Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

From Tweeter to Terrorist: Combatting Online Propaganda When Jihad Goes Viral

Abstract: More than 6,900 Westerners have traveled to Syria as foreign fighters for terrorist organizations, most notably ISIS. At least 150 of the foreign fighters were from the United States, and as of February 2017, 109 Americans have been charged with crimes related to supporting ISIS. This Note explores ISIS’s organized social media campaigns and its success in attracting Western recruits. It discusses proposals to curb ISIS’s online impact and the constitutional implications of the government adopting such proposals. This Note argues that in limited situations, judicial review of the government’s content based regulations over social media algorithms to combat terrorist propaganda should be subject to only intermediate — rather than strict — scrutiny.

Legislatures, Agencies, Courts and Advocates: How Laws are Made, Interpreted and Modified

Abstract: This chapter explains the nature and practice of lawmaking, legal advocacy, and legal research as they relate to the field of work and family. Through reference to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 as a case study, the authors explain the dynamic processes by which laws are made, interpreted and modified by legislatures, administrative agencies and courts, with the help of legal advocates. Their goal is not to provide substantive analysis of laws related to work and family, but rather to enable researchers from a range of disciplines to understand and access the legal system, as it currently exists and as it is evolving. In addition, for those inclined to change the current system through legal advocacy, this chapter provides a window into how advocates may use the lawmaking process to promote their preferred work and family policies.

To Perform or Pay Damages

Abstract: In The Myth of Efficient Breach: New Defenses of the Expectation Interest, Daniel Markovits and Alan Schwartz argue that contractual promises between sophisticated parties are best interpreted as disjunctive promises to perform or pay damages. They further argue that this dual performance hypothesis answers moral critics of the expectation remedy. This comment makes three claims about Markovits and Schwartz's argument. First, although the dual performance hypothesis is supported by Markovits and Schwartz's instrumentalist model, they do not have a good argument that it is empirically correct - that it is the best interpretation of what sophisticated parties actually intend. Such an argument is necessary to fully answer the moral critics. Second, the dual performance hypothesis is still worth taking seriously, as it casts new light on the implications of the theory of efficient breach and the economic model that stands behind it. In particular, the hypothesis helps explain why punitive damages can make sense when breaching parties attempt to evade their obligation to pay damages. Finally, the dual performance hypothesis is not the best answer to moral critics of expectation damages. Rather than reinterpreting the content of contractual promises, we should reject the premise that parties' moral obligations are best understood on the model of promises. We should also reject the assumption that contract law serves morality only if it enforces parties' first-order moral obligations. A contract law might serve morality instead by serving corrective justice or by supporting the social practice of entering into and keeping agreements.

Constitutional Culture or Ordinary Politics: A Reply to Reva Siegel

Abstract: Reva Siegel’s lecture, ‘Constitutional Culture, Social Movement Conflict and Constitutional Change: The Case of the de Facto ERA,’ explores the interaction between the courts and social movements in creating constitutional meaning. In the primary part of this response I focus my comments on Siegel’s three major contributions: First, the historical explanation of the source of the Court’s authority in the development of the so-called de facto ERA; second, the articulation of a general, jurisprudential thesis regarding social contestation as a source of constitutional authority apart from text, history, and principle; and third, the quasi-sociological descriptive account of the form social contest must take to be juris generative. I find Siegel’s historical interpretation, jurisprudential thesis, and sociological analysis compelling, and in this response I offer thoughts on how Siegel’s basic thesis might be expanded and strengthened. The subsequent part of this response raises some questions and doubts about Siegel’s underlying invitation in this lecture: an invitation to social activists, whether or not legally trained, to participate more frequently and self-consciously in the umbrella of social processes commonly referred to as “popular constitutionalism.” While we should worry – as the popular constitutionalists do – about the Supreme Court's outsized role in the development of constitutional meaning, it does not necessarily follow that we should transport those constitutional modes of thought into our politics. Instead, the more sensible response to the hubris and over-reach of the Supreme Court’s monopolization of constitutionalism in this culture may be to give ordinary politics long overdue respect. To do so, it might sometimes be wise to curb our inclination to cast political views and values in the framework of constitutional argument.