Volume 49, Issue 2

In the 1920s, the federal government relied on the pseudoscience of eugenics in shaping its immigration policies. Leading U.S. eugenicist, Dr. Harry Laughlin, became the “expert eugenics agent” of the House of Representatives Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. Throughout the 1920s, Dr. Laughlin testified, presented written reports, and advised the committee. In 1926, Laughlin testified,…

In Florek v. Vannet, a case based on a claim of unconsented sexual contact, the plaintiff asserted three claims against the defendant: battery, negligence, and negligence per se based on the defendant’s violation of Minnesota’s third degree criminal sexual conduct statute. The plaintiff dismissed the negligence claim. The case was tried by a jury, which…

Crimes of violence and genocide against Native Americans—on land now considered the United States—existed long before the Jamestown colony was formed, African people were imported for slavery, and the United States declared itself free from England. While the harm done is nearly impossible to fully understand or catalogue, the U.S. government’s creation of the Native…

The United States faces a critical issue: extreme polarization between its two main political parties, Democrats and Republicans. As of September 2022, only two states—Minnesota and Virginia—had a divided state legislature. The Democratic Party controls seventeen states, and the Republican Party controls thirty states. Partisan identification predicts voter preferences about a range of social policy…

For decades, there have been issues of excessive and inappropriate use of force by Minneapolis Police Officers, particularly toward Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). In May of 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, and Derek Chauvin, a white police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), captured worldwide attention. A young woman passing…

In Staub as Trustee of Weeks v. Myrtle Lake Resort, the Minnesota Supreme Court recently heldthat, in the absence of an alternate theory of causation, a negligence claim supported solely by circumstantial evidence may survive summary judgment. Indeed, the Minnesota Supreme Court determined the plaintiff’s claim in Staub, although lacking certainty as to whether the…

On July 21, 2022, former President Donald Trump’s counsel sent a 282-page cease and desist letter to the media outlet CNN. The letter alleged that CNN defamed the former President numerous times over the course of six years. To that end, the letter recounted a variety of examples of alleged defamation that primarily revolved around…