Must inter­preters be avail­able for cross exam­i­na­tion under the Con­fronta­tion Clause? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Caleb Younger (’19) dis­cuss­es the con­duit the­o­ry in light of the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Craw­ford v. Wash­ing­ton and sub­se­quent low­er court find­ings. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that the Craw­ford Court prop­er­ly inter­pret­ed the Sixth Amend­ment and that the lan­guage con­duit the­o­ry fails under both Supreme Court jurispru­dence and the Con­sti­tu­tion­al text.

Do alle­ga­tions of ter­ror­ist con­duct along with the accused’s unre­lat­ed crim­i­nal records, estab­lish prob­a­ble cause under the Fourth Amend­ment? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Daniel Kugler (’19) dis­cuss­es how cir­cuits have approached this and sim­i­lar ques­tions using the Supreme Court’s total­i­ty of the cir­cum­stances frame­work. This Con­tri­bu­tion argues that an ex-spouse’s alle­ga­tions of terrorism—such as stock­pil­ing weapons and post­ing ter­ror­ist pro­pa­gan­da on social media—are insuf­fi­cient to estab­lish prob­a­ble cause to search for con­tra­band when accom­pa­nied only by the accused’s unre­lat­ed crim­i­nal records.

When does a pub­lic official’s pri­vate social media account become a tool of gov­er­nance sub­ject to con­sti­tu­tion­al analy­sis? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Leah Rosen­berg (’19) argues that pub­lic offi­cials who use their per­son­al social media pages to inter­act with the pub­lic and announce pol­i­cy should be required to pro­tect con­stituents’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and may not engage in view­point dis­crim­i­na­tion. This Con­tri­bu­tion rec­om­mends that courts apply a con­text-spe­cif­ic approach to cen­sor­ship claims against state offi­cials and that court con­sid­er the spe­cif­ic activ­i­ties chal­lenged by assess­ing whether state resources and employ­ees were used to take those actions, if the con­tent per­tained to gov­ern­ment activ­i­ties or pol­i­cy, and whether the offi­cial was act­ing as an agent of the state at the time the cen­sor­ship occurred.

Does a state offi­cial engage in view­point dis­crim­i­na­tion in a state-spon­sored forum when they delete a constituent’s com­ments or block them from their social media pages? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Mag­gie Seery (’19) dis­cuss­es the pos­si­ble con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions an offi­cial may make when using social media to inter­act with the pub­lic. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that delet­ing a com­ment or block­ing a user from a pub­lic social media page con­sti­tutes uncon­sti­tu­tion­al view­point dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Does a plain­tiff alleg­ing sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion dis­crim­i­na­tion state a valid cause of action under Title VII of the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Eri­ka Mur­dock (’19) dis­cuss­es whether sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion dis­crim­i­na­tion is encom­passed with­in the lan­guage of Title VII after recent EEOC and appel­late court cas­es. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that Title VII’s pro­hi­bi­tion of dis­crim­i­na­tion on the basis of “sex” inher­ent­ly encom­pass­es sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion as a sub­set of the sex dis­crim­i­na­tion it bans.

In the con­text of fair use, should courts fac­tor moral harms into their analy­ses? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Yonatan She­fa (’19) chal­lenges the applic­a­bil­i­ty – in the con­text of fair use – of a recent line of research by legal aca­d­e­mics who argue that copy­right law should grant artists a degree of pro­tec­tion against moral harms since those pro­tec­tions bet­ter incen­tivize cre­ation. This Con­tri­bu­tion ulti­mate­ly argues that courts must not con­sid­er moral harms in the fair use scheme absent such a direc­tive by Con­gress, and that Con­gress would be ill-advised to effect such a change to the law.

Should the Copy­right Office be able to vet copy­right appli­ca­tions before any action for copy­right infringe­ment is insti­tut­ed? This term, in the upcom­ing case Fourth Estate, the Supreme Court will con­sid­er whether “reg­is­tra­tion” with­in the mean­ing of the Unit­ed States Copy­right Act mere­ly mean that the com­po­nents of the appli­ca­tion need to be sub­mit­ted to the Copy­right Office (the “appli­ca­tion” approach) or that the Copy­right Office has affir­ma­tive­ly approved or refused the appli­ca­tion (the “reg­is­tra­tion” approach). In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Jonathan Wieder (’19) dis­cuss­es the tex­tu­al and leg­isla­tive ori­gins and con­se­quences of each approach and the dif­fer­ing cir­cuit inter­pre­ta­tions that led to the grant of cer­tio­rari in Fourth Estate. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion argues that the reg­is­tra­tion approach bet­ter effec­tu­ates con­gres­sion­al pol­i­cy of vest­ing the Copy­right Office with dis­cre­tion over copy­righta­bil­i­ty and bal­anc­ing pro­tec­tions for all par­ties to a copy­right dis­pute.

The bal­anc­ing act that is the Unit­ed States Bank­rupt­cy Code some­times leads to a ten­sion between sec­tions of the Code that grant rights to debtors and those that pro­vide pro­tec­tions for par­ties with an inter­est in the debtor’s prop­er­ty. In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Gavin Mack­ie (’19) explores the con­flict between Sec­tions 363(f) and 363(h) and how courts have approached sit­u­a­tions where this con­flict aris­es. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion will argue that the pos­ses­so­ry rights guar­an­teed by sec­tion 365(h) should be pro­tect­ed in any sale, and that a sale under 363(f) can­not elim­i­nate the lessee’s inter­est.

Can a bank­rupt­cy court may approve a pri­or­i­ty-skip­ping “gift” set­tle­ment in a Chap­ter 11 pro­ceed­ing pri­or to the approval of a final plan over the objec­tion of a dis­ad­van­taged class of cred­i­tors? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Nathan Gen­car­el­la (’19) argues that the prin­ci­ples of the recent Supreme Court deci­sion Czyzews­ki v. Jevic Hold­ing Corp. neces­si­tate the appli­ca­tion of the absolute pri­or­i­ty rule to pre-plan set­tle­ments in order to pre­serve the integri­ty of the Bank­rupt­cy Code’s care­ful­ly cal­i­brat­ed pri­or­i­ty scheme. Ulti­mate­ly, this Con­tri­bu­tion estab­lish­es that this exten­sion of Jevic is re-affirmed by both the dic­tates of pub­lic pol­i­cy and the under­ly­ing text of the statute itself.