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Taking Back the Bar: The need for State Legislation Directed at Addressing the Disparate Impact of the Bar Exam and Holding the NCBE Accountable
No full textTrump\u27s Legal Troubles
No full textFriday, April 18, 2024 | 3:00–4:15 PM | Jenkins Nanovic Halls, Room 1030
Free and open to the public.
Join the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government for a lecture by Berkeley law professor John Yoo on former President Donald Trump\u27s legal troubles.
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His many books include The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court (2023 with Robert Delahunty). Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government, including the U.S. Deparment of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks.
Sponsor: Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Governmenthttps://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndls_posters/1864/thumbnail.jp
Racial Targets
No full textIt is common scholarly and popular wisdom that racial quotas are illegal. However, the reality is that since 2020’s racial reckoning, many of the largest companies have been touting specific, albeit voluntary, goals to hire or promote people of color, which this Article refers to as “racial targets.” The Article addresses this phenomenon and shows that companies can defend racial targets as distinct from racial quotas, which involve a rigid number or proportion of opportunities reserved exclusively for minority groups. The political implications of the legal defensibility of racial targets are significant in this moment in American history, where race relations have become polarized and the conservative, pro-business U.S. Supreme Court may weigh in on the legality of voluntary goals set by some of the largest companies in the country. Large companies have historically been granted discretion to choose their strategies for paving the way toward equal employment opportunity for people of color. The Article grapples with whether this corporate-discretion ideal would inform the legal posture of racial targets
Preliminary Injunctions Prevail Through the Winter of Buckhannon
No full textThe Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976 allows courts to award attorneys’ fees to the “prevailing party” in any “action or proceeding” enforcing several civil rights-related statutes. Yet, this statute fails to define the term “prevailing party,” leaving the courts to define it over time. The Supreme Court’s piecemeal, vague definitions of “prevailing party” have only complicated the legal landscape and caused more uncertainty for potential plaintiffs and their prospective attorneys. Without the relief offered by recovery of attorneys’ fees, private litigants may be dissuaded from pursuing meritorious litigation due to overwhelming costs of representation, and attorneys may face a choice between accepting or denying an otherwise successful case solely due to a prospective client’s ability to pay. In Sole v. Wyner, the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff who is awarded a preliminary injunction is not considered a prevailing party if “the merits of the case are ultimately decided against her.” In deciding Sole, the Court declined to answer a separate but important question: Is a plaintiff a prevailing party if their case is mooted after obtaining a preliminary injunction?
Courts attempting to answer this question struggle to find tangible guidance from the Supreme Court following its decision in Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources, resulting in inconsistencies, overly complicated analyses, and in some cases, misguided rejection of prevailing party status. The legal analysis behind prevailing party status must be streamlined to preserve this critical and necessary litigation. This Note explores how, in the aftermath of Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., a plaintiff whose case is mooted after obtaining a preliminary injunction is a prevailing party within the framework of Buckhannon
Enhancing Public Access to Agency Law
No full textA just, democratic society governed by the rule of law requires that the law be available, not hidden. This principle extends to legal materials produced by administrative agencies, all of which should be made widely accessible to the public. Federal agencies in the United States do disclose online many legal documents—sometimes voluntarily, sometimes in compliance with statutory requirements. But the scope and consistency of these disclosures leaves considerable room for improvement. After conducting a year-long study for the Administrative Conference of the United States, we identified seventeen possible statutory amendments that would improve proactive online disclosure of agency legal materials. Although detailed and sometimes technical, these recommendations can be encapsulated in one simple, succinct principle: All legal materials that agencies are obligated to disclose upon request under the Freedom of Information Act should be affirmatively made accessible to the public on agency websites. Our specific recommendations fall into three main categories: clarification and expansion of the types of legal materials that agencies must disclose affirmatively; specification of the methods of disclosure that will ensure ready accessibility to the public; and establishment of mechanisms that will help ensure agency compliance with these affirmative disclosure requirements. If a democratic government is to be truly transparent, then all its legal materials should be easily available to the public. Congress should take the steps needed to ensure that administrative agencies more consistently and affirmatively disclose all their legal materials in a manner accessible to all
