SMU Law Review Forum

JALC

The SMU Law Review Forum is the online counterpart to SMU Law Review, the flagship journal at SMU Dedman School of Law. The Forum specializes in short-form, timely articles that are reviewed and published on an ongoing basis and with an accelerated schedule. 

The SMU Law Review Forum started seventy-two years after SMU Law Review’s first publication in 1947 and serves as a new format for authors to engage in timely debate on important legal issues. As SMU Law Review’s online counterpart, the Forum provides another platform for professors, practitioners, judges, legal scholars, and students to explore the implications of recent legal decisions, events, and trends. The Forum strives to publish contemporary scholarship and elevate the work of diverse individuals whose identities, viewpoints, and ideas have often been underrepresented in the legal field. 

All editing is done by student members of the board of editors and the staff of the SMU Law Review Association. The Association also publishes the SMU Law Review, the Journal of Air Law and Commerce, and the SMU Annual Texas Survey.

 

Recent Articles and Comments in Volume 76 (2023)

"With All Deliberate Speed": The Ironic Demise of (and Hope for) Affirmative Action

By Vinay Harpalani – This Essay examines the history of affirmative action, the recent Supreme Court oral arguments in the cases of SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC Chapel Hill, the perspective of each individual Justice on these cases, and the prospects for the Court’s rulings. It frames these issues around the irony of Brown v. Board of Education II (1955), where the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that school desegregation occur “with all deliberate speed.” Many critical commentators view this ironic phrase as a signal to Southern states to resist desegregation, even as it literally seemed to embody urgency. This Essay argues that in various ways, “with all deliberate speed” applies to the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on race-conscious university admissions policies, and that it reflects both the demise of and the best hope for such policies. [...]


Reforging the Master’s Tools: Critical Race Theory in the First-Year Curriculum (Comment)

By Benjamin M. Gerzik – This Article examines why and how critical race theory (CRT) should be taught as a mandatory component of the first-year law school curriculum. Learning the fundamentals of critical race theory is not only important to empathetically understand and serve those around you, but necessary to understand the law as it is. The law’s past and future require this. This Article first makes the positive argument for critical race theory’s necessity in legal education, showing that it rises above normative (albeit virtuous) justifications. It then briefly summarizes what critical race theory is by outlining its central tenets, as well as what critical race theory is not by examining the recent uproar surrounding the CRT boogeyman. [...]


Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Probably the Secret Codes (Comment)

By Jian Micah De Jesus – Roger Rabbit was falsely accused of murdering Marvin Acme, the owner of Toontown, after photos revealed Acme’s alleged affair with Roger’s wife. A few snapshots, while seemingly harmless, brought a 104-minute journey into uncovering the truth and scandal behind the murder and proving Roger’s innocence. And while the camera that took the photos was not necessarily a criminal justice technology that framed Roger Rabbit, there are real-life cases where a DNA software or a breathalyzer has negatively affected many defendants. Despite the proven usefulness of these technologies, it is not a perfect method in accusing and convicting defendants. The criminal justice system, however, might disagree. Yet, there are many occasions where technology has wrongfully accused an individual, and its lack of source code transparency has created a roadblock for defense counsel. [...]


Prepublication Publications

By Gregory Scott Crespi – Many law professors now post essentially complete drafts of their articles on SSRN and/or on university-sponsored working paper websites prior to submitting those articles for journal review and possible publication. This “prepublication publication,” so to speak, is useful for both authors and their readers, but it raises some self-plagiarism issues. There does not yet appear to be a broad consensus among journal editors on how those issues should be addressed. I argue that this increasingly common practice of SSRN and working paper prepublication of articles prior to their submission for journal review should be recognized as entirely appropriate, particularly if this prior publication is disclosed in the journal submission or is otherwise called to the attention of the journal editors. [...]

 

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Contact

Journal Coordinator
Lisa Ponce
ponce@smu.edu

President
Ellie Johnson
eleanor@smu.edu

Forum Executive Editor
Rachel Brachman
rbrachman@smu.edu
smulraforum@smu.edu

Forum Assistant Executive Editor
Deborah Claire Manson
dmanson@smu.edu

  

Submissions

Submission Instructions

 

Related links 

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

SMU Annual Texas Survey

SMU Law Review

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