Abstract In the last decade, the Supreme Court has heard a number of high-profile cases holding potential for major progressive reform which hinge crucially on the Justices accepting, or at least not rejecting, the findings of social science experts. Time and again, however, the Court has found ways to ignore, minimize, or misconstrue the work of highly-qualified social scientists, with Chief...
Law Meets World Introduction
Introduction Much has been written on how the COVID-19 pandemic has brought longstanding structural inequities into sharp relief. Like in all crises, the effects of the pandemic have not been evenly distributed. Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately harmed by the virus. Low-wage workers—largely workers of color and immigrant workers—are deemed essential yet...
Ensuring Equal Access to the Mail-In Ballot Box
Abstract Mail voting has emerged as the top policy solution to voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But not all mail voting schemes are created equal. Implemented improperly, vote-by-mail can disproportionately disenfranchise many of the same voters at highest risk of contracting and subsequently dying from the virus. From voter identity verification to language access, jurisdictions...
Letter From The Asian/Pacific Islander Law Students Association Regarding Stephen Bainbridge
The following letter from the UCLA School of Law chapter of the Asian/Pacific Islander Law Students Association was sent to UCLA School of Law administrators on April 13, 2020, in response to anti-Asian statements by a professor. This was not an isolated incidence of hateful language in the UCLA Law community. Earlier in the school year, other UCLA Law professors used the n-word in academic...
Movement And Crisis: A Social Health Manifesto
Abstract In this Article, we employ the terms Health (as a white supremacist mode of being) and social health to demystify how race and health are mobilized by the state and its representative bodies to shift accountability away from their role in crafting an anti-Black world, contain and quell Black protest, and how Black communities have dreamt and practiced alternative definitions of health...
Abolitionist Reforms and the Immigrants' Rights Movement
Abstract This Article discusses the criteria for abolitionist reforms and assesses whether current immigrants’ rights demands move us towards a more transformative agenda, one that questions the legitimacy of the state. The Article argues that calls to invest in immigrant communities and to release immigrants from detention can be radical reforms that move us closer to abolition if they are...
Reproducing Equality: How Covid-19 Can Strengthen Abortion Rights
Abstract States hostile to reproductive freedom have weaponized the COVID-19 pandemic to ban abortion in the name of public safety. Relying on heightened power the state typically exercises during an emergency, it can capitalize on public panic to achieve its policy goals. By laying bare the racial inequities of our healthcare systems and the opportunistic banning of abortion by an emergency...
Making Unemployment Insurance Work For Working People
Abstract During just the first four months the COVID-19 pandemic, 50 million people applied for unemployment insurance. The COVID-19 economic crisis has exposed a frayed social safety net that simply does not work for working people. In this Article, we describe how the unemployment insurance system punishes working people, rather than supporting them, in times of crisis; excludes many vulnerable...