First Amendment

About three weeks ago, in a per curiam (that is, unsigned) opinion in a case that was not fully briefed and argued at the Supreme Court, a majority of Justices (Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett) announced a potentially game-changing approach to processing claims brought under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Since 1990, and the decision in Employment Division v.

In Supreme Court cases, our tendency is to focus on who should win. That’s not what matters most in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.

Like every high school freshman ever, 14-year-old Brandi Levy had a bad week. She missed the cut for her high school’s varsity cheerleading team. She struggled at softball practice. And she worried about her final exams. So like every high school freshman, Levy vented. “F--- school f--- softball f--- cheer f--- everything,” she posted to her friends on Snapchat on a Saturday afternoon.

On Jan. 13, former President Donald Trump became the first person ever to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives. But with Trump out of office, it’s unclear if there will be enough votes to reach the two-thirds majority needed to convict him in the Senate. With the trial looming, we look at whether Trump has a good argument against the charge he incited a riot at the U.S. Capitol, and whether it’s constitutional to impeach a person who has left office. 

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The blockbuster movie The Post tells a very important real-life story about the efforts of the journalists and leaders of the Washington Post (including Katherine Graham, the first female head of a major American newspaper) and the New York Times to publish parts of a collection of classified documents (the “Pentagon Papers”) detailing non-public information about America’s controversial involvement in the Vietnam War.

In recent weeks, King Hall faculty have written several opinion pieces for the press.

Kevin R. Johnson in The Sacramento Bee: Trump's Immigration Promises Fraught with Obstacles

Faculty members at UC Davis School of Law publish truly unique scholarship that advances the legal profession. You can view their scholarly works via the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) Legal Scholarship Network. An archive can be found on this web page.

What follows here is the most recent collection of papers:

The Supreme Court's protection of corporate political expenditures in Citizens United v. FEC and corporate religious exercise in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby has rekindled perennial fears about the influence of corporations in U.S. politics and policy. One popular response has been to argue for stripping corporations of constitutional rights.

Here is a look at some of the most recent scholarship from UC Davis School of Law faculty from the Social Science Research Network's Legal Scholarship Network. Click through the links to download the works.

LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP NETWORK: LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
UC DAVIS SCHOOL OF LAW

Display of the Confederate battle flag on government-owned property has certainly gotten a lot of attention of late. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 a few weeks ago, in Walker v.