Crisis can be clarifying. Recent events on campuses across the country have forced many of us to look more closely at how our own universities work. I have no special insight into most aspects of the Columbia protests or the administration’s response. But as someone who studies public law and nonprofit law, I have been struck by a number of legal-institutional...

For the Balkinization symposium on David Pozen, The Constitution of the War on Drugs (Oxford University Press, 2024). Shaun Ossei-Owusu Ten years ago, Frank Zimring chastised legal academia for being insufficiently relevant in their teaching and scholarship. “Over a thousand of the best and the brightest criminal minds in America have been missing...

For the Balkinization symposium on David Pozen, The Constitution of the War on Drugs (Oxford University Press, 2024).Jennifer D. Oliva The United States has long waged a “costly, punitive, racist, and ineffective” drug war “that has been a failure on all counts.” Over the last half-century, Americans have sacrificed trillions of dollars to prop...

For the Balkinization symposium on David Pozen, The Constitution of the War on Drugs (Oxford University Press, 2024).Kimani Paul-Emile  Much has been written about U.S drug prohibition over the years, so it is surprising that no one until now has used the constitution as lens for examining it.  In his excellent new book, The Constitution of the...

For the Balkinization symposium on David Pozen, The Constitution of the War on Drugs (Oxford University Press, 2024).Louis Michael Seidman                 David Pozen’s carefully researched and brilliantly argued book on the Constitution and the War on Drugs is both illuminating and disturbing.  No surprise there.  Pozen is our country’s most inventive...

This morning Americans woke up to headlines about “violent clashes on campus” at UCLA, a framing that was echoed in the early hours by our university administration, the mayor, and local and national media. Much passive voice was used. Violence “took place.” “Physical violence ensued.” This framing represented a complete success for the side that...