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From Slavery to Dependency: How Courts Misinterpret the Fair Labor Standards Act to Justify Prison Labor

By: Nicole Plante

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was designed to ensure fair wages and put an end to exploitative labor conditions. Despite recent reconsideration of the FLSA as it applies to incarcerated workers, courts continue to reject the idea that they fall within the Act’s purposes. This Note seeks to understand why courts maintain this exclusion—particularly when they have begun to reconsider other aspects of FLSA coverage for incarcerated labor.

To answer this question, this Note presents the dependency framework—a legal rationale that assumes incarcerated workers are fully dependent on prisons and, therefore, have no needs beyond those provided for by prisons. Ultimately, this Note argues that this framework has its roots in slavery, and that is why courts continue to misinterpret the purposes of the FLSA to exclude incarcerated workers.

To make this argument, the Note begins by showing how, even in the generous holding of Scott v. Baltimore County, the Fourth Circuit perpetuated the dependency framework and denied that incarcerated workers fall within the FLSA’s purpose due to impacts on their well-being. It then takes a step back and examines the origins of the dependency framework, tracing its foundations to 1990s case law. From there, the Note shows how the framework and courts are out of touch with reality, highlighting how incarcerated workers have unmet needs and fall within the original purposes of the FLSA. Finally, the Note situates the dependency framework within the broader historical context of slavery and post-Reconstruction convict leasing, revealing how modern prison labor practices remain tethered to America’s legacy of racial and economic exploitation.

Vol. 61 | No. 1 | June 2026

Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic: Spending Clause Legislation and the End of Thiboutot

By: Ariel Vasser

Since 1980, the Supreme Court has held that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is available to redress violations of all federal laws. However, in June 2025, the Court decided Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, severely curtailing litigants’ ability to use Section 1983 as a vehicle for vindicating violations of federal “spending-power” statutes. This decision departed from the Court’s most recent precedent in Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion County v. Talevski, which was decided only two years prior. This Comment analyzes Medina and argues that it is both an incorrect and misleading application of precedent and that its core distinction between Spending and non-Spending Clause statutes is analytically unsound. In doing so, it argues for the first time that Medina has impliedly overruled Maine v. Thiboutot’s application to spending-power statutes.

By analyzing the Court’s Section 1983 “and laws” jurisprudence, beginning in the 1980s and ending in 2025 with Medina, this Comment explains how and why Medina is different and has shifted the landscape. The new aspects of its test—which use the language at issue in Talevski as a talisman and rely on doctrinally unclear distinctions between Spending and non-Spending Clause statutes—are unprecedented and will drastically impact litigants across the country. Medina’s scope can be best understood by its effect on previously enforceable provisions of “spending-power” statutes, particularly under the Medicaid Act. Using two illustrative provisions as examples, this Comment analyzes how Medina has effectively rendered these provisions dead letters and restricted individuals’ abilities to sue to enforce their rights.

Vol. 61 | No. 2 | June 2026