Professor Jenny Breen’s essay, “Democracy’s Fundamentals: Efficacy, Equality, and the Supreme Court” was highlighted on the Legal Theory Blog. Breen recently posted the essay to SSRN.
This essay identifies two fundamental predicates of democratic rule—efficacy and equality—and examines the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in light of both of those key categories, finding that its recent decisions have been consistently undermining both.
Professor Lauryn Gouldin will present her research on pretrial appearance and criminal court scheduling practices at the National Conference of Bar Examiners Annual Bar Admissions Conference. She will participate on Friday’s panel “Remote Courts 2.0: Building Sustainable Hybrid Justice Systems”. The panel will be moderated by Chief Justice Mary Russell of the Supreme Court of Missouri.
Dean Terence Lau L’98 has written the opinion article “Collaboration Is Crucial to Navigating the New Tariff Landscape” for Bloomberg Law.
The article gives corporate counsel advice on approaching tariffs amidst uncertainty by breaking down corporate silos and enhancing collaboration, emphasizing patience, and underlining the need to be understanding and supportive of global teams that are facing unique local challenges.
In summary, Lau states, “The new tariff landscape demands that legal departments serve as both strategic partners and guides through uncertainty. By fostering genuine cross-functional collaboration, counseling patience without paralysis, and addressing the very real human impacts, in-house counsel can help their organizations navigate these choppy waters.”
Associate Dean of Faculty Research and Professor of Law Kristen Barnes recently delivered the keynote address at Cornell University’s Town and Gown Conference on housing. Barnes’s address was titled “Housing and the Future: Challenges and Opportunities.” Barnes is also a Visiting Professor, City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.
Associate Teaching Professor Laurie Hobart G’16 has published the article “AI, Bias, and National Security Profiling” in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. The article appears in Volume 40, Issue 1.
From the abstract: “This Article outlines the ways that AI may reproduce human bias in national security investigations at scale. It argues that current case law is insufficient to protect civil rights and civil liberties against discriminatory uses of AI. It discusses potential barriers to constitutional challenges under Fourth Amendment, Equal Protection, First Amendment, and Due Process precedents; limitations on Bivens claims; and issues arising from classification, state secrets doctrine, and general judicial deference in national security contexts. While explaining how current case law risks civil rights and civil liberties in the face of AI profiling, the Article also offers litigation strategies for civil rights advocates to proceed under the status quo.
David M. Levy L’48 Professor of Law Nina Kohn’s article “Ageless Law” was recently accepted for publication by North Carolina Law Review. It is forthcoming in 2026.
From the abstract: As states respond to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and concerns about retrenchment of federal civil rights protections, they are considering expanding state constitutional protections against discrimination—including age discrimination. Indeed, in November 2022 and 2024 respectively, Nevada and New York voters overwhelmingly voted to amend their state constitutions to add age as a protected class. It is in this political environment that this article asks a simple question that is, remarkably, largely unexplored in the legal literature: should law be “ageless”?
Professor Lauryn Gouldin will be a panelist on the 6th Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Workshop on Privacy-Preserving Artificial Intelligence. This workshop is part of the 39th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. She will participate in an interdisciplinary panel discussion on Understanding and Regulating the Privacy Risks in an Embodied Agents World.
Mercy Renci Xie LL.M.’20, who is currently pursuing an S.J.D. at the College of Law, recently had papers selected to be presented at Stanford’s Law & Humanities Workshop and the 2025 Law & Society Annual Meeting.
She will present her paper “Guanxi Paradox in Chinese Relational Legal Consciousness” at the Law & Humanities Workshop at Stanford University on June 9-10.
Her paper “Navigating Power Dynamics: Contingent Second-Order Legal Consciousness of Chinese Disabled People,” was selected to be presented at the 2025 Law & Society Annual Meeting in Chicago May 22-25.
Professor Katherine Macfarlane’s article “Higher Education’s Accommodations Mistake” was recently accepted for publication in the Georgetown Law Journal, where it will be published this Fall. A draft of Professor Macfarlane’s article is available here.
The article examines the “fundamental alteration” defense, which applies to claims brought pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and how the defense impacts reasonable accommodation requests made by undergraduate and graduate students with disabilities. Professor Macfarlane is a leading expert in disability law and higher education accommodations.
She directs the College’s Disability Law & Policy Program and teaches Constitutional Law, Disability Law, and Civil Rights Litigation.
Crandall Melvin Professor of Law Shubha Ghosh has accepted an invitation to the editorial board of MDPI, an international publisher of open-access scientific, professional, and technical journals.
Professor Ghosh, director of the Syracuse Intellectual Property Law Institute, will provide editorial guidance on various legal topics, including intellectual property, innovation law, entrepreneurship, competition law (antitrust), and comparative and international law.
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