resurrecting Arbitrariness

Kathryn E. Miller, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law, Cardozo Law School. Staff Attorney, Equal Justice Initiative, 2012–2015

What allows judges to sentence a child to die in prison? For years, they did so without constitutional restriction. That all changed in 2012’s Miller v. Alabama, which banned mandatory sentences of life without parole for children convicted of homicide crimes. Miller held that this extreme sentence was constitutional only for the worst offenders—the “permanently…

Sep 2022