Columbia Undergraduate Law Review: A Forum for Emerging Legal Scholarship
The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review (CULR) serves as a biannual journal dedicated to legal studies research, appearing in both the fall and spring. Its primary mission is to offer Columbia University and the broader public a platform for engaging in discussions about law-related concepts and disseminating undergraduate legal scholarship. The CULR encourages the submission of articles, research papers, and essays that explore a diverse array of topics and perspectives within the legal field. Over the years, the journal has also published works that delve into related disciplines such as sociology, economics, philosophy, history, and political science.
Submissions and Selection Process
The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review operates on a rolling submission basis, with specific deadlines for the Fall and Spring editions. The editorial board meticulously reviews over 100 submissions to select approximately five outstanding papers. These selected papers then undergo a rigorous review and editing process before being published.
Aims and Objectives
The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review is guided by several core principles:
- Providing a Forum: To enrich the academic and extracurricular life of the undergraduate community by creating a space where debate and discourse on legal matters, enhanced by scholarly research, can thrive.
- Promoting Scholarly Debate: To ensure that universities with an interest in scholarly debate can express their views in an outlet that reaches the Columbia community.
- Embracing Collaboration: To be an organization that embraces a collaborative editorial process and encourages all members to explore the fullest extent of their ideas in writing.
- Upholding Integrity: To uphold the spirit of intellectual discourse, scholarly research, and academic integrity in the finest traditions of Columbia University.
Featured Articles: A Glimpse into Past Issues
The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review has consistently published insightful and thought-provoking articles. Here’s a look at some of the featured articles from recent issues:
Fall 2025
- Receipt of Justice? Centering the Consumer in Challenges to the Unauthorized Practice of Law by Ava Petillo
- The Unconstitutionality of Hostile Architecture: A Violation of the Eighth Amendment by Rayna Keshavjee
- The Cover of Compliance: Corporate Diesel Tampering in United States v Kyle Offringa and the Limits of the Clean Air Act by Layla Cyhn
- Firms, State Authorities, and People: Social Media Regulation in Non-Western Contexts-A Multi-Stakeholder Framework Proposal by Yuki Zhang
- Performing Justice: The Spectacle of Gag Order in Racialized Courtrooms by Luna Sadoun
Spring 2024
- “How SFFA v Harvard Perpetuates Discriminatory Gatekeeping: Black Women and Legal Education” by Faith Wilson
- “How Contemporary Courts Have Rendered the Americans with Disabilities Act Powerless” by Dante Rodriguez
- “The Implications of Neuroscience and its Development in Supreme Court Cases Regarding Juvenile Sentencing” by Zander Pitrus
- “Good Faith Gone Bad: The Distortion of the Common Law Origin of Qualified Immunity to Expand Police Power at the Cost of Civil Rights” by Gabrielle Linder
- “United States v Rahimi: Originalism at the Cost of Women’s Lives?” by Liz Thomason
- “The Search for “Truth”: Analyzing Florida’s Stop WOKE Act and the Tensions in the Current Framework of American Academic Freedom” by Karun Parek
Fall 2023
- “A Divergence in Ecclesiastical Jurisprudence: How Courts Might Handle Intra- Church Lawsuits amidst a Surge in Non-Denominationalism” by Jason Chahyadi
- “Corporations Are Property, Not People” by Stephen Dai
- “To Be Discretionary, or Not to Be: The Immigration Question of Law and Fact” by Marco DeBellis
- "Hard Work, Little Pay: How Independent Artists Struggle to Earn Money via Digital Streaming” by Nanda Deopersaud
- “Is Chevron Deference Constitutional?”
Spring 2023
- “The Treaty of Amity and the Power of International Law” by Avery Lambert, Martina Daniel, Inica Kotasthane, Alexander Lacayo, Corinna Singer, and Alyssa Wei
- “The Next Military Revolution? The Legal Case for Lethal Autonomous Weapons” by Ali F. Ansari
- “Modernizing the Marketplace of Ideas” by Eli Bak
- “A Supreme Motivation: The Drivers of Senate Confirmation Vote Behavior from Bork to Jackson” by Austin E.
Fall 2022
- “‘Disperse, You Rebels’: An Examination of the Evolution of Gun Rights in America” by Hunter S.
Summer 2021
- “The State of Transgender Employment Discrimination Protections in the Wake of Bostock v Clayton County” by E.C.
Spring 2021
- “Unpacking White Revisionist History: Brown v Board of Education” by Destiny Harrison-Griffin
- “Sex Crimes and Internet Lies: Who’s Responsible for Safety?” by April Mihalovich
- “A Reimagination of the US Immigration Court System: Lessons Re-Learned After Four Years of Deepening Anti-Immigrant Sentiment” by Diana Pacheco
- “Title VII’s Minimum Threshold Has a Maximum Impact on Some Employees” by Michelle Wolk
- “‘In Such Manner as the Legislature Thereof May Direct’: The Independent State Legislature Doctrine, Election Contingencies, and Appointing Presidential Electors” by Jason T.
Spring 2019
- “Formalized Federalism over Commerce Doctrine: United States v. Morrison, Violence against Women, and the Commerce Clause” by Genna Abele
- “Unrepresentative Representation: The Reasonable Person Standard in Workplace Sexual Harassment Supreme Court Jurisprudence” by Carol Harding
- “A Solution to Substitution: Balancing Liberty of Choice and State Protective Responsibility for Persons with Severe Cognitive Impairments “ by Natalya Ritter
Spring 2018
- “Why Don’t Americans Hate First National Bank of Boston v. Belloti?” by John Czubek
Fall 2017
- “Institutionalized Xenophobia: The Effects of an Electorate’s Prejudice on Swiss Institutions” by Nadia Almasalkhi
- “Reforms with History: The Return of Prison Farms” by Darby Hopper
- “The Religious Exemption: To What Extent Should Religious Organizations be Exempt from Civil Rights Laws?” by Emad Jabini
- “The United States’ Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and its Implications” by Archita Mohapatra
Spring 2017
- “Justice Scalia’s Jurisprudence in the Guantanamo Cases” by Magdalene Beck
Fall 2016
- “Refugees or Immigrants? An Exegesis of the 1967 UN Convention on Refugees” by Tyler Headley and Thomas Yates
- “Resisting Reluctance” by Bailee Ahern
Spring 2016
- “Strict Scrutiny & a New Class of Plaintiffs: Legal Strategies in King v.”
Fall 2015
- “Constitutional Disability Law in the United States” by Susan Huang
- “Affirmative Inattention: A Closer Examination of Justice Powell’s Strict Scrutiny Analysis in Bakke” by Habib Olapade
Spring 2015
- “A Punishment Worse Than Death: Evaluating the Effects of Solitary Confinement in Light of its Goals to Deter, Incapacitate, and Rehabilitate” by Lawrence J. Liu
- “Constitutionality of DACA: A Survey of Crane v. Napolitano” by Sahng-Ah Yoo
- “Developed or Diluted: Examining the Definition, Interpretation, and Application of Crimes Against Humanity” by Nathaniel Hsieh
- “Conceptual and Practical Issues of a Mosaic Theory of the Fourth Amendment” by Jacob M.
Fall 2014
- “Challenges to Copyright and User Experience in the Electronic Publishing Industry” by Chase Brennick
Fall 2013
- “Analyzing the Privacy Standards of the Roberts Court through United States v. Jones” by James M.
Spring 2013
- “The Natural Resources of the Arctic and International Law: How the International System Manages Arctic Resources” by James Marshall
- “The Aggrandizement of Corporate Personhood: A Living Originalist Interpretation of Contemporary Corporate Rights Jurisprudence” by Alice Xie
- “A Man’s Gun is His Castle? Re-examining the Implications of Incorporating the Second Amendment” by Colin Christensen
- “The Biasing Effect of Death Qualification: How Juror Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment Affect Conviction and Trial Proceedings” by Tanner C.
Fall 2012
- “Sailing through Loopholes: The Burden of Neutrality During the American Civil War” by Sam Berman
Fall 2011
- “‘The Personal is Political’: The Legal Justice System’s Treatment of Domestic Violence Victims from 1970 until Today” by Shayna Stern
- “Back to the Future: The Supreme Court’s Due Process Mission to Revert Punitive Damages to Their Traditional Role: An Overview and Its Effects” by Andrew D. Norwich
- “Washington v Glucksberg: Threatening Constitutionally Recognized Liberty Interests” by Taylor Purvis
- “Multilateral Force: The Future for Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect” by Rebecca L.
Spring 2011
- “Rethinking and Reshaping Software Patents” by Aaron C.
Fall 2010
- “Surviving the Storm: The Implications of Hurricane Katrina for the New Orleans Criminal Justice System and Public Defense” by Brent Beckert
- “An ‘Unprecedented Debate’: The Real Foundations of the Argument in Favor of and Against the Citation of Foreign Precedents” by Daniel Guenther
- “Judicial Decentralization: Institutional Interactions in Public Law Litigation” by Scott Maxfield
- “A Comparative Study: Judicial Review in the United States & France” by Teresa A.
Spring 2010
- “The Etruscan Chariot: The Legal Perspective on Its Ownership” by Svetlana Zusina
- “Morse et al. v. Frederick: Dissenting Opinion” by Chandni Saxena
- “The Case for a Non-Renewable Fixed Term of Tenure on the Supreme Court” by Davida McGhee
- “A Web of Context: James Madison and Source Selection of the Bill of Rights” by Alyson Cohen
- “Do Urban Growth Boundaries ‘Go Too Far’ in Regulating Private Property? The Application of the Supreme Court’s Takings Doctrine to Oregon’s State- Mandated Urban Growth Boundaries” by Francis A. Weber
Fall 2009
- “Pursuit of Justice or Reflection of Political Reality? Why it is Unrealistic to Prosecute Winners” by Boin Chong
- “Abraham Lincoln: The Whig Lawyer” by Robyn Gordon
- “Brown v. Board of Education: Impact, Symbolism and Significance” by Rachel L. Mark
- “The Fourteenth Amendment in American Election Processes: Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?” by James Dawson
Spring 2008
- “From Rejection to Ratification: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United States” by John Cioschi
- “The Student Bill of Rights” by John DeSerio
Current Events and Roundtable Discussions
In addition to its scholarly articles, the CULR also features current events analyses and roundtable discussions, providing a platform for timely and relevant legal debates. Recent topics include:
Read also: Columbia University Legacy
- Debates Over Campus Discrimination and Title VI: Discussions center on who is responsible for enforcing federal civil-rights norms and how these obligations should be integrated into university governance.
- Louisiana Law on Punitive Castration: The discretion granted to judges making such sentences in sex-related convictions raises issues regarding consent, permanence, and the effectiveness of the procedure.
- Legal Framework Around Transgender Individuals in Sports: The legal restrictions present concerns for equal rights under the law.
- Trump Administration's Immigration Policies: The new administration’s aggressive policy reforms have sparked scrutiny throughout the country and are now under pressure from multiple legal challenges.
- The Evolution of Title IX: The interpretation of Title IX has shifted from being assessed through the statute's text to being shaped by the priorities and motivations of the current administration.
- Global Recognition of the Right to Housing: Though many have signed the Covenants and ratified some of its treatises, these agreements are not legally binding; thus, they serve as a foundation upon which states can recognize and allow to inspire their laws in accordance with the declaration.
- Ohio v. The Clean Air Act: The provision calls for upwind states to reduce ozone-forming nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from industrial facilities to “result in cleaner air and better health for millions of people living in downwind communities.”
- The Role of International Organizations: This constant tension between legal mandate and practical capacity defines many international organizations.
- The Adjudicative Capacity of Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI then seems like a panacea to the twin ills of inefficiency and non-objectivity in judicial decision making.
- Medical Law: This oath addresses several concerns of medicine, particularly focusing on a doctor’s duty to care for their patient to the best of their ability, uphold doctor-patient confidentiality, and instruct future generations of doctors.
- Freedom of Speech and Liberty of the Press: Zenger was acquitted, and thereby set a precedent for freedom of speech and liberty of the press in the annals of American history.
- Legal Protections for Those with Mental Illness: There are certain protections in place through the ADA for individuals suffering from mental health illnesses such as blocking employers from discriminating against individuals with mental illness conditions, right to privacy of medical information, and providing accomodations when needed.
- Legal History of the Recognition of Labor Rights: The Massachusetts Supreme Court established that labor combinations were not inherently illegal unless an organizations’ goals or practices were themselves fraudulent, false, forceful, or otherwise “criminal or unlawful.”
- Environmental Law: Environmental litigation is based on a recently established legal framework.
Staff and Contributors
The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review is supported by a dedicated team of students, including:
- Patrick J. (Roundtable Coordinator)
- Artem Ilyanok (Current Events Lead Editors)
- Will Foster, Genevieve Cabadas (Current Events Lead Editors)
- Kate Strong (Current Events Editor)
- Emma Barbarette (Digital Media Coordinator)
- Juliana Luna, Jennifer Su, Riede Cantrell, Steely Forrester, Susannah Cray, William Freedman, Sofia Matson, Giulio Maria Bianco, Steven Huang, Anna Reis, Benjamin Waltman, Isaac Stiepleman, Eve Muratore, Ariella Mitchell (Current Events Writers)
- Amadea Datel, Daniel Kroll, Olivia Sieler, Aishlinn Kivlighn, Michelle Lian (Roundtable Editors)
- Martina Daniel, Abby Ilfeld, Ines Abi Mourad, Aishwarya Thiyagarajan, Taylor Ormasen, Nayantara Batra, Michelle Lian, Patrick Bosco, Avery Reed, Elena Flack, Anand Chitnis, Matthew Oey, Reet Chatterjee, Dylan Andres, Nathan Darmon, Em Chmiel, Hannah Puelle, James Tsukada, Tal Dimenstein, Sadia Safa, Alexa Goldfarb, Oscar Luckett, Daniella Sapone, Godsy Philip, Lauren Zhou (Roundtable Contributors)
- Chabelly Acosta, Mariah Johnson, Julia Linder, Lena Haber, Lucas Pasquina, Grace Boyan, Zenayah Roaché, Arpita Iyer, Anthonella Mendoza, Kasang Tobtsang, Mia Xing, Alan Chen, Wena Teng, Karun R. (Podcast Contributors)
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