- Reason

4/25/1938: United States v. Carolene Products decided.

At least eight states have already enacted age-verification laws, and several more are considering bills.

A Belarusian court has sentenced the members of dissident rock band Nizkiz to two years of prison labor after finding them guilty of "organizing and plotting actions grossly violating public order." After President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in the country's disputed 2020 election, mass […]

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Let's just call this what it is: another gimmick for Congress to escape its own budget limits and avoid having a conversation about tradeoffs.

A new CBS article details the successes of a program enabling Americans to sponsor Ukrainian migrants fleeing the Russian invasion to live and work in the US.

From today's decision by Judge Arun Subramanian (S.D.N.Y.) in Flynn v. CNN, Inc.: Plaintiffs Jack and Leslie Flynn have sued Defendant Cable News Network … under Rhode Island's false-light statute. The Flynns claim $75 million in damages. The entire dispute stems from a six-minute segment […]

Homeowners associations are the most, and the least, libertarian form of governance.

An excerpt from his column in yesterday's N.Y. Times: Last Thursday, in the music humanities class I teach at Columbia University, two students were giving an in-class presentation on the composer John Cage. His most famous piece is "4'33"," which directs us to listen in silence to surrounding […]

Net neutrality rules have been instituted and repealed multiple times in the past 15 years, and yet internet use has thrived in each scenario.

Under Florida's "pay-to-stay" law, inmates are charged $50 for every day of their sentence—including time they never spent incarcerated.

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial this morning called "Defining Free Speech Down on Campus"; I agree that disruptive protests are unprotected by the First Amendment, but I think the editorial erred in its emphasis. The editorial begins by arguing that no First Amendment rights to protest on […]

Lee announced in 2021 that he was fast-tracking clemency petitions for inmates serving mandatory minimums that had since been repealed. Earlier this year, he scrapped the program with applications still pending.

In P.D. v. Sullivan (S.D.N.Y.), plaintiff alleges: New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.39 is used to admit individuals to a hospital solely for emergency observation and evaluation as a person "alleged" to have a mental illness. An admission under MHL 9.39 is not a formal adjudication that an […]

It supposedly bans financing terrorism, but that's already illegal. It's really a power grab for the secretary of the treasury.

April 15, 2024, was admitted students day at Northwestern University. Student protestors took advantage of that day to, well, protest. As the Daily Northwestern reported, "Demonstrators outside Sargent and Allison handed out flyers that welcomed admitted students to what they called the 'real […]

Banning noncompete agreements goes well beyond the FTC's legal authority.

There are no good sides in today's Supreme Court case concerning the EMTALA and abortion.

The News2Share cofounder is revolutionizing news coverage.

Plus: Masking protesters, how Google Search got so bad, Columbia's anti-apartheid protests of the '80s, and more...

4/24/1963: Sherbert v. Verner argued.

Lower courts have been extremely skeptical of attempts to regulate unfinished parts as firearms.

An estimated 171,000 Californians are homeless, making up about 30 percent of all homeless people in the U.S. The state spent $24 billion in fiscal years 2018–2023 on 30 different programs for the homeless. But a state auditor's report found the agency responsible for coordinating the effort […]

A Federalist Society Forum on "Jurisdiction Stripping: Fact & Fiction Flowing Through the Mountain Valley Pipeline Case"

In the Jim Crow South, businesses fought racism—because the rules denied them customers.

The Supreme Court will decide whether former presidents can avoid criminal prosecution by avoiding impeachment and removal.

Science can detect increasingly small particles of plastic in our air and water. That doesn't mean it's bad for you.

Certificate of need laws were supposed to ensure high-quality health care in rural places. Instead, they allowed hospitals to veto potential competitors.

I'm the DEA's poster child for prescription stimulant abuse: a 30-something adult who needs a telehealth psychiatrist and can't remember what day the garbage truck comes.

Holding that Jack Smith lacks defendant's standing lets the Supreme Court avoid the fraught question of presidential immunity for criminal actions

Brief responses based on the second oral argument this morning: Starbucks wins. The Court will hold, as it should, that the four-factor test should be applied. The general principle here (see Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, Nken, e.g.) is that we presume all the traditional principles of equity apply […]

The needless complexity of affordable housing programs are hurting people they're supposed to help.

[UPDATE 4/24/24: See David's response here.] I've seen some items online asserting that the Northwestern Dean of Students "joins anti-Israel rally organized by far-left student groups," was "openly standing in solidarity with students engaged in anti-Semitism and intimidation," or was otherwise at […]

Plus: Supreme Court takes up ghost guns, Abbott takes on trans teachers, the literalism of Civil War, and more...

Columbia law professor David Pozen recalls the controversy provoked by early anti-drug laws and the hope inspired by subsequent legal assaults on prohibition.

4/23/1985: Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc. argued.

Did Elizabeth Warren help cause hundreds of layoffs in Massachusetts?

London's Metropolitan Police Service has apologized for threatening to arrest a Jewish man at a pro-Palestinian protest. Video showed police officers telling Gideon Falter that his "quite openly Jewish" appearance risked provoking the protesters and threatening to arrest him for "causing a breach […]

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney. Read more in this piece at ScotusBlog by Ronald Mann. The question concerns the standard for injunctions sought by the NLRB. Here is a note from the forthcoming edition of Ames, Chafee, and Re on Remedies, my […]

The Eighth Amendment provides little, if any, protection for the homeless. But courts can help them by striking down exclusionary zoning, which is the major cause of housing shortages that lead to homelessness.

From the Daily Caller: Biden is set to travel to the city on Thursday to promote the CHIPS and Science Act and announce a grant delivered by the legislation, according to CNY Central News. The president opted not to delay the trip following the loss Syracuse Police Officer Michael Jensen […]

Plus: A listener asks the editors to steel man the case for the Jones Act, an antiquated law that regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters.

Angela Prichard was murdered after Bellevue police officers repeatedly refused to enforce a restraining order against her abusive husband.

I was delighted to sign on to this amicus brief supporting the challenge to Texas's S.B. 12 (Woodlands Pride, Inc. v. Paxton (5th Cir.)), which was filed on behalf of Prof. Dale Carpenter (SMU), Dean Erwin Chemerinsky (Berkeley), the Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic at Vanderbilt […]

Every year at the close of the Passover seder, Jewish people say "Next year in Jerusalem." In my life I have always repeated that phrase without much thought. Of course I could spend next year in Jerusalem; why wouldn't I? This year, that line takes on a new significance. I weep at the situation […]

Can a state trial court issue an "universal injunction" against all parts of a new law, even though "only two named plaintiffs have alleged narrow harms from only one part of the law."

Tick Tock for TikTok

Episode 501 of the Cyberlaw Podcast