Faculty Commentary

While transgender people have existed since the dawn of time, the last decade has seen an increasing spotlight on the community and transgender people’s right to recognition and protection. While this has taken on many different angles, federal and state administrations have come under scrutiny in the last few weeks for choices to exclude transgender people [...]

The blaming of attempted bombings of prominent democratic leaders and opponents of President Trump on a vindictive press by him at a public rally casts a dark shadow over a bleak landscape where once the freedom of the press was a corner stone of our democracy.  Declaring the press in the United States an “enemy [...]

The New York Times ran a front-page story on October 21, 2018 with the headline: “‘Transgender’ Could be Defined out of Existence under Trump Administration.” The story reported that “the Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.” Other than Caitlyn Jenner, who had maintained a [...]

The job of state attorney general (AG) resides at the intersection of electoral politics and legal proficiency. As the chief legal officer of their respective state, commonwealth, or territory, AGs are popularly elected in 43 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and appointed by either the governor, legislature, or judiciary in the [...]

At the beginning of this month, the Trump administration announced a new policy that same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and employees of the United Nations will only be granted visas if the partners are married. The State Department immediately applied the policy and refused visas to unmarried partners.  The Department also told partners who lived [...]

In April and October, President Trump proclaimed his intention to send National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border as an anti-illegal immigration measure. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Protection reported apprehensions of people entering the U.S. illegally at the Southern border jumped by 37 percent from February to March 2018, by 203 percent [...]

Earlier this month, Congress sent a sweeping legislative package aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic to President Trump’s desk for signature, and the President has said he intends to sign it. Despite the increasing rancor that has poisoned so much our political discourse, the Substance Use Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) [...]

The September 2018 decision of Federal District Judge Troy Nunley in Tracy Rifle and Pistol LLC v. Harris is noteworthy for at least two reasons. First, the decision invalidated a California law prohibiting firearms retailers from displaying on the exterior of their premises any readily visible “handgun or imitation handgun, or placard advertising the sale or other [...]

After being detained for one year, the court released 17 lawyers held in custody in Turkey, but it was short-lived. Their release was pending on the final outcome of the trial, but within 24 hours of that decision, judges already started to reverse course due to the prosecutor’s objection. Since the*n, six lawyers were re-arrested, [...]

The joy and amazement Second Amendment supporters felt in July at two Ninth Circuit Appeals Court  opinions were dashed in August when, in Pena v. Lindley  the Ninth Circuit upheld California’s Unsafe Handgun Act banning purchase of new handguns that lack technology no current gun has and no manufacturer is contemplating. Although the two July opinions [...]