After a Hawaii appeals court issued a decision that a bed and breakfast discriminated in denying a room to a same-sex couple, the Hawaii Supreme Court rejected an appeal of the lower court’s ruling. While this case stands in contrast to a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding discrimination, it represents the decision Read More

  The United States Supreme Court announced at the end of June that the court will hear a case involving a bakery owner who refused to make a cake for a couple on the basis of the baker’s religious views concerning same-sex couples. The case is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court in October. Read More

  Recently, the Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s ruling that a Texas voter identification law discriminates against minorities. The Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Roberts noted that there is still additional work for lower courts to do reviewing these laws. The lower court case in question concerns a decision by the United States Read More

During the summer of 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court finally appeared to settle the question of whether or not same-sex marriage is a legal right. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the court decided in a 5-4 ruling, that the Constitution of the United States not only allows, but guarantees the right to same-sex marriage. The court Read More

Lately mainstream media has been catching flak for not covering the controversial North Dakota pipeline construction being protested by members of the Rock Sioux tribe. That being said, after gruesome photos of guard dogs with bloodied mouths surfaced and after the pipeline company allegedly bulldozed through native burial sites, larger news outlets are beginning to Read More

People have been adopting children in our country since before we were a country. Adoption then was a very different process from adoption today. In large part, prior to 1851, adoption was less focused on child rearing than it was the burden to adults. In the mid 1800’s however, Massachusetts passed the 1851 Adoption of Read More

The First Amendment of the United States constitution effectively gave us the separation of church and state that we know today. The First Amendment contains two cornerstone clauses by which the founding fathers emphasized this separation. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause prevent Congress from prohibiting the exercise or the regulation of religion. Read More

Recently, we discussed the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling regarding contraception and the Affordable Care Act. Although the court ultimately left that decision to the lower courts, on Monday, June 27, 2016, the court made a bold statement regarding abortion and reproductive rights when it handed down a 5-to-3 decision reaffirming the prior landmark cases of Read More

On May 16, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States (the “Supreme Court”) issued an opinion remanding a string of cases related to contraception and contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act. In its opinion, the Supreme Court vacated the decisions of the lower courts, and asked that the respective courts allow the parties Read More

In a case that garnered less national attention than other cases that made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, a small congregation in a suburb of Flagstaff, Arizona received a “win” when the Supreme Court ruling ended in their favor in June of 2015. The decision, though local in origin, may have farther reaching Read More