CLR Online – Cornell Law Review

Volume 111

Birthright Citizenship and the Dunning School of Unoriginal Meanings

Evan D. Bernick, Paul Gowder & Anthony Michael Kreis

Associate Professor of Law, Northern Illinois University College of Law; Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law; and Assistant Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law. Authors’ names are listed in alphabetical order. The authors thank Maggie Blackhawk, Christine Kexel Chabot, Jack Chin, Stella Burch Elias, Paul Lombardo, Ryan Rowberry, and Melissa Stewart for helpful suggestions. The authors alone are responsible for the content of this Essay and any mistakes therein.

This Essay critically surveys the recent debate surrounding birthright citizenship in the United States, particularly in light of arguments presented by legal scholars Randy Barnett, Kurt Lash, and Ilan Wurman. Under the guise of “originalism,” Barnett, Lash, and Wurman propose an ahistorical, revisionist interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. They suggest that the term…

The Federal Rules of Climate Change

Roger Michalski

Roger Michalski holds the Arch B. & Jo Anne Gilbert Professorship of Law, University of Oklahoma College of Law. The author would like to thank Melissa Mortazavi for her helpful feedback on earlier drafts. A special thanks to Emily Taylor Poppe. This article grew out of a previous article co-authored with her and it would not exist without her.

A new Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, Rule 87, quietly took effect in December 2023. The wholesale adoption of a new rule is rare; most changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure involve tweaks or minor revisions to existing rules, and many existing rules are quite old. Yet, despite the novelty of a new…

Current Print Issue

Asian Americans and the Harm of Exceptionalized Inclusion

Kaiponanea T. Matsumura & Erin Suzuki

Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. Associate Professor of Literature and Asian American Studies, University of California, San Diego. The authors contributed equally to this Article and are listed alphabetically by last name. We thank Shirin Bakhshay, Robert Chang, Gabriel “Jack” Chin, Tristin Green, Vinay Harpalani, Ariel Jurow Kleiman, Solangel Maldonado, Julia Mendoza, Kimberly West-Faulcon, and Tiffany Yang for their thoughtful feedback. We also thank the editors of Cornell Law Review for their careful and constructive work on this Article.

The use of race in college admissions is contentious not only because elite colleges are a gateway to good careers, but because the colleges themselves symbolize belonging at the highest levels of American society. In this sense, the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (“SFFA”)…

Modern Cyber Warfare and International Law

Esther In

J.D., 2026. Cornell Law School. Thank you to Professor Sarah Kreps for inspiring this line of research, and to the Cornell Law Review Notes Offce for lending their talent to this Note.

In an increasingly technological, interconnected, and digital world, advancements in technology pose significant legal challenges. “Grey zone” conflicts—such as in cyber warfare, election interference, political subversion, and proxy wars—share a common characteristic: exploiting gaps in international law. These conflicts allow States to leverage legal ambiguities as tools in their strategic planning, enabling them to pursue…

Undue Computational Experimentation: Can In Silico Experiments Allows Genus Claims to Survive?

Gregory Jameson

J.D., Cornell Law School, 2025; Ph.D. (Biophysics), The Ohio State University, 2022. Thank you to Profs. Joanna T. Brougher and Oskar Liivak for inspiring this line of legal research and to Prof. Steffen Lindert for seeding the scientific knowledge in this idea.

U.S. courts have, time and again, struck down genus claims for undue experimentation. The most recent blow came last year in Amgen v. Sanofi, when the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s ruling that Amgen’s patent on antibodies with a specific target was invalid for lack of enablement. In that ruling, the Court invoked the…

When Hard Cases Make Bad Law: A Theory of How Case Facts Affect Judge-Made Law

Sepehr Shahshahani

Associate Professor, Fordham Law School. I thank the participants in the Harvard/Yale/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum and the Fordham Law Faculty Workshop for their discussion of this work. I am also grateful for the helpful comments of Aditi Bagchi, Scott Baker, Deborah Beim, Bob Bone, Pam Bookman, Rick Brooks, Bennett Capers, Michael Carrier, Courtney Cox, Nestor Davidson, Debby Denno, Josh Fischman, Janet Freilich, Barry Friedman, Ezra Friedman, John Goldberg, William Hubbard, Clare Huntington, Lewis Kornhauser, Jae Lee, Ethan Leib, Ann Lipton, Gaurav Mukherjee, John Pfaff, Susan Scafdi, Jed Shugerman, Henry Smith, Rebecca Tushnet, Maggie Wittlin, and Ben Zipursky. Finally, I thank Joe Palandrani, Miles Patton, and Hooman Yazdanian for excellent research assistance.

“Hard cases make bad law” is one of the most famous aphorisms in Anglo-American law. Its insight is that when strict application of a generally sound law would impose a special hardship on someone, a court may be tempted to distort the law to avoid the hardship. Scholars have long debated the meaning and truth…

(Non)Police Brutality

Shawn E. Fields

Professor of Law, California Western School of Law. Many thanks to the brilliant minds who have provided feedback on aspects of this project, including Bobbi Jo Boyd, Tony Ghiotto, Gustavo Ribeiro, Joanna Schwartz, Erin Sheley, Christopher Slobogin, and Daniel Yeager. I beneftted greatly from feedback at presentations at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools, University of Oregon School of Law, University of Kentucky Rosenberg School of Law, University of Tennessee Knoxville School of Law, and Chapman Fowler School of Law. I extend my deepest gratitude to Noël Harlow, whose support and encouragement made this Article possible. All errors are my own.

Municipalities increasingly rely on nonpolice public safety experts—from substance abuse counselors and mental health interventionists to homeless outreach teams and violence interrupters—to address safety issues once solely within the purview of armed police. These “alternate responders” aim to resolve public safety concerns with less unnecessary conflict, violence, and death. But what happens when these nonpolice…

Current Online Issue

Birthright Citizenship and the Dunning School of Unoriginal Meanings

Evan D. Bernick, Paul Gowder & Anthony Michael Kreis

The Federal Rules of Climate Change

Roger Michalski