Volume 42, Issue 1 (Fall 2023)

Patent Term Extensions and the Last Man Standing

Volume 42, Issue 1 (FAll 2023)

By Robin Feldman*

Abstract. In 1984, with the passing of the Hatch-Waxman Act, Congress orchestrated a compromise that permanently changed how drug markets operate. This piece of legislation created an expedited pathway for generics to enter the market, and, in exchange, brand drugs could extend their patents to account for time lost during their market approval process. Although this well-configured trade was supposed to help generics enter the scene quicker, the current drug market landscape makes one question whether this legislation has succeeded in its aims. The following study explores the lifecycle of top-selling brand drugs in comparison to the vision put forth by the Hatch-Waxman Act. Using the legislation as a framework, the article examines the data of 236 top-selling drugs, quantifying the average length of patent terms and their extensions, as well as any additional market monopoly time secured thereafter.

Beyond Brackeen: Active Efforts Toward Antiracist Child Welfare Policy

Volume 42, Issue 1 (FAll 2023)

By Andrea Jane Martin*

Abstract. Due to structural racism, legal protections afforded to families of children in the foster care system have been significantly eroded and continue to be challenged. The latest attempt to dismantle child welfare protections for a historically marginalized group was a prolonged attack on the Indian Child Welfare Act. Motivated in part by the racist belief that they are unfairly disadvantaged in adopting American Indian children, American Indian adversaries reached the pinnacle of their incessant attack on the law’s constitutionality and its heightened requirements. Fortunately, in Haaland v. Brackeen, the United States Supreme Court upheld the law’s important protections for American Indian children, families, and tribes.

Second-Wave DREAMers

Volume 42, Issue 1 (FAll 2023)

By Nina Rabin*

Abstract. This Article compares and contrasts two waves of child migrants that have shaped the U.S. immigration policy agenda and debate over the past twenty years, in order to draw lessons about how public schools and policymakers can best serve today’s immigrant students. The first wave of undocumented children, who arrived in the two decades after 1986 and are often referred to as DREAMers, experienced schools as a place of refuge, where they could spend their formative years without distinctions drawn based on immigration status. This experience was the result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), which held that immigration status has no place in the context of K-12 education. In sharp contrast, immigrant children arriving since 2014 do not experience schools as a place of refuge. This Article describes these recent newcomer children as “second-wave DREAMers.”

End-Running Warrants: Purchasing Data Under the Fourth Amendment and the State Action Problem

Volume 42, Issue 1 (Fall 2023)

By Aaron X. Sobel*

Abstract. Rather than obtain warrants, law enforcement and intelligence agencies now purchase mass datasets of precise geolocation information from third-party brokers. These location data reveal the most intimate aspects of our personal lives: our political beliefs, religious associations, sexual preferences, private activities, and much more. The limited scholarship on this topic suggests that whether the government must obtain a warrant to purchase these sensitive but commercially available data turns solely on whether users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in these records. But this Note suggests that this (albeit necessary) privacy analysis misses the crux of the controversy.

The Rooney Suggestion: How the “Rule” Has Failed to Defeat Institutional Barriers to Equitable Hiring Practices in the NFL and Recommendations for Meaningful Reform

Volume 42, Issue 1 (Fall 2023)

By DeMaurice F. Smith* & Carl Lasker**

Abstract. The National Football League (NFL) and its member teams have failed to implement any policies that are capable of effectuating sustainable racial and gender diversity in their coaching and executive ranks. This article presents a list of reforms the NFL should and must make to rectify years of deliberate inaction and argues that, given the lack of internally driven effective change, federal, state, and local governments should exercise their lawful oversight capacity to ensure reform.