By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) The Trump Administration recently proposed the inclusion of a citizenship question in the decennial U.S. census, a move that sparked swift backlash and lawsuits in at least twelve states including California and New York. Though the administration’s decision has been swept up in a hurricane of zealous partisanship, the legal bedrock of arguments for and against the...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) On March 17, The New York Times published a story on the prohibited use of Facebook-gathered data harvested from fifty million people to inform the work of Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company working with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The story has erupted in recent days, bringing concerns of privacy to a high. However, major legal...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) On Monday, February 26th, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Zarda v. Altitude Express. The case resurrected an increasingly-pressing legal question: does Title VII of the Civil Rights Act—which explicitly encompasses protections against employer discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin—also implicitly protect...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) On February 14th, 2018, a 19-year-old entered Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where he had previously been a student before being expelled, to commit what is now the ninth most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history. Following the carnage, scores of students and teachers have spoken out and called on their representatives to take...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) Last December, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—the first major piece of legislation under the Republican-controlled 115th congress. The bill will have a major impact on the lives of all Americans in a variety of ways, but—in the most general of terms—it will work to substantially lower and somewhat simplify taxes for most citizens. Consequently, the...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) Last December, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a case that has regularly made headlines for its potentially widespread impact on the strength of LGBTQ civil rights law. While many view this case as a landmark for religious liberty, the defendant’s primary arguments revolve around the freedom a...
