FedSoc Forums

A federal statute allows citizens to sue state and local officers for violating constitutional rights, but there is no federal law that does the same for federal officers. In 1971, in a case called Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Supreme Court held that a cause of action for damages against federal officers could be inferred from constitutional provisions. Bu...

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jacobson v. Massachusetts, upholding a state's ability to enforce compulsory vaccination laws pursuant to its police powers and for the protection of its citizens. This precedent has recently come under scrutiny for its possible overbreadth. Two distinguished experts join us to discuss and debate the holding of the case, its merits, its relevance today, and...

With the Supreme Court about to hear two cases involving the use of race in admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, what do Americans actually think about preferential treatment? Dr. Althea Nagai, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO), will present her analysis of recent data from the Pew Research Center on what Americans believe colleges should consi...

Are state governors subject to the same separation of powers restrictions as the federal president? Expanding on the recent Regulatory Transparency Project panel discussion on emergency executive power during the pandemic, this event will feature experts engaging in a broader separation of powers discussion about the distinctions between the federal and state separation of powers doctrines, using...

New York’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been widely criticized, triggered an FBI investigation, and repeatedly landed the state before the Supreme Court. The latest criticism comes coupled with litigation alleging that New York State’s Department of Health (NYHD) is illegally discriminating on the basis of race in administering antiviral medication for covid treatment. On December 27, 202...

Internal tensions in the Supreme Court's standing doctrine have led to some unexpected fractures. Last term, in Transunion LLC v. Ramirez, the Court considered a class action arising from Transunion's errors in the processing and use of the plaintiffs' personal credit information. By a vote of 5-4, the Court held that, while Congress had created a cause of action that on its face let all of the cl...

On January 21, 2022, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey filed suit against Janet Yellen and the Treasury Department over its threat to withdraw federal funding if Governor Ducey did not alter school masking conditions. Ducey allocated over $160 million for schools but conditioned the money on those schools remaining open and not mandating masks. Two attorneys on the ground in Arizona join us to discuss t...

Although inflation has broadly scattered across the economy, it is the food we buy where inflation's bite is the most obvious. The Biden Administration has pointed the finger at industry consolidation as the culprit. It proposes a rewrite of the regulations implementing agricultural antitrust statutes as the remedy. Industry disagrees that consolidation is to blame and looks warily at the proposed...

This webinar will focus on spectrum policy in the 5G era and the recent increase in inter-agency spectrum turf wars. In recent years, there has been an uptick in the amount of involvement by other agencies, including the Department of Transportation, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to name a few, in FCC spectrum band proceedings...

Before the Supreme Court this term is the question of whether all pre-viability bans on abortion are unconstitutional. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, the Court must address this question in light of its previous holdings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Shortly after oral argument in December 2021, law professor Richard Re encouraged the Court to adopt a gradualist approach, ma...

Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. Issues presented in the March 2022 sitting included arbitration and the Federal Arbitration Act, international law, states rights, civil procedure, and more. Morgan v. Sundance, Inc . (March 21) – arbitration and contract law Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of NAACP (March 21...

As federalism becomes an increasingly important principle of our constitutional structure, Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has published a timely book titled, Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation (Oxford, 2021). Judge Sutton, a former law clerk to Justices Lewis Powell and Antonin Scalia, argues that constitutional law...

Before the Supreme Court this term is the question of whether all pre-viability bans on abortion are unconstitutional. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, the Court must address this question in light of its previous holdings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Shortly after oral argument in December 2021, law professor Richard Re encouraged the Court to adopt a gradualist approach, ma...

On March 3, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Cameron v. EMW Women's Surgical Center. Writing for the 8-1 majority, Justice Samuel Alito explained how the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit erred in denying the Kentucky attorney general’s motion to intervene on the commonwealth’s behalf in litigation concerning Kentucky House Bill 454, related to the rights of the unborn. Justice T...

Join us for a webinar featuring Vikrant Reddy to discuss the Supreme Court decision in Wooden v. United States. Speaker: Vikrant Reddy, Senior Research Fellow, Charles Koch Institute

In October 2021, LTL Management LLC (LTL), a newly created and separate subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) that was established to hold and manage claims in the cosmetic talc litigation, filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. J&J also entered into a funding agreement with LTL that assures that LTL will have the same, if not greater, ability to satisfy talc claims once the parties...

On February 25, 2022, Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd., McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health, Inc., and Amerisourcebergen Corp. announced that they had agreed to finalize a reported $26 billion settlement to resolve approximately 3,000 lawsuits from state and local governments regarding the opioid abuse crisis. The private plaintiffs’ trial firms representing the counties and mun...

In Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights: Leading Constitutional Cases under Scrutiny (Peter Lang, 2019), editors William L. Saunders and Pilar Zambrano have collected a series of essays covering over 10 different nations and jurisdictions and addressing human rights and the role of judiciaries at home and abroad in protecting those rights. Concluding reflections are offered by legal philosophe...

Please join the Practice Groups for a timely webinar on how the upcoming Supreme Court nominee might shape law in the future. Prof. Dan Epps and Ethan Davis will consider the nominee's influence on criminal law, while Prof. William Marshall and Roger Severino will analyze possible effects on civil rights law. Featuring: --Prof. Dan Epps, Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis --Ethan...

During President Biden’s first year in office, Attorney General Merrick Garland rescinded two key memos that were part of the Trump Administration’s stated regulatory reform agenda: the Sessions Memo, which prohibited Department of Justice (DOJ) components from issuing “guidance documents” that effectively bound the public without undergoing notice-and-comment rulemaking, and the Brand Memo, which...

Join us virtually on Tuesday, March 1 to hear our speakers discuss the Supreme Court nomination. Featuring: --Edward Whelan, Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center --Moderator: Steven A. Engel, Partner, Dechert LLP, former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice

Last year, Thomas Jefferson High School (TJ), ranked #1 in the nation for academic excellence, changed its admission policy discarding a merit-based entrance exam in favor of a “holistic evaluation” to determine admission. The school stated the change was made in the name of making the student body more demographically representative. Many concerned parents disagreed, contendin...

On February 28, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear West Virginia v. EPA, one of the most anticipated environmental law cases on the Court’s docket in recent years. By way of background, in 2015, EPA issued the “Clean Power Plan.” Using the Agency’s authority under Clean Air Act Section 111(d), and styled as a rule to control greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-...

Join us virtually to hear a discussion on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Unicolors, Inc v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, LP. Featuring: Zvi Rosen, Assistant Professor at SIU Law, and was a Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University School of Law. He has previously taught at University of New Hampshire School of Law as an adjunct professor and New York...

Is open discussion and debate essential to the function of the university? Many universities, including Georgetown, have adopted strong policies on academic freedom, affirming that deliberation or debate may not be suppressed because ideas put forth might be offensive, unwise, immoral or ill conceived. But when controversy arises on campus, concrete complaints about offensive speech can displace t...