Cornell University law professor Joe Margulies comments on the findings of a recent study of police body cameras that body-worn cameras made no statistically significant difference in how police go about their jobs. Margulies points out that the story is not in the absence of a difference, but in people’s surprise to the absence of a difference. Indeed, it is the routine, not the anomalous, that requires reform.

Professor and resident senior fellow in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Marci A. Hamilton praises the #MeToo campaign and explains what more needs to happen to meaningfully address the pervasive issues of sexual assault and abuse against children and adults. Hamilton points to the brave actions by Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney and elaborates on what must change in our society to empower victims and hold those in power accountable.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb reviews Sital Kalantry’s book Women's Human Rights and Migration: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States and India. Colb explains how the book taught her a new way to think about an area in which Colb herself already has extensive knowledge. Colb praises Kalantry for taking an empirically supported look at the practice of sex-selection abortions in the United States and elsewhere and for drawing sophisticated conclusions about the proper place for regulation on the basis of that scrutiny.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman analogizes a situation in the present United States to the dystopic circumstances of The Handmaid’s Tale. In each, Grossman points out that men have taken upon themselves the right and responsibility to mandate what women may (and must) do during pregnancy, despite what are indisputably their constitutional rights.

Boston University law professor Tamar Frankel describes a model for institutional compliance that provides financial rewards for honesty and compliance with the law. Frankel explains the logistics of such a model and why, for some companies, a bottom-up approach may serve as a superior model than the traditional top-down approach for bringing about desirable results.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar comments on the increasingly frequent practice of federal district courts issuing injunctions that extend relief beyond the plaintiffs in the case. Amar describes the problems with this practice and calls upon the US Supreme Court to clarify the doctrine of when nationwide (or global) injunctions by federal district courts are permissible and when they are not.

George Washington law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan considers the implications of the fact that a very small number of Americans own a very large percentage of the privately owned guns in the United States. Specifically, he considers whether the already-enormous number of guns owned by Americans means that we are doomed to live with gun violence forever, no matter what a future Congress might do, and whether the concentration of guns in the hands of Donald Trump’s supporters raises any special concerns about attempts to impeach the president.

Cornell University law professor Michael C. Dorf explains why, if Congress wants to ban or further regulated the sale of “bump stocks,” it should act quickly or risk missing the window in which regulation is possible. Dorf points out that the test the Supreme Court uses for whether weapons count as “arms” protected by the Second Amendment is whether they are in “common use,” not whether they are “dangerous and unusual weapons.” Dorf argues that so long as bump stocks remain legal, people can accumulate them, and if enough people do that before they are banned, there could be so many in circulation as to qualify as in common use, thereby falling within the scope of Second Amendment protection.

Cornell University law professor Joseph Margulies describes the ongoing military commissions operating at Guantanamo, costing US taxpayers over $90 million per year. Margulies explains why the commissions are are all symbol and no substance but why politicians will never suggest that they be shut down.

Professor and resident senior fellow in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Marci A. Hamilton points out two ways the legal system reinforces a culturally ingrained fear of undermining the “family breadwinner”: short statutes of limitations (SOLs) for sex abuse and defamation law. Hamilton argues that fixing the SOLs and defamation law can shift the balance of power between perpetrators and the victims.

Marci A. Hamilton, a professor and resident senior fellow in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania, describes how Mississippi and President Trump (with the help of Jeff Sessions) are bent on demeaning and disempowering LGBT individuals in every way possible. Hamilton points to the passage of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 as the starting point for this movement, despite the law’s being struck down as unconstitutional in 1997.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb comments on a case the US Supreme Court recently agreed to hear regarding the scope of the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Colb explains the facts leading up to the controversy, the arguments on both sides, and the unusual nature of the case. Colb points out that the Court was likely motivated to hear the case to resolve a question the case does not even squarely present, namely whether the presence of a car in a driveway is a reason not to apply the automobile exception.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman comments on the recent change in policy announced by the Trump administration rolling back the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, allowing employers with religious or moral objections to exempt themselves. Grossman describes the history of access to contraception in the United States and the measures Trump has taken that have the purpose or effect of restricting access to contraception.

Chapman University Fowler School of Law professor Ronald D. Rotunda describes the historic practice by the US Supreme Court of issuing seriatim opinions, where each justice wrote his own separate opinion, rather than the current practice of issuing an Opinion of the Court. Rotunda describes the role of Chief Justice John Marshall in changing the practice, which resulted in the most powerful Court in the world.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar and UC Davis Law emeritus professor Alan E. Brownstein propose and analyze a law to prevent hostile listeners from “shouting down” controversial speakers that, arguably, would pass constitutional muster. Amar and Brownstein do not fully agree on which standard of review should apply to the regulation they propose, but they do agree that the mere fact that a general law is applied to conventionally expressive conduct does not always justify increasing the standard of review applied to it.

Cornell University law professor Michael C. Dorf describes some of the key similarities and differences between the most recent iteration of President Trump’s ban on entry to the US by certain foreign nationals (“Travel Ban 3.0”) and earlier versions, and considers whether these differences will affect the determination of the policy’s legality. Although the Supreme Court might not ultimately be the court that answers the question, Dorf points out that we may have an answer before too long.