Faculty Commentary

Editor’s note: With the November 3 US congressional midterm elections a month away, JURIST is publishing this open letter from Gary J. Simson, a constitutional law scholar and two-time law school dean who has taught for more than 50 years. Writing directly to college, university, and law students, Simson argues that the federal executive branch [...]

In this four-part series, data analyst David Stasior argues that AI has made it possible to turn court and disciplinary records into data at scale, allowing the rule of law to be measured rather than just assumed. Part 1 made the case. Here, in Part 2, he puts it to work on 24 years of [...]

“Where are you, Sepehr?” The question is not philosophical when it is first spoken. It is a question asked by a body that has been deprived of the body it seeks. Somewhere inside an unidentified warehouse, thousands of corpses lie beneath identical coverings, arranged without the distinctions through which the living ordinarily recognize one another. [...]

The State of Michigan has an opportunity to go above and beyond the minimum for all its voters. Given the stakes of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections and the challenges it will likely present, Michigan must expand early in-person voting beyond the mandatory nine days, up to the full 29 days authorized by law. Nationwide, [...]

“A government of laws, and not of men.” John Adams (1775) What if US President Donald J. Trump gives the order to launch nuclear weapons? If the order appeared incoherent or irrational to designated commanders, would these military officers still follow it without question, on decisional “autopilot”? Or would they correctly acknowledge that chain-of-command obligations [...]

“I’m scared of those women in chadors.” “There’s nothing to be scared of. Not all of them are supporters of the government. Look at my aunts. They dress like that.” “Yeah, but you can’t trust them. Look at the way they’re looking at me. I feel like they’re going to come and choke me. I’m [...]

Imagine the vast Pacific, with its rhythm of trade winds and currents, warming as though a fever were spreading across its surface. Fishermen along the coasts of Peru and Ecuador notice their nets returning empty, rains arrive where deserts once stood, and drought grips lands that once thrived. This recurring phenomenon is known as El [...]

There are evenings when I walk through my apartment as if the apartment were a badly designed republic whose entire constitutional order depends upon the imagination of one person, and I take upon myself, with a seriousness that is immediately undermined by the absurdity of the situation, the role of the president of the United [...]

On January 14, 2026, the US Department of State announced that it would suspend immigrant visa issuance to nationals of 75 countries beginning one week later. The stated concern was public charge: the State Department described the affected nationalities as at high risk of relying on public benefits. The instructions sent to US embassies and [...]

For most people, data privacy is an abstract concern—something that matters in theory but feels distant from everyday life. That perception is changing quickly, and the legal landscape of 2026 is the clearest evidence of it. Across the world, regulators are no longer just writing rules about personal data. They are enforcing them at scale, [...]