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One Hundred Years of \u3cem\u3eMorales y Benet v. La Junta Local de Inscripciones\u3c/em\u3e: The Use of the Insular Cases to Deny Women’s Voting Rights in Puerto Rico
Full text linkThe centenary of
Morales y Benet provides an opportunity to reflect on the inequalities women faced under Puerto Rican colonialism in the early 20th century, shaped by the legal imperialism of the United States over the archipelago. This article explores the holding in Morales y Benet v. La Junta Local de Inscripciones and its impact on women’s lives during the last 100 years.
The decision in
Morales y Benet came at a time when women in the mainland United States had already secured the right to vote, following decades of suffrage activism that culminated in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. However, Puerto Rico’s status as an unincorporated territory under U.S. sovereignty imposed a different legal framework on the island. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, drawing on the Insular Cases concluded that the Nineteenth Amendment did not apply to Puerto Rico, leaving women on the island without the same constitutional protections enjoyed by their counterparts in the mainland.
As we reflect on the centennial of Morales y Benet, it becomes essential to examine the ways in which colonialism facilitated the exclusion of Puerto Rican women from the democratic process. This case serves as a lens through which we can explore how the intersection of gender and colonial status denied basic rights to U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico. By analyzing the legal reasoning behind this decision, we gain a deeper understanding of the broader implications of U.S. colonial rule and its impact on the fight for women’s suffrage in Puerto Rico
The Victims’ Rights Mismatch
No full textA puzzling mismatch lurks inside victims’ rights law. Victims’ rights are most easily justified when held by living victims, but the cultural movement has triumphed largely as a response to crime-caused death. This Article identifies the mismatch between victims’ rights and their justifications in dead-victim cases, analyzes the normative questions involved, and recommends an institutional response. The mismatch persists because American jurisdictions assign a single bundle of rights to all people denominated as “victims.” In dead-victim cases, however, the primary bearers of interpersonal harm are gone. Instead, their rights are assumed by aggrieved family members and legal estates. In those third-party scenarios, justifications for victim participation and influence collapse. Mismatch presents normative problems along two dimensions. Along the deontological one, (1) rights to expression and confrontation expire with dead victims, (2) third-party input doesn’t provide information about retributively significant harm, and (3) dead-victim cases immorally sensitize punishment to the social worth of decedents. Along the consequentialist dimension, third-party involvement affects punishment at a margin that has no plausible effect on deterrence or incapacitation, and victim involvement can’t promote legitimacy when it estranges vulnerable communities. A better institutional response is straightforward: Victims’ rights should be tiered. In dead-victim cases, victims’ rights must always be conceptualized as the first-party rights of survivors, rather than third-party rights asserted on behalf of decedents. Surviving harm bearers can retain rights to notice, protection, and even restitution, but rights to other forms of participation and influence should be severely restricted
Fall 2025 - AI Gaslighting and Hallucinations
No full textYou\u27ve heard the horror stories about AI making stuff up. Learn about why this happens, why it\u27s particularly important for lawyers to be aware of, and tips to avoid getting fooled.
Resources Covered: Westlaw CoCounsel, Lexis+ Protege, UM-GPT, Gemini, ChatGPT, maybe others... or maybe this is a hallucination
Host: Keith Lacy, JD, MLIS | Reference Librarianhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/legaltechseries/1017/thumbnail.jp
Accessibility for all?
No full textThere are new Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for state and local governments, so as employees of the University of Michigan, my colleagues and I have been preparing to meet them for over a year. Recently, I began wondering about the accessibility of websites for law firms in Michigan, so I conducted a brief and informal survey of randomly selected firms based on affiliations listed in the State Bar of Michigan’s ‘Find a Lawyer’ directory. I ran each site through the automated tool offered by AccessibilityChecker.org and found that 100% of the sites I checked were rated as noncompliant with the new web accessibility standards. In addition to that, consider the fact that in Michigan at least 14.5% of the population lives with a disability. Since it’s likely that lawyers will be representing clients in cases related to the inaccessibility of state and government web content, doesn’t it seem reasonable for the websites of the firms representing them to meet those standards as well
Regulating Robo-Advisors in an Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence
No full textNew generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools can increasingly engage in personalized, sustained, and natural conversations with users. This technology has the capacity to reshape the financial services industry, making customized expert financial advice broadly available to consumers. However, AI’s ability to convincingly mimic human financial advisors also creates significant risks of large-scale financial misconduct. Which of these possibilities becomes reality will depend largely on the legal and regulatory rules governing “robo-advisors” that supply fully automated financial advice to consumers.
This Article consequently critically examines this evolving regulatory landscape, arguing that current U.S. rules fail to adequately limit the risk that robo-advisors powered by generative AI will convince large numbers of consumers to purchase costly and inappropriate financial products and services. Drawing on general principles of consumer financial regulation and the European Union’s recently enacted AI Act, the Article proposes addressing this deficiency through a dual regulatory approach: a licensing requirement for robo-advisors that use generative AI to help match consumers with financial products or services, and heightened ex post duties of care and loyalty for all robo-advisors. This framework seeks to appropriately balance the transformative potential of generative AI to deliver accessible financial advice with the risk that this emerging technology may significantly amplify the provision of conflicted or inaccurate advice
Lawyers and the Abuse of Government Power
No full textThe legal profession needs to amend the rules of professional conduct to protect our constitutional system of government from those most likely to effectively undermine it: lawyers. The historic federal indictment against President Donald Trump for conspiring to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election included five attorney co-conspirators: Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro. Eight lawyers were indicted in Georgia on similar charges.
Lawyers weren’t just involved in Trump’s plot; they devised and enabled it. Rather than accurately advise Trump that he had lost and needed to concede, lawyers crafted a plan to circumvent court losses and subvert states’ certified electors—effectively disenfranchising seven entire states to enable Trump to win with only 232 electoral votes. To accomplish this end, lawyers recreated a faux version of the 1876 constitutional crisis by fabricating false electoral slates—manipulating law and fact to enable a coup and give it the trappings of legality and thus legitimacy. Only lawyers could have performed these services. Yet this advice usurped the States’ constitutional power to select the President and placed it in the hands of the federal executive branch to manipulate and control—with Trump and his team creating the false slates and the Vice President instructed to refuse to count the certified slates.
Notably, the most problematic conduct came from private sector attorneys who owed all of their duties to Trump personally. Further, while attorneys are required in the litigation context to have a reasonable basis in law and fact for anything submitted in court, the same is not true for attorney advice and assistance. Lawyers only violate the rules on advising clients if they advise or assist in conduct they actually know is an actionable crime or fraud. Lawyers are not required to have a reasonable basis in law and fact for their advice and can even advise illegal conduct.
Importantly, when advising government officials in the use of government power or position, lawyers enable and effectuate how government power will in fact be used. Specific rules and guidance are thus needed for government advisor lawyers—meaning lawyers, whether privately or publicly employed, who advise and assist government officials in the use of government power and position. Such lawyers must be required to ensure a reasonable basis in law and fact for their advice and assistance since government power will be employed based thereon. Moreover, given the fact that government officials generally have some level of immunity and may not be held accountable for their actions, lawyers should be required to adhere closely to both fact and law when advising government officials in the use of government power—power that actually belongs to the people of the United States and is only temporarily bestowed by them on an officeholder. Finally, government advisor lawyers, even if privately employed, should have an express and enforceable duty to the public to uphold the integrity both of our constitutional system and of the office being advised
A State Supreme Court Justice’s Take on Delegation and Deference
No full textThere’s not a lot of talk about state administrative law. Never mind that much of the administrative law that happens in this country happens at the state level. Or that state regulation affects citizens and businesses in much the same way as federal regulation. As Chief Judge Sutton observes, “[o]ur obsession with federal law inclines us to notice changes in administrative law most of all through decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Hubble Telescope for assessing American law.
CASA, Inc. v. Trump: Brief of \u3cem\u3eAmici Curiae\u3c/em\u3e Immigration Law Scholars Kristin Collins, Gerald Neuman, and Rachel Rosenbloom in Support of Appellees
No full textUSCA4 Appeal: 25-1153
Amici Kristin Collins, Gerald Neuman, and Rachel Rosenbloom are legal scholars with expertise in U.S. citizenship and immigration law. Amici have a professional interest in ensuring that the Court is properly informed with respect to the history and meaning of the birthright citizenship statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), and its importance to this case
Tribute to Sally Katzen
No full textI have been excitedly waiting for the opportunity to speak to you all about Sally tonight. I don\u27t think you could find anyone more deserving of this award than she is. You have heard this evening about her extraordinary professional accomplishments and the indelible mark she has made on administrative law over the course of her career. But in addition to her achievements in government service and private practice, Sally will leave a lasting and significant legacy through the students that she taught at NYU. I hope I can do justice to the enormous role she has played in my life and those of so many others