The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, JLPP’s online blog featuring student commentary on current cases and legal developments!
If you are interested in becoming a Staff Writer or Contributing Writer for the Roundtable, e-mail Notes Editors Kyle Reynolds (mreynolds@jd18.law.harvard.edu) or Chadwick Harper (charper@jd19.law.harvard.edu).
The President’s Authority to Impose Tariffs – Chad Squitieri
PDF The President’s Authority to Impose Tariffs Chad Squitieri* Introduction The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”)[1] empowers the President to “regulate . . . importation.” One might think that this broad grant of statutory authority includes the power to regulate importation through a traditional and familiar means: tariffs. But in Learning Resources v. Trump,[2] the District Court ruled otherwise. The District Court concluded that, to empower the President to impose tariffs, Congress must do more than empower the...
read moreSupporting Free Speech and Countering Antisemitism on American College Campuses – David E. Bernstein & David L. Bernstein
PDF Supporting Free Speech and Countering Antisemitism on American College Campuses David E. Bernstein & David L. Bernstein* Introduction Many Jewish Americans were shocked and traumatized by the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023. Hamas’s attack resulted in the largest loss of Jewish life on a single day since the Holocaust, and many Jews in the United States have familial or personal ties to the victims and their families. Jews naturally expected both outrage at Hamas and sympathy for Jewish losses from friendly voices, and at best...
read moreThe Facade of Medical Consensus – Chloe Jones
PDF The Façade of Medical Consensus: How Medical Associations Prioritize Politics Over Science Chloe K. Jones* Introduction Private medical associations are front and center as the nation’s highest court considers the constitutionality of restrictions on “gender-affirming care” for transgender-identifying children. The question before the Supreme Court in United States v. Skrmetti is whether Tennessee’s prohibition of certain medical interventions for minors violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Despite the legal nature...
read moreA Mandate to Discriminate?: Why the Establishment Clause Does Not Justify the Exclusion of Religious Charter Schools – Erin Hawley
PDF A Mandate to Discriminate?: Why the Establishment Clause Does Not Justify the Exclusion of Religious Charter Schools. Erin Hawley* Introduction In a pair of consolidated cases, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Establishment Clause authorizes Oklahoma to discriminate against religious groups who seek to participate in the state’s charter-school program alongside secular groups. Oklahoma invites any individual or...
read moreHuman Flourishing and the Law – Justice Jimmy Blacklock
Download PDF Human Flourishing and the Law Justice Jimmy Blacklock* Welcome to Texas everybody, and welcome to Austin. It’s a beautiful time of year here, isn’t it? It’s a beautiful day today—flowers blooming, sun shining but not too hot. I hope you’ll all be able to enjoy it this afternoon after the conference. There’s nothing quite like taking a quiet walk on a beautiful day to remind yourself that maybe this whole human flourishing thing is not as complicated as we might think. I can’t begin to talk about human flourishing and the law...
read moreOriginalism as an Empty Signifier — Or Bassok
PDF Originalism as an Empty Signifier Or Bassok* Introduction In her articles Memory Games: Dobbs’s Originalism as Anti-Democratic Living Constitutionalism—and Some Pathways for Resistance[1] and The “Levels of Generality” Game, or “History and Tradition” as the Right’s Living Constitution,[2] Reva Siegel concludes that originalism has been used as doublespeak.[3] Originalism purports to be a genuine interpretative method that offers to decipher the meaning of the constitutional text based on the meaning ascribed to the constitutional text...
read moreParental Preclusion Policies: Do Parents Have Standing to Challenge Them Before Enforcement? – S. Ernie Walton
Download PDF Parental Preclusion Policies: Do Parents Have Standing to Challenge Them Before Enforcement? S. Ernie Walton* Introduction The parent-child relationship is a bedrock of American civilization. Blackstone called it the “most universal relation in nature,”[1] and the Supreme Court has declared that the “primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is [] established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.”[2] This “primary role” includes the right to “direct” their children’s “religious upbringing,”[3]...
read moreSuicide, Suicidality, and Pediatric Medical Transition in United States v. Skrmetti and Beyond – David Smolin
Download PDF Suicide, Suicidality, and Pediatric Medical Transition in United States v. Skrmetti and Beyond David Smolin Introduction Children and adolescents experiencing gender discordance are a vulnerable population. A part of that vulnerability is expressed in high rates of accompanying mental health diagnoses and symptoms. Among the most frightening mental health issues faced by this population, and by their parents and families, is suicide, and more broadly suicidality, which can be defined as “the risk of suicide, usually...
read moreContra Koppelman: What Mere Natural Law was About – Hadley Arkes
Download PDF Contra Koppelman: What Mere Natural Law was About Hadley Arkes Andrew Koppelman and I have just missed connecting at different meetings over the last several months; I know he was eager to give me his reactions to Mere Natural Law, and now, I’m pleased enough to see, he has had his chance to unloose them. I appreciate, as ever, his willingness to engage an argument, and I feel especially complimented here by his willingness to draw passages from other books of mine, from years past. But I’m afraid that while he takes fragments...
read moreCritiquing Hadley Arkes’s not-so-mere Natural Law Theory – Andrew Koppelman
Download PDF Critiquing Hadley Arkes’s not-so-mere Natural Law Theory Andrew Koppelman* Law can’t be separated from morality, because law is a kind of human conduct. So is compliance with the law. Morality constrains all of human conduct. So the idea of natural law, a set of moral constraints binding on any possible legal system, has perennial appeal. Hadley Arkes is a leading contemporary proponent of a revived natural law. His prominence is deserved. His work is smart and learned and entertaining. He writes with admirable moral...
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