Volume 50, Issue 2

May 2024

  • Article

    Kaplan v. Independent School District of Virginia—The Max Kaplan Story

    by
    Mike Steenson

    In 1927, Max Kaplan—a kosher butcher from Virginia, Minnesota, located in the heart of the great Minnesota Iron Range (“Range”)—challenged the practice of Bible verse reading in the city’s public schools. Kaplan v. Independent School District of Virginia is one…

  • Article

    Reprieves Return: Minnesota’s Decision to Awaken the Reprieve

    by
    Mary Fee & Monica Shaffer

    In 2022, a sixteen-year-old boy found himself in his second year of what Paul Schnell, Commissioner of Corrections, called “purgatory.” Convicted of second-degree unintentional murder when he was fourteen, Carlos Dickerson Jr. was prosecuted as an adult and sent to…

  • Article

    Justice David Hackett Souter and the Right to Privacy

    by
    Scott P. Johnson

    This Article contains explicit depictions and discussions of abortion and related medical procedures. Such descriptive discussions may be triggering or distressing for some readers. This Article also references passive euthanasia processes. Reader discretion is advised. Additionally, this Article explores historic case law…

  • Note

    Sign Here: How Parental Waivers Exceed the Bounds of Parents’ Fundamental Rights

    by
    Carissa Hansen

    The purpose of exculpatory contracts has always been to mitigate businesses’ and institutions’ economic risk. The purpose of parental due process rights is to promote child well-being by limiting state intrusion into family life. Since exculpation entered the domain of…

  • Note

    An Exacerbated Power Imbalance: The Danger in Allowing AI to Render Arbitral Awards in Employment Arbitration

    by
    Elizabeth G. Stein

    Like all types of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), arbitration has continually increased in popularity in recent years. Arbitration is highly favored in the employment law realm, with employers’ use of mandatory arbitration clauses in employee contracts skyrocketing from only 2%…