Abstract California’s Juvenile Justice System (“CAJJS”) is a complex network of county and state policies and programs enacted with a rehabilitative purpose intended “[t]o provide opportunities for growth and change by identifying and responding to the unique needs of our youth… through effective treatment, education, and interventions in order to encourage positive lifestyles, reduce recidivism,…
Publications
star_border Serving a Country That Will Not Accommodate Our Religion: The Sikh American Struggle to Choose Between Career or Faith
If somebody says, ‘I’m willing to die for you by defending my country, my unit,’ we should allow them to keep their articles of faith. Jaskirat Singh The United States Trend of Discrimination Against Sikhs Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the world, with approximately thirty million followers of the faith worldwide. It is…
star_border Supreme Court Stayed Vaccine Mandate
National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety & Health Administration, 142 S. Ct. 661 (2022) I. Introduction On January 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court published a landmark ruling regarding the COVID-19 vaccine mandate issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. …
star_border Don’t Touch My Hair: How Hair Discrimination Contributes to the Policing of Black and Brown Identities While Upholding White Supremacy
The History of Hair Discrimination Against Black Americans Image by Leighann Blackwood on Unsplash. In order to engage in a meaningful conversation of the significance a person’s hair holds, we must begin by understanding the root of hair discrimination. In the fifteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade took place that robbed individuals of their freedom, rich cultures, traditions,…
star_border The Aftermath of Dobbs: How the Criminalization of Abortion has Obstructed the Exercise of Bodily Autonomy
This Blog addresses the topic of bodily autonomy in relation to the criminalization of abortion because everyone should be entitled to the right to make their own choices, especially when it comes to their bodies, and even greater, their selves as a whole. With the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, the ability to exercise…
star_border Wrongfully Charged
The Unreasonable Search and Seizure On January 10, 2020, a San Francisco Superior Court judge, at the request of a San Francisco Police officer, issued an arrest warrant in connection with a residential burglary. Mot. Suppress Evid. Off’d Against Def. Prelim. Hr’g, 6:1-2. The warrant listed suspects to be arrested and described a residence in…
star_border Mandatory Minimums Require a Much-Needed Facelift
A PEAK INTO A BROKEN SYSTEM Hamedah Hassan was an overall upstanding member of our society until she became a victim of her extenuating circumstances. When Hamedah was 21 years old, she made a brave choice to flee from an extremely abusive relationship with her two children. At the time, Hamedah’s only option was to…
star_border Communitas (IM)perfecta: How the Internal Organization of the Catholic Church Heightens Obstacles to Remedies for Clerical Sexual Assault Survivors and Recommendations to Remove These Obstacles
The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.Nelson Mandela Abstract Although the Catholic Church has been referred to as a “communitas perfecta” (the perfect community), more than 30,000 incidents of child clerical sexual abuse have been reported by survivors in the United States. The rampant sexual abuse of minors…
Supreme Court Presages Broad Religious Exemptions to State and Local Non-Discrimination Provisions
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Pa., 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021). I. Introduction In Fulton, both the district court and court of appeals held in favor of the defendants, citing Employment Division v. Smith as controlling precedent regarding “neutral laws of general applicability.” Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 320 F. Supp. 3d 661, 704 (E.D.…
Is Using Preferred Gender Pronouns Important in the Courtroom?
In relation to the Farmer v. Brennan, a case discussed in this blog, it is important to note that triggering language is used in the opinion, as the incorrect pronouns are used to refer to the petitioner throughout. The use of proper gender pronouns is important to nearly every person in the world. In all…
Farmers Versus the State: The Tenacious Fight for India’s Democracy
Abstract During the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi enacted three agricultural reform laws that adversely impacted the livelihood of Indian farmers. The three laws weakened restrictions that have protected Indian farmers from the free market for decades and consequently left them vulnerable to big corporations that would…