Posts by Digital Editor

By Siena Richardson Published On: September 15, 2022             In 2012, a Texas court sentenced Willie James Smalls to forty-five years in prison.[1] This extraordinary sentence was imposed, not for a homicide or another severe violent crime, but for stealing a purse off the arm of an elderly woman.[2] Because Mr. Smalls had prior convictions,…

By: Rolonda Donelson Published on: September 15, 2022 On June 24, 2022, at around 10:30 am, the United States Supreme Court released an opinion in one of the most controversial cases of the term: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.[1] The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the sole licensed abortion clinic in Mississippi, initiated the claim,…

By: Margaret Rice Published on September 15, 2022 The burdens of the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted and exacerbated global shortcomings such as continued gender inequities, as women worldwide have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.[1] Women make up the majority of the health care workforce worldwide,[2] and at the onset of the pandemic the majority…

By: Adriana E. Morquecho On March 9, 2021, Representative Hakeem Jeffries introduced the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law Act of 2021 (“EQUAL Act”).[1] The EQUAL Act would eliminate the sentence disparities between cocaine offenses by repealing the amount of cocaine that triggers mandatory minimum sentencing.[2] While the House of Representatives passed the EQUAL…

By: John Olorin As colleges and universities achieve a near-equal gender split in their student bodies, athletic departments across the country are cutting the men’s teams for smaller sports to maintain compliance with Title IX. The result is that, while schools are getting closer to offering an equal number of opportunities for both male and…

By: Margaret Arabpour The late 2000’s saw the introduction of the ‘mommy blogger,’ the first iteration of a parent using their experience as a parent and sharing the stories of their children’s lives to generate an income online.[1] As the internet shifted towards YouTube, and eventually Instagram, family vloggers emerged, creating a new industry worth…

By: Kaitlyn Calogero “The only thing I’m guilty of is being Shah-mazing!”[1] For fans of any Real Housewives franchise, there comes a certain excitement when the taglines are introduced for a new season. With Season Two of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City (hereinafter RHOSLC), however, there was a different kind of anticipation. On…

By: Kaylette Clark As of December 2021, there are over 1.5 million cases pending in immigration court; meaning noncitizens’ will be waiting several months, if not years before having a bond hearing.[1] The Supreme Court is revisiting noncitizens’ rights to bond hearings for immigration cases in the pending case Garland v. Gonzalez.[2] In Gonzalez, Esteban…

By: Maya Martin Tsukazaki The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case Brackeen v. Haaland[1] this term.[2] This case challenges the legality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (“ICWA”).[3] Congress passed ICWA in 1978, which was drafted to respond to  the United States government’s historical practice of separating Native[4] children from their tribes and families,…

By: Megan Yang On November 5, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) issued an emergency temporary standard that requires businesses with more than 100 employees to implement a mandatory Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)[1] vaccination policy requiring “employees to either get vaccinated or elect to undergo regular COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering…