by Elise Spenner The Court handed four opinions down today, including a significant victory for the Biden Administration’s immigration policy in United States v. Texas, and I was lucky enough to be in the building when it happened. I’ll break down Texas below, but I’ll also take a second to share a bit about my experience inside the Court. Coincidentally, I happened to be in DC for a journalism program, and headed out around 8:30 a.m. in the hopes of snagging a spot at the Court to hear the justices announce opinions. I was the last person to receive a yellow ticket (shown on the right) tha ..read more

by Hannah Saraf Professor Brad Snyder teaches constitutional law, constitutional history, and sports law at Georgetown Law. He is the author of the books Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment  and The House of Truth: A Washington Political Salon and the Foundations of American Liberalism, alongside many law review articles. Prior to teaching, Professor Snyder worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP and wrote two critically acclaimed books about baseball. A graduate of Duke University and Yale Law School, he c ..read more

by Hugo Rosen Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons Since its establishment in 1790, the District of Columbia has seen five different government structures, given rise to a Constitutional amendment, and been the subject of numerous legal questions about representation. Our license plate slogan, “End Taxation Without Representation,” expresses residents’ frustration with our limited representation in Congress. My previous article mentioned three proposals to address this frustration: D.C. statehood, a cessation to Maryland (retrocession), and maintaining the status quo. Today, I will summariz ..read more

by Audrey Jung This Thursday, June 8, the Supreme Court ruled in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, siding unanimously with the whiskey brand in a trademark dispute over a chewable dog toy. Through its line “Silly Squeakers,” pet product company VIP Products designs toys that parody popular beverage brands from Dos Equis (Dos Perros) to Stella Artois (Smella Arpaw). In 2014, the company set its sights on Jack Daniel’s with the roll-out of Bad Spaniels. The original and parody are depicted below. Photo courtesy of jackdaniels.com Photo courtesy of walmart.com To note a few o ..read more

by Elise Spenner In an unexpected decision Thursday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Alabama’s redrawn congressional maps diluted the power of Black voters under Section II of the Voting Rights Act, upholding a district court injunction from last year. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the three liberals. Both Justice Thomas and Justice Alito wrote dissenting opinions.  Some background on Alabama’s map: In 2020, a new map was created to better reflect Alabama’s growing population in response to criticism that the prior layout ..read more

by Elise Spenner Although we are yet to receive opinions from the Court in almost 30 cases, the oral argument phase of the term has officially concluded. While we wait for opinions, I took some time to analyze the gender diversity among advocates at the Court this year. In the October 2022 term, advocates appeared before the Court 155 times in 59 cases on the merits docket. Men appeared 117 times, while women appeared just 38 times. But many prominent advocates, especially men, argued more than one time at the Court, skewing the values above. When accounting only for unique appearances, just ..read more

by Elise Spenner The fourth circuit yesterday held 2-1 that an admissions policy adopted by Thomas Jefferson HIgh School for Science & Technology (TJ), located in Virginia, does not disparately impact or intentionally discriminate against Asian American students. In writing for the majority, Judge Robert B. King overturned the district court’s decision that the policy violated the 14th Amendment, and laid the groundwork for a potential appeal to the Supreme Court at the same time as the justices deliberate in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University, this year’s landmark affirmat ..read more

by Hugo Rosen Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash is a James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and teaches at the University of Virginia. He has  authored several books on presidential power, including The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers and Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive. Prior to entering academia, Professor Prakash clerked for Judge Lawrence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas. What first attracted you to the law ..read more

by Elise Spenner Israel is back in international headlines this week as its parliament threatens a sweeping, unprecedented overhaul of the judiciary with the potential to derail the country’s fragile democracy. Israel’s system of government is far from analogous to America’s, and the relationship between its legislature and judiciary is quite complicated, so I’ve done my best to break it all down below. Background: When legal experts and elected officials in the United States consider far-reaching Supreme Court reform, they must first weigh the constitutionality of such changes. The same isn’t ..read more

by Elise Spenner On Tuesday, Feb. 28, the Court will hear oral argument in Biden v. Nebraska, concerning the legality of the Biden Administration’s student loan forgiveness plan. In December, the justices refused to grant emergency relief in the case, choosing instead to move it from the shadow docket to the merits docket.  Here’s what you need to know about the case: In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush declared a national emergency. At the same time, Congress passed the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, granting Bush’s Secretary of Education the autho ..read more