2019

An oped by Margot Kaminski and Andrew D. Selbst: In the wake of recent revelations about biased algorithms, congressional Democrats have proposed a bill that would require large companies to determine whether the algorithms they’re using result in discrimination, and work to correct them if they do. The bill, called the Algorithmic Accountability Act and introduced last month by Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Cory Booker and Representative Yvette D. Clarke, is a good start, but it may not be robust enough to hold tech companies accountable.

New strict abortion laws in states like Alabama and Georgia are setting the stage for a legal fight that could make its way to the Supreme Court, sparking fears that the court’s conservative majority could reverse Roe v. Wade. Legal experts have previously cast doubt on the possibility of the Supreme Court revisiting the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade anytime soon. But Justice Stephen Breyer appeared to raise the possibility this week in an opinion opposing conservative justices’ reversal of an unrelated 1979 ruling . . .“I just have to say that strikes me as very far-fetched,” Robert Nagel, a law professor at the University of Colorado. He said the unrelated 1979 ruling about state sovereignty “does not implicate any of the larger sort of atmospheric or political and institutional considerations that the abortion controversy does,” and therefore doesn’t have the same kind of impact that the reversal of an abortion rights precedent would.

A long line of legal experts say the American Law Institute proposal would make an already huge problem dramatically worse. . . Blake Reid, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School agreed. In an email, he said the updated language would allow companies to force fine-print contracts upon consumers without even giving them a chance to accept or decline them. "This is an effort to further bind people to all the fine print that no one reads, which in turn means that any company you deal with can basically set the terms for your interaction and you may not be able to say anything about it," Reid said.

The Supreme Court said Tuesday it won’t hear a challenge to a Pennsylvania school system’s transgender bathroom policy, leaving in place rules that allow some transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms of their preference. . . Scott Skinner-Thompson, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said the court’s move on Tuesday is consistent with federalism by deferring to a local school district policy rather than creating a national law. “Both cases ultimately illustrate the court doesn’t want to get involved too quickly,” he said. “It wanted to give lower courts the first bite at the apple.”

Podcast: Consent is a concept at the center of criminal law and sexual assault. So, why is it so difficult to accurately define? Sexual assault laws have evolved from requiring the victim to resist toward requiring consent. However, "consent" is defined in many ways. In this episode, two experts on the topic, Criminal Law Professor Aya Gruber and AEquitas Co-Founder and CEO Jennifer Long, discuss and debate the potential for success and failure of implementing an "affirmative consent" requirement, how we now understand that there is no expected behavior during or after a sexual assault, and how important is to treat every case individually.