SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman and Duke law professor Katharine T. Bartlett explain why a public school district in Texas violated both the federal Constitution and Title IX by having (and enforcing) a hair-length policy for boys but not for girls. Grossman and Bartlett describe the facts of the case and the legal landscape for sex-specific dress and appearance policies before concluding that the school district’s decision to enforce the policy was not only poor judgment but illegal.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman comments on a bill under consideration by the Texas legislature that would require appointment of an attorney ad litem to represent an unborn child during a judicial bypass proceeding for an abortion for a pregnant minor. Grossman describes the legal background and explains why the bill is both unconstitutional and unwise.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman comments on a recent decision by a Republican-appointed federal judge striking down (yet another) unconstitutional Texas law that would have required embryonic and fetal remains to be given a “proper” burial. Grossman explains that the judge correctly found the Texas law would have placed an undue burden on women while its purported benefits were “de minimis” at best, in violation of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman discusses the findings of a recent USA Today investigation that reveals that maternal mortality rates in the United States are rising, even as they fall globally. Grossman explains that some states, such as California, have put substantial resources into investigating the causes of maternal mortality and implementing changes to address it, while other states, such as Texas, are adhering to ideologically driven policies that endanger infant and maternal health.

In this second of a two-part series of columns, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar evaluates the major constitutional and statutory voting rights claims asserted in the federal challenge to Texas’s use of the so-called Winner-Take-All approach to selecting the state’s representatives to the Electoral College. Amar explains why he finds both types of arguments set forth in the complaint largely unpersuasive.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar comments on a lawsuit recently filed in Texas challenging the winner-take-all method by which Texas (and other states) administer presidential elections. Amar explains the benefits and drawbacks of the method and why the lawsuit is unlikely to elicit changes in Texas or elsewhere.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman comments on a recent decision by a federal court in Texas permanently enjoining the State of Texas from enforcing an unconstitutional anti-abortion law. Grossman provides a brief background of both Texas and the law at issue and explains why the federal court struck it down. Grossman points out that the clear weight of Supreme Court jurisprudence supports the district court’s reasoning and decision.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb considers a recently passed Texas law that will require people who want insurance coverage for non-emergency abortions to buy an additional, separate policy from their regular health insurance policy. Colb explains that proponents of the law argue that individuals should not have to fund practices with which they fundamentally disagree, but she points out that many taxpayers provide funding for government activities with which they fundamentally disagree and this situation is arguably no different from those.

SMU Dedman School of Law professors Joanna L. Grossman and Dale Carpenter comment on a recent decision by the Texas Supreme Court in which it refuses to give effect to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry. Grossman and Carpenter explain why the Texas court’s decision was clearly wrong and why factors other than merits might have (though they should not have) affected the ruling in that case.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb discusses legislation recently approved by the Texas House that will almost certainly be struck down as unconstitutionally restricting women's right to seek an abortion prior to fetal viability. Colb explains that the legislation is more speech than it is law and discusses some possible reasons the state would want to “speak” in this manner.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb comments on a Texas bill currently under consideration that would eliminate the “wrongful birth” cause of action. Colb defines wrongful birth and points out that while its opponents argue that it encourages abortion, it actually encourages forthrightness and honesty among physicians, which should already be the standard of conduct. In fact, Colb argues, it is not the availability of a lawsuit that “encourages” abortion so much as the fact of the severe disability and the toll that this could take on their lives as well as on the life of the child whose birth is under consideration.

Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb considers one recent instance in which the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed a standard because it was factually more accurate than a prior standard, and several other instances in which the Court has done the opposite. Colb points out that, unfortunately, the law often seeks facts that facilitate a desired outcome rather than facts a more just or correct outcome.

Marci A. Hamilton, a Fox Distinguished Scholar in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania, describes the numerous child-endangering bills that are being proposed in various states across the nation. Hamilton argues that we as a society need to create a culture that works for the best interest of all children.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna Grossman explains how taxpayers end up paying for legislators to pass clearly unconstitutional laws and for the state to defend those laws in court. Specifically, Grossman discusses Texas laws attempting to restrict access to abortion and attempting to mandate the burial or cremation of fetal remains, both of which have been struck down as unconstitutional.

Writing from the perspective of a pro-life activist, Cornell University law professor Sherry F. Colb considers the merits of a Texas rule that would require hospitals and clinics to bury or cremate the remains of embryos and fetuses resulting from terminations or miscarriages that take place in their facilities. From this perspective, Colb acknowledges that the rule might reasonably be interpreted to be consistent with Supreme Court precedent; she writes from her true (pro-choice) perspective in an accompanying blog post.

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman describes a recent decision by a Texas appellate court applying that state’s parentage laws to a situation involving a man who donated his sperm so his friend could become pregnant. Grossman notes that while resolution of the “donor versus dad” question differs from state to state depending on the particular laws that apply, the facts of this case proved straightforward given the language of the Texas statute at issue.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar and U.C. Davis Law professor Courtney Joslin discuss a recent decision by a federal district court in Texas issuing a nationwide order regarding bathroom access for transgender students. Amar and Joslin explain why the order almost certainly oversteps that court’s authority without providing any reasons or analysis to justify its overbroad relief.

In light of recent events in Dallas, Texas, Cornell University law professor Michael C. Dorf considers the use by local police of a “bomb robot” to kill the man who shot twelve police officers and two civilians. In particular, Dorf addresses (1) whether the use of the bomb robot represents an important change in policing, (2) whether the robot is a military tool inappropriately used in a domestic policing situation, and (3) whether its use in this instance violated the Constitution.

SMU Dedman School of Law Professor Joanna Grossman comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, in which the Court struck down certain restrictions on abortion clinics that imposed an undue burden on women’s constitutional right of access to abortion. Grossman describes the history of abortion access in the United States and how the Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health fits within that history.

Dean and law professor at Illinois Law, Vikram David Amar comments on Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion last week in Fisher v. Texas, where the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the part of the University of Texas undergraduate admissions policy that formally takes the race of individual applicants into account in admitting a portion of the entering freshman class. Amar praises the opinion for being more forthright than other majority opinions of the Court in this area of law, but he expresses concern that in some respects Justice Kennedy’s language may actually obfuscate the legal doctrine at issue.