Notable & Quotable
Spring 2023
Illustrations: Marc Harkness
“I’ve been in eviction courts in about five different states, and even in a state that has a lopsided white population compared to the Black population, if you go to the eviction court it’s still going to be the same people getting evicted. So that tells me the systemic issues of the past just continue to show up.”
— Clinical Professor Jesse McCoy reflecting on national studies that show Black women face eviction at higher rates than other groups. (The News & Observer, Nov. 18, 2022)
“When a monopolist screws up, the market has a lot of trouble punishing them. I think the reason that people are angry is because after Ticketmaster screws up, you look at the market and there’s no real alternative.”
— Professor Barak Richman commenting on antitrust concerns in the ticket marketing industry that surfaced when Ticketmaster’s site crashed, preventing many Taylor Swift fans from securing pre-sale concert tickets. (The National Desk, Nov. 18, 2022)
“The process needs to be made accountable. Making sure that the data itself is not biased and the algorithms are fair is a fundamental challenge not only for China but for the whole world.”
— Professor Shitong Qiao, commenting on Chinese courts’ use of artificial intelligence developed by private companies in rendering decisions and meeting out penalties. (Deutsche Welle, Jan. 20, 2023)
“People recognize the unique sensitivity of their thoughts and emotions. It’s not just the right to keep people out of your thoughts, or the right to not be manipulated. It’s a positive right to make choices about what your mental experiences are going to be like, whether that’s enhancements, or access to technology, or the ability to use and read out information from that technology.”
— Professor Nita Farahany, advocating for a new right to cognitive liberty. (Nautilus, Dec. 19, 2022)
“…[C]onsigning all modern gun regulation to a game of ‘What would James Madison have thought of AR-15s’ is not the inevitable result of the Bruen decision. There is still room for research to inform court decisions about firearm regulations. It’s just that such scientific information will have to be framed in a different way than before. Call it historical translation.”
— Professor Darrell Miller and co-authors arguing that the full scope of the Supreme Court’s 2022 in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen “will remain unclear” until the Court accepts new challenges to existing firearms’ regulations that “will likely involve use of contemporary scientific studies to establish modern analogues for regulatory tradition on laws.” (Newsweek, Oct. 14, 2022)