Nicholas Langenberg is a J.D. candidate at Michigan State University College of Law. He currently serves as the Executive Editor of the Michigan State Law Review, and he will be participating in the Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court competition in Spring of 2025.

Emojis, small, colorful symbols, originally designed for simple expression, have become a staple in the world of digital communication. 😜🫶 Emojis present a unique challenge to the courts largely due to their ambiguous nature. In this comparative analysis, I aim to expand on my previous work by embarking on a journey to explore how foreign courts interpret emojis and draw insights from these diverse global perspectives.

To put one’s name in the Goblet of Fire for consideration as each school’s “champion” would establish a binding magical contract. Once chosen, the champions could not have a change of heart; they would have to compete until the end—or die trying. This Note uses Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a case study on contract enforceability. What this Note aims to illustrate is that creative case studies can take a set of facts that are familiar to millions and use them as a way to discuss complex legal topics and to keep legal minds churning.

The debate is charged by the controversy over the Custer statute in his hometown of Monroe, Michigan and allegations that Custer’s actions against Native Americans in the Plains Wars were “war crimes.” The answer to the question of whether Custer’s conduct was a “war crime” depends, as it often does in a historical analysis, on what standards are imposed on the established or even-disputed facts of Custer’s conduct as a soldier and commander almost 150 years ago. This article seeks to analyze the trends in the development of the rules of war during the mid-19th Century, the Civil War, and the Plains Wars and examines Custer’s conduct at Washita under that contemporary lens.

Regardless of their background, upbringing, abilities, or any other uniqueness, every child deserves a chance at an adequate education. But an adequate education is different for every student. In its 2022–2023 Term, the Supreme Court revived its interest in special education law under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) in Luna Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools. While the Court correctly determined that relief that is available under the IDEA must be exhausted, the Court’s definition of “available” was too narrow. Rather, the Court should have relied on its precedent analyzing a nearly identical mandatory exhaustion provision to further define and extend when relief is not available under the IDEA.

While I was finishing my last Article on this Forum, scholars and court filings began to argue that the rarely used Fourteenth Amendment, Section Three, by its explicit language would bar Former President Trump from being placed on a presidential ballot. Sounds like formal application of a constitutional method to remove a President from office. Faster than scholars could theorize, leaders and judges have unsurprisingly found ways to evade application of the Section. Sounds like dread. What can we learn from dread-induced fear of the formal rule? Why is it likely that – yet again – the formal rule will fail? And finally, what scars might this leave behind?

As the digital world becomes the default mode of operation, the importance of accessible and inclusive cybersecurity measures is evident. People with disabilities, low socioeconomic status, or age differences face several challenges with ensuring their own security where there is a lack of supportive software and general technological education. From a regulatory standpoint, there are several different approaches to cybersecurity, particularly in the areas of privacy and certification prioritization. Considering these differences, it is evident that cybersecurity is a significant priority from a governmental perspective, as regulatory schemes enact different laws and programs to offer individuals and entities digital protection. Moreover, it is imperative for policymakers and industry stakeholders to collaborate and harmonize their approaches to cybersecurity to close the digital divide.

This Essay focuses on the disuse of the formal process of removal of a U.S. President and compares it to other, less-formal methods. What does the historical record tell us about formal process as a means for removing bad leaders? Is there a cost to a seeming reluctance to deploy formal rules and thus to create a fully developed public record of executive behavior meriting formal condemnation and removal? What is the benefit substituting improvisation for formal processes? Does improvisation provide adequate protection from a corrupt executive in an emergency? Even if the answer is yes to improvisation as rescue in crisis, does improvisation come at the expense of an adequate public advancement and recordation of norms governing leadership positions?

In a recent essay and longer companion piece, Professor Jim Chen traces the origins and development of the Supreme Court’s recently coined “major questions doctrine.” He trenchantly criticizes the doctrine on numerous grounds, including that federal courts have seized authority to make policy decisions that are better resolved by administrative agencies with greater technical and subject matter expertise. Chen also draws on lessons from the biological sciences to argue that the major questions doctrine modifies the ecosystem of regulatory jurisprudence in ways that could lead to both Chevron’s and textualism’s extinction. And while I agree that the Court has harmed both Chevron and textualism, such assessments are complicated by the highly complex and diverse nature of regulatory jurisprudence’s ecosystem(s).

The rhetoric if not the reasoning of the Supreme Court’s newly recognized “major questions doctrine” originates in the jurisprudence of Justice Antonin Scalia. The major questions doctrine rests on little more than Justice Scalia’s exercises in Latin etymology and his felicitous announcement that Congress “does not . . . hide elephants in mouseholes.” This doctrine threatens to eclipse textualist statutory interpretation. Textualism, which had long lived by the ipse dixit, now dies by the ipse dixit. But one must mourn for the Constitution. Justice Scalia’s major mousetrap comes not as a mouse, but as a wolf.