Most fields of law in the United States appear to be heeding the
exhortation of a big-selling song, Imagine no religion, in that they
manifest a commitment to secular rather than religious authority.1
Within the Articles of the nation’s founding document, before any
amendments were ratified, framers of the new American design
provisioned t…[Read more]

My earliest interaction with the police came in September 1976
when I was four.1 My mom, who is Anishinaabe, and dad, who is
white, had driven us in our small car all the way up north from
southwest Michigan where we lived to take a quick camping trip
north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. At the border, the police separated
my mother from us…[Read more]

Nearly ten years ago, I argued that government inaction in
certain cases can violate the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause.1 I
dubbed these “passive takings.” This category of liability, if
recognized, would mean that the government can violate the
Constitution by failing to act.2 Or, to put it even more provocatively,
it would mean that the Con…[Read more]

There is a conventional story of the state action doctrine. It
begins with the Supreme Court’s 1883 decision in the The Civil Rights
Cases, holding that Congress did not have the power to forbid
discrimination in hotels, trains, and other places open to the public. In
reaching that conclusion, the Court sharply distinguished b…[Read more]

Religious property disputes raise an assortment of issues both
practical and constitutional. Should civil courts be able to decide these
disputes, and if so, under what circumstances? What is the role of the
doctrine of “church autonomy” in these disputes? 1 Can “neutral
principles of law” help courts decide these cases, and if so, what is…[Read more]

Notwithstanding the robust national power conferred by the
U.S. Constitution’s Bankruptcy Clause, the design and administration
of federal bankruptcy law entails choices about the extent to which
nonbankruptcy-law entitlements will remain undisplaced. When such
entitlements sound in domestic nonfederal law (i.e., state or local l…[Read more]

The. lead opinions -in Obergefell v. Hodges advocated very different
conceptions ofthe Court’s role in a democracy. Meanwhile, however, both sides
of the debate expressed an allegiance to principles of deliberative democracy.
The majority engaged in the practice of deliberative democracy by providing a
reasoned explanation for its decision…[Read more]

Supreme Court justices have fundamentally competing perspectives regarding
the best approach to constitutional interpretation. The Court has
therefore never adopted one authoritative methodology of constitutional interpretation. Rather, the Court uses different methodologies to decide different
cases, justices frequently vacillate in their…[Read more]

Should federal courts give stare decisis effect to statutory interpretation
methodology? Although a growing number of legal scholars have answered this
question in the affirmative, this Essay makes the case against methodological
stare decisis. Drawing on recent empirical studies of Congress’s expectations
regarding statutory interpretation,…[Read more]

We contend that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
(Rules) should be interpreted in a distinctive fashion, despite
the federal courts’ proclivity to interpret the Rules as if they
were statutes. The Supreme Court itself promulgates the
Rules. Congress does not enact them as statutes through the
traditional path of bicameralism and…[Read more]

The rise of populism is one of the most significant developments
in contemporary politics.1 This phenomenon can be difficult to
capture succinctly: populism does not constitute a uniform political
movement, and the label has been applied to quite different political
movements and moments.2 But commentators generally recognize a
particular,…[Read more]

The first photo above is of Professor Wenona Singel’s sister,
Christina, and her son. In the last picture, you can see Professor
Singel and Fletcher’s two young sons. In Wenona and Christina’s
family, their children are the first generation to not experience the
loss of adoption or Indian boarding schools. Both their lives and their
mother’s…[Read more]

As a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians in
Michigan, I have an indigenous perspective on the governments of the Great
Lakes. A recent book2 on climate change in the Great Lakes Region begins with
an observation that four critical points must be addressed for effective mitigation
and adaptation:

* Downscale our…[Read more]