Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the constitutional and policy dimensions of Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court case challenging Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship, examining both the legal merits and the broader arguments for and against jus soli citizenship. Professor Dorf argues that the executive order is clearly unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, that the policy case for restricting birthright citizenship is empirically weak and practically disruptive, and that the real motivation driving the effort is racist “replacement” ideology rather than any legitimate demographic or governance concern.

David S. Kemp analyzes the first federal court ruling on AI and attorney-client privilege, United States v. Heppner, examining the court’s reasoning across each element of the privilege test and the work product doctrine. Mr. Kemp argues that while the court reached the correct result on two independent and sufficient grounds, its unnecessary confidentiality analysis was methodologically flawed—treating Anthropic’s broadest contractual reserved rights as dispositive without examining the specific terms, product tier, or training preferences that actually governed Heppner’s use. He warns that this overbroad reasoning, rather than the uncontroversial holdings, is what future courts will most likely cite, with potentially damaging consequences for privilege claims in any professional context involving third-party platforms.

Samuel Estreicher discusses the Sixth Circuit’s recent decision in Brown-Forman Corp. v. NLRB, which declined to enforce a Board bargaining order because the order rested on the NLRB’s 2023 Cemex ruling rather than the established Gissel standard, raising questions about the lawful use of adjudication to create new agency policy. Professor Estreicher argues that while the Sixth Circuit was right to flag procedural concerns about Cemex, its reasoning is flawed and insufficiently engages with the substantive merits of the Cemex standard—though he also notes that Cemex itself went too far by failing to adequately account for employees’ interest in deciding union representation through secret-ballot elections.

University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton examines the Trump administration’s promotion of Christian Nationalism across multiple domains—the White House, the military, and Congress—and its corresponding erosion of church-state separation, particularly in the context of Trump’s war with Iran. Professor Hamilton argues that this government alignment with a specific evangelical Christian agenda violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, distorts American religious history, and has created a political permission structure for unconstitutional attacks on Muslims and other religious minorities.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf examines Judge Lawrence VanDyke’s notorious dissent in Olympus Spa v. Andretti—a Ninth Circuit case involving the constitutionality of applying Washington State’s transgender-inclusive public accommodations law to a women-only spa. Dorf argues that VanDyke’s opening phrase “swinging dicks” was not merely gratuitous and attention-seeking (in contrast to cases like Cohen v. California, where the use of profanity was justified), but reflected genuine anti-transgender bigotry that disqualifies it as legitimate judicial discourse and vindicates the ABA’s earlier finding that VanDyke was unfit for the bench.

UC Davis Law professor Irene Joe and restorative justice specialist Jeremiah Mungo examine how ABA advertising restrictions and the absence of meaningful credentialing standards leave criminal defendants—particularly those who can afford private counsel—with little reliable information for choosing a defense attorney, forcing them to rely almost entirely on informal word of mouth. Drawing on Mr. Mungo’s personal experience hiring a private attorney who was later disbarred, Professor Joe and Mr. Mungo argue that modest reforms such as voluntary specialist certification programs, tiered qualification requirements, and publicly available attorney experience data could establish a quality floor in the criminal defense market without dismantling legitimate concerns about lawyer advertising.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses California’s ongoing practice of forced prison labor, examining its legal foundations, recent failed efforts to abolish it through ballot measure and legislation, and the low wages and lack of workplace protections afforded to incarcerated workers. Professor Sarat argues that Governor Gavin Newsom should use his executive authority to direct the Department of Corrections to stop punishing inmates who refuse to work, as a meaningful step toward ending what is best characterized as a constitutionally sanctioned form of slavery incompatible with California’s self-described progressive values.

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin examines the Rhode Island Attorney General’s sweeping report on clergy sexual abuse within the Diocese of Providence, including the diocese’s history of concealment and the AG’s reform recommendations. Professor Griffin argues that the report confirms decades of institutional cover-up and endorses the AG’s calls for stronger laws, expanded statutes of limitations, and greater diocesan accountability.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the Ninth Circuit oral argument in United States v. California regarding SB 805, a state statute requiring all law enforcement officers—including federal agents—to wear identification on their uniforms. Professor Amar argues that the law violates the Supremacy Clause as an unauthorized direct regulation of federal sovereign functions and asserts that courts should focus on the lack of federal assent rather than the perceived burden or generality of the state mandate.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Harvard University, which seeks to compel the production of detailed, individual-level admissions and student performance data. Professor Sarat argues that the administration uses this litigation as a pretext for a “racial shaming campaign” intended to stigmatize people of color and weaponize data to serve a divisive political agenda.

Child protection advocate Kathryn Robb discusses how the civil legal system’s procedural requirements often inflict secondary trauma on survivors of childhood sexual abuse while shielding defendants and institutions. Ms. Robb argues that the law must balance due process for defendants with “due care” for victims by dismantling structural barriers—such as restrictive statutes of limitations and bankruptcy maneuvers—that prioritize institutional protection over accountability and child safety.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the recent standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon over Anthropic’s refusal to permit its AI tools to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, leading the Trump administration to designate Anthropic a national security supply-chain. Professor Dorf argues that while both mass surveillance and autonomous weapons deployment may already be unlawful under the Fourth Amendment and customary international law respectively, Anthropic had sound reasons to seek explicit contractual carveouts rather than rely on those legal limits—and that the Pentagon’s unwillingness to accept those carveouts raises the alarming inference that the administration intends to pursue both activities.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses a federal court ruling blocking the Trump administration’s transfer of Biden-commuted death row inmates to a federal supermax prison, examining the constitutional and procedural issues surrounding that action. Professor Sarat argues that the court was right to intervene, because the administration violated due process by bypassing individualized assessment procedures to pursue a predetermined punitive outcome, and that upholding constitutional protections for even the most heinous offenders is essential to preserving the rule of law and human dignity.