Jennifer A. Heerwig

Sunday, April 3, 2016 - 3:45pm

I suggest in this essay that, at least from a social science perspective, the system of disclosure that currently governs the hard money system falls short of meeting some basic goals of transparency. Before describing how this system currently operates, I first suggest why we should even continue to care about hard money disclosure in an age of dark money, and offer a brief social scientific perspective on the study of money in politics. Having situated disclosure in this context, I then outline the contours of campaign finance disclosure in the federal system for individual contributors. I then suggest a few policy recommendations drawn from my work with Katherine Shaw.

Cara McClellan

Wednesday, November 11, 2015 - 2:45pm

Recently, some have argued that universities “are in a double bind.” They are required under Title VI to ensure that their campuses do not create a hostile environment for women and minorities. On the other hand, they face liability for violating students’ First Amendment rights if they act to punish students whose speech led to a hostile environment. In this essay, I argue that addressing hostile environment discrimination fits within the school’s authority to restrict speech under its pedagogical responsibility to prevent disruptions. Regardless of whether there is a noisy uproar or the threat of violence, by definition, hostile environment discrimination interferes with the right of students to access the educational program because it creates exclusion. This is a disruption in the most fundamental sense of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, and a university must have the authority to provide redress.

William Jefferson Clinton

Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 9:15am

The following essay by President Clinton appears in Volume 33, Issue 2 of the Yale Law & Policy Review

Stanley Richards

Saturday, April 19, 2014 - 11:45pm

Proposed Rule 37(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is the latest effort to respond to the tendency of large data producers to over-preserve electronic information as a protection against the common law of spoliation sanctions and procedural rules regarding electronic discovery. The proposed rule’s failure to properly differentiate a breach of the duty to preserve from bad faith, however, threatens to negate its otherwise promising reforms.

Brian Christopher Jones

Saturday, December 14, 2013 - 12:15am

This past summer saw the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in United States v. Windsor, and while the case has generated copious amounts of commentary and scholarship, relatively little attention has been paid to the case’s discussion of bill short titles. Central to the case’s analysis was a dispute over the role of short titles in inferring legislative purpose, and given this dispute, this Remark will argue that it’s time for a Congressional bill naming authority to ensure sensible, descriptive bill names.

Asha Rangappa

Monday, September 23, 2013 - 2:15pm

This article suggests that the federal government can use its taxing power to make it more expensive to build personal arsenals. Specifically, I argue for an incremental excise tax, which would be imposed on each successive gun after the initial purchase, which would be tax-free. I believe this approach would offer two advantages.  First, given the current constitutional landscape, such a tax would be much harder to challenge than a restriction on gun ownership, which directly implicates the Second Amendment. Second, an incremental tax would distribute the costs of arsenals in proportion to the public safety risk created by each individual gun owner. A tax could be implemented with the adoption of universal background checks without limiting an individual’s choice to own multiple weapons.

Colin C. Richard

Monday, September 23, 2013 - 1:30pm

A discrepancy in the guidance accompanying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB”) new “remittance transfer” rule may unnecessarily apply regulatory provisions to certain mobile payments, potentially raising the barrier to adoption of this new technology. The CFPB recently issued a final rule to implement section 1073 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”). The rule and its accompanying guidance exclude in-person payment card transactions, but fail to exclude functionally-equivalent mobile payments. A simple regulatory solution could both reduce obstacles to the development of an efficient payment system and preserve necessary consumer protections. By drawing careful distinctions between the traditional remittance transfer and the in-person mobile payment made abroad, this article suggests that the guidance should be amended to explicitly exclude functionally-similar mobile payments.