Online Journal — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review

Surveillance Beyond Borders: How Courts Can Check the Power of AI Within the Immigration System

With the development of artificial intelligence (AI), what once was a technology of the obscure and distant future has now become part of our daily lives. From digital assistants and chatbots to social media platforms and search algorithms, AI has expanded into our reality. It has been implemented in fields ranging from healthcare and banking to analytics. Now, it is increasingly being implemented within the immigration system. Within the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), AI algorithms are used to analyze facial expressions, inspect fingerprints and faces, and survey remote border crossings. Its usage has transformed how countries like the United States are managing their inflow of migrants and asylum seekers. Yet, the quickness with which AI has been applied within the immigration system, both within the United States and internationally, dangerously threatens the privacy rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.

Ella HummelAugust 17, 2025immigration, artificial intelligence, human rights, privacy rights

A New Age of Publicity: The NO FAKES Act and Federal Regulation on AI Replicas

In an age dominated by artificial intelligence (AI), the entertainment industry has evolved to reflect the capacity of new technologies to alter, enhance, or replicate human performances. As actors earn Oscars for AI-assisted performances and bands win Grammys for AI-generated music, questions have arisen concerning the future of art as human creation. The past several years have seen several lawsuits filed, contracts revised, and restrictions set in an attempt to regulate AI usage in the industry. One such effort, the 2024 Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act, was recently introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives as an endeavor to protect actors’ and performers’ likenesses from the misuse of deepfake technology. While preemptive state laws and agencies like the U.S. Copyright Office support the creation of a national standard for restrictions on AI, the proposed legislation, as outlined in the current version of the NO FAKES Act, would encroach upon First Amendment rights protecting freedom of speech in digital spaces as interpreted and enforced by the current administration.

Kate GivenAugust 17, 2025Copyright law, artificial intelligence, entertainment law, right of publicity

Chevron’s Fall and the Unraveling of California’s Clean Air Act Waiver

For over a decade, California has stood at the forefront of U.S. climate policy, using its Clean Air Act waiver to establish the nation’s most aggressive greenhouse gas emissions regulations in order to meet their goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045. However, in the wake of the overruling of Chevron deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. Environmental Protective Agency (EPA) (2025), California’s Clean Air Act (CAA) waiver now rests on fragile ground. The overturning of Chevron deference alongside the recent ruling in Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA signals that courts may now reinterpret the waiver provision more narrowly, undermining many states’ capacity to lead on climate regulation.

Stella DullAugust 17, 2025Climate justice, emissions regulations, Clean Air Act, mitigation law

Executive Overreach of Title VI: Censoring Campus Speech

Following the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the ensuing Israel-Palestine conflict, college campuses across the United States served as hotbeds for protest in opposition to U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Beginning in April 2024, pro-Palestinian encampments calling for divestment from Israel—most notably at Columbia University—spread to the lawns of over three thousand universities across the nation. As U.S. history shows, college campus protests, spearheaded by students and faculty, is certainly not a new concept. Educational institutions in the United States have long been the grounds overseeing transformative, youth-led protests from the civil rights movement, to anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, to prison divestment efforts, and more. Such activism has triggered nationwide conversation and policy changes. A historical parallel occurred over fifty years ago, in April 1968, when Columbia University’s Democratic Society and Afro-American Society student groups organized protests against the university’s ties to the Vietnam War, that led to thousands of students occupying campus buildings for a week. The university administration involved the police, arresting over seven hundred students and sparking a university shutdown. Nonetheless, the demonstration sparked national protest and attention and prompted Columbia to sever ties with military research and recruitment.

Megan ChopraAugust 17, 2025free speech, Title VI, jawboning, Heckler’s Veto

Deadlines and Dead Lives: Actualizing Equity Through Habeas Corpus

The “Great Writ,” or the writ of habeas corpus, is the only court order enshrined in the Constitution. The Latin phrase means “you have the body,” a mandate requiring authorities to bring an inmate before the courts to assess the legality of their detention following their petition for habeas corpus. Although legal scholars have traditionally framed the writ of habeas corpus as an equitable means to protect due process, interpretations of the writ have evolved, leading to increasing restrictions on its availability.

Over the last 30 years, approximately 57 people have been denied the “Great Writ” of habeas corpus in death penalty cases because their attorneys missed deadlines to file for the process. 30 of them have been executed – the most recent being Jeffrey Hutchinson in May 2025. Hutchinson was a Gulf War Veteran who urged his attorney to act swiftly and file on his behalf, yet a combination of attorney misconduct and court error resulted in his death.

Chastity BlairAugust 17, 2025habeas corpus, death penalty, civil rights, criminal justice

Gatekeeping the Classroom: How Tennessee’s SB 0836 Threatens Equal Education for Undocumented Students

In 2025, although the second Trump administration made it clear that immigration enforcement would undergo stricter and more expansive measures, many underestimated the extent of the changes. By the end of January, videos and photos of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents taking alleged illegal immigrants into unmarked cars made their way into thousands of communities, spreading fear. The second Trump administration's new focus on the deportations of immigrants integrated into thousands of communities within the U.S. laid the groundwork for states that agreed with the President’s policy focus to put out bills and laws that aggressively targeted illegal immigrants in their state. In New Jersey, State Representative Paul Kanitra introduced bill A5233, otherwise known as the PLYLER Act, which aims to revise public school enrollment policies by imposing a tuition on all undocumented students. This bill asserts that education is not a constitutional right and that states should have the authority to control who qualifies for taxpayer-funded schools. Bill A5233 was referred to the New Jersey State Assembly Education Committee and remains pending in the early stages of the legislative process.

Hamilton's Prophecy Fulfilled: The Evolution & Decline of Judicial Review

Hamilton’s objections and fears about the capabilities of the judiciary were once unsubstantiated due to the Founders’ early efforts to establish judicial oversight and review. Despite these efforts, modern-day limitations of judicial rulings—exemplified by Supreme Court decisions such as Trump v. CASA Inc.—have actualized Hamilton’s ideas about the shortcomings of the judicial branch. These decisions represent the latest phase in a centuries-long evolution of decisions that have consistently weakened judicial oversight. From the establishment of judicial review to wartime expansions of executive authority and recent constraints on the courts, this development threatens the foundational system of checks and balances and poses risks to citizens.

Teniola AdedireAugust 17, 2025Judicial Review, Checks and Balances, Constitutional rights

Withstanding Standing Scrutiny: How Climate Litigation Can Survive Juliana’s Federal Beatdown

Unlike criminal law, where the perpetrator is often easily identifiable, it is impossible to point to a single perpetrator when it comes to the climate crisis. Rising sea levels are engulfing entire islands, homes are being levelled by extreme weather, and droughts are leaving populations in famine—yet such devastation cannot be attributed to a single person, or even to a single country. Climate change is an international problem rife with geopolitical tensions. Thus, victims of climate injury seeking redress face significant obstacles in amending these claims through the American legal system, a single jurisdiction out of countless implicated regions. While it wasn’t without its victories, the Ninth Circuit’s divided 2020 ruling in Juliana v. United States reinforced stringent federal standing requirements, effectively barring climate redress cases from succeeding in federal court for the foreseeable future. However, the success of state-level cases like Held v. Montana in establishing standing suggests a path forward for climate advocates, who may find considerable success bringing cases to state courts with environmental rights enshrined in their constitutions.

Iris WuAugust 17, 2025Climate, Standing, Redressability, Juliana, Montana

New York University’s Data Breach Exposes The SHIELD Act and FERPA’s Illusion of Protection

On the morning of Saturday, March 22nd, 2025, New York University’s (NYU) homepage was compromised. Hackers cruised through the confidential admissions data for two hours, taking control of data from over three million applicants, all available at the touch of their fingertips. Amongst this data lay test scores, financial aid records, zip codes, and academic credentials, which the hackers worked to make accessible to the public. Students received a brief letter from NYU confirming that their personal data had been exposed, offering them a one-year subscription to an identity protection service. Further restitution was minimal, the explanations were insufficient, and the opportunity for redress was entirely obsolete.

Iqra WaheedAugust 17, 2025NYU data breach, SHIELD Act, FERPA, privacy rights