FedSoc Forums

In First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin, the New Jersey Attorney General, Matthew Platkin, issued a subpoena to a faith-based, pro-life, nonprofit, requiring that it turn over years of sensitive information, including the names and contact information of its donors. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which provides free medical services and is funded by private do...

Damon Landor, a state prisoner and practicing Rastafarian, refused to cut his hair as an expression of his faith. After prison officials forcibly restrained and shaved him, Landor sued under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which prohibits governments from imposing unnecessary “substantial burdens” on inmates’ religious exercise. The district cou...

What does the district court’s recent decision in FTC v. Meta portend for the future of the technology sector, free expression, and modern antitrust enforcement? After years of litigation, Judge James Boasberg concluded that the FTC had not established that Meta possesses monopoly power in the relevant social-media market, foreclosing the agency’s bid to unwind Meta’s long-standi...

In Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, the Supreme Court is set to determine whether an internet service provider can be held liable—and deemed to have acted willfully—for copyright infringement based solely on its knowledge of user misconduct and its failure to terminate those users’ access. Sony Music and a group of music publishers sued Cox, alleg...

Join us for a timely webinar examining the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) titled “Revision to Rules of Practice Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board,” which proposes significant changes to how inter partes review (IPR) petitions are instituted. This session will present arguments from both sides while covering how the proposed...

Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. The cases covered in this preview are listed below. Urias-Orellana v. Bondi (December 1) - Immigration; Issue(s): Whether a federal court of appeals must defer to the Board of Immigration Appeals' judgment that a given set of undisputed facts does not demonstrate mistreatment sev...

A recent executive order entitled “Fighting Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations” and two congressional proposals: the Count the Crimes to Cut Act and the Mens Rea Reform Act (also known as the default-mens-rea proposal), all have highlighted long-standing discussions on federal overcriminalization. These initiatives were spotlighted during the May 7, 2025 hearing of the House Ju...

Anna Lange, an employee with the Houston County Sheriff’s Office, sought “male-to-female sex change surgery.” The county’s employer-provided health insurance policy covered some treatments for gender dysphoria, but it excluded drugs, services, and supplies for a “sex-change” (among other categories). Lange sued, claiming the policy discriminated based on sex and...

In Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840–1920, Prof. Akhil Reed Amar traces the arc of American constitutional debate from the post-Founding era to the Progressive Era, focusing especially on America’s fundamental question raised originally by our Declaration of Independence: what does it mean to say that all men and women are “created equal&...

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), created under the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011, has long been a source of debate. The Supreme Court has reviewed several of its procedures, and Congress has introduced PTAB reform bills in every session since 2017. A core PTAB function is deciding Inter Partes Review (IPR) petitions that challenge patent validity. Under new PTO leadership, IPR institu...

While President Trump’s Executive Orders directed at individual law firms drew immediate attention, the administration’s broader enforcement of nondiscrimination employment law in the legal industry has gone comparatively unanalyzed. In March, Acting EEOC Chairman Andrea Lucas wrote letters to 20 large law firms requesting information on their employment practices (at least four of tho...

Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. The cases covered in this preview are listed below. Rico v. U.S. (November 3) - Fugitive-Tolling; Issue(s): Whether the fugitive-tolling doctrine applies in the context of supervised release. Hencely v. Fluor Corporation (November 4) - Federal Tort Claims Act;Issue(s): Whethe...

States have become more and more active in using their consumer protection statutes to initiate investigations and lawsuits against Chinese companies. These investigations and efforts have centered on concerns about so-called white labeling of consumer products to hide the country of origin and concerns about data privacy and security. This webinar will feature the Attorneys General of Nebraska an...

In 2018, Tesla’s board of directors proposed, and its stockholders approved by a wide margin, a significant executive compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk. Under the plan, Musk stood to earn tens of billions of dollars if he achieved a series of highly ambitious performance milestones that would increase Tesla’s market value by hundreds of billions. Over time, Tesla’s value rose d...

Climate change has been described as a “super wicked” policy problem. Policymakers face profound difficulties in assessing the magnitude of the risks, the costs of potential solutions, and the challenges of collective action. Because climate change is global in scope, the source of emissions is often seen as less important than their overall volume. Yet despite extensive efforts by man...

When Congress amended the Civil Rights Act in 1976, it directed federal courts to use judicial discretion to award “reasonable attorney’s fees” to a prevailing party. Yet when state actors are found in violation of the nation’s civil rights laws, what is “reasonable” often means that civil rights attorneys take a reduced fee award. Because of this, states are em...

In recent months, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a ban on “Sharia law and Sharia compounds” in the state, citing longstanding principles that U.S. and Texas law take precedence over conflicting foreign law. This position is reflected in the 2017 American Laws for American Courts statute and in an Attorney General opinion affirming that contracts violating Texas public policy cann...

Valerie Kloosterman, a devout Christian and third-generation healthcare professional, served her community as a Physician Assistant for 17 years. In 2021, University of Michigan Health introduced mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training that required participants to affirm statements Kloosterman believed conflicted with her religious convictions and medical judgment. After she requested...

Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. The cases covered in this preview are listed below. Villarreal v. Texas (October 6) - Sixth Amendment; Issue(s): Whether a trial court abridges a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel by prohibiting the defendant and his counsel from discussing the defendant's testimon...

Professor Ron Rotunda wrote seminal law books that are still used in law schools across the country and was the author of over 500 law review articles and other legal publications. These books and articles have been cited more than 2000 times by law reviews, by state and federal courts at every level, by the U.S. Supreme Court, and by foreign courts in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. He w...

The European Union’s Digital Services Act applies to digital platforms and service providers offering services to users in the EU, regardless of where the company is based—including U.S. companies. EU officials contend the Digital Services Act is needed to protect democracy from misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech online. Regulators in Brussels promise it will create a safe...

Gabriel Olivier is an evangelical Christian who often shares his faith in public. In May 2021, when sharing his faith near an amphitheater in a public park in Brandon, Mississippi, the city’s chief of police confronted Olivier with a recently amended city ordinance requiring “protests” to occur in a designated area. Olivier repositioned himself but soon returned when the designat...

In Dinner Table Action v. Schneider, pending in the First Circuit, Maine is appealing a permanent injunction barring the enforcement of a ballot initiative passed in 2024 that would have capped contributions for independent expenditures at $5,000. The initiative, formulated and supported by the anti-super PAC group, Equal Citizens, was designed to challenge the case that “created” supe...

All fifty states mandate certain vaccinations for schoolchildren. Forty-six of them allow religious exemptions. New York once did as well, maintaining such exemptions for more than half a century before eliminating them in 2019. Medical exemptions remain. Members of the Amish community now challenge New York’s policy, claiming that opposition to vaccines is integral to their “tradition...

Many areas of the country are beset by serious housing shortages. State-level regulatory policies such as exclusionary zoning and other restrictions on construction are, according to some analysts, major causes of the crisis. A variety of possible reforms have been enacted or proposed in various studies, including “YIMBY” (“Yes In My Backyard”) zoning deregulation, inclusio...