Illinois law professor Lesley Wexler comments on a recent report on Faculty Sexual Misconduct issued by a committee at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that calls for a sweeping overhaul of the University’s approach to sexual harassment. Wexler begins to explore the proposed reforms, describing the major changes and what they aim to address, and she raises some of the questions that the reforms present.

University of Florida Levin College of Law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan explains why providing free college tuition for all students is the best investment the United States can make in its own future. Buchanan addresses several of the most common arguments against free college tuition, arguing that they purely moralistic objections that do not hold up to scrutiny.

Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf offers some advice to new law students, highlighting the importance of being able to distinguish among different types of legal questions—easy questions, complicated questions, and indeterminate questions. Dorf explains what he means by each type of question and concludes with a caveat and a warning.

In this third and final column in a series about the legal challenge to Harvard Law Review’s diversity program, Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar and professor Jason Mazzone consider how much deference courts should give to law reviews when they assert diversity as a basis for considering race and gender. Amar and Mazzone anticipate that even in the unlikely event that this lawsuit reaches the Supreme Court, any fundamental changes to existing affirmative action doctrine would likely require the Court to weigh in on multiple cases over an extended period.

Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar and professor Jason Mazzone continue their discussion of whether law reviews may take race and gender into account in selecting members and articles. In this second of a three-part series of columns, Amar and Mazzone analyze some of the key substantive arguments made by the plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Illinois law dean and professor Vikram David Amar comments on a challenge presently facing public (and many private) universities: how best to handle student organizations’ invitations of contentious speakers to speak on campus. Amar points out the legal limitations to some proposed solutions and argues that the law should adapt to a changing world to allow universities more options to craft data-informed and viewpoint-neutral policies.

In this first of a series of columns, Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar and professor Jason Mazzone comment on a legal challenge to the practice by Harvard Law Review of taking into consideration race, gender, and other demographic factors when making membership decisions. Amar and Mazzone highlight some of the hurdles the challenger faces in establishing standing— the right to have the dispute heard in a federal forum.

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb explains how the Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act (EAAA) program might help change the way we think about acquaintance rape and reduce the incidence of such rape and other similar sexual crimes. Colb points out some of the shortcomings of consent-focused education about rape and describes how EAAA addresses many of these shortcomings.

Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Department of Education’s recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking rules requiring due process protections for those accused of sexual assault or harassment in Title IX cases. Dorf provides a history of Title IX, explaining how the Obama administration issued guidance and instituted reforms to how institutions should approach addressing allegations of such conduct. He acknowledges the Department of Education's shift in policy under the Trump administration that led to its proposed rulemaking issuance, and argues that the Department only has the authority to permit these additional due process protections in most instances, rather than outright require institutions to adhere to them.

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb observes that we as a society have become extremely credulous for an era of cynicism and that we as individuals have divested ourselves of critical judgment, preferring instead to defer to people who share our political ideology or qualify for special status for some other reason. Colb considers what might be driving this deference and how we can combat it. She points out that constructive disagreement is healthy and that “viewpoints are not violence, disagreement is not hatred, and no one has a patent on the truth.”

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb describes the recent trend among professors to give “trigger warnings” prior to discussing sensitive materials with students and explains why she has chosen not to provide such warnings to her students. Colb points out that there is no reliable evidence that the warnings work as advertised; rather, they might actually do more harm than good. Colb concludes that an education necessarily means encountering ideas and theories that do not sit well with what one already believes, and students should not have the right to skip days or receive warnings when professors will be talking about unwelcome facts or theories.

Cornell University law professor Joseph Margulies relates the story of one young man whose early life experiences and mistakes landed him in prison but who, after excelling in the Cornell Prison Education Program—a program in which Cornell professors teach university classes to prisoners—was released on parole after his first parole hearing and now attends Cornell University as a student. Margulies explains that this young man—Darnell Epps—may be exceptional, but he is not unique in being a person incarcerated at an early age who can redeem himself and contribute great things to our society.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb examines two (real, but slightly altered) conversations in order to explore the thoughts and feelings that might affect the weight we give to principles that support our positions, while disregarding the same principles when they run contrary to our positions. Colb describes the interrelatedness of conversations that arise regarding rape, racism, and free speech, specifically in the context of college fraternities, but applicable to many other situations.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar relates insights on campus free speech principles that came up during a recent discussion with renowned constitutional commentators Erwin Chemerinsky and Geof Stone. Among the insights are some possible explanations for why many college students today seem opposed to allowing offensive speech on campus, the different perspectives on the proper role of university officials regarding controversial guest speakers, and the question of when the costs of providing security for controversial speaker events justifies the cancellation or termination of the event.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar reflects on the ABA’s process for reaccreditation of American law schools and describes some of the positive and negative aspects of that process. Amar explains that during the reaccreditation site visits, schools have the opportunity to learn from others similarly situated and to showcase their own progress, but there are still some challenges such as consistent application of ABA standards and the attempt to treat of all schools, however different they might be, the same for accreditation purposes.

George Washington law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan explains why a law faculty needs to cover the range of fields not only in teaching, but also in scholarship. Buchanan argues that if a law school is truly committed to covering specific courses, it should also be committed to hiring faculty with deep scholarly expertise in those subject matters. A professor who is not engaged with the subject matter both inside and outside the classroom is less effective in both realms.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar offers five resolutions he, as a law school dean, hopes to achieve in 2018. These resolutions include taking time to read recent scholarship by his faculty, increasing attendance at campus events, improving communication between faculty and alumni, managing (and reducing, when feasible) bureaucratic burdens, and spending more time with students.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar offers some timely tips for law students during the law school exam season. Noting that there often seems to be a divide between what students know on a given topic and what their exam answers convey to a grader, Amar provides common sense test-taking suggestions to help bridge that gap, as well as insight into what law professors often look for in a successful exam answer.

Boston University law professor Tamar Frankel pens a fable as a means of providing commentary on law school grades and the debate between pro-regulation approaches and more laissez-faire approaches. Through the voice of a fictional character, Frankel points out that the cost of relying on the market to correct itself is lingering mistrust, which erodes a community's prosperity and undermines its success for a very long time.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb comments on the decision by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to rescind the Obama-era Title IX guidance on campus sexual assault because it allegedly denies due process to students accused of rape. While acknowledging specific instances where accused students have been treated poorly, Colb argues that the existing guidelines are eminently sensible and defensible and that rescinding them rather than editing or modifying them goes well beyond what is necessary to address concerns for accused students. Colb focuses on two commonly attacked features of campus policy—the preponderance of the evidence standard and the affirmative consent requirement—and explains why they are good policy.