CategoryDiscourse

Discourse publishes shorter articles that are timely, interdisciplinary, and novel. Discourse strives to serve as a platform for scholars, ideas, and discussions that have often been overlooked in traditional law review settings. Because we seek to publish pieces that are accessible to legal and non-legal audiences alike, Discourse articles are generally between 3,000 and 10,000 words. Like our print journal, Discourse articles are published on Westlaw, Lexis, and in other legal databases, as well as our own website.

A Critical Race and Disability Legal Studies Approach to Immigration Law and Policy

This piece argues that the progressive immigration reform must take into account the ways in which racism and ableism permeate the immigration system, and calls for a more intersectional approach to immigration law and policy scholarship and practice. It highlights one organization’s recent efforts to put this intersectional approach into research and practice.

Losing Historic Filipinotown

The article argues that Historic Filipinotown is a Los Angeles area ripe for development, and the city’s proposal for a North Westlake Design District makes it poised to become the next site of gentrification.

The Problem With Nostalgia (or In Defense Of Alternative Facts)

Language lives in the present, though we often approach it as though it was settled in the past. But those yearning for the meanings of some bygone era, like those endeavoring to deduce a single, correct meaning from the words on a page, are deluded. The intractable problem of induction scuttles these projects, and reveals that we cannot ask “What does it mean?” without also asking, “To whom?”

The Two-Foundings Thesis: The Puzzle of Constitutional Interpretation

This essay explores interpretive debates over constitutional powers and rights. It aims to explain how opposing viewpoints about power/rights and moral reading/originalism could both accurately reflect the theories on which the nation was founded. The essay proposes that the Constitution itself is a bifurcated text created by the existence of America’s two foundings establishing state governments...