Spring 2025 Issue Harvard Undergraduate Law Review

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 28, 2025, 6:36 PM

spring 2025 issue harvard undergraduate law review

The Harvard Undergraduate Law Review invites high school students from anywhere in the world to participate in its yearly essay contest. The theme for the Fall 2025 Essay Contest is “The Boundaries of Expression.” Essay deadline will be Friday December 19th, 2025 at 11:59 PM ET From Congressman Jamie Raskin to the lawyers who lead Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group that aims to give patients power over the choices for their end-of-life care, the HULR has interviewed many lawyers... Our Law in the News blog section seeks to inform readers about current legal issues and debates. Click below to read short blog posts about various legal topics such as Massachusetts Question 4 and the Supreme Court’s “Shadow Docket” decisions.

Are you interested in writing about law, conducting legal research, or learning about a career in law? Consider joining a community of like-minded peers and writing for the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review, a student-run organization at Harvard College. This article explores how international sports organizations like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee evade legal responsibility for human rights abuses linked to major sporting events. These institutions often operate beyond the reach of national and international laws due to their nonprofit status, global structure, and favorable contracts with host countries. Voluntary standards, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, have inadequately ensured accountability. This article reviews key legal tools such as corporate due diligence laws, strategic litigation, investment law, and public procurement rules.

It also proposes a new solution: the Sporting Accountability Compact (SAC). The SAC is a treaty-based legal framework that would create enforceable obligations for sports bodies, sponsors, and host countries. By making human rights protections a legal requirement, not just a suggestion, the SAC aims to close the accountability gap in global sports. This paper examines the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned the Chevron deference and fundamentally reshaped the structure of administrative law in the United States. For forty years, Chevron U.S.A.

v. NRDC (1984) had anchored the relationship between courts and agencies, requiring judges to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Its reversal marks a sweeping shift of interpretive authority from specialized agencies — such as the EPA, Federal Reserve, and SEC — to generalist courts. I argue that this decision undermines the efficiency and expertise-based foundation of federal regulation, eroding the balance between judicial oversight and administrative discretion. Without Chevron’s deference, regulatory enforcement will become slower, more politicized, and more vulnerable to judicial inconsistency. The ruling risks transforming the judiciary from a constitutional referee into an economic policymaker, jeopardizing the very predictability that modern governance depends on.

In recent years, the landscape of collegiate athletics has undergone unprecedented transformation. After decades of rigid restrictions on athlete compensation, legal challenges have forced the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to reevaluate its long-standing model of amateurism. One of the most significant of these challenges occurred in 2020, when two collegiate athletes filed House v. NCAA, alleging that the NCAA’s NIL restrictions violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by fixing prices and engaging in a group boycott. Just a month after House v. NCAA, two additional antitrust cases — Hubbard v.

NCAA, and Carter v. NCAA —w ere filed, with plaintiffs similarly arguing that the NCAA’s restrictions on performance-related benefits violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, constituting an unlawful restraint of trade. The plaintiffs contended that these limitations on athletes' compensation for their athletic performance were anti-competitive, as they unfairly prevented athletes from receiving financial rewards tied to their success in collegiate sports. This piece analyzes the constitutional questions raised by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 (TRA). Following President Carter’s decision to derecognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) and formally recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a congressional majority sprang into action to restrain Carter’s foreign affairs authority regarding Washington’s... In doing so, Congress’s actions raise significant constitutional questions about the Constitution’s foreign affairs powers: can the Congress condition the executive’s external recognition of sovereign states via statute?

And can the legislature mandate that the executive sell arms to a foreign entity? My answer to these questions encompasses both constitutional and political analysis. I conclude that, while certain elements of the law are arguably unconstitutional, the separation-of-powers questions raised by the TRA need not necessitate a future legal challenge by the executive. Rather, given Washington’s political and military commitment to Taiwan, the constitutional issues surrounding the law are more likely to be resolved through political rather than judicial processes. On balance, then, the questions posed by the TRA reflect the inherently political character of the Constitution’s foreign affairs power—a power that relies more on inter-branch political dynamics than on strict constitutional rules. This article examines the emerging legal framework for algorithmic discrimination in hiring through the lens of Mobley v.

Workday (2024), where a California court established that AI hiring platforms can be held liable as agents of employers under employment discrimination law. It identifies two distinct challenges in addressing algorithmic bias: first, establishing liability when employers delegate hiring decisions to third-party AI platforms, and second, evaluating discrimination claims when employers use in-house AI tools. Next, through analysis of precedential cases like Association of Mexican-American Educators v. California (2000) and Williams v. City of Montgomery (1984), it demonstrates how courts have historically extended liability to third parties exercising control over employment decisions. It concludes that while Mobley successfully addresses the first challenge by preventing employers from evading discrimination law through outsourcing, significant questions remain about proving negligence or disparate impact when employers deploy AI tools directly.

The Harvard Law Review publishes articles by professors, judges, and practitioners and solicits reviews of important recent books from recognized experts. Each issue also contains pieces by student editors. Published monthly from November through June, the Review has roughly 2,000 pages per volume. All articles--even those by the most respected authorities--are subjected to a rigorous editorial process designed to sharpen and strengthen substance and tone. The November issue contains the Supreme Court Foreword (usually by a prominent constitutional scholar), the faculty Case Comment, twenty-five Case Notes (analyses by third-year students of the most important decisions of the previous Supreme... The February issue features the annual Developments in the Law project, an in-depth treatment of an important area of the law.

A criminal law casebook co-written by Andrew Manuel Crespo aims to change the way the first-year course is taught Duma Boko's coalition overcame the ruling party that had governed Botswana since its independence Bradley Gordon has helped return hundreds of stolen artifacts to Cambodia Kirkland Alexander Lynch’s company, Barking Owl, creates memorable, catchy sounds for brands — and for the Kyiv Marathon Kirby West, a 2024 Wasserstein Fellow, is passionate about defending Americans from what she sees as government overreach EagleConnect email also includes the following features (for active students & employees)

Outlook iOS App Setup InstructionsOutlook Android App Setup Instructions Wintermester Hours: Monday–Friday: 8 a.m.- 5 p.m. (CST)Saturday–Sunday: 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. (CST)Tuesday, 12/23/25: 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. (CST)The Helpdesk will close on Wednesday, December 24th, 2025 for UNT Winter Break.

The Helpdesk will reopen on Sunday, January 4th, 2026. Spring Hours Resume Sunday, January 11th, 2026.Fall/Spring/Summer Hours: Monday–Thursday: 8 a.m.- 9 p.m. (CST)Friday: 8 a.m.- 5 p.m. (CST)Saturday–Sunday: 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. (CST) Current Walk-in Hours: Monday–Friday: 8 a.m.- 5 p.m.

(CST) Call: 940-565-2324 Email: helpdesk@unt.eduWalk-in: Sage Hall, Room 330 President Alan M. Garber sitting in the Holyoke Chair | Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/HPAC Alan M. Garber—named interim president on January 2, 2024, and the University’s thirty-first president (through June 30, 2027) the following August, was honored with a private installation ceremony at the Harvard Art Museums on Saturday evening,...

The event was attended by friends, family, members of the governing boards, deans and other University leaders, and four of Harvard’s six living former presidents—Lawrence Bacow, Drew Faust, Claudine Gay, and Lawrence Summers—who were... In his low-key remarks, Garber joked about another symbol of the office, and the circumstances under which he exercises its responsibilities: commenting on the notoriously uncomfortable Holyoke Chair, the turned sixteenth-century seat from which... It seems to be growing hotter by the day.” Read a full account, including his complete text, at harvardmag.com/garber-installation-24. In a major change in athletics policy, the Ivy League announced in December that it would begin participating in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoff. Since its 1954 inception, the league has not permitted its football teams to play in postseason games. But now, one Ivy League team will compete in the second tier of Division I playoffs, a 24-team, five-game, single-elimination bracket lasting from late November to early January.

(In the common event of a shared title, the Ivy League will have to devise a tiebreaker to determine which team gets the playoff spot.) The change was initiated by the league’s 17-member student-athlete... Stephenson Family head coach for Harvard football Andrew Aurich said, “I’m excited for us to make some noise in the playoffs for years to come.” Learn more at harvardmag.com/football-playoff-bowl-25. As this and other universities have adopted policies of “institutional neutrality,” intended to keep them free from politics and to preserve space on their campuses for unfettered individual discourse (see harvardmag.com/institutional-neutrality-24), two higher-education leaders... In a November essay published by Elsevier, Peter Salovey, Yale’s president emeritus, put his institution’s famous free-speech principles in context but registered doubts about recent decisions: “I am concerned that not speaking on contemporary... I believe the philosophical case for institutional neutrality is overdone.” If freedoms of speech are granted to other community members, he concluded, “Does the president really need to take a pass?” And in a... John I.

Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president emeritus, explicitly critiqued the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report, the source for such policies, and Harvard’s recently adopted one, for making much of intellectual discourse by offering “no hint…of anything... The University has settled two lawsuits concerning antisemitism on campus, stemming from protests and other events at Harvard before and after the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Middle East war. The settlements, with two nonprofit organizations, alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although Harvard did not admit wrongdoing or liability, it agreed in January to report annually on its response to discrimination or harassment related to “Title VI-protected traits,” and to dedicate a staff person to... Among other measures, it will also sponsor a yearly academic symposium on antisemitism; establish a partnership with a university in Israel; and adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism—the latter steps unusual... Read a full report at harvardmag.com/antisemitism-lawsuit-settlement-25.

(The University also reached a resolution of a complaint brought before the U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, requiring Harvard to improve procedures to better handle claims of anti-Arab, -Muslim, and -Palestinian harassment and intimidation.)…Separately, the DOE concluded its investigations of similar “shared ancestry” discrimination... The agreements have typically stipulated that the schools reevaluate discrimination claims as a whole, revise the governing policies and train staff to administer them, and report on incidents of antisemitic and Islamophobic discrimination and... The Harvard Undergraduate Law Review accepts external submissions of exceptional literary merit and legal insight. As a reminder, as a general guideline, all articles should be approximately 2500 words long.

Spring 2025 Issue Harvard Undergraduate Law Review

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