Volume: 57

This Note conducts a comprehensive textual analysis of the Voting Rights Act using established principles of statutory interpretation. It argues that the Act expressly provides a private right of action under Section 2 and demonstrates why this interpretation is both textually superior and doctrinally stronger than the available alternatives: implying a private cause of action, relying exclusively on the Department of Justice for enforcement, bringing claims directly under the Reconstruction Amendments, or suing through Section 1983.

The Voting Rights Act is being dismantled, and Section 2 is gradually being hollowed out. Section 2 has long relied on private plaintiffs to bring lawsuits challenging racially discriminatory voting laws and government actions. However, following a suggestion by Justice Gorsuch in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, state and local government defendants have increasingly argued that Section 2 does not provide a private cause of action at all. At least one federal appellate court—the Eighth Circuit in Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment—has accepted this argument, holding that private plaintiffs lack the right to sue under Section 2.

Today, personal health information is at the mercy of a surveillance infrastructure built around the exploitation and sale of data on the private market. Existing health privacy laws, such as HIPAA, are woefully unequipped to address the risks and data practices of the digital era. Health data is collected, inferred, and sold online at alarming rates, leaving individuals vulnerable to privacy violations through the sharing of the most intimate information about their bodies. The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the criminalization of abortion in some states has created especially strong risks around reproductive health information; with individual health data so easily accessible, law enforcement and other interested third parties are able to circumvent procedural barriers and obtain deeply private health information without obstacle.

This Note argues that, in the absence of federal data privacy legislation, states must address the problem of reproductive health data surveillance through targeted state legislation. Washington’s My Health My Data Act (MHMDA) is analyzed as an example of state data privacy legislation that closes gaps left by HIPAA and protects sensitive health data. Its strengths are identified through comparison to other data privacy legislation, both at home and abroad, to in turn recommend a model of health data privacy legislation for other states to adopt.

States must take advantage of the potential state law holds to safeguard rights and protections beyond current federal guarantees. Not only can greater reproductive health privacy be secured for residents of states that enact such legislation; widespread state adoption of health data privacy statutes can bring about a shift in norms for data collection and health information privacy practices nationwide.

Images of asylum seekers and migrants desperate to enter the United States at the southern border abound in U.S. media. Less familiar to the American public, but intertwined with the highly politicized modern migration crisis, is the ever-growing backlog of pending asylum applications before both the Asylum Office and Immigration Courts. This backlog has many causes, including under-resourced agencies, a growing number of asylum applicants, the high evidentiary burden and complexities inherent to asylum law, and the lack of counsel for many asylum seekers. In response to this crippling backlog, some scholars propose the adoption of a “group-based” asylum mechanism. The U.S. government already uses group-based determinations in its refugee admissions program, as does UNHCR and other countries, to efficiently process large groups of refugees. Using a comparative approach, I examine group-based asylum mechanisms in the Organization of African Unity, several European Union member states, Canada, and Brazil. Analyzing these mechanisms, I identify criteria and possible procedures for the implementation of a U.S. group-based asylum mechanism to expedite certain asylum determinations. I explain that group-based asylum is a common-sense, cost-effective solution to modern challenges within asylum adjudication. The U.S. should learn from its peer countries and implement a group-based asylum mechanism to streamline adjudications in a time of increasing numbers of refugees around the globe. I propose administrative mechanisms for burden shifting that would lessen the evidentiary and procedural hurdles for asylum applicants falling within designated groups (“presumptive asylees”) to achieve the cost- and time-saving purpose of group-based asylum.

Voluntary foster care placement is an option in the majority of states in the United States, yet there is a paucity of legal research dedicated to studying and improving the mechanism. This Article will provide legal analysis of voluntary foster care placement options across the country with qualitative data over twenty-five years. The Article offers both a descriptive and normative analysis of the voluntary placement process. In doing so, it distinguishes true voluntary placements from (in)voluntary placements into foster care, which mask themselves as uncoerced.

By proposing due process guardrails, such as access to attorneys at the outset, limiting scope and time periods for contractual placement, and decoupling voluntary placement agreements from child welfare investigations, this Article re-imagines a model voluntary placement option. Ultimately, it proposes a feminist, pro-choice, pro-parent, pro-child, and truly voluntary placement that can empower mothers who face limited reproductive choices to retain autonomy and select the choices that are safest for their own families.

This Note will challenge LGBTQ+ censorship laws at an international level by using their child protection justification against them. Rather than protecting children, censorship laws are harming them by interfering with their right to act as human rights defenders. LGBTQ+ rights are human rights, and children should be equipped with the knowledge and means to challenge all types of human rights violations. While international challenges to the censorship laws have historically faced pushback due to the pervasive nature of the child protection defense, recent cases show that supranational bodies are more willing to scrutinize the use of this defense, specifically when this defense conflicts with rights that are fundamental to international democracy. Challenging these laws through the implied right to act as a child human rights defender emphasizes the obligations of States to protect child human rights defenders, highlights the danger censorship laws pose to international democracy, and encourages supranational bodies to adopt a bright-line rejection of LGBTQ+ censorship laws.

This Note proposes statutory language for a legislative amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would add “caste” as a protected class. In light of the injustices caused by caste discrimination and the rapid growth of the South Asian American population, a federal response to caste-based employment discrimination is necessary. At the same time, conservative Hindu organizations, such as the Hindu American Foundation, have devoted significant resources to challenging state and local measures addressing caste discrimination, including through legal claims grounded in the First Amendment. While these claims have yet to prove successful, the alignment of far-right Hindu organizations with the Trump administration and freedom of religion claims supported by the current U.S. Supreme Court majority make careful consideration of these arguments particularly important.

Accordingly, this Note conducts a case study of city, state, and university initiatives that prohibit caste-based discrimination. It evaluates these measures according to two criteria: historical and factual accuracy, and resilience to First Amendment challenges. After identifying the linguistic features necessary to satisfy these criteria, this Note proposes statutory language to amend Title VII.

Federal flood control relies heavily on cost-benefit analysis (CBA), a methodology that prioritizes monetizable property values and economic outputs when allocating disaster-mitigation funds. Because CBA prioritizes monetizable property values and economic losses, high-value tourist districts consistently qualify for robust protection, while rural Native Hawaiian communities remain underserved. These inequities reveal deeper tensions between federal CBA frameworks and governing legal norms. The principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent under the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as Hawaiʻi’s constitutional public trust doctrine, impose obligations to protect cultural resources, ensure meaningful participation, and safeguard Indigenous relationships to land. This Note argues that flood-control policy requires reorientation rather than abandonment of CBA: a regulatory framework that integrates intangible cultural harms and elevates Indigenous decision-making. Such an approach reframes flood mitigation away from economic efficiency toward dignity, accountability, and equitable climate adaptation.

When companies use cultural symbols or cultural heritage from an indigenous or local community without their knowledge or permission, it can lead to claims of cultural appropriation, particularly in the fashion industry. Yet, the law provides little to no remedy. Trademarks and geographical indications can be used to protect collective cultural identities. However, these intellectual property laws are not helpful if the affected cultural group has not commercialized its identity by offering goods or services to the public. This Article contributes to the literature by theorizing a dignitary-based intellectual property model for protecting cultural identities. It draws on the U.S. right of publicity (name, image, and likeness) and international human rights law to develop an original argument that justifies a novel and narrowly tailored cultural personality right to prevent commercial appropriation of cultural identities.

In 2022, 18.6 million people identified as travelers with a disability. Their traveling is made difficult, if not impossible, when their accessibility tools are damaged, they encounter insensitive staff perpetuating disability stigma, or they face inaccessible facilities. This Article argues that such constructed exclusion is reinforced by the limitations of public accommodations law in the United States, the lack of a private right of action under the Air Carrier Access Act, and the courts’ failure to recognize a constitutional right to travel as commercial air travel becomes a mode of public transportation.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), airports, aircrafts, and airline websites do not qualify as places of public accommodation. Further, the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) does not offer adequate protection to air travelers with disabilities, as there is no private right of action. And despite the known benefits of positive corporate social performance, their constructed exclusion persists due to the highly unequal bargaining power between passengers, including those with disabilities, and airlines. This Article argues that to protect people with disabilities in air travel, legislators and legal scholars should advocate for an ideological shift in the way people with disabilities are viewed and champion a private right of action under the ACAA.

Wage theft affects millions of workers in the United States, particularly low-wage and hourly workers. In response to this crisis, many states have enacted wage theft prevention laws requiring employers to provide employees with written documentation of wage information. Employers who fail to provide sufficient notice must pay statutory damages. However, plaintiff-employees seeking enforcement of these provisions against their private employers in federal court often struggle to establish standing to sue. The Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez has narrowed the standing doctrine by holding that a statutory violation is insufficient to establish standing without further demonstration that the violation resulted in concrete harm to the plaintiff. After TransUnion, federal courts have remained divided on when an employer’s violation of a wage documentation or notice statute constitutes a concrete injury to the plaintiff for standing purposes. This Note explores the Second and Ninth Circuits’ narrowed approaches to standing in wage documentation violation claims following TransUnion, rendering these provisions toothless and virtually unenforceable. This Note argues that an overly narrow interpretation of standing in wage theft suits unfairly prevents workers from using federal courts to hold their employers accountable and suggests that federal courts must reevaluate the standing doctrine in light of its roots and original purpose.

After Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states have enacted criminal abortion bans with only narrow and ambiguous exceptions, resulting in dangerous treatment delays for pregnant patients experiencing emergency medical complications. Abortion-access advocates have turned to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal statute that imposes a duty on hospitals to stabilize emergency conditions, arguing that EMTALA preempts restrictive state laws. The ensuing preemption debate has paid little attention to a key aspect of the statute: a provision specifying that the treatment obligation applies only to care “within the staff and facilities available at the hospital,” which reveals that EMTALA’s reach turns on hospitals’ own choices about which services to make available. This Note raises that even if EMTALA preempts state abortion bans, this statutory carve-out enables hospitals to adopt categorical anti-abortion policies to evade EMTALA’s requirements, threatening abortion access even in life-threatening medical emergencies.

This Note argues that courts should recognize an affirmative obligation under EMTALA—which necessarily follows from the statute’s text and structure—that requires hospitals to keep standard emergency treatments available and to provide specialized treatments whenever they have the medical capability to do so. By distinguishing standard from specialized care using objective medical criteria (not state restrictions, and not hospital policy) courts can prevent administrators from adopting “unavailability” policies to avoid federal obligations. This interpretation simultaneously vindicates EMTALA’s core anti–patient-dumping purpose and avoids creating a de facto federal malpractice regime. Properly understood, EMTALA contains a previously unarticulated cause of action that prevents hospitals from eliminating emergency treatment options, and thereby ensures access to life-preserving abortion care in emergency medical situations.

Despite its ambitious mandate to prosecute the world’s most heinous crimes, the International Criminal Court (ICC) remains hamstrung by its inability to enforce its own rulings. Without an independent enforcement mechanism, the Court is forced to rely on state cooperation—cooperation that is often withheld due to political interests, strategic alliances, or outright defiance. This Note examines the structural weaknesses that leave the ICC vulnerable to non-compliance, with a particular focus on the Assembly of States Parties (ASP). While the ASP was envisioned as a crucial pillar of ICC enforcement, its role has been largely performative, issuing non-binding resolutions that do little to compel states to execute arrest warrants or surrender fugitives. This Note argues that the ASP must be reimagined—not as a passive observer but as an active enforcer. To that end, it proposes a set of reforms that would give the ASP meaningful leverage over non-cooperative states, including diplomatic repercussions, financial penalties, possible amendments to the Rome Statute, and stronger engagement with international bodies like the United Nations Security Council. Ultimately, without a fundamental shift in how the ICC navigates state resistance, the promise of global justice will remain just that—a promise, unfulfilled.

New military technologies are transforming the contemporary battlefield, raising complex ethical and legal questions previously unaddressed. This Article makes three novel contributions to the debate on Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) and military AI in the legal and ethical literature. First, it puts forward a normative argument against AWS—even if they outperform humans in adhering to the rules governing the conduct of hostilities. This argument is grounded in the critical importance of the human capacity to act over and beyond the strict letter of the law. The Article contends that this capacity is central to the regulation of warfare, which permits, rather than obligates, the use of force against legitimate targets. Second, it offers a doctrinal analysis of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL)—the two principal legal regimes that regulate armed conflicts under international law—providing a fresh perspective on how they intersect in the context of AWS. Finally, the Article explores the extent to which its normative argument is persuasive in the context of military AI beyond AWS, an area that is rapidly evolving and already extensively employed in current conflicts. It examines the similarities and differences between these emerging technologies and reflects on their implications for the desirable regulation of both technologies.

Donald Trump’s threats to carry out the mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants helped propel him to a second term as President of the United States. For the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. without lawful status, those threats have increased fears of forced returns to their countries of origin. While American immigration law is heavily focused on the legal processes leading to deportation, little attention has been paid to the post-deportation experiences of individuals who must reintegrate into their home countries. This gap in understanding is especially alarming given the high stakes of reintegration. A successful transition can empower deported individuals to lead economically and socially stable lives, while a failed reintegration may result in homelessness, vulnerability to violence, mental health struggles, and attempts at illegal reentry.

Our project fills this gap. Over four years, our interdisciplinary team interviewed more than 300 Mexican citizens who had been deported (or returned on their own), asking about their economic, social, and cultural reintegration and what advice they would offer to others returning to Mexico. Based on these interviews and interviews with governmental and non-governmental organizations on both sides of the border, we offer specific policy interventions in the areas of deportation, documentation, services, and immigration reform, to facilitate the successful reintegration of returning Mexican citizens. For example, the Mexican Government should use its mobile consulate services to work with their citizens much earlier in the return process—e.g., in federal prisons and at American community centers and schools—to procure the Mexican identification card that is needed to work, rent housing, and obtain services. Our recommendations are bi-national and focus on the role that lawyers, law schools, and law clinics can play in stimulating conversations and action in legal circles on these important reintegration issues.