-
The Troubled Teen Industry: Survivors Urge for Reform But Efforts to Regulate Reveal Complexities
The death of a twelve-year-old boy at Trails Carolina, a for-profit wilderness camp in North Carolina, has reignited conversations about the Troubled Teen Industry (“TTI”). Counselors at Trails Carolina confined the boy in a bivy tent secured with an alarm. The counselors sealed the outer panel of the tent due to tearing in the mesh…
-
Behind the Bans: Navigating the Legal Landscape for Transgender Youth Rights in a Post-Dobbs Era
In 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union joined forces with two families to challenge an Idaho law criminalizing gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.[1] The two transgender teenagers in the lawsuit, identified as Pam Poe and Jane Doe because of their minor status, are both Idaho natives currently receiving the gender-affirming medical care which Idaho…
-
When Irrevocable Trusts Cause Irrevocable Family-Feuds: Murdoch Family Feuds in Probate Court Over Eventual Control of Media Empire
In loving memory of David F. Sigler, on his birthday.He will be celebrated forever and always. Rupert Murdoch (“Murdoch”), the head of Fox News and the News Corp. empire, is in a courtroom battle against three of his children to amend his irrevocable trust.[1] The trust, created after Murdoch’s second divorce decades ago, controls what…
-
AI-Generated Deception: Filling the Gaps in Defamation and Privacy Protections
The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have brought about a new wave of media manipulation, particularly through AI-generated “deepfakes.” Deepfakes are synthetic media in which a person’s likeness, voice, or appearance is altered or mimicked by AI to make the person appear to say or do something they might have never actually said or…
-
Cruel and Unusual Camping: How the U.S. Supreme Court Reopened the Door to Status Crimes
On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court took a wrecking ball to a Ninth Circuit holding and stopped just shy of overturning one of the Court’s most famous opinions: Robinson v. California. Robinson held the government cannot criminalize the status of drug addiction because “status crimes” constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the…
-
Sun, Sand, SCOTUS: Summer 2024 Supreme Court Decisions Review
Trump v. Anderson Opinion March 4, 2024 – Ruling 9-0 In this case, the Court rejected Colorado’s attempt to bar former President Donald Trump from running for another term under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits insurrectionists from holding office and ruled that the states may not bar the former president from running…
-
Free Speech Argument Offers New Life to Death Care Providers
Over the last century, occupational licensing has been an unstoppable frate that has shown no signs of slowing. In the 1950s, only 5% of the American workforce was required to obtain a license before selling goods or performing services in their selected profession.[1] As of 2023, this number has risen to an astonishing 25%.[2] Such…
-
Out of the Mouths of Babes and Into Their Parents’ Bank Accounts: Addressing the Lack of Labor Regulations for Child Influencers
Cam Barrett, a now-grown child of a mommy vlogger, testified to the Washington State Legislature: “When I was nine years old, the intimate details of my first period were shared online.” She spoke in support of passing HB 1627, which would legally protect minor children featured in monetized online content. Over the past decade, parents have increasingly quit their…
-
Racketeers of the Bird World: The Ecological Impact of the Brown-headed Cowbird
The brown-headed cowbird is an unusual bird. Instead of raising its own young, it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. Cowbirds usually choose smaller passerines (songbirds), but they are not picky—they have been recorded parasitizing at least 220 species’ nests, including unsuitable host species such as sandpipers, owls, and hawks.[1] This is not a mutually-beneficial relationship. The…
-
Partisan Redistricting: The Longest Running Voting Rights Issue of the United States
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”[i] This statement, made in the Declaration of Independence, clearly indicated that the purpose of defying Great Britain and creating the United States was to no longer prescribe to any theory of government besides one elected and consented to by those governed. While…
Categories
- Administrative Law
- Animal Law
- Constitutional Law
- Criminal Law
- Education Law
- Election Law
- Entertainment Law
- Environmental Law
- Family Law
- Gender and the Law
- General
- Health Law
- Immigration Law
- Indigenous Peoples Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- International Law
- Judicial Decisions
- Labor and Employment Law
- Presidential Power
- Property Law
- Race and the Law
- State and Local Government
- Technology Law