Articles Posted in Constitutional Law

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin comments on three recent cases involving lawsuits against religious employers by former employees. Professor Griffin explains the facts and outcomes of each case and argues that the expansive ministerial exception doctrine permits employers to discriminate at will simply by labeling employees as “ministers.”

In this second of a series of columns on the Supreme Court’s decision that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman and Stanford Law professor Lawrence M. Friedman describe how abortion law arose alongside the eugenics movement. As Professor Grossman and Friedman explain, early abortion restrictions were, in part, an effort to encourage the “right” people to have babies (positive eugenics), used in conjunction with negative eugenics, which involved forced sterilization of people deemed “unfit.”

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf argues that Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminating the constitutional right to abortion misused pro-choice scholars’ work in an attempt to justify overturning Roe Casey. Professor Dorf observes that by pointing readers to the body of work by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor John Hart Ely, and other pro-choice scholars, Justice Alito effectively calls attention to their robust defense of abortion rights as essential to sex equality and an account of how the current hyper-conservative Court’s rulings are profoundly illegitimate.

Touro Law professor Rodger D. Citron argues that just as Roe v. Wade is the representative case of Justice Harry Blackmun’s tenure on the Supreme Court, so too will Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization become the emblematic decision of its author, Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. Professor Citron analyzes the differences between the two decisions and the Justices who authored them, and what those differences mean about the Court that decided each of those cases.

In light of 2022 marking the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama, Amherst professor Austin Sarat points out how important that decision was and how much still remains to be done to stop juvenile life without parole (LWOP) sentences. Professor Sarat points out that with the scientific recognition that the development of the human brain is not complete until a person is in their 20s, it does not make sense to treat child offenders the same way we treat adult offenders.

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision to grant review of a North Carolina partisan gerrymandering dispute involving the Independent State Legislature (ISL) theory, Illinois Law dean Vikram David Amar offers yet another reason that the theory is critically flawed. Although Dean Amar has described in numerous publications why ISL theory is illogical and atextual, he newly observes that the Constitution uses another term—“Congress”—to refer at times to the legislative body and other times to the lawmaking process, inclusive of presidential involvement.

University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton calls upon the majority of Americans to insist that their worldviews and beliefs—not just those of the extreme Christian right—be recognized in the courts. Professor Hamilton explains how many individuals seeking an abortion in states that prohibit them can use a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to obtain an exemption to the abortion ban.

In this first of a series of columns on the Supreme Court’s elimination of the constitutional right to abortion, SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman describes the history of the right to abortion and explains how the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization changes both the legal landscape and also our constitutional conception of what it means to be full members of society. Professor Grossman argues that with this ruling, the Supreme Court has returned women to the service of society, rather than allowing them the dignity of an autonomous life, and that is only the beginning.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat and former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut argue that Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, together with the language in Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion, put the country on a path toward the totalitarian state that one-time Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork had envisioned. Professor Sarat and Mr. Aftergut point out that Bork’s America would have a constitution that does not evolve or change to meet new circumstances and that affords no protection of citizens’ privacy from government intrusion

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which the Court allowed a public-school football coach to lead players in his public Christian prayer. Professor Griffin argues that the decision effectively deletes the Establishment Clause from the Constitution and elevates the free exercise rights of a few individuals.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat comments on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Nance v. Ward, holding by a 5-4 majority that death row inmates can file suits using 42 U.S.C § 1983. Professor Sarat argues that lethal injection specifically and executions generally are necessarily inhumane, brutal, and savage.

Cornell Law professor Joseph Margulies describes the tribal blame machine, which both sides use to demonize the “other” side and drive us apart. Professor Margulies argues that a mature democracy must reject the tribal blame machine and instead embrace a fair, sober, even-handed appraisal of the facts, free from hyperbole and pot-banging.

In this second of a series of columns on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., attorney Jon May argues that the decision threatens certain fundamental rights conferred by the Fourth Amendment. Mr. May predicts that those rights will not withstand the onslaught of law enforcement conduct in entering and searching our homes without a warrant, invading our private thoughts and associations found on our smart phones and computers, or stopping and searching us on the streets without probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf comments on the Supreme Court’s opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen invalidating a New York law restricting licenses to carry concealed handguns to persons able to demonstrate a “special need” for one. Professor Dorf explains that the majority opinion adopts a methodology that focuses exclusively on history, which he argues could make it nearly impossible for government to protect people from new threats due to gun violence.

UF Levin College of Law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan comments on the recent announcement that under one scenario, the depletion date of the Social Security trust funds is now one year later than previously predicted—now 2035. Professor Buchanan explains the significance of this announcement—that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s visionary program will continue (for now) to protect all generations of Americans despite efforts of Republican autocrats to destroy it.

University of Pennylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision earlier this week in Carson v. Makin, in which it held the Free Exercise Clause requires Maine to subsidize religious private schools because it subsidized non-religious private schools. Professor Hamilton argues that the decision further erodes the Establishment Clause and disregards the rights and needs of children.

University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton comments on the recent news that the Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor, a Jewish synagogue in Florida, has sued the state under the Florida Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) over its new restrictive abortion laws that it argues violate their religious faith. Professor Hamilton praises the synagogue for leading the charge against an oppressive minority but condemns the tool it must use to do so—RFRA— which Hamilton argues is a tried-and-true path to religious division and mutual intolerance.

Attorney Jon May argues that the reasoning of Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked majority draft of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. poses a threat not only to reproductive rights, but to all constitutional liberties not expressly enumerated in the Constitution. Mr. May points out that the radical departure of Justice Alito’s opinion could pave the way for the Court to overturn numerous rights recognized over the past seventy years deriving from the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

Illinois Law dean Vikram David Amar argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should put the so-called Independent State Legislature (ISL) theory to rest sooner rather than later. Specifically, Dean Amar suggests that Justice Stephen Breyer—who is set to retire but who joined Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter in expressly rejecting ISL in 2000—should be among the voices to condemn the unsupportable theory.

In light of Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., which would overrule Roe v. Wade and its progeny, UChicago Law professor emeritus Albert W. Alschuler and Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence H. Tribe ask six questions of the apparent five-Justice majority. Professors Alschuler and Tribe point out some of the inconsistencies and illogic of the opinion and call on the Justices to account for these issues.