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2024--The Future of Constitutional Interpretation
No full textThe 2024 Childress Lecture will explore the future of U.S. constitutional interpretation with a presentation by keynote speaker Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap, as well as several presentations by other renowned constitutional scholars.
Courts often must ascertain the meaning of a constitutional provision before applying it to the facts of a case. In addition, the text of the Constitution is silent on fundamental questions of constitutional law, including questions that its drafters could not have foreseen. There is significant debate over which sources and methods courts should use in exercising the power of judicial review. This year’s Childress Lecture speakers will discuss and debate various methods of constitutional interpretation, including history and principles of constitutional interpretation, textualism, originalism, structuralism, pragmatism, and more.https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/childress_lecture/1007/thumbnail.jp
Labeling Energy Drinks: Tackling a Monster of a Problem
Full text linkEnergy drinks first rose to popularity in the 1980s. Red Bull energy drinks were the first of its kind, opening the door to a new consumer and regulatory landscape. Since Red Bull first launched, multiple companies have released countless new energy drink products. Some energy drinks, like Red Bull, contain less than 100 mg of caffeine per 8 oz can. However, other energy drinks contain much higher amounts of caffeine. A 12 oz can of Celsius contains 200 mg of caffeine, and up until recently, Celsius offered a product called Celsius Heat, a 12 oz can containing 300 mg of caffeine. In addition to high caffeine amounts, energy drinks often contain herbal stimulant additives, vitamin and mineral mixtures, and sugar. There is very little information available on the long-term effects of these stimulant mixtures on the body.
Although many consumers purchase energy drinks because of their caffeine content, many are left in the dark when it comes to labeling transparency and are unaware of their true contents. Energy drinks are classified as dietary supplements, meaning they are not directly regulated by the FDA before hitting store shelves. Instead, energy drink labels follow standards promulgated under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). DSHEA imposes lax labeling regulations on energy drinks, which leaves consumers unaware of the dangers of high caffeine content, stimulant additives, proprietary blends, and excessive sugar. In this article, we discuss the dangers of energy drinks, the current regulatory framework and the problems it causes, the need for correcting these problems, and potential policy changes
Refugee Identities at the Mercy of Legal Determination
Full text linkThe Refugee Status Determination process bears immediate repercussions not only on the formulation of refugee narrative identities, but on how asylum-seekers construct their very sense of self alongside their relationship to their past and future. Yet, International Refugee Law provides no guidance over status determination procedures, establishing a legal void that confers disproportionate power to State discretion. In an epoch characterized by exclusionary non-entrée regimes propelled by a post-9/11 securitization logic, the myopic fixation on border control has generated a dehumanizing surveillance machinery that transformed the asylum system into a threatening opponent of refugee protection, eliminating individual subjectivity and undermining the fundamental prohibition of Non-Refoulement. Drawing insights from several testimonies, this article sheds light on the transformative identity experiences that refugees undergo when forced to navigate a labyrinthine system that prioritizes surveillance and drives the erosion of protection. It demonstrates that today’s determination regime performs an alienating gatekeeping role that defines “Otherness” by forcing the disembodiment of the refugee and driving their narratives’ standardization, objectification, and commodification, and suggests potential pathways for the reconfiguration of hospitality
How Can Sovereign States Embrace Hospitality? A Study of the Ius Gentium Tradition and Expulsions of Immigrants at the Border
Full text linkMigration management reflects the inescapable dialectic between immigrants’ human rights and the rights of sovereign states to control their arrival. This article focuses on two disciplines to shed some light on the dialectic: philosophy and law. The first section presents the primary authors within the ius gentium tradition that dealt with the arrival of strangers to a political community. The lens through which this article analyses these authors’ contribution is hospitality, calling for the adequate treatment the stranger deserves while considering the host community’s moral value. The second section examines the cutting-edge issue of pushback practices at the European external border, which, under the umbrella of the principle of non-refoulement, may challenge hospitality and immigrants’ rights. The third section puts the first and second sections into dialogue to show how debates around migration management can benefit enormously from philosophy and law. The ethical concept of hospitality can illuminate the debate on immigration by striking a balance between the two poles of the dialectic
“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”: Improving Your Feedback and Hallmarks of Effective Feedback
Full text linkEffective feedback can change a law student’s trajectory in law school and beyond. The feedback-centric nature of experiential learning courses allows law students to both develop their skills and personal lawyering style. However, many experiential instructors are from a different generation, with different expectations and communication styles than today’s law students. This article highlights hallmarks of effective feedback for the modern law school classroom. As the field of law continues to evolve, law schools will need to as well.
This article discusses four key hallmarks: (1) provide feedback in multiple formats,(2) help each student develop their personal style, (3) explain the why, and (4) highlight both the “good” and areas of opportunity. The goal of showcasing these hallmarks is to fuel instructor introspection and further discussion. By taking the time to reflect and reformulate their feedback style and substance, instructors can ensure they are maximizing their positive impact on a law student’s development
Better Together: Building Community in the LRW Classroom
Full text linkBetter Together: Building Community in the LRW Classroom emphasizes the importance of building a strong community within the Legal Research and Writing (“LRW”) classroom. A robust LRW community helps mitigate the stress associated with the course and equips students to manage the rigorous demands of law school. Given the challenges facing today’s law students and the unique challenges that characterize LRW, developing community in the LRW classroom should be a primary focus of effective law school training. This Article highlights the work of Thomas Hawk and Paul Lyons, who have studied the concept of “pedagogical caring” in higher education. The Article also provides concrete steps LRW professors can take to build community in class, including the implementation of curricular components, active teaching methods, and activities beyond the classroom. The positive impacts of a strong LRW classroom community are achievable through small changes and will help students develop resilience and training for years to come. Applying the principles of “pedagogical caring” to the LRW Classroom makes students more receptive to constructive feedback, better prepares them for law practice, and leverages the social nature of the human brain. Most importantly, building community is central to student success
What is a Public Health Lawyer Today? Acting for, Against, and Beyond Public Health
Full text linkHealth in America is not looking good. Unique among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the basic measure of national health—life expectancy—was declining even before COVID-19. Public health, both as a system of institutions and as a profession working to promote longer and healthier lives, is also struggling. The normal insularity of the field’s professional culture—including a lack of legal competency—helped undermine the response to COVID-19, which was dismal by any measure. At this difficult time, this Article considers three different ways public health lawyers can make a contribution to public health as a goal and as a government function. Public health lawyers today can work for public health, doing research, developing interventions, providing technical assistance, organizing and acting politically, and writing briefs, articles, and books. Lawyers can also help, perhaps paradoxically, by working against public health, pushing public health professionals and their agencies to overcome chronic problems including ongoing failure to truly integrate law into training and practice; insufficient investment in empirical research on the health effects of laws and legal practices, and a concomitant disregard of the importance of this kind of feedback to the effectiveness and accountability of public health agencies; and limited success in putting data and discussion on social determinants of health, health equity and anti-racism into effective practice. Finally, public health lawyers can work beyond the political and institutional confines of conventional public health to find new allies, legal targets, and strategies for promoting a fair, just (and thereby much healthier) society