IN MEMORIAM: JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG

A series of tributes honoring the life and legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Vol. 125 No. 5

Protests
Symposium Piece

POLICING CAMPUS PROTEST

Sunita Patel*

College campuses across the country celebrate their legacies of creating free speech guarantees following student protests from the mid-1960s to early 1970s, even though colleges had minimal tolerance of such protests at the time. As part of the New Left’s vision for a different society, students, sometimes joined by faculty, demanded an end to the Vietnam War and war industry research, fought for Black and ethnic studies departments, and protested[...]

Protests
Foreword

LAW OF PROTEST

Shaunak M. Puri*

The full text of this Foreword can be found by clicking the PDF link to the left.


Note

PRIVATE PRISON HEALTHCARE AS PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION: LEVERAGING FEDERAL AND STATE PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS LAW IN PRISON DISABILITY LITIGATION

Mark Scaggs*

The growth of private companies in the realm of carceral healthcare services has significant implications for plaintiffs seeking to challenge disability discrimination perpetrated during their incarceration. As the face of disability discrimination changes in carceral facilities, so should the legal remedies that hold them to account. This Note outlines the cur-rent scope of disability antidiscrimination litigation in prisons, jails, and detention[...]

Protests
Symposium Piece

AFROFUTURISM IN PROTEST: DISSENT AND REVOLUTION

Etienne C. Toussaint*

In an era of reckoning and resistance, this Symposium Piece journeys through the rich terrain of Black protest and Afrofuturist imagination, uncovering a radical legal tradition rooted in historical defiance and visionary possibility. By analyzing Black resistance—from insurrections against slavery to today’s racial justice movements—through an Afrofuturist lens, it identifies three key dimensions of Black protest in the United States: perversion,[...]

Protests
Symposium Piece

OVERBROAD PROTEST LAWS

Rachel Moran*

Protests are woven into the history and social fabric of the United States. Whether the topic involves racial inequity, abortion, police brutality, oil and gas pipelines, war, or allegedly stolen elections, Americans will voice their opposition—occasionally, in frightening or destructive ways. Politicians, in turn, have a history of using their lawmaking power to discourage protest by creating crimes like unlawful assembly, riot, civil disorder,[...]


Note

GUARANTEED: THE FEDERAL EDUCATION DUTY

Bennett Lunn*

The Supreme Court has long emphasized state and local supremacy over public schooling. This theory of education federalism has been at the heart of the Court’s decisions pulling back on school desegregation and refusing to find a federal fundamental right to education. Today, America’s schools are as segregated as they were in the 1970s and often fail to prepare Americans for democratic participation. Despite the national impact of school failures,[...]

Protests
Symposium Piece

THE RIGHT TO PROTEST IN INDIAN COUNTRY

Grant Christensen*

From April 2016 until February 2017, thousands of people gathered along the Cannonball River on the border of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In response, state officials tried to close down roads leading to the Reservation, considered legislation that would immunize drivers who struck protesters with vehicles, and arrested hundreds of peaceful demonstrators. The #NoDAPL protests built[...]

Protests
Lecture

THE SANKOFA PRINCIPLE IN PROTEST LAW

Justin Hansford*

The Columbia Law Review’s Karl Llewellyn Lecture series cele­brates pioneers in the law who have innovated and challenged legal theory. The second annual Lecture was delivered by Howard University School of Law Professor Justin Hansford on November 15, 2024, as the opening address at the Review’s Symposium on the Law of Protest. A transcript of Professor Hansford’s Lecture is published in this Issue. [...]

Protests
Symposium Piece

A RIGHT OF PEACEABLE ASSEMBLY

Tabatha Abu El-Haj*

The functional absence of the Assembly Clause in First Amendment law and constitutional discourse fundamentally distorts our analysis of the proper scope of constitutional protection for political assemblies. This Symposium Piece develops a much-needed independent Assembly Clause doctrine. An independent Assembly Clause doctrine would not only be consistent with the text and original understanding of the Founders but also allow for a jurisprudence[...]