Today the Court granted review in Oklahoma Charter School Board v. Drummond. This is an important religious liberty case concerning “whether a state violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause by excluding privately run religious schools from the state’s charter-school program solely because the schools are religious.” The case should be argued in April. However, Justice […]
There’s a problem with President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, and it doesn’t take much effort to see it. The Fourteenth Amendment reads, in relevant part: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” […]
Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice. Friends, Short Circuit is turning 10, and we’re having a party! Sláinte! Please come join us, retired judges Diane Wood and Kent Jordan, and a full cast of noteworthies on Thursday, April 3, 2025, […]
This was announced back in August, but I thought I’d pass it along again; if you’re interested, please apply, and if you know people who might be interested, please pass this along to them. Opportunity for Post-JD Scholars The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is seeking an outstanding early-career legal scholar interested in researching free […]
From the Justice Department’s press release about the charges in June: A Houston doctor has been indicted for obtaining protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without authorization, announced Alamdar S. Hamdani…. The four-count indictment alleges Haim obtained personal information including patient names, treatment codes and the attending physician […]
By the end of this year, as many as 100 million Americans could live in a state where they can be reported to a “bias response hotline” for a wide range of protected speech. While states claim that these reporting mechanisms don’t punish people for non-criminal speech acts, many also claim to attempt to stop […]
Even lawyers have at times filed briefs containing AI-hallucinated citations; but the danger is likely especially great for the many self-represented litigants. Here, for instance, is a passage from the Dec. 26 decision of the Colorado Court of Appeals in Al-Hamim v. Star Hearthstone, LLC, written by Colorado Court of Appeals Judges Lino Lipinsky, joined […]
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing an executive order curtailing funding of “gain-of-function” research on pandemic pathogens, in what would seem to be an effort to prevent the next pandemic from spilling out of a federally funded laboratory. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was hashing out the details of […]
Another semester, another section of constitutional law. This week I taught Marbury v. Madison for the umpteenth time. Beyond teaching the mechanics of the Original Jurisdiction clause and the Judiciary Act of 1789, I always try to convey to my students why Marshall wrote the opinion backwards: Why decide the merits question about the commission before […]
Based on current evidence, it’s impossible to say whether puberty blockers and hormone therapy are helpful or harmful for young people with gender-related distress, according to two new papers published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal. In these two meta-analyses, Canadian researchers looked at prior studies on puberty blockers and “gender-affirming hormone therapy” […]