Article

Unbundling Constitutionality

Richard Primus

Professor of Law, The University of Michigan Law School

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Constitutional theory features a persistent controversy over the source or sources of constitutional status, that is, over the criteria that qualify some rules as constitutional rules. This Article contends that no single criterion characterizes all of the rules that American law treats as constitutional, such that it is a mistake to think of constitutionality as a status with necessary conditions. It is better to think of constitutionality on a bundle-of-sticks model: different attributes associated with constitutionality might or might not be present in any constitutional rule. Analysts should often direct their attention more to the separate substantive properties that are associated with constitutionality than to the question of constitutional status itself.

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Constitutional Law

Online

Essay

United States v. Harris: A Hard Sell for Involuntary Medication of Defendants

Rachel Caldwell

Rachel Caldwell is a J.D. candidate at the University of Chicago Law School, Class of 2025.

This Case Note offers some direction for handling competing interests in this developing body of law and other complex cases weighing intersecting constitutional rights against governmental interests. Parts I and II provide background information, describing the Sell test and the current state of constitutional and statutory religious protections. Part III critically analyzes how courts, including the Fifth Circuit, have considered religious objections in Sell determinations so far. Because such analysis remains underdeveloped in the courts, Part IV suggests frameworks for coherently integrating Free Exercise doctrine into Sell inquiries based on the “hybrid theory” of constitutional rights.

Constitutional Law Criminal Law Criminal Procedure

Online

Essay

Tiktok Bans: A Takings Clause Blunder?

Bridget Gilchrist

Bridget Gilchrist is a J.D. Candidate at the University of Chicago Law School, Class of 2025.

She thanks Henry Gilchrist, Timothy Burke, Kimberly Burke, and Alexis Berg for their support, and the University of Chicago Law Review Online team for all their hard work.

This Case Note explores the possibility that, in a world where TikTok is banned or heavily regulated, individual TikTok users could sue states under a Takings Clause theory. Any such cases would have to wrestle with two core questions (1) whether the account holders hold an actionable property interest in their accounts; and (2) if so, whether permanently and totally depriving users of access to their accounts constitutes a taking.

Administrative Law Constitutional Law First Amendment Regulation

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Article

The Truth of Erasure: Universal Remedies for Universal Agency Actions

T. Elliot Gaiser

T. Elliot Gaiser is the Solicitor General of Ohio. He previously clerked for Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the Supreme Court of the United States; for Judge Neomi Rao on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; and for Judge Edith H. Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds a J.D. from The University of Chicago Law School and a B.A. in Political Economy and Rhetoric & Public Address from Hillsdale College.

Mathura Sridharan

Mathura J. Sridharan is the Director of Ohio’s Tenth Amendment Center and serves as a Deputy Solicitor General in the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. She previously clerked for Judge Steven J. Menashi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge Deborah A. Batts on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law, and an M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nicholas Cordova

Nicholas A. Cordova is an associate at Boyden Gray PLLC and former Simon Karas Fellow to the Ohio Solicitor General. He previously clerked for Judge Paul B. Matey on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Political Science from Waynesburg University.

Courts, litigants, and scholars should not be confused by the ongoing debate about nationwide or so-called “universal” injunctions: the proper scope of remedies under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and other statutes providing for judicial review of agency action is “erasure.” This Article aims to save scholars’ recent progress in showing the legality of stays and vacatur under the APA from muddled thinking that conflates these forms of relief with other universal remedies that face growing criticism.

Administrative Law Constitutional Law