Press Highlights

There’s another, even more challenging gap to address: the California Endangered Species Act, “on its face, does not count habitat of listed species as something that’s protected,” according to Eric Biber, a professor at UC Berkeley Law — though, he added, there’s uncertainty and debate about the law’s interpretation.

“Forty years after my family fought for the right for me to hug my mother in prison, children are still being denied the same human connection,” writes Chesa Boudin, executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center.

“California’s voters are well-armed by law with their own choices at the ballot box and remedies against malfeasance in office,” write David A. Carrillo, executive director of Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center and senior research fellow Brandon V. Stracener. “If the voters get what they wished for and do nothing about it, then the people have spoken — whatever the written law may say.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision to allow President Donald Trump to demolish the East Wing of the White House and build a huge ballroom is troubling enough,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But it could also have long-term consequences by making it much harder for plaintiffs to sue to enforce something even more important: federal environmental laws.”

Jonathan D. Glater, a professor at University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said the administration’s interpretation of the reach of SFFA suggests it may find grounds to pursue a lawsuit. Glater pointed to a February 2025 Dear Colleague letter in which the Education Department argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling applies beyond admissions.

“The war in Iran continues, and very few people seem to care that it’s clearly illegal and unconstitutional,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “What does that say about the rule of law in this country, when the president can wage a pointless war at enormous cost in dollars and human lives without authorization?”

“I’m glad that the Office for Civil Rights did still collect the data and did still clean it up and publish it for data scientists,” said Catherine Lhamon. “But it didn’t make it usable for somebody’s mom to be able to see what’s happening in a school community, advocate with a school board, compare the school community experience to another district or other states in the country.”

“We’ve never seen the extent of corruption that we’re witnessing with regard to this president and this administration,” Chemerinsky said at the Edley Center on Law & Democracy’s symposium. “In this context, it’s so important that state and local governments can step up and continue to step up to fight back.”

UC Berkeley law professor Brian Galle said schools should hold their ground and predicted that the proposed IRS rules would not come close to surviving a legal challenge. “This rule is obviously illegal,” Galle said. “The only reason that this proposal will have any effect is if university presidents, their boards, and their general counsels are afraid to stand up for themselves in court.”

“It’s a really disappointing outcome at a time when there is bipartisan concern about this mass surveillance tool,” UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology co-director Catherine Crump told CalMatters. Crump testified in support of the bill in July.

“For firms that invest meaningfully, well-designed AI workflows can replace apprenticeship by chance with development by design,” Wayne Stacy, executive director of ​the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and Caren Ulrich Stacy write.

UC Berkeley Law named as one of the top schools for human rights law.

Under constitutional due process, the federal government must provide and pay for medical care to those in its custody, said UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “People in ICE detention can’t go and get their own doctors or medical care,” he said, calling the billing of detainees “just outrageous.”

Pamela Samuelson, a copyright lawyer who codirects the Berkeley Center For Law & Technology, tells WIRED that the government’s brief is a “significant development,” and one which is consistent with AI copyright rulings thus far.

A report from the Criminal Law & Justice Center at UC Berkeley School of Law, in collaboration with Amend at the University of California, San Francisco finds sexual misconduct remains a persistent threat in California prisons, while inadequate data, reporting barriers, investigative failures and institutional practices continue to undermine prevention and accountability.

“Allowing suits by those injured serves two crucial goals: compensation for injuries and deterrence of constitutional violations.,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“Roberts is usually with the conservatives on this,” said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, of the court’s interpretation of what’s called “standing.” “But he was willing to accept an aesthetic injury – which always has been regarded as sufficient for standing – while the conservative justices were not. Ultimately it means that even if the president’s actions as to the ballroom are unconstitutional, no one will have standing to sue to challenge them.”

“I’m not opposed to license plate readers,” writes Professor Catherine Crump. “Used well, they can help solve crimes and improve public safety by flagging stolen cars or vehicles associated with people wanted for felonies. But they’re also vulnerable to abuse.”

Wayne Stacy, executive director of ​the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said the measure is largely “duplicative” of existing ​ethics rules covering lawyers.

“To be really clear, data centers are not bad or good … we use them every day for just about everything we do involving technology,” said Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment.

“It really is tremendously hard on almost anybody when you get the kinds of threats that people are getting now — the language and the specific threats that are made. The impact on the judges, the impact on the judges’ families and loved ones, the impact just on the routines of their life, I think that’s underreported,” said Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute which published the report “Threats to the Independence of the Federal Judiciary,” along with New York University School of Law’s Rule of Law Lab.

Judge Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute said lawyers have “a direct stake in an independent judiciary and in the rule of law and in public confidence in the system” and can help explain concepts such as judicial independence, checks and balances and the constitutional role of the courts to the public. 

Professor Emily Rong Zhang breaks down the ongoing legal battle between the Trump Administration and several State Attorneys General over the President’s executive order on mail-in ballots.

“Arresting people out in the community or at check-ins is really a new thing in the sense that it was really uncommon before this administration,” said Assistant Professor David Hausman. “And now we’re seeing much, much more of that. So, the rate of arrests not happening at jails or prisons has gone up by over ten times.”

“I do not believe that the supremacy clause automatically protects federal officers from state tort or criminal liability,” Chemerinsky said, referring to the section of the U.S. Constitution that declares federal law to be the supreme law of the land, overriding any conflicting state laws.

“Even if the empirical claims made by proponents of the SAT are correct, a more fundamental question remains: How much should the UCs admit and sort students across campuses by predicted academic performance?,” writes Professor Prasad Krishnamurthy.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday allowing President Trump’s executive order on mail voting to go forward is stunningly insensitive to the context: Trump is trying to exercise control over elections when he has absolutely no authority to do so,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“The very first desegregation agreements that [OCR] was created by Congress to enforce included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end,” says Catherine Lhamon, executive director, Edley Center on Law and Democracy. These practices, she says, are “a feature of discrimination. And it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I, decided in June, is a lethal blow to suits under the federal Alien Tort Statute,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy.

“It’s not simply that social media is addictive, but that it was intentionally so,” said Stavros Gadinis, a professor of law at Berkeley Law School. “There were systematic design choices that the company made, and these design choices lead to longer engagement.”

David A. Carrillo, executive director at UC Berkeley’s California Constitution Center, said the justices move cases up when they “need to move fast” on matters with a hard deadline, such as an election, or whenever doing so “serves the needs of justice.”

“The reality is there’s not enough places for people who are currently unhoused and unsheltered to go,” said UC Berkeley Law’s assistant dean of clinical education Laura Riley.

Vincent Joralemon comments on the landmark Meta trial.

“In the face of liability for their role in the devastating wildfires, California utility companies are pushing to change the law,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “They are doing so while pretending that their concern is helping those who suffer great losses.”

“No one’s talking really about speculation, although if you create the market, that will happen, right? You create the market, inevitably people will use it to bet on these prices,” said Professor Frank Partnoy.

“Anything that chills speech online will have a very high bar to clear in courts,” Joralemon said. “Courts will look at the impact on everyone, not just children.”

Professor Pamela Samuelson, a copyright law professor at University of California, Berkeley, described that process to Inc. as a form of “format shifting.” “It didn’t multiply the number of copies of the work in existence so not an infringement,” Samuelson said.

Vincent Joralemon, director of the Life Sciences Law and Policy Center at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology weighs in on the suit against Meta.

Dean Erwin Chemerisky weighs in on West Virginia v. B.P.J. upholding a West Virginia law prohibiting transgender girls and women from participating in sports corresponding to their gender identity.

“The 4Ds model needs a fifth ‘D’—it’s the key to keeping human judgment at the center of AI-powered legal practice,” writes Wayne Stacy, executive director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology.

UC Berkeley Law, Berkeley Judicial Institute Executive Director Judge Jeremy Fogel joins Legal Face-Off to discuss the latest on judiciary threats around the country.

Professors Khiara M. Bridges and David Oppenheimer weigh in on a suit brought against the City of Chula Vista by Roxana Kennedy, the city’s longtime police chief who alleges that city leaders secretly conspired to oust her.

“Simply put, the bill would prevent the government from compiling a massive database on those who are not suspected of anything,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Professor Kevin Washburn discusses why the timing of the latest National Indian Gaming Commission revenue report may not capture the effects of prediction markets, the broader risks he believes prediction markets pose to tribal gaming, and the legal questions he believes are headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“In terms of a civil penalty from a company to journalists, this is unprecedented on an order of magnitude,” said Vincent Joralemon, a director at UC Berkeley Law and a former corporate lawyer.

“It’s really unclear right now whether the United States has legal authority to do this, to issue these permits,” said UC Berkeley law school professor Holly Doremus, co-director of the school’s Law of the Sea Institute.

The new system greatly speeds up the process of deleting personal data, says Vincent Joralemon, director of the Life Sciences Law and Policy Center at UC Berkeley. Before the DROP system, people would need to contact each data processor and request that their information be deleted.

“No library can buy every book. It always has to make choices,” Chemerinsky said, but a library that chooses to acquire only books that support the current presidential administration would clearly violate the Constitution. “Where is the line to be drawn?”

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor Claudia Polsky comment on the targeting of California and other blue states by the Trump administration for political reasons, when cutting funding for clean energy projects.