FedSoc Forums

In What It Means to Be Human - The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics Prof. O. Carter Snead investigates the tension between the natural limits of the human body and the political philosophy of autonomy, and the legal and policy challenges that arise when those two conflict. He proposes a new paradigm of how to understand being human and applies it to complex issues of bioethics, laying out a f...

This Term, the Supreme Court will hear Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case concerning judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Pursuant to Chevron v. NRDC and follow-on cases, courts defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Loper Bright offers the Court an opportunity to abandon Chevron deference entirely. But the phrasing of the Question...

In recent months, there has been a notable escalation in China’s economic coercion of various countries and private companies, prompting a pressing need for a deeper examination of this phenomenon and China’s global strategy. Our panel will delve into the repercussions of actions taken by China in multilateral institutions and its use of debt-trap diplomacy, examining their eff...

Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. San Jose Unified School District concerned a Christian student club's ability to meet on campuses in the San Jose School District. Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) clubs had served students in the San Jose High Schools for over a decade, until 2019 when, following a teacher's complaints about the clubs' requirement that student leaders affirm their faith,...

Will the 118th Congress succeed in creating a statutory framework for effective regulation of cryptocurrencies? House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry and our expert panel discussed the status of this complex legislative issue, the competition among regulators and potential division of regulatory jurisdiction, the differences between stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies, fed...

In her new book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, Alexandra Hudson explores the question – how can a reinvigorated dedication to civility help our nation come together despite deep and growing differences? She argues that our difficulties in this arena are not new; luckily, the solutions aren’t either. Drawing wisdom from a host of ancient philosophers and i...

The 2023 Ron Rotunda Memorial Webinar featured a conversation with Gregory Jacob and Prof. Josh Blackman discussing the current state of the legal culture and the future of the legal profession. Professor 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 hav...

Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience investigates the questions that surround the correct interpretation of the Establishment Clause, breaking down the practical history of establishment and disestablishment in the United States of religion as law and argues that a Clause often seen as a defense against religion is valuable for p...

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. Pulsifer v. United States (October 2) - Federal Criminal Law; Whether a defendant satisfies the criteria in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) as amended by the First Step Act of 2018 in order to qualify for the federal drug-se...

In June, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi completed a highly-publicized visit to Washington that included a state dinner and an address to a joint meeting of Congress. This visit put a strengthened bilateral relationship on display—the United States and India have deepened cooperation on defense, public health, and economic matters in recent years. Yet, key differences continue to irritate rela...

Many state constitutional provisions are worded similarly to provisions of the federal Constitution. At times, this has led some to simply assume as binding or highly persuasive the interpretations of the latter on the former. But to what degree should interpretations of the United States Constitution inform a particular state’s interpretation of its own foundational document? We hosted a lively d...

Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. Weber is a challenge to California’s Assembly Bill 979 requiring racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation diversity on boards of public corporations located in California. The Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment is arguing that the Bill violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. On May 15, 2023, the US District Court for the Eastern Distr...

In Bates v. Pakseresht , Oregon mother-of-5 Jessica Bates is challenging the Oregon Department of Human Services’ (OHDS) rules that require all potential adoptive families to affirm and support the sexual orientation, gender identity, and/ or gender expression of any potential children placed with them. Ms. Bates asserts that OHDS’s rules violate the “Free Speech,” and “Freedom of Assembly” clause...

or the past few Supreme Court terms we have hosted Mark Rienzi, President of the Becket Fund and Professor of Law at Catholic University of America, for a discussion of Religious Liberty at the Court moderated by William Saunders, Professor and Co-director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Catholic University of America. This latest installment looked at the most recent term including the una...

In his new book Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America, Professor Michael D. Breidenbach investigates the way American Catholics fundamentally contributed to the conception of a separation between Church and State in the founding era, overcoming suspicions of loyalties to a foreign power with a conciliatory approach. In this installment in our “Talks with Auth...

In 2021, both Florida and Texas enacted legislation to limit how social media platforms could limit what users post. The Texas law, challenged in NetChoice v. Paxton found a sympathetic audience in the Fifth Circuit, but the Eleventh Circuit was much more skeptical of the Florida law’s constitutionality in NetChoice v. Moody. In January 2023, the Supreme Court requested the Biden Administration to...

Big Data is one of the most important resources in the world, yet the rules for its protection are just beginning to develop. The danger comes into focus by the possibility of a nation-state cyber operation attacking Big Data and having a major detrimental impact on the functioning of another nation-state. Consider, for example, a cyber attack corrupting, stealing, or destroying the records of imp...

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Harrington v. Purdue Pharma in December 2023. The case presents the issue of the authority of a court to provide a release from liability against non-consenting victims in favor of third parties who are not in bankruptcy. This case involves releases in favor of the non-debtor Sackler family who owned Purdue Pharma and are accused of fueling the national opioi...

In the fall 2023 term, the Court is currently set to consider a case of whether a civil rights "tester," someone who collects information as to whether a place of public accommodation is in compliance with laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) without an intent actually to visit those places or use those services, has standing to sue such businesses. At issue is whether "tester" Debo...

In Jackson v. Raffensperger, 316 Ga. 383 (2023), the Supreme Court of Georgia struck down the state’s licensing law for lactation care providers. The law, which was the first of its kind in the nation, would have forced hundreds of women out of work. The Court held the law unconstitutional under the Georgia constitution’s due process clause. With this decision, Georgia joined other states such as...

Efforts to achieve “environmental justice” have been a top priority of the Biden Administration and its Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As stated in the EPA’s FY 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, “EPA will center its mission on the integration of justice, equity, and civil rights across the nation’s environmental protection enterprise,” (27). Accordingly, the EPA has invoked Title VI of the Civil R...

During President Obama’s second term, the U.S. Education Department began sharing studies indicating that black students were disciplined at higher rates than their white peers. These data were viewed as evidence of racial bias, and, in 2014, the Education and Justice Departments jointly published a resource package to help American schools “…promote fair and effective disciplinary practices that...

John Malcolm and John Yoo continued their discussion of presidential power with a focus on the Hunter Biden investigations. They will take a look at the probes surrounding Hunter Biden’s business dealings, the role of President Joe Biden, and the competing roles of Congress and the executive branch in the investigations. Featuring: --John G. Malcolm, Vice President, Institute for Constitutional Go...

John Malcolm and John Yoo examined the indictment of former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election probe in Georgia as he now faces 91 charges across four separate indictments. They will discuss the facts and law of Trump's latest indictment and the intersection between criminal law, presidential elections, and the Constitution. Featuring: --John G. Malcolm, Vice President, Institute for Cons...

Fairfax County, Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology – commonly known as TJ – is the #1 ranked public high school in the country. In 2020, the Fairfax County School Board enacted measures intended to increase racial diversity in TJ’s student body. These policies changed the school’s admissions process and drew criticism from some TJ parents, locals, and national obser...