Category: Blog Spring 2018

By SARATH NINAN MATHEW & SIDDHARTH SONKAR On June 27, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States in Janus v. AFSCME, overturned the nearly forty-year-old precedent of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.[i] Janus invalidated an Illinois law which required ‘non-recognized’ public sector union workers to contribute towards union funds by paying “agency fees.”[ii] The … Continue reading Abood to Janus: A Transition from Empowerment to Incapacitation →

By KELLY GIBNEY Mass incarceration is one of the United States’ systemic problems that need to be addressed. One of the main causes of mass incarceration, especially in New York, is the bail system. The original intent of the bail system was to ensure that defendants showed up to their court dates.[i] A judge requires … Continue reading When Justice Becomes Unjust: Abolishing the Money Bail System to Create Equality for All →

By KAARISH MANIAR Early in the year 2000, United States District Judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, ruled that Microsoft Corporation, in “unlawfully tying its Web browser to its operating system,” behaved in an anticompetitive manner, thereby violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Later that year, in June, the court ordered Microsoft to break up the two functions … Continue reading Amazon, Antitrust Law, and the Consumer Welfare Standard →

By MATTHEW SCHNEIDER The ever-changing economy of the 21st century has transformed the ways Americans work and spend their money. Accordingly, firms in newer technology-driven sectors have become some of the dominant forces in the business world, and have consolidated unprecedented amounts of power in their markets. For example, companies like Google and Amazon have … Continue reading Consumer Protections in the New Economy: Antitrust Implications of Ohio v. American Express →

By CYNTHIA KARNEZIS Sex trafficking constitutes a form of modern day slavery[1] as it denies victims their agency and reduces them to mere object status by shamelessly exploiting their bodies for economic gain[2]. Current laws do not explicitly define “modern slavery”, yet the terminology refers to sex trafficking and other forms of exploitation that a … Continue reading Understanding the Modern Day Slave Trade: Sex Trafficking and the Criminal Justice System in the United States →

by MATTHEW BUCKWALD As early as 2004, over 500 men from India were recruited by Signal International LLC, a Gulf Coast marine services company, to work in their New Orleans site on the shore which was still recovering from massive loses during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Despite the tragedies of the storm and the dramatic … Continue reading Modern Challenges of Human Labor Trafficking: ​David v. Signal International →

By DOMINIC SOLARI   Much of modern law in American society is devoted to the protection of property, usually meant to include one’s possessions and one’s own person. However, counterintuitively, there have been court cases where one’s own body, organs, and cells were not considered to be one’s property. One such case is Moore v. … Continue reading Bodily Ownership in Medical Research: A Nuanced Perspective →

By KELSEY YUREK (COL'2019) Teen pregnancy and birth rates have declined by one-half since the early 1990s, but the drop-out rates for young mothers are disproportionately high.[1] Teen childbearing continues to cost taxpayers billions of dollars on the local, state, and federal levels each year, and the welfare programs available for mothers necessitate adherence to … Continue reading The Trials of Truancy on Pregnant and Parenting Teens →