Artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled tools have produced a myriad of injuries, up to and including death. This burgeoning technology has caused scholars to ask questions, such as, How do we create a legal framework for AI? Because AI creators have acknowledged that even they do not know the capacities of their technology for good or bad outcomes, this Article argues that an existing framework, strict liability, is an appropriate fit for harms arising from this new technology because a party need not prove negligence to prevail. Strict liability was uniquely developed to handle those activities that are “abnormally dangerous.”

By Renee Henson

The U.S. Supreme Court’s new conservative supermajority is gaslighting the American public. This Article takes a systematic look at key cases from the Court’s October 2021 Term through the lens of gaslighting. It describes these cases as being part of what it dubs the Court’s “gaslight docket,” a descriptor that provides a useful and potentially unifying theoretical framework for analyzing and understanding the Court’s recent onslaught of rights-diminishing precedents.

By Kyle C. Velte

“Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?” It appears conservative legislators fear it will be them. In May 2021, the first of a wave of politicians passed laws restricting discussions of race and racism in classrooms across the country. Public schools, from kindergarten to universities, became the center of this culture war, and restrictions on “wokeness” spread like wildfire through 138 school districts by September of 2022, requiring schools to remove books and curb diversity of thought in classrooms. Ultimately, this Comment argues that protections for teacher speech aimed at fostering the success of all students must outweigh states’ attempts to impose their own “orthodoxy of viewpoints” to the detriment of the nation’s youth.

By Chelsea Sissom

“Just kidding!” Do these words offer comfort following a threat? “It was only a joke.” Do these words elicit forgiveness? “It’s funny because it’s true.” Would it be funny if it were not true? “Can’t you take a joke?” Should anyone have to laugh at being threatened? This Note argues that American jurisprudence should reflect the conventional wisdom that the answer to these questions is “no.”

By Josh Rosenberg Daneri

Many public accommodation acts (PAAs) allow for the weaponization of civil rights law by socially and economically dominant groups. This Comment focuses on the use of PAAs to hinder gender equity. PAAs fail to engage with the reality that women, trans, queer, and nonbinary persons are systemically disadvantaged by a cultural hierarchy that privileges cisgender males over those with other gender identities. The PAAs perpetuate inequity by failing to distinguish between remedial actions and bigoted actions. By providing the most privileged with the same protections as the most vulnerable, PAAs preclude the creation of safe public spaces for vulnerable populations, under the guise of preventing “discrimination.” 

By Tess Frydman