In recent years, the LGBTQ community has seen major
changes in the recognition of its legal rights.1 These changes come
after a long history of discrimination against the community and
criminalization of gender and sexual minorities in the United States.2
Today, the LGBTQ community, and transgender individuals in
particular, still face…[Read more]

What if half of the people in the jury pool for a capital case
are unqualified to sit—and the lawyers are not accurately identifying
and removing them? And what if the lawyers are actually identifying
the wrong people as unqualified and removing them instead?
This appears to be the case. The Constitution prohibits jurors
who will always (or n…[Read more]

Over the past six years, constitutional law scholars, politicians,
and public opinion-makers have grappled with what many have
described as the anti-constitutionalism of the Trump administration.1
Responding to Trump’s presidency, its aftermath, and the
circumstances that predated and arguably precipitated it, critics have
focused on p…[Read more]

Ralph Waldo Emerson once suggested that we read not for
instruction but for provocation.1 By that standard, in The Words That
Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar has written a characteristically great
book.2 This is not to deny that there is abundant instruction in its
many pages: Amar offers a synoptic and yet still nuanced description
of the great…[Read more]

What’s new in my new book, The Words That Made Us?
What’s missing? What’s next? If my tale is anywhere close to
correct, what tales told by other narrators must be rejected or
revised?
At heart, the biggest news is that a book such as this now
exists, as it did not before—a book that brings together between a
single set of covers the main co…[Read more]

During the four years of the Trump presidency, there was much
Sturm und Drang over the destruction of the rules-based international
trading system. That system—first as the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT), then as the World Trade Organization
(WTO), as well as hundreds of preferential trade agreements among
countries—has bee…[Read more]

On February 1, 2020, Patricia Dowd called her brother to
cancel plans to attend a funeral later in the week because she had
fallen ill with what seemed like the flu.1 Only five days later, Dowd
suddenly collapsed and died of what appeared to be a heart attack
while standing in her kitchen.2 A subsequent flu test returned a
negative result,…[Read more]

Few topics currently inspire more acrimony and reveal more
division than what is often termed “the immigration debate.”2 Indeed,
under the Trump Administration, the country has endured the longest
government shutdown in American history largely owing to the
inability of Congress to pass comprehensive and effective
immigration reform.3 The pro…[Read more]

Employers have used non-compete clauses to deprive tens of
millions of workers of the freedom to change jobs or start their own
businesses. In occupations ranging from home health aide to
journalist to sandwich shop worker, employers have used this legal
power to their great benefit. Non-compete clauses reduce worker
mobility, help employers…[Read more]

Surviving spouses in community property states enjoy a
significant, but unintended, income tax advantage over surviving
spouses in other states. The advantage, known as “the double basis
step-up,” generally eliminates capital gains for surviving spouses in
community property states. This geographic inequality incentivizes
inefficient beh…[Read more]