Category: Supreme Court
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Are We All Americans?: Elk v. Wilkins and Native American Citizenship Before, During, and After Reconstruction
By Carolina Pardo — When Robert E. Lee went to negotiate his terms of surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, he stopped at the sight of a brown man amongst the Union generals. Everyone held their breath…
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The Independence of State Constitutional Interpretation and The New Jersey Courts’ Reliance on Federal Doctrines of Liberty
By David Chau — Under the American Federalism system, 51 constitutions coexist. They often overlap and come into conflict with each other over a plethora of issues from governance to individual liberties. As state constitutional law continues to rise in…
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The Puzzle of Federal Indian Law: The Doctrine of Preemption in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta
By Carolina Pardo — In his concurring opinion in United States v. Lara (2004), Justice Thomas writes, “Federal Indian policy is, to say the least, schizophrenic.” Justice Thomas aptly characterized Federal Indian law as contradictory and inconsistent. Since Christopher Columbus…
