Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (2019), reached the Illinois Supreme Court on appeal. Importantly, the court was not deliberating on the constitutionality of the law itself, but instead on questions over the correct implementation of the law. Nonetheless, Rosenbach sets a precedent in biometric privacy law that could be a deciding factor in a related biometric privacy case likely to be brought before the Supreme Court.
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Pennsylvania v. Knox (2018) is situated in a larger debate concerning the extent to which rap music constitutes protected free speech. More specifically, this case tested the limits of rap as a form of free speech and the extent to which the First Amendment tolerates violence expressed in rap lyrics. However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s limited understanding of the nuances of rap, and their judicial narrowing of this art form as monolithic, has set precedent that inserts legal and textual ambiguity into the nexus between between free speech and rap.
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Law enforcement’s animosity towards rap and its refusal to recognize the genre as a complex artistic endeavor can likely be traced to racial prejudices. On one hand, law enforcement views rap negatively because this music directly threatens their authority. On the other hand, multiple studies have demonstrated that rap music “primes the negative culturally held stereotype of urban Blacks.”
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In recent months, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal has captured the nation’s attention, as it presents the first comprehensive legislative effort to combat global warming. However, in the discussion of the government’s responsibility to mitigate the effects of climate change, a certain case has been lost in the noise. Juliana v. United States is a class action lawsuit in which twenty-one plaintiffs (all undergraduates at various colleges and universities across the country) are suing United States executive agencies, including the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency, for a violation of their constitutional rights.
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