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An Equitable High: Indigenous People Must Have a Seat at the Table for the Future Business of Psychedelics, How Affirmative Patent Rights Can Ensure Indigenous Inclusion
Full text linkPolitical turmoil led to the halt of medical research into hallucinogens, yet efforts are now underway to begin exploring their therapeutic properties following a pathway created by cannabis. However, as hallucinogens are gaining traction as potentially untapped therapeutic avenues for illnesses like anxiety, addiction, and PTSD, comes the risk of endangering or altering centuries-long indigenous use. An Equitable High seeks to examine the history of psychedelic drugs while evaluating avenues to provide equal access and adequate protections for indigenous communities as legalization and monetization efforts surrounding hallucinogens grows
Hybrids as Undeserving and the Enduring Legacy of Eugenics in Modern Conservation Policies
Full text linkThis article explores the overlooked legacy of eugenics at the root of modern conservation, tracing how early conservationists—many of whom were also vocal eugenicists—shaped our definitions of species, purity, and protection. By examining the deep entanglement of racialized science and environmental policy, I argue that hybrids have been systematically excluded from protection, not because of well-founded scientific reasoning, but because of a century-old ideology rooted in the fear of impurity. It\u27s time for conservation to evolve beyond these outdated frameworks and embrace a future-forward, adaptationist approach—one that recognizes hybrids not as mistakes, but as natural responses to a changing world that may even be more resilient for new tomorrows
2025 May Commencement
No full textSeattle University School of Law\u27s Spring Commencement Ceremony was held at McCaw Hall on May 17, 2025.https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/commencement-videos/1000/thumbnail.jp
The Purpose of Progress? A Response to Ned Snow\u27s Immortality and Intellectual Property
No full textIn Intellectual Property and Immorality, Professor Snow fearlessly puts forth the proposition of morality in the consideration of IP’s social welfare goals. By doing so, he invites important conversations about the underlying purposes and values of an area of law that powerfully shapes our knowledge-based economies and societies. Towards this end, this Response has three propositions: (1) expansion of the foundational justifications for IP to include the key insights of human development (sometimes referred to as human flourishing) theory; (2) recognition not just of harms to individuals but also harms to communities and societies; and (3) imbuing of greater substantive meaning to the key term “Progress” in the U.S. Constitution’s Progress Clause. Doing so would ameliorate the current immoralities that unfortunately tarnish the promise and potential of IP to increase overall human flourishing and social welfare
Keynote Address: The Movement to Protect Kids from Addictive Technologies
Full text linkIn this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.
I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. It includes action to restrict phones in schools; impose warning labels on social media; class action suits against social media and games by parents of victims; school districts and attorneys general; as well as hundreds of bills and laws enacted to protect kids from excessive screen time and other online harms.
I conclude by calling for lawyers and parents to join this movement now—to take advantage of this window of opportunity—to save a generation of kids facing a public health crisi
The Roots of Credit Inequality
No full textDebt oppression began before the United States became a country. Settlers enslaved Africans and Indigenous people, treating them as property that they could buy and sell for their economic and personal benefit. When enslavement became illegal, new economic systems and laws that included sharecropping, Black Codes, and Jim Crow kept Black people in servitude. Laws that prohibited enslaved people from owning property or selling goods to white people evolved into restrictions on Black people’s occupations and market participation, both formal and informal. When Black entrepreneurs overcame these obstacles and built wealth within Black business enclaves, white people enforced their racist norms through violence. Segregated access to credit and different credit terms and conditions in retail, housing, and government loans played a large part in maintaining racial wealth gaps throughout the twentieth century. This system is a vestige of slavery that violates the Thirteenth Amendment. And the laws and policies that uphold a segregated credit system that harms Black, Indigenous, and Latine consumers violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause. These constitutional violations require strong remedies that include an amnesty on past debts, rehabilitative reparations, and a reimagining and restructuring of our credit system. This article documents the early roots of the United States’ use of debt as a tool of oppression and is the first in a three-part serie
Redefining Section 230 Immunity
No full textSection 230 of the Communications Decency Act has provided broad immunity to online platforms for third-party content which was the foundation for the internet\u27s growth. However, the rise in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce algorithms to curate content to users of online services has blurred the line between being a passive host of third party content and active editorial control. This Note examines the legal, policy, and constitutional implications of applying Section 230 immunity to platforms that use AI to curate and promote third-party content. This analysis argues that algorithmic promotion of third-party content constitutes a platform\u27s own editorial control over the content on their platform and should not be immune from liability under Section 230. However, the suppression of third-party content should remain protected as it is a platform\u27s own expressive activity. The Note proposes statutory revisions that distinguish between the suppression and promotion of third-party content. This approach seeks to balance the goals of protecting free expression, fostering innovation, and ensuring accountability
Addressing the Root of Housing Insecurity: Washington Should Divest from “Crime-Free” Housing Programs
No full textCrime-Free Rental Housing Properties (CFRHPs) have proven to be an ineffective and inequitable approach to public safety. Often, tenants in these properties are evicted—at times, extrajudicially—as a result of conduct that does not rise to violations of their lease provisions, much less criminal behavior. By placing extraordinary power in the hands of local law enforcement to carry out these ordinances, CFRHPs predictably pose significant harm to Black and Latinx communities, survivors of domestic violence, disabled tenants, and low-income tenants generally. Recently, the Washington State Supreme Court grappled with the tensions arising between CFRHPs and the enforcement of Washington landlord-tenant law. While its analysis came short of finding outright that CFRHPs violate state law, it noted that the current discriminatory enforcement of the ordinances opened an avenue for tenants to seek remedies against police departments. The outcome of this case should flag for fair housing advocates in Washington that litigation may provide only limited success in ensuring equitable access to affordable housing for all. As such, this Comment argues that Washington should abandon fundamentally flawed crime-free housing policies in favor of Housing First programs, which prioritize public health through housing and community-led safety structures