Child protection advocate Kathryn Robb discusses how procedural mechanisms like redaction in legal processes can simultaneously fail to protect victims while shielding perpetrators, using the Epstein case as a primary example. Ms. Robb argues that when process becomes detached from moral responsibility, it creates a “double-edged sword” that both exposes vulnerable victims and conceals wrongdoing by the powerful, ultimately perpetuating harm to survivors of sexual abuse.
UC Davis Law professor Peter Lee discusses the growing use of synthetic data to train AI models and its advantages over real-world data in addressing technical limitations and legal issues like privacy, bias, and copyright infringement. Professor Lee argues that while synthetic data offers promising solutions through unlimited, high-quality training content, it also poses significant risks including model collapse, new biases, and enabling dangerous AI applications, requiring careful regulation and responsible deployment.
Amherst professors Ruxandra Paul and Austin Sarat discuss the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization and its push to make vaccinations optional, arguing these actions undermine public health infrastructure both domestically and globally. Professors Paul and Sarat contend that the administration’s “America First” approach, which prioritizes individual autonomy over collective health measures and uses U.S. withdrawal as leverage for political aims, will leave Americans and the world more vulnerable to disease outbreaks and reverse decades of public health progress.
Cornell professor Joseph Margulies discusses how the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies led to violence in Minneapolis, examining the gap between campaign promises to deport violent criminals and the reality of mass deportation tactics targeting peaceful undocumented immigrants in Democratic cities. Professor Margulies argues that the administration’s use of immigration enforcement as political retaliation, combined with performative authoritarian tactics designed to appeal to Trump's base, made the violent clashes and killings by federal agents inevitable.
SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman and Stanford Law professor emeritus Lawrence M. Friedman discuss the New Mexico Supreme Court’s decision to abolish the tort of alienation of affections, joining the vast majority of states that no longer allow lawsuits seeking compensation for a third party’s role in ending a marriage. Professors Grossman and Friedman argue that this centuries-old cause of action, part of a cluster of “heartbalm” torts, is inherently dehumanizing and based on archaic notions that treat spouses (particularly wives) as property without agency, and is incompatible with modern legal developments like no-fault divorce and contemporary understandings of gender relations and individual autonomy.
UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the constitutional, political, and practical implications of President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Republicans should federally “take over” voting in approximately 15 states for congressional elections. Professor Amar argues that while Congress does have constitutional authority under Article I, Section 4 to regulate federal elections (contrary to many media commentators’ claims), any geographically selective federal takeover would likely violate the Supreme Court’s “equal sovereignty” principle among states, and regardless, such a plan is extremely unlikely to pass Congress due to slim Republican majorities, lack of bipartisan support, and potential hypocrisy given Republican states’ rights principles.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax information by former IRS employee Charles Littlejohn, examining the legal basis and problems with the case. Professor Dorf argues that while the lawsuit has some factual merit, it should be dismissed because the damages claim of $10 billion is fantastical and implausible, Trump himself was responsible for IRS management during the breach, the case likely falls outside the two-year statute of limitations, and it represents an unprecedented and improper attempt by a sitting president to sue his own government for monetary damages.
Amherst professor Austin Sarat describes a groundbreaking ruling by Tennessee Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea that redefines executions as part of the judicial process that includes all preparatory steps leading to death, not just the final moment. Professor Sarat argues that this interpretation could reshape how the Fifth and Eighth Amendments apply to capital punishment cases, particularly in situations where botched execution attempts cause prolonged suffering or where states seek to execute someone a second time after a failed attempt.
UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar explains why the Trump administration’s highly successful record before the Supreme Court in 2025 is unlikely to be replicated in 2026. Professor Amar argues that the 2025 success was due to the Solicitor General cherry-picking cases where lower courts had overreached, whereas the 2026 docket consists of institutionally necessary, high-stakes cases in which the Administration’s legal arguments are substantively much weaker.
This opinion piece by policing experts Seth W. Stoughton, Ian T. Adams, Geoffrey P. Alpert, Gil Kerlikowske, Maureen Q. McGough, and Jeffrey J. Noble addresses federal immigration enforcement tactics under the Trump administration. The authors argue that the conduct of agencies like ICE and CBP has departed from established norms in policing in a way that has undermined public safety, particularly through fatal shootings. They contend that these actions—marked by poor planning, aggressive field tactics, and a disregard for accountability—are not just unprofessional but dangerously authoritarian, threatening public safety and the legitimacy of policing itself.
Criminal defense attorney Jon May examines systemic ethical misconduct within the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Trump administration, focusing on how DOJ leadership has undermined the rule of law and judicial independence. Mr. May argues that federal courts should use their existing authority to issue formal ethical conduct orders at the outset of litigation to enforce accountability and deter misconduct by both government attorneys and their supervisors.
SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman and Stanford Law professor emeritus Lawrence M. Friedman discuss a lawsuit filed in North Carolina by Heather Ammel against former U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, invoking the rarely-used tort of “alienation of affections”—a legal claim that allows a spouse to sue a third party for destroying their marriage, which remains valid in only six states. Professors Grossman and Friedman argue that while these “heartbalm” actions were historically designed to protect women from male misbehavior, they have become outdated relics based on antiquated views of marriage, yet the contrast between the traditional plaintiff and the powerful, unconventional defendant highlights ongoing tensions between old legal doctrines and modern social realities, with the outcome potentially signaling whether North Carolina will finally abolish this controversial cause of action.
UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar and professor emeritus Alan Brownstein discuss three recent university cases—involving students and professors at the University of Florida, University of Washington, and UC Davis—where speakers were punished for allegedly “disruptive” speech, focusing on how courts and administrators should evaluate such claims under First Amendment doctrine. Professors Amar and Brownstein argue that while concerns about “heckler’s vetoes” are valid, the proper legal standard should focus on whether listeners’ reactions to speech are objectively reasonable. The authors point out that under the relevant precedents, speech that causes reasonable disruption or reasonable perceptions of threat can be regulated, while speech provoking only unreasonable reactions should remain protected.
Touro University, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center professor Rodger Citron reviews retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2025 memoir Life, Law & Liberty, examining his life, career, and legacy as the pivotal “swing vote” on the Court from 1987 to 2018. While Professor Citron expresses admiration for Kennedy as a person and finds the memoir gracefully written, he argues that Kennedy fails to adequately account for his role in shaping the current political and legal landscape and erosion of democracy. Further, Professor Citron suggests that Kennedy’s moderate influence has become irrelevant as his successors have moved the Court sharply rightward, overturning precedents like Roe v. Wade that Kennedy himself helped preserve.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses two Supreme Court cases challenging laws in West Virginia and Idaho that exclude transgender female athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, focusing on whether such laws constitute unlawful sex or transgender status discrimination. Professor Dorf argues that the states’ defense—claiming the laws don’t discriminate against transgender individuals because the exclusions are based on “biological sex”—is a formalistic maneuver that hides clear discrimination and aims to sidestep substantive legal scrutiny rather than engage with the underlying scientific and constitutional issues.
University of Kentucky, Rosenberg College of Law professor emeritus Alvin Goldman discusses the legality and implications of U.S. actions toward Venezuelan oil assets, especially in light of President Trump’s claims that justify military intervention based on Venezuela’s past nationalization of U.S.-linked oil properties. Professor Goldman argues that Venezuela’s expropriation was legal under international law and did not constitute theft, whereas the U.S.’s threatened military control over Venezuelan oil could itself be considered illegal and potentially an act of theft.
University of South Carolina, Joseph F. Rice School of Law professor Seth W. Stoughton discusses the legal standards and critical factual questions surrounding the use of deadly force by a federal ICE agent in the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, emphasizing the need for a careful and evidence-based evaluation under both constitutional and state law. Professor Stoughton argues that responsible analysis must focus on whether the agent’s conduct created or avoided unnecessary danger, whether a reasonable officer would have perceived an imminent threat, and whether the threat could have been mitigated without resorting to deadly force.
Amherst professor Austin Sarat and attorney Lauren Stiller Rikleen critique Chief Justice John Roberts’s 2025 Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary, arguing that it fails to address the recent constitutional challenges and the Supreme Court’s role in enabling presidential overreach. The authors contend that Roberts’s report offers a misleadingly sanitized view of the judiciary’s actions, ignores historical lessons from figures like Thomas Paine, and ultimately gaslights the public by omitting the Supreme Court’s complicity in the erosion of democratic norms and the rule of law.
Amherst professor Austin Sarat examines the state of clemency in U.S. capital punishment cases during 2025, contrasting a wave of clemency actions in 2024 with a sharp decline the following year under the return of President Donald Trump. Professor Sarat argues that Trump’s punitive stance and politicization of clemency discouraged governors from granting mercy and contends that executive leaders should actively use clemency powers to uphold justice and compassion in the face of growing cruelty.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf analyzes Chief Justice John Roberts’s 2025 Year End Report, which, though seemingly apolitical on the surface, reflects on the American Revolution and the Constitution to emphasize the value of judicial independence and the evolving meaning of constitutional principles. Professor Dorf argues that while Roberts’s rhetoric aligns with a progressive, non-originalist view of constitutional interpretation akin to that of Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Court’s recent rulings—including those Roberts has joined—fall short of embodying those ideals, making his words ring hollow without corresponding judicial action.
