Abstract During the global pandemic, people around the world are at risk of serious illness and death from contact and proximity to other people. But Indigenous peoples, particularly those in voluntary isolation, have always faced that risk. International organizations have relied on the right to self-determination as the primary legal grounds to justify the principle of no-contact for...
Post-COVID Courts
Abstract As with so much else in American life, the COVID-19 crisis delivered a gut punch to our justice system. And the worst is yet to come, as federal and state courts alike are soon to fill with cases reflecting the failing finances and fraying relationships of our sheltered-in-place lives. But in truth, our courts were already at a crossroads: chronically underfunded, increasingly...
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...
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...
Deliberate Endangerment: Detention Of Noncitizens During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract In the midst of worldwide efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to detain noncitizens in dangerous conditions that create a high risk of infection. This Article explores the dire situation facing detained noncitizens as a result of the government’s decision to imprison tens of thousands of people in civil confinement during an...