The Volokh Conspiracy Archive

From U.S. v. Johnson, decided Thursday by Judge Paula Xinis (D. Md.):

On March 27, 2021, Johnson was involved in a car accident on the Suitland Parkway. Johnson was taken to the hospital where blood tests confirmed the presence of PCP and marijuana in his system. On December 21, 2021, Johnson pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol or controlled substances, in violation of 36 C.F.R. § 4.23(a)(1) (the "DUI offense"), and driving on a suspended license, in violation of 36 C.F.R. § 4.2….

Sentencing took place on March 23, 2022. ECF No. 15-3 at 1. Before the proceedings were underway, the United States Magistrate Judge … took a brief recess to review the PSR [Pre-Sentence Report], the emergency room report from the night of the accident, and a letter reflecting Johnson's participation in substance abuse treatment. The magistrate judge next heard from the government, who requested that he sentence Johnson to 60 days' incarceration on the DUI offense and 18 months' probation on the suspended license charge. As grounds, the government cited Johnson's prior suspended license offenses and the seriousness of the accident to which his intoxication contributed.

The magistrate judge then turned to Johnson's counsel who highlighted that Johnson was voluntarily participating in outpatient drug treatment, that he is the primary breadwinner for his family, and that his prior driving offenses were relatively minor. Counsel also urged the magistrate judge to adhere to the PSR's recommended sentence of probation for both the DUI and the suspended license offenses. Counsel also put direct questions to Johnson about his job, his current treatment program, and his family financial obligations to which Johnson responded but did not elaborate.

When counsel had concluded her remarks, the magistrate judge announced that he was sentencing Johnson to the statutory maximum of six months' imprisonment on each offense, to run concurrently. As grounds, the magistrate judge noted that the offense "ranks as one of the most troubling cases I have ever heard." The magistrate judge further advised Johnson of his right to appeal and that he must report to the United States Marshal to begin his sentence on April 20, 2022.

At this point, defense counsel stated that Johnson wanted to address the court, adding, "I don't think you really asked." The magistrate judge responded, "[g]o ahead," although the record is not clear on whether he was addressing counsel or Johnson. Johnson briefly stated that "this drug program really woke me up. I haven't been using PCP, no nothing. I mean, my mind is focused. You know what I am saying? And I just – if anything, can you just give me like house arrest or anything? I mean, I support my whole family…[n]obody here to help me." The magistrate judge interrupted Johnson to explain that he had already reached his decision, taking into consideration "not only your status financially, but your environment and where you live and who you live with."

Johnson timely noted his appeal in which he raises one argument: that the magistrate judge erred in denying him his right of allocution under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(i) prior to imposing sentence….

8/28/1958: Cooper v. Aaron is argued.

Qualified immunity is not reserved for police officers. Other government officials invoke QI as well. A reasonable number of QI cases actually arise in the educational context. A recent example is McElhaney v. Williams from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in which school officials allegedly retaliated against a parent who criticized his daughter's softball coach.

Judge Readler summarized the issues as follows:

Youth sports are as much about instilling life lessons as they are winning and losing. Child athletes can be forgiven for occasionally losing sight of this bigger picture. But we expect more from their parents.

As this case demonstrates, those expectations are not always met. Randall McElhaney is an enthusiastic supporter of his daughter, who, when this dispute arose, was an infielder on her high school softball team. His passion, however, sometimes gets the best of him. When his daughter was benched, McElhaney sent text messages to her coach criticizing his managerial decisions. In response, school officials banned McElhaney from attending games for the next week.

A dispute over the team's starting infield soon became much more. McElhaney filed this suit, alleging that school officials retaliated against him for criticizing his daughter's coach, speech that McElhaney believed was shielded by the First Amendment. Defendants moved for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. In their minds, McElhaney was not denied a constitutional right, let alone one that was clearly established. Reaching only the clearly established prong of qualified immunity, the district court granted defendants' motion and entered judgment in their favor.

As we see things, it is clearly established at a low level of generality that when a school employee interacts with a student, speech by the student's parent about those interactions enjoys First Amendment protection. On that basis, we must reverse the district court. We remand the case to resolve whether retaliation occurred in the first instance.

And from later in the opinion:

In this day and age, one need not look (or scroll) far to find speech she deems disrespectful. Many of us might share her sentiment. But that does not mean the disrespectful speech opens one up to government retaliation. The First Amendment muscularly protects most types of speech. For today's purposes, it is enough to say that those protections encompass a parent's criticism of the ways in which school employees treat the parent's child at school. See Jenkins, 513 F.3d at 588. In that situation, it is clearly established at a low level of generality that a school official may not retaliate against the parent for the content of his speech. See id.

Accordingly, McElhaney has satisfied the clearly established prong of the qualified immunity inquiry. That leaves the threshold question of whether a constitutional violation in fact occurred, a determination best made by the district court on remand. Cf. Novak, 932 F.3d at 430 (remanding a First Amendment retaliation qualified immunity claim). Back in the district court, the evidence might show that none (or only some) of defendants' actions were motivated by McElhaney's speech, rather than the time, place, or manner of that speech. Or it might show that the ban was not a sufficiently adverse action. Rudd v. City of Norton Shores, 977 F.3d 503, 51415 (6th Cir. 2020) (collecting cases on instances of "adverse action"). Either way, these questions are best answered by the district court in the first instance.

I'm delighted to report that Prof. Nicholas Nugent (Univ. of Tennessee) will be guest-blogging this week about his new Washington Law Review article, The Five Internet Rights. The Abstract:

Since the dawn of the commercial internet, content moderation has operated under an implicit social contract that website operators could accept or reject users and content as they saw fit, but users in turn could self-publish their views on their own websites if no one else would have them. However, as online service providers and activists have become ever more innovative and aggressive in their efforts to deplatform controversial speakers, content moderation has progressively moved down into the core infrastructure of the internet, targeting critical resources, such as networks, domain names, and IP addresses, on which all websites depend. These innovations point to a world in which it may soon be possible for private gatekeepers to exclude unpopular users, groups, or viewpoints from the internet altogether, a phenomenon I call viewpoint foreclosure.

For more than three decades, internet scholars have searched, in vain, for a unifying theory of interventionism—a set of principles to guide when the law should intervene in the private moderation of lawful online content and what that intervention should look like. These efforts have failed precisely because they have focused on the wrong gatekeepers, scrutinizing the actions of social media companies, search engines, and other third-party websites—entities that directly publish, block, or link to user-generated content—while ignoring the core resources and providers that make internet speech possible in the first place. This Article is the first to articulate a workable theory of interventionism by focusing on the far more fundamental question of whether users should have any right to express themselves on the now fully privatized internet. By articulating a new theory premised on viewpoint access—the right to express one's views on the internet itself (rather than on any individual website)—I argue that the law need take account of only five basic non-discrimination rights to protect online expression from private interference—namely, the rights of connectivity, addressability, nameability, routability, and accessibility. Looking to property theory, internet architecture, and economic concepts around market entry barriers, it becomes clear that as long as these five fundamental internet rights are respected, users are never truly prevented from competing in the online marketplace of ideas, no matter the actions of any would-be deplatformer.

I much look forward to Prof. Nugent's posts.

Does writing a better brief increase an advocate's odds of prevailing before the Supreme Court? A new empirical study suggests that the quality of the writing (as opposed to oral argument, the substance of the arguments, and the overall quality of representation) may not matter as much as some might have thought.

Adam Feldman of EmpiricalSCOTUS and Professor Pamela Corley, a political scientist at SMU, have a new paper in The Journal of Appellate Advocacy and Practice, "Does Quality Matter? The Influence of Party Briefs and Oral Arguments on the U.S. Supreme Court," looking at whether the quality of brief writing, as measured by BriefCatch, appears to affect the likelihood a party prevailed before the Supreme Court. The study builds on prior research showing some correlation between party success and how Justice Blackmun rated the quality of the oral argument. (Justice Blackmun kept copious notes about such things.)

Here, from the study, is a summary of their conclusions:

This article applies tools from a piece of software called BriefCatch to provide writing quality scores to the same set of cases analyzed in Johnson et al.'s 2006 article. In doing so we examine the comparative role of briefs and oral argument quality in Supreme Court decision making. While BriefCatch grades are not a perfect companion to Justice Blackmun's grades for oral arguments, especially because they are calculated exogenously from the justices, as opposed to Blackmun's grades, it provides us a measure for brief quality and in doing so allows us to extend the study of the mechanisms affecting Supreme Court decision making beyond what was previously possible. In addition to measuring the writing quality of briefs, we also include another measure of brief quality—the number of Supreme Court precedents cited—in order to capture the legal authority relied on in the brief.

We find that, after controlling for elite attorneys and the quality of oral argument, a higher BriefCatch grade is not associated with the final vote on the merits; however, there is an association between how well-grounded the brief is in precedent and the final vote on the merits. Furthermore, our study provides continued support for Johnson et al.'s finding that the probability of a justice voting for a litigant increases dramatically if that litigant's lawyer presents better oral arguments than does the competing counsel, a result that holds even after controlling for the quality of the brief. These results are important for three reasons. First, given that the workings of the Court are often shrouded in mystery and the Court was designed as the primary body of the federal government with responsibility to interpret the Constitution, it is important to understand the different components of its decision-making process. Second, the findings inform our understanding of judicial behavior by helping us better gauge the importance of briefs and oral arguments in the decision-making process. The fact that judicial decisions are associated with quality lawyering before the Court suggests the value of looking beyond ideology and strategy to explain Supreme Court decision-making. By showing an association between winning and quality lawyering, we offer practical guidance to practitioners. Our findings suggest important implications for the role of persuasion in politics more generally. For example, recent research suggests that political persuasion in social media is most likely to occur when people are presented with well-reasoned arguments. Thus, it is important to understand whether quality argumentation matters, both orally and in writing.

The study's method necessarily has some limitations, but it is quite interesting nonetheless.

The Wind

Andrey Makarevich is an influential and pioneering Russian singer and songwriter. He founded what is apparently the oldest continuing Russian rock band, Time Machine, in 1969, and has continued to record and perform to this day. He has emerged as a prominent critic of Russian's invasion of Ukraine, and moved from Russia to Israel in 2022.

This song was released in late 2019; though by then, Makarevich had already criticized Russia's aggression against the Ukraine since 2014, I doubt the song was seen at the time as focused on that. But I heard it in the recording of a 2023 concert, where Makarevich was mostly singing about the war, so I think he views it now as connected to current events. You can read the Russian lyrics here, but here's a translation (starting with ChatGPT-4 and then with some revisions on my part):

8/27/1948: Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes dies.

The 40th episode (Apple Podcasts link here and Spotify link here) of "Strangers on the Internet" features George Mason University adjunct law professor and DOJ attorney Brandy Wagstaff.

Following up on our last episode in which Prof. Christa Laser discussed her sexual misconduct allegations against ex-George Mason University law professor and former FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright, a second alleged victim of his speaks out in full for the first time. GMU adjunct professor Brandy Wagstaff opens up in this exclusive interview about her alleged sexual relationship with Josh during her time as his student and research assistant. She also narrates the allegations made against Josh to her by her students over the years and her efforts to motivate the law school to act.

Brandy and I discuss the culture of GMU Law and the reforms that she would like to see. Furthermore, Brandy responds to Josh's defamation lawsuit against two other alleged victims that became public shortly before recording, and she explains her own decision to come forward despite the possible risks.

Note: According to a statement printed in the media by Lindsay McKasson, counsel to Joshua Wright at Binall Law Group "all allegations of sexual misconduct are false," "These false allegations are being made public after unsuccessfully demanding millions of dollars behind closed doors," and "We look forward to total vindication in court." According to a tweet by Prof. Christa Laser, "I don't appreciate that his attorney falsely suggests we are all lying (1/2 was in writing!) & want $ (this is a lie–I only want him gone)."

From Livesay Law Office v. Ricartea, decided Thursday by the Texas Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi-Edinburg), in an opinion by Chief Justice Dori Contreras, joined by Justices Gina Benavides and Nora Longoria, reversing an order by Judge Fernando Mancias:

The underlying case is a divorce proceeding in which appellant … filed a motion for sanctions against … one of the attorneys representing respondent (appellee herein) …. At the final divorce hearing on January 20, 2023, appellee's co-counsel asked "that any motions for sanctions not only be withdrawn but stricken from the court's file completely and sealed." The trial court replied, "They will be." Appellant's co-counsel replied, "I think you were going to do that anyway, Judge." The trial court signed an order on March 23, 2023, granting the oral motion for sanctions, but the order itself was "sealed by the court." {The order states appellant's co-counsel agreed "to seal [the subject] motion for sanctions, all exhibits and all proposed and signed orders associated with [the] motion."} On May 22, 2023, appellant filed a notice of appeal challenging "the order sealing record[s] entered on March 23, 2023." …

On June 15, 2023, we … remanded the case with instructions for the trial court to "determine whether any party has filed a written motion requesting sealing of the subject records." Our order stated, among other things, that "if no party has filed a written motion to seal records, the trial court shall certify that fact in a written order" and shall "cause its written order to be included in a supplemental clerk's record, which shall be filed with the Clerk of this Court within thirty (30) days from the date of this order." On the other hand, if the trial court determined that a party had filed such a motion, we ordered the trial court to conduct proceedings in accordance with Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 76a.

On July 18, 2023, appellant filed a "Notice of Trial Court's Refusal to Comply With This Court's Order," observing that the deadline for the trial court to file its order had passed. On July 26, 2023, appellant filed a "Notice of Trial Court's Continuing Refusal to Comply With This Court's Order," observing that the trial court had still not filed its order pursuant to our directions…. We ordered appellee to file a response to the requests made in appellant's notice on or before 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 3, 2023. Appellee did not file a response.

8/26/1964: Lyndon B. Johnson nominated as Democratic candidate for president. He would make two appointments to the Supreme Court: Justices Abe Fortas and Thurgood Marshall.

President Johnson's appointees to the Supreme Court

From Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity, decided today by Judge Alan Johnson (D. Wyo.) (the defendant is, for historical reasons, labeled a "fraternity," but today it would be described as a sorority):

Embittered by their chapter's admission of Artemis Langford, a transgender woman, six KKG sisters at the University of Wyoming sue their national sorority and its president. Plaintiffs, framing the case as one of first impression, ask the Court to, inter alia, void their sorority sister's admission, find that KKG's President violated her fiduciary obligations by betraying KKG's bylaws, and prevent other transgender women from joining KKG nationwide. A "woman", say Plaintiffs, is not a transgender woman.

Unadorned, this case condenses to this: who decides whether Langford is a Kappa Kappa Gamma sister? Though given the opportunity to vote this past fall, not the six Plaintiffs. Not KKG's Fraternity Council. Not even this federal Court. The University of Wyoming chapter voted to admit—and, more broadly, a sorority of hundreds of thousands approved—Langford. With its inquiry beginning and ending there, the Court will not define "woman" today. The delegate of a private, voluntary organization interpreted "woman", otherwise undefined in the non-profit's bylaws, expansively; this Judge may not invade Kappa Kappa Gamma's freedom of expressive association and inject the circumscribed definition Plaintiffs urge. Holding that Plaintiffs fail to plausibly allege their derivative, breach of contract, tortious interference, and direct claims, the Court dismisses, without prejudice, Plaintiffs' causes of action….

[Plaintiffs'] derivative claim condenses to this: from 1870 to 2018, KKG defined "woman" to exclude transgender women; any new definition may not be enacted, ultra vires, without a KKG bylaw amendment. Expectedly, Defendants counter: private organizations may interpret their own governing documents and define "woman" as including transgender women.

Defendants are correct. Defining "woman" is Kappa Kappa Gamma's bedrock right as a private, voluntary organization—and one this Court may not invade….

First, Ohio law is highly deferential to associational interpretation. "As a general rule, Ohio courts are unwilling to interfere with the management and internal affairs of a voluntary association." More specifically:

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.

New on the Short Circuit podcast: In which the panel bypasses the merits in recent abortion and gender transitioning cases and instead goes big on Article III standing.

From Republican National Comm. v. Google, Inc., decided yesterday by Judge Daniel Calabretta (E.D. Cal.):

[RNC] brings this suit alleging that [Google] has been intentionally misdirecting the RNC's emails to Gmail users' spam folders at the end of each month "to secretly suppress[ ] the political speech and income of one major political party." According to the RNC, "[w]hether Google is characterized as a common carrier, public accommodation, or a business providing a service, California law prohibits Google's spam filtration of RNC emails based on political affiliation and views." Plaintiff seeks recovery for donations it allegedly lost as a result of its emails not being delivered to its supporters' inboxes.

Defendant has moved to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint on the basis that Plaintiff has failed to plausibly allege its claims, and that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, compels the case be dismissed regardless. While it is a close case, the Court concludes that under the pleading standards set forth in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), the RNC has not sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith in filtering the RNC's messages into Gmail users' spam folders, and that doing so was protected by section 230….

Beginning in December 2021, the RNC observed a drop off of its messages' inboxing rate at the end of the month, a pattern that repeated in every subsequent month in 2022. Compared to other large email providers, Google allegedly diverts a larger percentage of the RNC's emails to spam at the end of every month, and with more consistency.

This may be pretty obvious to many readers, but I thought it would be fun to have a discussion about it: Generative AI should sharply propel forward the development of lifelike Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality environments (and of sub-VR visual environments, such as those for many computer games).

That's particularly clear, I think, for art, but it should be especially true of Large Language Models, which will make it much easier for users to have conversations with non-player characters (or their non-game analogs). This should sharply increase the realism and immersiveness of the world. And for games, LLM hallucinations needn't be much of a problem: If part of the game is that you need to talk to NPCs to get hints, or to organize joint activities, LLMs' tendency to brazenly confabulate will just make things more life-like.

But that's just my speculation. What do you folks think about it? In particular, are there computer games, VR/AR or otherwise, that are already creating LLM-based NPCs, or otherwise using generative AI in an interesting way? Please post your thoughts in the comments.

From Mahmood v. McKnight (D. Md.), the quick factual summary (the opinion is long, so, as usual, I've had to excerpt heavily):

In this lawsuit, parents whose elementary-aged children attend Montgomery County Public Schools ("MCPS") seek the ability to opt their children out of reading and discussion of books with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer characters because the books' messages contradict their sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage, human sexuality, and gender. Last school year, MCPS incorporated into its English language arts curriculum a collection of storybooks featuring LGBTQ characters (the "storybooks" or "books") in an effort to reflect the diversity of the school community.

Initially, parents could opt their children out of reading and instruction involving the books, as they could with other parts of the curriculum. In March of this year, the defendants—the Montgomery County Board of Education, the MCPS superintendent, and the elected board members (collectively, the "School Board")—announced that parents no longer would receive advance notice of when the storybooks would be read or be able opt their children out. Following the announcement, three families of diverse faiths filed suit against the School Board ….

This didn't unconstitutionally burden the parents' or students' Free Exercise Clause rights, the court held:

In their declarations, the parents claim a sacred obligation to teach their children their faiths and their religious views on family structure, gender, and human sexuality. Mahmoud and Barakat state their faith prohibits prying into others' private lives and discourages public disclosure of sexual behavior. They state it would violate their religious beliefs and the beliefs of their children if their children "were asked to discuss romantic relationships or sexuality with schoolteachers or classmates." They also state "[i]ntentionally exposing" their children to contrary instruction would conflict with their religious obligations.

The Romans state their child loves his teachers and implicitly trusts them, so "[h]aving them teach principles about sexuality or gender identity that conflict with [their] religious beliefs significantly interferes with [their] ability to form his religious faith and religious outlook on life and is spiritually and emotionally harmful to his well-being." The Persaks state "exposing" their children to viewpoints that contradict their beliefs "conflicts" with their religious duties and "undermines [their] efforts to raise [their] children in accordance with [their] faith …." Finally, Morrison, a board member of Kids First, states her religious obligations are "pressured" by the books because "it is practically impossible for [her and her husband] to contradict" contrary instruction due to her child's learning disability, which prevents her from understanding their disagreement with the books and differentiating their instruction from her teachers' instruction. Morrison also states she has no realistic alternative to public school for her child's education.

The Court begins with the asserted burden on the children's religious exercise. The plaintiffs contend not allowing opt-outs from the storybooks exerts "behavioral pressure" on the children to "modify their religious beliefs and behavior." The pressure comes from the books' calls to action and introspection and the inevitable teacher-led discussion, which advance the School Board's express goal to normalize an inclusive environment. In essence, the plaintiffs argue that by being forced to read and discuss the storybooks, their children will be pressured to change their religious views on human sexuality, gender, and marriage….

From today's Fifth Circuit decision in Bailey v. Iles, written by Judge Dana Douglas and joined by Judges Patrick Higginbotham and James Graves:

Bailey lives in Rapides Parish in central Louisiana. On March 20, 2020—during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic—he posted this on Facebook:

Bailey intended the post as a joke and did not intend to scare anyone. The "hashtag" "#weneedyoubradpitt" referenced the zombie movie World War Z, starring Brad Pitt. Bailey included the hashtag to "bring light to the fact that it was a joke." He was bored during the COVID-19 lockdown and used Facebook to keep in touch with friends and "make light of the situation."

Bailey's post was in response to another friend—Matthew Mertens— posting a joke about COVID, and Mertens understood Bailey's post to be a joke. The two continued to post comments underneath Bailey's post. Merterns posted "lol and he [referring to Bailey] talking about my post gonna get flagged � he wins." Bailey posted "this is your fault" and "YOU MADE ME DO THIS." Another person, who Mertens later identified as Bailey's wife, also jokingly commented "I'm reporting you."

Shortly after Bailey posted, Detective Randell Iles was assigned by the Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office (RPSO) to investigate. Iles' supervisors were concerned that the post was a legitimate threat; Iles testified at his deposition that he thought that the post was "meant to get police officers hurt." Iles looked at the post and the comments and concluded that Bailey had committed "terrorizing" in violation of Louisiana Revised Statute § 14:40.1. Iles had no information regarding anyone contacting RPSO to complain about the post or to express fear, or if any disruption had occurred because of the post….

According to Bailey, he was working in his garage when as many as a dozen deputies with bullet proof vests and weapons drawn approached him and ordered him to put his hands on his head, after which Iles told him to get on his knees and handcuffed him. While Bailey was handcuffed, one of the deputies (not Iles) told him that the "next thing [you] put on Facebook should be not to fuck with the police" and the deputies laughed….

In Doe v. X Corp., decided Monday by Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim (N.D. Cal.), plaintiff—who operates the account @Midnight_Tokyo, which has >50K followers—had asked an American court for an order that would require Twitter

to identify a wrongdoer operating certain Twitter Accounts '@suan_news' and '@suan_team' … who engaged in privacy invasion under Japanese tort law. The privacy invasion occurred by disclosure of direct messages on Twitter and of the information which could be taken to be Applicant's real name and Applicant's specific attributes such as the Applicant's occupation….

In this case, the wrongdoer, by creating an open chat, encouraged and enticed Twitter users and readers of the articles to identify who is the operator of the Applicant's Account. As a result of the conduct, more than 1000 people joined the open chat eagerly seeking and providing information to identify Applicant as the operator of the Twitter Account.

The goal of the order is to use the defendants' identities in a Japanese court proceeding.

Plaintiff sought to proceed pseudonymously, and with certain identifying documents filed under seal, but the court said no. First, as to sealing:

8/25/1998: Justice Lewis Powell dies.

The Volokh Conspiracy

Court Reverses Sentence Because of Denial of Allocution

Today in Supreme Court History: August 28, 1958

Sixth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity to School Officials

Prof. Nicholas Nugent Guest-Blogging About "The Five Internet Rights"

Does the Quality of Brief Writing Affect the Outcome of Supreme Court Decisions?

The Wind

Today in Supreme Court History: August 27, 1948

"Strangers on the Internet" Podcast Ep. 40: Prof. Brandy Wagstaff on Josh Wright Sexual Misconduct Allegations

When State Court Rules Limiting Sealing Aren't Quite Followed ….

Today in Supreme Court History: August 26, 1964

Court Rejects Lawsuit by Sorority Members Against Sorority for Admitting Transgender Member

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions

Court Rejects RNC's Lawsuit Claiming Google Discriminatorily Treated RNC's Email as Spam

Generative AI and VR/AR/Gaming: Complementary Technologies

No Constitutional Right to Opt out of Sexual-Minority-Themed Curriculum Elements at Public Elementary School

Joke "We Need You Brad Pitt" Post at Start of COVID Pandemic Protected by First Amendment

No Pseudonymity or Sealing for Japanese User Seeking to Use American Courts to Subpoena Twitter Critics' Names

Today in Supreme Court History: August 25, 1998

Recent Volokh Posts

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