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Roundtable Discussion: The Affordable Care Act: Implementation, Challenges, and its Future

Healthcare has long been a contentious issue in American law. Questions concerning jurisdiction, who bears the burden of insurance, and issues within it ought to be handled (if at all) have plagued the American public consciousness for decades. Everything changed, however, with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA was a carefully negotiated, bipartisan solution to deficiencies in the then current system which revolutionized health care as we know it. Changes

Bakke, Bollinger, and Blum: Reflections on A Half-Century of Affirmative Action Policies in Higher E

I. Introduction When the Class of 2023 joins Columbia’s campus later this fall, many students will have Les Goodson and Gregory Peterson to thank. In the fall of 1969, nearly 50 years ago, they too joined Columbia’s community as undergraduates, making their trek down College Walk as some of the earliest black students admitted to Columbia after the civil rights push of the 1960’s and 70’s. In the admissions cycle that year, “the number of students recorded as black who appl

Data Protection and the Fourth Amendment: The Implications of Airbnb, Inc. v. City of New York

In August 2018, a New York City bill that required data-sharing between short-term apartment rental platforms and New York law enforcement was signed into law and scheduled to take effect in February. The new legislation mandated that home-sharing companies share troves of hosts’ personal information with the New York City Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) on a monthly basis. In response, Airbnb, the largest home-sharing platform in New York, filed for a preliminary injunct

Urban Dictionary: The New Expert Witness?

“Fuct”: not only is this the name of the company that Erik Brunetti was trying to trademark, but also what he was likely thinking when he instead wound up with a case, Iancu v. Brunetti, in front of the Supreme Court. The name was originally refused by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and subsequently by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, on the basis of Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, which cites that a trademark can be rejected if it “consists of or compri

The Ambiguous Jurisdiction of Bankruptcy Courts

As Michael Scott once learned, screaming “I declare bankruptcy!” into the void does not resolve a solvency problem. Yet a series of recent U.S. Supreme Court cases has revealed ambiguities in bankruptcy procedure within the American legal system. The core issue lies in the organizational difference between U.S. Bankruptcy Courts and other federal courts. Bankruptcy Courts are Article I tribunals—they are created by Congress for the exclusive purpose of administering the U.S.

Freedom to Innovate: The Paradox of Patentability in Pharmaceuticals Today

Quest Diagnostics. EverlyWell. Abbott Laboratories. As a few of the many diagnostic companies that are pioneers of medical innovation in the modern age, these pharmaceutical businesses are rolling out new, precise drug therapies at an unprecedented rate to combat specific medical issues by introducing diagnostic methods based on new technologies. The current age of biotechnology continues to challenge lawmakers as innovation unfolds faster than the current existing protective

Municipality or State? A Call to Localize Mandatory Vaccination Codification

Since October 2018, the state of New York has witnessed over 700 cases of measles.[1] Although the illness is a highly contagious respiratory infection, it is entirely preventable through vaccination. While such modern-day measures are in place, the state of New York has found itself in the grips of a burgeoning social phenomenon: the anti-vaccination movement. Fueled by orthodox religious groups and modern-medicine critics, the movement’s growth gave rise to a measles epidem

Discrimination Gone Too Far: The Implications of Defining Mutability in Court

While most Americans would agree that one should not be blatantly discriminated against on the basis of sex, race, or religion, as an egalitarian maxim it becomes much more difficult to maintain when seemingly alterable and/or non-biological traits come under scrutiny. Defining aspects of a person such as language use, cultural practices, or body type, for example, leave open the debate over what characteristics are, in fact, given legal protection against discrimination. As

Rap in the Courtroom: Evaluating the Implications of State of New Jersey v. Vonte L. Skinner

“I'm a run up, put that gun on 'em / I'm a run up, go dumb on 'em.” -- Bobby Shmurda Walking through the streets of Flatbush, one may expect to hear these lyrics, rapped by Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, blaring incessantly from speakers on stoops or car stereos. A criminal indictment is probably the last place one would think to find this music. Yet these lyrics were cited by the New York Police Department (NYPD) as “almost like a real-life document of what [Shmurda and his

Illicit Trade of Cultural Property: Who Owns African Art?

Ever since the end of World War II, and increasingly since the decline of colonialism, African countries like Mali, Nigeria, and Benin have begun requesting that Western states return artworks and other cultural properties that were illegally taken. Illicit trading of cultural property is not a problem limited to African nations; Turkey sued the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus sued a Dutch art dealer, and the United States enacted the Native Am

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