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In the Dark: State v. Alaska Legislative Council and Public-School Funding in the Face of the Dedicated Funds Clause
Get PDFIn the past several years, Alaska has faced many challenges in its public education system. These challenges gave rise to an intense political debate, significant new legislation, and a protracted battle over the future of funding for public education. Governor Mike Dunleavy and the state legislature publicly clashed over the implementation of H.B. 287, a 2018 state law designed to provide financial stability to ailing schools and curtail teacher layoffs. In 2022, the Supreme Court of Alaska resolved the dispute in favor of the governor and found a contentious piece of state legislation unconstitutional under the states Dedicated Funds Clause. This Note examines the Court\u27s decision in State v. Alaska Legislative Council, considers the underlying constitutional issues in the case, and explores the implications of the ruling. In particular, this Note argues that the Court incorrectly decided the case on multiple grounds—misinterpreting the plain text of the relevant constitutional provisions, the framers\u27 intent, and the court\u27s own precedent in a decision that will exacerbate existing troubles with public education in the state. The proper interpretation of the Dedicated Funds Clause matters for legislators, government agencies, teachers, parents, and children in Alaska going forward
The Lack of Responsibility of Higher Education Institutions in Addressing Phishing Emails and Data Breaches
Get PDFHigher education institutions (HEIs) are highly susceptible to cyberattacks, particularly those facilitated through phishing, due to the substantial volume of confidential student and staff data and valuable research information they hold. Despite federal legislations focusing on bolstering cybersecurity for critical institutions handling medical and financial data, HEIs have not received similar attention. This Note examines the minimal obligations imposed on HEIs by existing federal and state statutes concerning data breaches, the absence of requirements for HEIs to educate employees and students about phishing attacks, and potential strategies to improve student protection against data breaches
Disentangling Race and Politics: Racial Gerrymandering in South Carolina\u27s First Congressional District
Get PDFAfter the 2020 Census, South Carolina\u27s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the boundaries for Congressional District 1, historically anchored in Charleston County. After thirty-thousand African American voters were moved out of District 1 and into District 6, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP challenged the new map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. A three-judge district court panel agreed, finding that race predominated above other factors in the map redraw. On appeal, the question remains not only whether the state legislature used race above other factors in its map design, but also how plaintiffs are expected to prove these claims in an era where gerrymandering for partisan purposes is allowed. Based on the deferential clear error standard of review, the Court should affirm the district court\u27s finding that race was the predominant factor. A reversal could significantly hinder plaintiffs\u27 ability to use statistical evidence to prove racial gerrymandering cases in the future
Administrative Reliance
Get PDFPresidential regime change and the federal policy shifts that accompany it raise significant questions concerning continuity, stability, and governance in the administrative state. Presidential policymaking through the administrative state may generate serious reliance interests recognized under administrative law (what this Article calls “administrative reliance”), which agencies must consider prior to enacting policy change. Administrative reliance has developed into a robust form of judicial review over agency action. Administrative reliance has been invoked in highly politicized contexts, such as immigration law, to challenge a sitting administration’s termination of a prior administration’s policies. Despite its powerful and consequential effects, the doctrine of administrative reliance has been underdeveloped by the courts and underexplored in legal scholarship. The resulting confusion allows partisan litigants—including States—to effectively veto federal policy change and allows the judiciary to subsume policymaking power traditionally wielded by the executive branch.
This Article fills an important gap in the literature and begins to present a coherent understanding of administrative reliance. It provides the first in-depth account of the doctrine’s development and evolution, and it looks to the doctrine’s history to identify what values administrative reliance seeks to protect. This Article argues that courts should adopt a threshold inquiry to focus administrative reliance–based review in a way that adheres to these values, and that privileges reliance-based claims asserting concrete expectations arising from rights, statuses, or benefits previously granted through agency action
Race-Blind Redistricting Algorithms
Get PDFLitigants increasingly use algorithmic evidence in redistricting cases, employing a collection of algorithmically generated plans to point out the outlier status of the state’s current plan. But with the Supreme Court’s declaration of a race-blind Equal Protection Clause in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the constitutionality of these methods as used in racial gerrymandering cases remains uncertain. Other scholars have examined the potential impacts of race blindness as an algorithmic constraint. This Note instead interrogates the practical possibility of race-blind redistricting algorithms and finds the promise of blindness illusory. Rather, requirements to limit racial inputs in redistricting algorithms fail to create race-neutral outcomes under any of the exclusionary methods examined within
Reflections on Race, the Constitution, and Growing up in the Segregated South
Get PDFThe following passages are excerpted from the manuscript entitled Balcony Reserved for White Spectators that Walter Dellinger was writing at the time of his death in February 2022. These particular excerpts were chosen first and foremost because they demonstrate Dellinger’s unwavering and lifelong commitment to the pursuit of racial justice. But they were also chosen because they illustrate the array of talents that Dellinger brought to his work—his encyclopedic knowledge of constitutional history, his powers of legal analysis and persuasion, his attunement to the latent meanings in popular culture, and last, but certainly not least, his spellbinding storytelling.
Note: The excerpts have been lightly edited, reordered, and notated in order to fit into a law review format
Something Is Rotten in the State of Healthcare: Accountability, Affordability, and the Court of Public Opinion
Get PDFMany countries worldwide recognize a right to health and provide legal recourse for securing that right. By contrast, for many Americans, there is no legal right or remedy that enables them to access healthcare if they cannot afford it. While there are some statutes and measures in place, such as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and Medicaid, coverage remains piecemeal and access to healthcare is not guaranteed. Conditioning people’s access to healthcare upon their ability to pay violates the foundational bioethical principle of justice. In the United States, individuals and advocates use social media to fill this vacuum, raising awareness and funds through platforms like GoFundMe and X.com (formerly Twitter). In the absence of government-provided healthcare or a right to health, the American public sometimes functions as a healthcare access mechanism via social media. However, this insufficient and inequitable stopgap cannot replace effective governance. The public is filling a vital and unmet need through social media advocacy, but there are many drawbacks to effectively delegating this authority to the public instead of the government, including the public’s capriciousness and lack of legal accountability. The government should take proactive steps to ensure that healthcare is more affordable and accessible
Full Faith and Credit in the Post-Roe Era
Get PDFIn 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, once again leaving the question of whether abortion should be legal to individual state legislatures. This decision allowed the Texas law known as S.B. 8, alternatively known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, to go into effect. The law allows private individuals to sue anyone who has performed or has aided and abetted the performance or inducement of an abortion in Texas. California responded to this law with Assembly Bill 2091, which prevents California state courts from issuing subpoenas arising under S.B. 8 and similar laws in other states. This Note addresses the unique challenges that A.B. 2091 may face under the Full Faith and Credit Clause in Article IV of the United States Constitution, which requires all states to give full faith and credit to the public acts, records, and judgments of sister-states. If the federal courts view subpoenas as records instead of final judgments, then California would likely be allowed to block the issuance of subpoenas that violate the State\u27s public policy. Regardless of whether courts determine subpoenas are records or judgments, the law will likely still be upheld under the exception for foreign penal civil actions under the standard described in the Supreme Court\u27s opinion in Huntington v. Attrill. Although the California legislature’s decision to single out the Texas law when discussing and drafting A.B. 2091 may pose some additional obstacles, California may still be able to claim that policy considerations should be sufficient to allow the State to block subpoenas arising from S.B. 8