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. Beginning with Volume 68, Discourse began publishing special issues of Law Meets World.
In the wake of Donald Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, legislators in at least twenty-three states have released over forty bills seeking to force presidential candidate tax return transparency. This essay addresses whether these state ballot access measures pass constitutional muster and concludes that they do.
Abstract Do white students enjoy an unfair advantage as compared to Asian Americans in admissions to certain universities? This Article explains the proper legal comparison under settled civil rights law for making this determination based on the number of white and Asian American applicants and admits for a given admissions cycle. This Article also raises questions regarding the accuracy of...
Food policy remains one of the main levers by which we can work to address some of the most intractable problems of our time because of food’s effect on health, the environment, and the economy. The article considers the implications of the Trump administration’s policies in this arena.
Abstract What may state legislators do to prevent actions that they believe endanger private property interests and undermine the economic interests of industries important to their constituents? What laws can they enact to restrict the speech of those who disagree with those interests? What limits can they place on free speech in a contest pitting one constitutional set of rights against...
On October 23, 2016, the UCLA School of Law hosted a memorial to celebrate the life of Professor Skye Donald, whose battle with cancer ended on October 16, 2016. Family, friends, colleagues, and students gathered to remember Professor Donald for the joy she brought to the world, and the lasting impression she will continue to have on our lives. UCLA Law Review Discourse is honored to offer a...
Foreword - Imagining the Legal Landscape: Technology and the Law in 2030 Jennifer L. Mnookin & Richard M. Re Legal scholarship tends to focus on the past, the present, or the relatively visible, near-term future. And that’s understandable: the challenges that loom many years away often aren’t susceptible to confident claims or carefully worked out solutions. In law as in life, our biggest...
Abstract This Article contains two imaginary stories about the future. The first attempts to imagine what might happen if intellectual property law no longer prohibited copying and we were to live in a world entirely driven by data, algorithms, and metrics that monitor reading and discussion; in particular, it dwells on how this might affect scientific and scholarly publications. The second...
Abstract Just as they will change healthcare, manufacturing, and the military, robots have the potential to produce big changes in policing. We can expect that at least some robots used by the police in the future will be artificially intelligent machines capable of using legitimate coercive force against human beings. Police robots may decrease dangers to police officers by removing them from...
Abstract How will big data impact environmental law in the near future? This Essay imagines one possible future for environmental law in 2030 that focuses on the implications of big data for the protection of public health from risks associated with pollution and industrial chemicals. It assumes the perspective of an historian looking back from the end of the twenty-first century at the...
Legal scholarship tends to focus on the past, the present, or the relatively visible, near-term future. And that’s understandable: the challenges that loom many years away often aren’t susceptible to confident claims or carefully worked out solutions. In law as in life, our biggest worries—or hopes—may never come to pass at all. But what about challenges in the foreseeable but still uncertain...
Abstract How would society react to “the Watcher,” a technology capable of efficiently, unerringly, and immediately reporting the perpetrator of virtually every crime? This Essay treats that speculative question as an opportunity to explore the relationship between governmental surveillance and criminal justice. The resulting argument is unabashedly fictional but draws attention to pressures...
Abstract This Article sets forth a new way to think about the ethics and law of choosing genetic traits in future children. And it applies this framework of offspring to controversies over efforts to select offspring traits including sex, race, intelligence, and deafness using methods ranging from donor selection to embryo screening and gene editing. I adapt the lens of ambivalence that...
Abstract Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase in digital information and connected devices, but constant revelations about hacks make painfully clear that security has not kept pace. Societies today network first, and ask questions later. This Essay argues that while digitization and networking will continue to accelerate, cybersecurity concerns will also prompt some strategic...
Abstract Recent bills have allocated federal funding to states and localities as an incentive to adopt handheld genome sequencing devices, smooth the ongoing transition from older forensic typing methods to “next generation sequencing” (NGS), and facilitate law enforcement access to medical and recreational DNA databases. At the request of legislators considering these bills, the Congressional...