In Search of Solid Gound: Constitutional Standing In Challenges to Corporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) Programs

Ally Coll

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

This term, in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court invalidated Harvard and the University of North Carolina’s (“UNC”) race-conscious admissions programs as unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a significant departure from past precedent, the Court concluded that Harvard and UNC’s programs “cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause.” In anticipation of and in the wake of this decision, individuals and organizations who oppose similar workplace diversity programs brought lawsuits challenging the legality of various corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) programs under a range of federal civil rights statutes. Lower courts considering these claims have thus far largely declined to adjudicate them on the merits, instead dismissing them for lack of Article III standing. While much attention has been placed on the implications of the Court’s substantive reasoning in Students for Fair Admissions for corporate DEI programs, this Article argues that the Court’s standing analysis this term, both in the affirmative action case and in other key decisions, is equally important to the outcome of pending challenges to such initiatives.

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The Opportunity Presented By the End of Race-Conscious Admissions in Higher Education

Mohamed Akram Faizer

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate race-based admissions will problematically make it more difficult for underrepresented minorities’ to gain admission to elite colleges and universities. However, it offers an opportunity to finally address racial inequality in access to preschool and K-12 education, by removing the political cover that allowed elite credentialing to perpetuate social advantage and ignore distributional justice. To create a more inclusive admissions process, cultural competence experts should collaborate with civil society to develop policies that consider all perspectives. This approach, inspired by administrative law’s notice-and-comment framework, can help institutions prioritize factors like resilience over regressive metrics tied to socioeconomic status. In the long term, this shift could encourage elite schools to engage with marginalized communities to address the racial opportunity gap from the ground up. It might also challenge the country’s excessive focus on hyper-elite credentials as a pathway to success, and recognize that there are many highly capable students and graduates from less selective schools that merit consideration for prestigious jobs. This change could promote socioeconomic mobility and foster a more inclusive and equitable society.

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Between a River and a Wall: An Impossible Choice for Migrants Living Under Operation Lone Star and S.B. 4

Salimah Khoja & Paulina Leyva Hernandez

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

In 2023 the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 4 (“S.B. 4”), which empowers state and local law enforcement agencies to engage in immigration enforcement by arresting and deporting migrants who are suspected of crossing the southern border. Anti-immigrant state laws like Texas’s S.B. 4 and Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 (“S.B. 1070”) were created to test the limits of state power and limit the reach of federal immigration enforcement within the states. Legal challenges to state laws like S.B. 4 and S.B. 1070 demonstrate the ongoing tension between federal and state governments related to authority over immigration matters, even though immigration has been within the federal government’s purview since the early days of the United States, as recognized by the judiciary for more than a century. This Note focuses on the immigration preemption doctrine and argues that the Supreme Court should declare S.B. 4 unconstitutional, while protecting states’ ability to continue creating humane, immigrant-inclusive policies without impermissibly disrupting the fabric of federal immigration enforcement actions.

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Telehealth in Reproductive Health Care: A New Frontier in the Fight for Abortion Access

Katie Corwin

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic played a crucial role in establishing the use of telehealth in all aspects of health care with one huge exception: abortion. Conservative politicians often do not categorize abortion as health care, leading to a stark contrast in the treatment of reproductive health care, particularly in terms of telehealth availability. This Comment examines state laws relating to telehealth abortion, how lawmakers restrict access to abortion by attacking telehealth abortion, and the resulting legal uncertainty for patients and practitioners. The central argument of this Comment is that legally protecting and expanding telehealth is imperative for increasing access to reproductive health care and abortion as well as improving public health.

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The Professionalized Violence of Prosecutorial Power and Misconduct

Bina Ahmad

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

The U.S. legal system is a colonizer’s system constructed to uphold power and protect the powerful. For radical lawyers, it is the language of power we need to speak and understand to protect ourselves and our communities from this violence. As law enforcement actors, prosecutors are arguably the most powerful actors in our criminal legal system, able to ruin people’s lives at will and with absolute immunity to protect them from any accountability for any misconduct. Even with professional attorney ethics rules and state bar grievance committees tasked with holding attorneys to these ethics rules, prosecutors are still rarely disciplined. This note argues that in addition to small-scale abolitionist reforms such as abolishing absolute immunity, we must go beyond this and shrink prosecutorial power, and make not only prosecutorial misconduct but the entire legal system accessible, transparent and open to the public.

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Freedom of the Press in Hungary & the United States: A Comparative Review

Zane McNeill & Riley Clare Valentine

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

This paper compares both Hungary’s and the United States’ treatment of journalists’ freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Journalists in both Hungary and the United States face specific threats to these freedoms. Journalists face political pressure in Hungary and animosity and scrutiny in the United States under private consolidation. Additionally, coverage that is critical of the state and supports marginalized communities faces heightened scrutiny. Nonetheless, we contend that journalists within the United States have potential options in protecting their freedom of expression such as those indicated in Rodriguez-Cotto v. Pierluisi-Urrutia.

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Combatting the Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: Eliminating the Sex Offender Registration Requirement for Children who Have Been Victims of Sexual Abuse

Katherine I. Puzone

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

A recent study entitled The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story published by The Human Rights Center for Girls, the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality and the Ms. Foundation for Women highlighted the correlation between high rates of sexual abuse of girls and girls’ involvement in the juvenile justice system. Sexual abuse is one of the most accurate predictors of girls’ entry into the juvenile justice system. Girls under eighteen are at very high risk of becoming victims of sexual violence. One in four American girls will experience some sort of sexual violence before the age of eighteen. Fifteen percent of victims of sexual assault are under the age of twelve. Girls between the ages of sixteen and nineteen are four times more likely to be victims of sexual assault. Tragically, many of these victims end up as defendants in the juvenile justice system for behavior that is a direct result of the trauma they suffered. Victims of sexual abuse sometimes go on to commit sex offenses. This often requires registration as a sex offender which mandates registration for children as young as fourteen. This article proposes an exemption to registration for children who have been victims of sexual abuse. Recidivism rates for juvenile sex offenders are significantly lower than those for adult sex offenders. This is largely because children’s brains are still developing. Exempting victims of sexual abuse from registration as a sex offender is consistent with goals of therapeutic jurisprudence and would give young victims a chance to start their adult life without being labeled as a sex offender.

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Statement in Solidarity with Columbia Law Review and Rabea Eghbariah

We, the 2024-2025 CUNY Law Review Editorial Board, stand in solidarity with the Editorial Board of the Columbia Law Review, in their publication of novel legal scholarship by Palestinian lawyer, Rabea Eghbariah. Eghbariah’s article, Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept, offers a legal analysis of “Nakba” and directly addresses the horrific history of the Nakba and the plight of the Palestinian people. We commend the student editors at Columbia for their editing and publication of a work that centers the Palestinian experience and the violence Palestinians have suffered under Zionist colonization.The article importantly speaks to the genocide that has been unfolding before our very eyes.

Given CUNY Law Review’s explicit social justice mission, it is our moral obligation to stand in solidarity with oppressed people and speak up when efforts to bring visibility to that oppression are met with censorship. Legal scholarship has historically silenced the most vulnerable and marginalized people. Censoring writers like Eghbariah is reflective of that system of oppression. We condemn the actions of Columbia Law Review’s Board of Directors in censoring and silencing the Editorial Board and Eghbariah.We also condemn the Board of Directors’ disclaimer statement and support the strike of their student editors. Shutting down the website in response to the publication of Eghbariah’s article was not only contrary to principles of academic freedom and free speech, but also contributes to the erasure of Palestinian voices amidst the genocide of their people and destruction of their land. 

Censorship is a hallmark of oppression and cowardice, and it will not stifle the movement for Palestinian liberation. We acknowledge the courage of Columbia Law Review as we move forward and continue our mission of centering voices which propel social justice. Palestinian voices matter and have the right to be published. 
Please read the article here.

Special Edition: Attacks on the Administrative State

Rebecca A. Delfino, Silencing the Administrative State: A Critique of Missouri v. Biden

Ally Coll and Astrid Aune, Farmworkers on the Frontline: The Ongoing Attack Against the Administrative State’s Authority to Protect Workers’ Rights

Matthew Amani Glover and Joshua Laurick Ingram, The Pitfalls of Liberalism at Large: Democracy, the (Administrative) State, & Liberalism’s Undying Support of the United States Political Economy

Silencing the Administrative State: A Critique of Missouri v. Biden

Rebecca A. Delfino

Special Edition: Attacks on the Administrative State

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