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Moot court teams earning national accolades
Full text linkt was a banner year for the Law School’s moot court competitors, as one team brought home a championship trophy, multiple teams made deep runs in national tournaments, and several students earned impressive individual honors.
“For our external competitions against other schools, we had to have tryouts this year because we had a record number of applicants,” said Professor Lane McFadden, who teaches Legal Writing and Research and Appellate Advocacy and supervises the Law School’s appellate moot court programs. “The rising 2Ls are now excited because the students who are only a year or two ahead of them have done it and have enjoyed some success, which has elevated the visibility of our program.
Guggenheim, MacArthur Fellow to address Class of 2025
Full text linkReginald Dwayne Betts, an internationally recognized poet, legal scholar, educator, and prison reform advocate, will serve as the 2025 Commencement speaker for the graduating classes of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
The Law School will recognize its graduating students on Saturday, May 10, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Indiana University Auditorium.
“Dwayne Betts has a remarkable story that resonates with audiences around the world,” said Dean Christiana Ochoa. “His journey from incarceration to inspiration is an example of how we can all make positive changes in our lives and make an impact on others. I’m grateful to Aristotle Jones for introducing us to Dwayne and look forward to recognizing Aristotle and the rest of our graduates in May.
The Mirage of Artificial Intelligence Terms of Use Restrictions
Full text linkArtificial intelligence (AI) model creators commonly attach restrictive terms of use to both their models and their outputs. These terms typically prohibit activities ranging from creating competing AI models to spreading disinformation. Often taken at face value, these terms are positioned by companies as key enforceable tools for preventing misuse, particularly in policy dialogs. The California AI Transparency Act even codifies this approach, mandating certain responsible use terms to accompany models.
But are these terms truly meaningful, or merely a mirage? There are myriad examples where these broad terms are regularly and repeatedly violated. Yet except for some account suspensions on platforms, no model creator has actually tried to enforce these terms with monetary penalties or injunctive relief. This is likely for good reason: We think that the legal enforceability of these licenses is questionable. We provide a systematic assessment of the enforceability of AI model terms of use and offer three contributions.
First, we pinpoint a key problem with these provisions: The artifacts that they protect, namely model weights and model outputs, are largely not copyrightable, making it unclear whether there is even anything to be licensed.
Second, we examine the problems this creates for other enforcement pathways. Recent doctrinal trends in copyright preemption may further undermine state-law claims, while other legal frameworks like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) offer limited recourse. And anticompetitive provisions likely fare even worse than responsible use provisions.
Third, we provide recommendations to policymakers considering this private enforcement model. There are compelling reasons for many of these provisions to be unenforceable: They chill good faith research, constrain competition, and create quasi-copyright ownership where none should exist. There are, of course, downsides: Model creators have even fewer tools to prevent harmful misuse. But we think the better approach is for statutory provisions, not private fiat, to distinguish between good and bad uses of AI and restrict the latter. And, overall, policymakers should be cautious about taking these terms at face value before they have faced a legal litmus test
Dark Patterns as Disloyal Design
Full text linkLawmakers have started to regulate “dark patterns,” understood to be design practices meant to influence technology users’ decisions through manipulative or deceptive means. Most agree that dark patterns are undesirable, but open questions remain as to which design choices should be subjected to scrutiny, much less the best way to regulate them.
In this Article, we propose adapting the concept of dark patterns to better fit legal frameworks. Critics allege that the legal conceptualizations of dark patterns are overbroad, impractical, and counterproductive. We argue that law and policy conceptualizations of dark patterns suffer from three deficiencies: First, dark patterns lack a clear value anchor for cases to build upon. Second, legal definitions of dark patterns overfocus on individuals and atomistic choices, ignoring de minimis aggregate harms and the societal implications of manipulation at scale. Finally, the law has struggled to articulate workable legal thresholds for wrongful dark patterns. To better regulate the designs called dark patterns, lawmakers need a better conceptual framing that bridges the gap between design theory and the law’s need for clarity, flexibility, and compatibility with existing frameworks.
We argue that wrongful self-dealing is at the heart of what most consider to be “dark” about certain design patterns. Taking advantage of design affordances to the detriment of a vulnerable party is disloyal. To that end, we propose disloyal design as a regulatory framing for dark patterns. In drawing from established frameworks that prohibit wrongful self-dealing, we hope to provide more clarity and consistency for regulators, industry, and users. Disloyal design will fit better into legal frameworks and better rally public support for ensuring that the most popular tools in society are built to prioritize human values
Streamlining Wildlife Regulation
Full text linkA recent burst of revisions in the bedrock regulations governing projects that may adversely affect wildlife represents a generational shift in policy. Streamlining federal decision -making drove much of this reform. Streamlining offers a path to address climate change without abandoning a longstanding commitment to wildlife conservation. The conservation community recognizes the need to build new infrastructure to reduce the rate of climate change through air emissions. The most urgent priority is decarbonizing the electrical ~rid through renewable energy generation and a better transmission network. Adaptation to the new abnormal of climate-driven environmental disruption demands federal approvals for a host of other habitat-disturbing programs, from coastal redesign to wildfire management. Regulatory requirements that slow or stop such projects are no longer as desirable for wildlife as in the past.
Wildlife law should speed approvals and better coordinate disparate programs without sacrificing statutory objectives, such as recovery of species on the brink of extinction. Streamlining attempts to redirect regulatory analysis to early stages of decision -making, broader landscape scales, and impacts that are likely to generate greater risk to wildlife. Rulemakings employ two principal tools to achieve this shift. First, they limit coverage by replacing effects-based liability triggers (such as take prohibitions) with activity-based compliance (such as locating and operating projects in a particular manner). Second, they centralize key decisions through programmatic analysis and planning, which allows for more rapid project-specific decisions. These reforms provide a roadmap for revival and extension when the political winds shift back toward addressing climate change
Presidentialism in Post-Conflict Kachin Constitution: Political Imagination, Institutional Realities, and Executive Design
No full textThis thesis examines the relationship between cultural identity, political imagination, and constitutional design in the Kachin context, focusing on the strong preference for presidentialism among political thinkers and interim constitution drafters. Rooted in traditions of armed resistance, charismatic leadership, and the desire for visible sovereignty, presidentialism is widely viewed as the most viable executive model for a post-conflict Kachin future. Yet this preference is often shaped more by symbolic ideals than by a clear understanding of the structural demands of democratic governance.
At the heart of this vision lies the expectation of a strong president: directly elected, culturally rooted, and capable of protecting the Kachin people while unifying diverse communities. The president is imagined not as a ceremonial figure but as a decisive leader who embodies moral authority and sovereignty. This makes presidentialism deeply appealing, especially when contrasted with the mistrusted parliamentary and centralized system seen under past Myanmar governments. However, the interviews and discussions conducted for this study also reveal important concerns, including the dominance of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), weak institutional checks, limited public understanding, and questions about inclusivity for women and non-Kachin citizens. The study employs an interdisciplinary approach that combines constitutional law, political science, and empirical interviews with Kachin political thinkers and drafters. identifies five central challenges in adopting presidentialism: overreliance on charismatic leadership, lack of public knowledge, authoritarian legacies, tension between symbolic and real power, and risks of protectionism over inclusion. At the same time, the study highlights promising features, such as the desire for visible accountability merit-based leadership, and opportunities for incremental inclusion. The thesis evaluates two possible presidential models for Kachin: A Directly Elected Single Presidency and A Directly Elected Collective Presidency. Each presents distinct balancing considerations between strong leadership, inclusivity, and accountability.
Ultimately, the thesis argues that presidentialism in Kachin will succeed only if cultural aspirations for strong leadership are matched with institutional safeguards that protect diversity, accountability, and democratic responsibility. By linking political imagination to constitutional design, the study contributes both practical reflections for Kachin drafters and broader insights for post-conflict constitutionalism in multi-ethnic societies
