Online Edition
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Land-Grant Universities
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In their groundbreaking High Country News article on “land-grab universities,” Robert Lee and Tristian Ahtone argue that Congress’s 1862 Morrill Act,[3] which famously granted lands held by the United States to states for the purpose of endowing fifty-two universities, “worked by turning land expropriated from tribal nations into seed money for higher education.[4] “In all,” they write, “the act redistributed
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A Stage with Three Kings: EdTech, Sovereignty, and the Future of Transatlantic Data Law
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The landmark Microsoft Ireland case highlights the limits of U.S. law enforcement authority to compel access to data stored abroad during criminal investigations. In 2013, a magistrate judge in the Southern District of New York ordered Microsoft to produce emails held on a server in Dublin, Ireland under the Stored Communications Act of 1986. Microsoft released domestic data but withheld
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The Wrong Level of Generality: Misapplying Bruen to Young-Adult Firearm Right
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Three relatively recent appellate opinions—McCoy v. ATF,[2] National Rifle Ass’n v. Bondi,[3] and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Polis[4]—upheld modern restrictions on 18-to-20-year-old adults’ ability to purchase firearms. Each does so by choosing the wrong level of generality in its historical analysis. Rather than ask whether there is a tradition of restricting young adults’ arms rights, McCoy[5] and
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The Fifth Circuit’s Holding in National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association v. Black Keeps HISA from Crossing the Wire
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The Framers of the Constitution deliberately divided federal powers among three branches, ensuring that each branch is held accountable by the others. The private non-delegation doctrine stands for the common-sense principle that granting such power to a private entity, not vested with such power by the Constitution or subject to the checks of the other branches, would “dash the whole…
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Birthright Citizenship of Child Born to Enemy Alien Visitors
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This is the story of Mogridge v. United States, in which the United States asserted, and a multinational commission held, that a child born in Pennsylvania to enemy alien visitors was a U.S. citizen even though he also acquired the nationality of his parents at birth and left the United States with them only a few weeks afterward.
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Why Charters?
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While charters are poorly designed for broad public transparency, they still provide benefits by functioning like a recording system that reduces investigation costs and produces particularly reliable information. This sharper understanding of charters has important consequences for current doctrinal controversies and the broader debate over Delaware’s future in corporate law.
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Recovering from Rucho: How States Can Create National Partisan Fairness
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Rucho v. Common Cause and the failure to pass H.R. 1 have left national gerrymandering reform on life support. At present, however, states committed to creating fair maps limit themselves to considering their own political makeup when doing so.
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Federal Enclaves: Critical Islands of Federal Jurisdiction Protecting the National Interest
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The Framers of the new Constitution insisted upon a neutral situs for the federal government and the land it owns and operates that would allow it to perform its duties under its own, exclusive control. The Framers solved this problem by drafting the Enclave Clause, which established federal “enclaves” where neither state action nor inaction could interfere with federal business.
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What’s Left of the Suspension Clause After Jones v. Hendrix?
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In 2000, Marcus DeAngelo Jones was convicted of two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. As a convicted felon, Jones was prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal law. Yet Jones mistakenly believed that his felony convictions had been expunged and that he was able to purchase and possess a gun. He had cleared two background checks, one run
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Contingent Fees and Access to Justice
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In recent years, scholars have documented and lamented the fact that most Americans have difficulty gaining access to justice. Most people simply cannot afford a lawyer, even when they have