The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on November 5 in two cases involving challenges to President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs imposed pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Professor Susan Morse discusses the legal issues raised by the cases and how the Court may address them. Ultimately, Morse concludes, the safest (and perhaps most likely) path for the Court may be to decide the case as a matter of “ordinary” statutory construction without resorting to either the major questions doctrine or the nondelegation doctrine.

This episode explores the intersection of fiction writing and the practice of law. Victor Suthammanont, a writer and attorney, discusses his first novel, Hollow Spaces, published earlier this year. Hollow Spaces explores race and racism, the legal system and the search for truth, and, perhaps more than anything else, family – the enduring impressions, connections, and relations between husband and wife, parents and children, and brother and sister.

In his conversation with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Suthammanont describes his journey from student actor to experienced attorney and published author. Even now, Suthammanont continues to draw on skills he developed as an actor in his legal practice. Suthammanont then discusses various aspects of the novel, including the characters’ efforts to learn the truth about the underlying events that shape the stories told in the novel. Whether you are an attorney or a law student, a writer or a theater kid considering a career in law, you will enjoy listening to this episode.

Political gerrymandering – the practice of drawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a way that gives one political party an advantage over its rivals – is in the news nowadays. Indeed, with Texas and California leading the way, it is no exaggeration to say that we are in a gerrymandering arms race. How did we get here? Are there any limits on gerrymandering under federal law? To the extent that federal law is limited regarding the constraints it imposes on gerrymandering, are there other ways to challenge this controversial political practice?

Professor Ruth Greenwood discusses these questions on this Touro Law Review podcast, explaining the importance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019 and various legal challenges to the federal Voting Rights Act over the years. Her conversation with Associate Dean Rodger Citron provides an instructive overview of election law and thoughts on how to respond, legally and politically, to the most blatant gerrymanders occurring today

In his second term as President, Donald J. Trump has set about remaking the federal government. Recently the President sought to terminate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, asserting that she allegedly engaged in mortgage fraud and that this alleged misconduct constituted legal “cause” for her removal. Cook has denied the allegations and sued to retain her position. Thus far, a federal district court has issued a preliminary injunction preventing her removal. The Trump administration has filed a notice of appeal.

Cook’s case raises a number of fascinating legal questions: Could the alleged mortgage fraud, which is claimed to have occurred prior to her appointment to the Federal Reserve, constitute “cause” for termination? The district court said no. Cook also asserted that her termination was procedurally improper. The district court indicated its agreement, stating that the “removal also likely violated Cook’s procedural rights under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.” As Cook’s case proceeds through the legal system, federal courts, including possibly the Supreme Court, will have to address whether her claims are justiciable – that is, whether they are capable of being decided by a court. Beau J. Baumann, Ph.D. in Law candidate at Yale and former Justice Department attorney, discusses these issues with Associate Dean Rodger Citron.

On the last day of the 2024-25, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Trump v. CASA, involving the validity of universal injunctions.  By a 6-3 vote, the Court granted the Trump administration’s request to limit the availability of such injunctions in a case in which the plaintiffs challenged the legality of President Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship.  CASA may seem like a somewhattechnical case about equitable remedies, but in fact CASA tells us a great deal about the current Supreme Court, especially regarding its views on presidential power and separation of powers in a time of political and legal transition.  Jessica Silbey, Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law, discusses CASAwith Associate Dean Rodger Citron on this Touro Law Review podcast. 

"Orwellian" is a critical term in our current political discourse.  The phrase is often invoked in connection with the novel 1984, written by George Orwell and published in 1949.  On this episode of the Touro Law Review Podcast, Associate Dean Rodger Citron and Professor Allison Caffarone discuss what it's like to read 1984 in 2025.  They discuss the novel's literary merits as well as its political insights. Interestingly, neither is particularly enamored of 1984, though they agree that the novel continues to be relevant more than 75 years after it was published and 40 years after 1984.    

Every day, it seems, brings a new national news story about higher education.  Beyond the headlines, the crisis in highereducation poses economic and other risks to state and local governments that support and are supported by universities, colleges and professional schools.  Touro University’s PatriciaSalkin and Albany Law School’s Jenean Taranto explore these risks in a forthcoming article in State and Local News, published by the American Bar Association.

 Provost Salkin and Associate Dean Taranto discuss their article in this Touro Law Review podcast.  They describe how institutions of higher education boost the economies of state and local governments by, among other things, contributing to a stable real estate market and supporting “local stores, restaurants, hotels and other attractions in the areas where campuses are located."  Salkin and Taranto also discuss how recent executive orders, as well as the proposed College Cost Reduction Act, may affect the economies of state and local governments.

On this episode, Professors Laura Dooley and John Quinn discuss Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger, a recent Supreme Court case involving federal subject matter jurisdiction. 

Royal Canin is a straightforward case: In a unanimous decision, the Court held that when a plaintiff amends her complaint to eliminate all federal law claims and include only state law claims after the case is removed to federal court, the plaintiff’s case can

no longer be heard in federal court. There is no original subject matter jurisdiction because there are no federal law claims, and there is no supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims.  Accordingly, the case must be remanded to state court.

As Professors Dooley and Quinn explain, Royal Canin is a helpful case for understanding all aspects of federal subject matter jurisdiction: original jurisdiction, removal, and supplemental jurisdiction. Along with moderator Rodger Citron, who also teaches Civil Procedure, they discuss how they plan to use the case with their students.

On this episode of the Touro Law Review Podcast, Professor Tiffany Li describes her journey from law student at Georgetown Law School to faculty member at the University of San Francisco Law School.  In her conversation with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Professor Li talks about the importance of professional networking, the ever-present need to write, and ways to distinguish yourself as a candidate even if you did not attend an elite law school. 

Professor Jorge Roig teaches Constitutional Law at Touro Law Center. On this episode of the Touro Law Review Podcast, Professor Roig discusses three recent Supreme Court decisions involving the application of the First Amendment in the context of social media.

Initially Roig discusses TikTok Inc. v. Garland decision, in which the Court upheld a law making “it unlawful for companies in the United States to provide services to distribute, maintain, or update the social media platform TikTok, unless U. S. operation of the platform is severed from Chinese control.” As Roig explains, the Court rejected the petitioners’ First Amendment claim and held that the law was “facially content neutral” and “justified by a content-neutral rationale.”

Roig then discusses Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and Murthy v. Missouri, in which the Court’s analysis of First Amendment issues is intertwined with procedural issues that led to remands back to the lower courts for further consideration of the social media platforms’ claims. In his conversation with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Roig critiques as well as describes existing law and its application in each case.

Right out of law school, Joshua Perry moved to New Orleans to work as a public defender. In the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when reformers were trying to fix a broken criminal justice system on the fly, Perry was thrown untrained into defending the city’s most vulnerable people. Over the next decade, Perry served as general counsel at the Orleans Public Defenders and then Executive Director at the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, the city’s juvenile defender.

Now, Perry’s debut novel Seraphim – about two carpetbagging public defenders who end up defending a youth accused of high-profile murder – reflects on that experience. It’s a noir legal thriller, and also a meditation on inequality, Judaism, violence, and the often-complicated relationship between fathers and sons. Perry discusses all of these subjects with Associate Dean Rodger Citron in this podcast.

On this episode of the Touro Law Review Podcast, Touro Law Professors Peter Zablotsky and Gabriel Weil, engage in a discussion about artificial intelligence and how this technology poses potential risks. As AI becomes more prevalent and its technical capabilities extend further beyond its current capacity, there is both a danger for misuse and for AI system failures. Professor Weil addresses how AI risk poses a problem for law and policy and further raises the argument that tort law is the best way to govern AI risk.

Professor Weil further investigates potential AI liability under a negligence scheme, what precautionary measures can be taken, and whether this type of technology use can be categorized as abnormally dangerous which would require a lens of strict liability. Furthermore, Professor Zablotksy and Professor Weil contemplate the effectiveness of potential legislation and how judges may struggle to understand AI and its technical operations when applying the law.  Professor Weil’s recent paper, “Tort Law as a Tool for Mitigating Catastrophic Risk from Artificial Intelligence,” will be of interest to anyone listening.

Every era has its trial of the century.  In 1925, Tennessee prosecuted John T. Scopes, a high school teacher, for teaching evolution in violation of state law.  The sensational trial drew nationwide attention and included an epic clash between two lawyers – William Jennings Bryan, one of the prosecutors, and Clarence Darrow, one of the defense attorneys.     

 In Keeping the Faith, Brenda Wineapple provides an account of the Scopes trial while exploring the case from different perspectives. In a front-cover New York Times review, Matthew Stewart described the book as “history at its most delicious, presented free from the musty smell of the archives where it was clearly assembled with great care.”  Ms. Wineapple discusses the legal, political, and cultural aspects of the Scopes trial with Associate Dean Rodger Citron in this Touro Law Review podcast. 

Alicia Bannon, Director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, discusses the politics of state judicial elections with Associate Dean Rodger Citron.  In 38 states, judges are elected.  As Bannon describes, judicial elections used to be “sleepy” – not much campaigning was done and not much money was spent.  For a number of reasons, that has changed.  In 2023, for example, about $51 million was spent on the election of a state supreme court justice in Wisconsin. 

  Furthermore, as Bannon explains, state courts matter.  The most notable example of the importance of state courts is that they very well may have the final say on laws allowing or restricting access to abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022.  Bannon describes how judicial elections have become more politicized, what effect this has on the operation and perception of state judicial systems, and what, if anything, can be done in response to these developments.

The Supreme Court continued its project of reshaping administrative law this term.  Perhaps its most widely discussed decision in this area was Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which the Court overruled the doctrine of Chevron deference.  How did the Chevron doctrine operate?  Why, after forty years, did the Supreme Court set it aside?  And what will judges do when interpreting regulatory statutes that are either ambiguous or silent on the question pending before the court?  

            DePaul College of Law Professor David Franklin discusses these questions on this Touro Law Review podcast with Associate Dean Rodger Citron.  Franklin clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court, has taught Administrative Law and Constitutional Law for more than a decade, and recently wrote about the Loper Bright decision for Slate, see This Supreme Court has betrayed Antonin Scalia’s legacy. (slate.com).            

Long before he became a federal judge, even before he went to law school in the early 1970s, Michael Ponsor wrote fiction.  It was not until 2013, however, that Judge Ponsor published his first novel, The Hanging Judge.  In this podcast, Judge Ponsor discusses his passion for writing as well as his experiences as a lawyer and judge that inform his third published novel, Point of Order. 

In his conversation with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, Judge Ponsor discusses the demands and challenges of being a judge and how he presents them in his novels involving Judge David S. Norcross.  Among other things, Judge Ponsor says, it is necessary for a judge to “rule and roll” in order to do the job.  Judge Ponsor also talks about how his experience teaching in Kenya as a young man figures into Point of Order as well. 

This podcast will be of interest to anyone who wishes to learn more about the relationship between law and literature.          

In Moore v. Harper, decided last year, the Supreme Court addressed the “independent state legislature theory.” In a case arising out of an election in North Carolina, proponents of the theory contended that North Carolina’s Supreme Court did not have the authority to review a legal claim that the state legislature had adopted an illegally gerrymandered congressional map. The Supreme Court rejected the theory by a 6-3 vote in Moore. In this Touro Law Review podcast, Nicholas Maggio, an attorney who has written about the independent state legislature theory, discusses the case – in particular, its relevance during an election year and its significance for understanding the current Supreme Court – with Associate Dean Rodger Citron.

Stephen Bright’s relentless pursuit of equal justice is at the center of Professor Robert Tsai’s most recent book. For nearly forty years, Bright led the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit that provided legal aid to incarcerated people and worked to improve conditions within the justice system. Among other things, Bright argued four death penalty cases at the Supreme Court and won each of them.
As Tsai discusses with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the story of these four cases illustrate inequalities in the legal system and legal strategies for combatting them. The discussion illuminates how race, economics, and politics influence the operation of the criminal justice system when the stakes are at their highest – that is when the defendant’s life literally depends upon the outcome.

Professor Kennedy conducted an insightful interview with Professor Daniel Kiel, a distinguished law professor at the University of Memphis and author of the book "The Transition: Interpreting Justice from Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas." This literary work seamlessly blends historical narratives, legal analysis, and literary elements, comprehensively exploring the Supreme Court justices' perspectives on educational inequalities and racial disparities—issues Professor Kiel has dedicated his career to addressing. Notably, Professor Kiel directed the acclaimed documentary "The Memphis 13," shedding light on students' groundbreaking efforts during the segregation era in Memphis. For further exploration, you can access the book and the documentary through the links below.

The Transition: Interpreting Justice from Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas: https://eastapt.wixsite.com/daniel-kiel

The Memphis 13: http://www.thememphis13.com/

In 2023, Supreme Court justices made news not only for the cases decided but also for their personal conduct. As David Lat and Zach Shemtob noted in an article for The Atlantic, the news stories often involved “financial entanglements between justices and wealthy benefactors.” As Lat and Shemtob discuss with Associate Dean Rodger Citron, the intensity of the public response to the justices’ behavior is more noteworthy than the
underlying conduct. They attribute the strong reaction to our current political era, which is not only hyper-partisan but anti-elitist as well. Lat and Shemtob discuss their article, the Supreme Court’s adoption of an ethics code in late 2023, and how concerns over the justices' ethics relate to the current Supreme Court term in this Touro Law Review podcast.