Expressive Association at Work
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
Courts are increasingly allowing employers to invoke the First Amendment’s expressive association doctrine — originally crafted for civic and membership organizations — to avoid antidiscrimination laws in the workplace. In this episode, we speak with our Toni Rembe Lecture speaker, Professor Elizabeth Sepper, who is known for her work on religious liberty, health law, equality and emerging questions about how public and private institutions are asserting religious or expressive identities. She recently visited UW Law...
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Race Matters
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
In this episode of the Discovery podcast, we speak with Professor David B. Owens, assistant professor of law and director of the Civil Rights and Justice Clinic at the University of Washington School of Law. A nationally recognized civil rights litigator and scholar, Owens discusses his recent essay in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change, “The Equal Protection–Fourth Amendment Shell Game: An Essay on the Limited Reach of the 2023 Affirmative Action Cases, the Fourth Amendment, and Race Beyond Skin Color.” He explores the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action...
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Protecting Democracy
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
In this episode of the Discovery podcast, we talk with Timothy Heaphy about the similarities between the 2017 Charlottesville riot and the January 6th insurrection. Heaphy led the House investigation into the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol and recently authored Harbingers: What January 6 and Charlottesville Reveal About Rising Threats to American Democracy. Heaphy reflects on his unique role in investigating both the 2017 Charlottesville rally and the 2021 Capitol insurrection, drawing strong parallels between the two events. We explore what these events reveal about...
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The Black Box Algorithm
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
During the first wave of the opioid pandemic, the U.S. federal government encouraged states to establish prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) which use predictive algorithms to determine risk scores for patients. These scores, which can point correctly or inaccurately to substance use disorder (SUD), drug diversion, doctor shopping or drug misuse, have a risk themselves, as overreliance on PDMP information for clinical decision making often influences clinicians in their treatment, or refusal to treat, vulnerable people. In this episode, we speak with health law and policy expert...
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They Had Standing
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
We interview new faculty member Jeremiah Chin, an expert on children’s rights and constitutional rights, about Held v. Montana, the first constitutional climate trial led by children in U.S. history. The Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of the 16 youth plaintiffs in December 2024 that Montana’s fossil fuel energy policies and actions violate the children’s state constitutional rights. An expert in children's rights and constitutional rights, Professor Chin joined the UW Law faculty in fall 2024. He is an assistant professor of law with a J.D. and Ph.D. in justice studies from...
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Why Would I Bother?
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
To open season seven of Discovery, we’re discussing voter suppression through a social science lens with UW Law faculty member Danieli Evans. The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election is just weeks away and concerns around preserving voters’ rights are ever-present as Americans begin casting their ballots. Poll taxes, strict voter ID laws and restrictions on mail voting are examples of policies limiting voting rights. But the carceral state — loosely defined as citizens' encounters with any type of criminal system — also inflicts harm on voters that can ultimately cause them to...
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The History of Impeachment
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
Some scholars call our politically fraught and hyper-partisan times “the age of impeachment.” They claim the increased use of impeachment and removal proceedings signals an erosion in institutional norms, perhaps that we’ve even “overwhelmed” the use of impeachment and diluted impeachment of any significance. What does U.S. impeachment history tell us? The Constitution provides that treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors are impeachable offenses. A common thread that runs throughout presidential impeachment proceedings is an effort by legal counsel to try and...
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An Unprecedented Rollback of Human Rights
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee to personal liberty does not include the right to abortion and returned the power to regulate abortion to individual states. Justice Samuel Alito said in the Court’s majority opinion that the decision in Dobbs v. The Jackson Women's Health Organization would end the abortion controversy once and for all. However, in overruling both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, an unprecedented new landscape interfering with human rights has emerged, factors which intersect with rights related to environmental...
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Big Data Searches and the Future of Criminal Procedure
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
Beginning with the tale of an unsolved mystery, and expanding to the U.S. Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, UW Professor of Law Mary D. Fan takes us through a look at how crimes are being solved through the use of digital searches. Keyword and geofence warrants are now tools helping law enforcement identify unknown perpetrators. However, courts are split over their constitutionality. Search and arrest warrants are in the text of the Fourth Amendment, but how do we apply constitutional rights with “technological probable cause” and the deployment of big data searches? Twice recognized as...
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The Youth Tax
DISCOVERY presented by UW Law
The Supreme Court has categorically ruled that the application of neuroscience research to the legal culpability of minors committing crimes, no matter how serious, must be considered in the criminal justice system. In addition to maintaining public safety, the primary goals of the juvenile justice system include rehabilitation and successfully reintegrating youth into the community after time is served. But what if just going to prison as a young person ends up working against you when you seek parole? Parole systems, the back end of criminal justice reform, often do not receive much...
info_outlineMany of the performers and composers in legacy Black music have never been compensated for their cultural production, despite longstanding acceptance of their formative influence on the music industry. Copyright law doctrine includes formalities that continue to divest what is due to Black artists, widening the racial justice gap in the entertainment industry.
A Yale Law School graduate and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Kevin J. Greene is changing the industry and the legal academy on the issue of racial justice in intellectual property. He is the John J. Schumacher Chair and Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. Prof. Greene has represented artists like George Clinton, Spike Lee, Harry Connick Jr., Bobby Brown and rap group Public Enemy. He has been featured in the Netflix show “Explained” and quoted by media outlets such as Bloomberg, Wired, The Daily Beast and Rolling Stone magazine.
In this episode, Prof. Greene tells us about “The New Copyright Manifesto,” a proposal to overturn outdated and unjust practices and appeal to the U.S. Copyright Office to advocate for reparations. He outlines how copyright registrations and copyright terminations divest Black cultural production and explains why this is not just an American copyright law problem, but a global one.