Photo provided courtesy of the Office of Duquesne University President Ken Gormley By Margaret Potter, Feature Editor The year 2020 has been marked by tremendous loss, and the highest court in our land has been no exception. On September 18, 2020 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to […]
Features Articles
Merchant Cash Advance Regulations Not Yet on Par with Consumer Lending Regulations
Photo provided courtesy of Pixabay.com. By Stephen Hodzic, Blog Editor “Consumers have laws protecting them from usurious interest rates… but for small businesses, those protection laws don’t apply at all.” [1] [2] On July 28, 2020, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the Philadelphia offices at Par […]
The Case of Curtis Flowers and Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection
Photo provided courtesy of Pixabay.com. By Matt Naum, Staff Writer On September 4, 2020, Curtis Flowers was officially released from Mississippi state custody after having murder charges against him dropped. These charges are what forced Flowers to endure six separate trials. [1] The trials resulted in four convictions, four […]
Defund the Police: What Does it Actually Mean?
Photo provided courtesy of unsplash.com By Shreya Desai, Staff Writer “Defund the police.” Since approximately June of 2020, this cry has been heard around the United States of America. [1] The slogan gained popularity following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, who was killed in […]
The Pursuit of the Vote: Pennsylvania’s Role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement
Photo provided courtesy of Unsplash.com By: Rachel Pressdee, Staff Writer One hundred years ago women were granted the right to vote with the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. [1] Pennsylvania was an early embracer of women’s suffrage and was the seventh state to ratify the […]
A Message From Our Editors
To our Juris writers and readers and to our fellow Duquesne University School of Law classmates, professors, and colleagues: Like all of you, we are perturbed and deeply saddened by the death of George Floyd. It is incredibly disheartening to see the horrors of police brutality and systemic racism so […]
Trump Administration Enacts Largest Rollback of the Clean Water Act
By: Margaret Potter, Blog Editor Enacted in 1972, the Clean Water Act (the “CWA”) has provided for the federal protection of the “waters of the United States” for over forty years.[1] Under the CWA, the federal government can regulate water quality standards and implement pollution control to protect the integrity […]
Rules of Human Mobility: Crossing a Submerging Border
By Samantha Cook, Editor-in-Chief Research from Cornell University predicts that by the year 2100, 2 billion people may be refugees due to the rising sea levels and high numbers of people who live along the world’s coastlines.[1] Two of the most hotly contested political and legal topics, immigration and climate […]
Can Big Oil Companies be Held Liable for Damages Related to Climate Change? Substantive and Procedural Issues
By John Paul Abda, Feature Editor Climate change has created a stark divide worldwide. Many individuals in the United States feel as though climate change should be a leading federal priority, while others place the issue relatively low on their list of causes.[1] As the issue gains more attention, the […]
Trump Administration Proposes to Loosen NEPA
By Giulia Schaub, Blog Editor President Donald Trump and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released their proposal on January 10, 2020 to modify the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), with the ultimate goals of bringing an end to the slow federal approval processes of new projects and […]