As the number of nontraditional judges on the bench has increased, political scientists have studied their voting behaviors and presence on circuit court panels to determine if their presence made a difference in case outcomes. The results of these studies suggested there was no difference in case outcomes or inconsistent differences found across studies. While race and sex of the judge did not have an impact on voting behavior, the political party of the appointing president sometimes did. One area of the law stood out as the exception in these studies: employment discrimination cases.

This article engages several threads of research involving diversity in the federal courts, voting behaviors of judges, and employment discrimination law. First, it discusses the importance of diversity and recent demographic changes that are increasing diversity on the federal bench. Second, it recounts studies related to decision-making by nontraditional judges in employment discrimination cases and the impact of these judges on their white male counterparts on United States courts of appeals. Third, it describes the legal standards in these cases that make it possible for judges to have some latitude in decision-making; studies suggest that this has resulted in an anti-plaintiff bias among a significant number of federal judges with respect to employment discrimination cases. Finally, it links these lines of research to the current increased diversification of the federal bench, suggesting what it might mean for the outcomes of employment discrimination cases
going forward.

Theresa M. Beiner *

* Former Dean & Professor in Constitutional Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law. Thank you to my co-panelists, Laura Moyer and Lisa Holmes, and discussant and panel chair Christine Harrington, at the 2022 annual conference of the Law & Society Association for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Finally, I am grateful for the thoughtful comments of Sally Kenney and my colleague Terrence Cain.

Freedom of disposition is unquestionably accepted as the organizing principle of inheritance law in the United States. But what if we’ve been wrong about that this whole time? Or perhaps we haven’t been wrong exactly, but instead have been badly overstating things? Regardless of the answers, these are questions worth exploring. It’s time for a reckoning.

Kevin Bennardo *

* Clinical Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law and NonResident Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau. Thank you to Jillian Chen Johnson (UNC Law Class of 2025) for her assistance with researching sources for Part I.

Corporate diversity has been in the spotlight for decades. Recent efforts have followed years of legal scholarship, arguments on the business rationale for greater diversity, and, more recently, the racial unrest during the summer of 2020. Called by some, a “racial reckoning,” the summer of 2020 catalyzed many corporate declarations on the importance of diversity, and more to the point of this article, the necessity of righting the economic disadvantages of Black Americans. 

This article looks specifically at one intervention by a corporate player following summer 2020, Nasdaq’s volley to
increase corporate diversity through required disclosure. This article reviews the state of Black representation on corporate boards: its history, proffered challenges and barriers, and calls to increase Black representation. Following a description of Nasdaq’s efforts, this article argues that disclosure of board demographics will be a powerful tool for increasing the ranks of Black corporate directors because of an important constituency, Millennials. 

 The diversity, capital, social views, and ideas on corporate purpose shared by Millennials and their younger peers mean diversity disclosures can have material impact. This is important because diversifying the nation’s corporations can play a role in alleviating the centuries of economic exclusion meted out against Black Americans. This article is the first to connect the effectiveness of diversity disclosures on Black corporate representation with Millennials’ expanding investment activity. This confluence of factors makes Nasdaq’s disclosure rule an important model for others invested in diversity in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Chaz D. Brooks *

* Assistant Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law, LL.M, Georgetown University Law Center; J.D., Georgetown University Law Center; M.S. in Finance, University of Tampa, B.S., University of Tennessee. I thank Afra Afsharipour, Carliss Chapman, Mitch Crusto, Lisa Fairfax, Donald P. Harris, Julian Hill, Donald Langevoort, Alicia Plerhoples, Rima Sirota, Martin W. Sybblis, Robin West, and participants of the Georgetown Law Fellows’ Collaborative Workshop, John Mercer Langston Workshop, and the National Business Law Scholars Conference for their support and valuable comments on earlier drafts. Thanks also to Vincent Alfieri, DyTiesha Dunson, and Ayobami Omolana for excellent research support.

Access to abortion and increased poverty for women and children are inversely correlated: as access to abortion decreases, feminineand child poverty increase. Women who try to access abortions are more likely to already be mothers, and more likely to be living below the poverty line. In post-Dobbs America, abortion is illegal or severely restricted in approximately half of the states. In states where abortion access is most restricted, women and children experience poverty at the highest rates in the nation.

This article is the first to document the law and policy strategies that collectively increase abortion access and reduce feminine and child poverty. Innovative approaches like the 2023 Texas lawsuit by women who almost died because they were denied abortions are yielding results that directly support women’s economic autonomy. State legislatures and governors are legally enshrining women’s rights to access abortion and doctors’ and nurses’ rights to provide abortions. And voters are going to the polls in droves to protect abortion access, with victories in every state where it was on the ballot in the two years since Dobbs. This article chronicles those abortion access strategies and more, including the increasing importance of
medication abortion, which remains vulnerable to legal challenges despite the Supreme Court’s 2024 dismissal of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s lawsuit for lack of standing. 

Jill C. Engle *

* Jill C. Engle is the Interim Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and a Professor of Clinical Law at Penn State Dickinson Law (University Park). For her contributions to the work on the article, special thanks to my outstanding research assistant Eboni Barbour. For their feedback on the article, many thanks to Professor Emerita Kit Kinports; to those who attended my presentation of it as a work-in-progress at Seton Hall Law School in March, 2024; and to the participants at the Law and Society Association’s Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network’s session during the annual meeting in May, 2023, where I presented it as an early-stage project.

Beyond the parties to a case in which an injunction is ordered, few outsiders may be aware they exist. And even when an order for injunctive relief makes the news, its exact terms may not be widely known. But like legislative enactments and publicly reported appellate decisions, injunctions can carry significant legal implications.

Indeed, depending on the nature of the relief declared, such equitable orders can last in perpetuity. And as a practical matter, third parties outside of the litigation may be directly or indirectly impacted by their terms, which prohibit or mandate certain actions. It is this last feature that has drawn tremendous recent concern, including calls to end what are referred to as nationwide or universal injunctions.

But instead of making injunctive practices even more obscure, this article advocates further noticing injunctions. That is, given the possible power and importance of these judgments, permanent injunction determinations should include opportunity for comment by interested stakeholders and other members of the public before final. Once issued, permanent injunction orders should be officially and publicly posted. In this way their edicts would be clear, widely available, and easily accessible by all for years to come. As such, a national injunction-only database or other electronic repository would be one way to provide notice relating to requested input and issuance, to ensure that these extraordinary orders are known, respected, and shared broadly over time.

Mae C. Quinn *

* Professor of Law, Penn State University. Many thanks to Jennifer Hendricks and Margo Schlanger for their careful reads and insightful comments, Ben Barros and Tracy Thomas for helpful conversations, Carmen Johnson and Jhody Polk for their ongoing leadership and openness to collaboration, and Portia Pedro for speaking truth to procedure in her inspiring scholarship. All errors are mine alone.