DISCOVERY presented by UW Law

What does justice look like for children caught in the gun violence epidemic? And why do courts struggle to treat kids like kids when sentencing them for serious crimes?  In this episode of Discovery, we examine these issues with UW Law teaching professor Kimberly Ambrose and community member Aaron Faletogo who was incarcerated at the age of 16. In 2021, the Tools for Social Change: Race and Justice Clinic, directed by Professor Ambrose, helped Faletogo obtain release after over 25 years of incarceration.  Ambrose and Faletogo discuss findings in the groundbreaking article "Making Youth Matter" in the Washington Law Review. We also explore why young people carry guns, why adult courts often fail to understand adolescence, and how we have a shared societal responsibility for keeping children safe.  Join us for a powerful, essential conversation at the intersection of law, race and public health. 

In this episode of Discovery, we speak with retired professor and Associate Dean Emeritus Hugh Spitzer, a distinguished scholar of constitutional and comparative law, about his recent Seattle Times op-ed, "This Baked-In Constitutional Conundrum Will Take Some Time to Repair."  Professor Spitzer examines how foundational features of the U.S. Constitution — particularly the disproportionate power of small-population states in the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College, along with the Constitution's rigid amendment process — have contributed to political polarization and democratic imbalance.  The conversation explores why these structures made sense at the nation's founding, why they pose challenges in today's vastly different political and demographic landscape, and what history suggests about the possibility of reform. He also reflects on the importance of civil engagement in protecting democratic institutions.  This episode offers a thoughtful, historically grounded examination of voting power, representation, and the long-term prospects for constitutional reform in the United States — inviting listeners to consider what it means to sustain a functioning democracy in the 21st century. 

Courts are increasingly allowing employers to invoke the First Amendment's expressive association doctrine — originally crafted for civic and membership organizations — to avoid antidiscrimination laws in the workplace.  In this episode, we speak with our Toni Rembe Lecture speaker, Professor Elizabeth Sepper, who is known for her work on religious liberty, health law, equality and emerging questions about how public and private institutions are asserting religious or expressive identities. She recently visited UW Law to unpack her forthcoming article in the Michigan Law Review, "Expressive Association at Work," which she co-authored with James Nelson and Charlotte Garden.     Professor Sepper explores how courts are beginning to treat the workplace like a membership organization — sometimes without acknowledging the profound differences between civil associations and hierarchical employment structures. Her work shows why this shift matters for workers, for employers and for the future of antidiscrimination law. 

In this episode of the Discovery podcast, we speak with Professor David B. Owens, assistant professor of law and director of the Civil Rights and Justice Clinic at the University of Washington School of Law. A nationally recognized civil rights litigator and scholar, Owens discusses his recent essay in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change, "The Equal Protection–Fourth Amendment Shell Game: An Essay on the Limited Reach of the 2023 Affirmative Action Cases, the Fourth Amendment, and Race Beyond Skin Color." He explores the Supreme Court's 2023 affirmative action rulings, the limits of colorblind constitutionalism, and how race continues to shape policing and justice in America — drawing on both his lived experience and his work advocating for systemic reform.  Through this deeply personal and incisive interview, listeners are invited to confront the tension between constitutional ideals and real-world inequities — and to consider how law, experience and empathy must intersect if equal protection is ever to be what it promises.  This Discovery episode invites listeners to reflect on how constitutional interpretation, judicial philosophy and personal narrative intersect — and on what meaningful equal protection might require in practice. 

In this episode of the Discovery podcast, we talk with Timothy Heaphy about the similarities between the 2017 Charlottesville riot and the January 6th insurrection. Heaphy led the House investigation into the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol and recently authored Harbingers: What January 6 and Charlottesville Reveal About Rising Threats to American Democracy.  Heaphy reflects on his unique role in investigating both the 2017 Charlottesville rally and the 2021 Capitol insurrection, drawing strong parallels between the two events. We explore what these events reveal about the current fragility of American democracy. Heaphy emphasizes that both were driven by a deep mistrust in institutions and a breakdown in civil discourse, with social media playing a pivotal role in the spread of misinformation and mobilization.  Heaphy also reveals how we can avoid similar episodes of political violence in the future and protect our democracy. His ultimate message is that democracy is sustained not by institutions alone, but by people acting in good faith to uphold its ideals. 

During the first wave of the opioid pandemic, the U.S. federal government encouraged states to establish prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) which use predictive algorithms to determine risk scores for patients. These scores, which can point correctly or inaccurately to substance use disorder (SUD), drug diversion, doctor shopping or drug misuse, have a risk themselves, as overreliance on PDMP information for clinical decision making often influences clinicians in their treatment, or refusal to treat, vulnerable people. In this episode, we speak with health law and policy expert Elizabeth Pendo, UW Law's senior associate dean for academic affairs and Kellye Y. Testy Professor of Law. Pendo, who co-wrote the recently published paper, "Challenging Disability Discrimination in the Clinical Case of PDMP Algorithms" in the Carolina Law Review, challenges PDMP algorithmic discrimination, which is far from regulated, as disability discrimination through the lens of federal antidiscrimination laws. Pendo also talks about the revitalization of UW Law's Health Law program through the upcoming launch of the Health Law & Policy Program.  

We interview new faculty member Jeremiah Chin, an expert on children's rights and constitutional rights, about Held v. Montana, the first constitutional climate trial led by children in U.S. history. The Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of the 16 youth plaintiffs in December 2024 that Montana's fossil fuel energy policies and actions violate the children's state constitutional rights. An expert in children's rights and constitutional rights, Professor Chin joined the UW Law faculty in fall 2024. He is an assistant professor of law with a J.D. and Ph.D. in justice studies from Arizona State University. We discuss the landscape of children's rights, focusing on the youth plaintiffs' expression of their need for protection around climate change and how they have mobilized to participate in litigation. Dr. Chin also examines the strongest arguments for and against the verdict. Finally, he explains why this ruling was achieved more quickly than one still pending from a 2015 federal constitutional claim, Juliana vs. United States, in which 21 young Americans challenge the U.S. government's role in driving climate change and request declaratory relief from federal fossil fuel policies causing harm to their physical health and safety.

To open season seven of Discovery, we're discussing voter suppression through a social science lens with UW Law faculty member Danieli Evans. The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election is just weeks away and concerns around preserving voters' rights are ever-present as Americans begin casting their ballots. Poll taxes, strict voter ID laws and restrictions on mail voting are examples of policies limiting voting rights. But the carceral state — loosely defined as citizens' encounters with any type of criminal system — also inflicts harm on voters that can ultimately cause them to voluntarily withdraw from the voting process. Professor Evans joins Discovery to discuss her paper "Carceral Socialization as Voter Suppression" and why it's important not to ignore this phenomenon.

Some scholars call our politically fraught and hyper-partisan times "the age of impeachment." They claim the increased use of impeachment and removal proceedings signals an erosion in institutional norms, perhaps that we've even "overwhelmed" the use of impeachment and diluted impeachment of any significance. What does U.S. impeachment history tell us? The Constitution provides that treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors are impeachable offenses. A common thread that runs throughout presidential impeachment proceedings is an effort by legal counsel to try and define the scope of impeachable misconduct.  On this episode of Discovery, we discuss the history of impeachment with Professor Michael Gerhardt from the Carolina Law faculty, whose teaching and research focuses on constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress. He has authored nine books, testified more than 20 times before Congress, and has served as an expert commentator for CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Gerhardt joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2005 and serves as the Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence. Gerhardt's new book, The Law of Presidential Impeachment, provides a comprehensive and nonpartisan explanation of impeachment's role in presidential accountability.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee to personal liberty does not include the right to abortion and returned the power to regulate abortion to individual states. Justice Samuel Alito said in the Court's majority opinion that the decision in Dobbs v. The Jackson Women's Health Organization would end the abortion controversy once and for all. However, in overruling both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, an unprecedented new landscape interfering with human rights has emerged, factors which intersect with rights related to environmental justice, contraception, marriage equality and private sexual conduct, among others. In this episode of the Discovery podcast, we address the new "patchwork quilt" of state legislation on abortion with UW Law alumnus Elisabeth Smith, the director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She recently visited her alma mater to give students in the 1L Perspectives class series an overview of how the Dobbs decision affects the terrain for reproductive justice across the country.  Elisabeth Smith is director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, where she was formerly Chief Counsel starting in 2018. She moved to New York from Washington state where she was legislative director for the ACLU. She graduated from Davidson College and the University of Washington School of Law.

Beginning with the tale of an unsolved mystery, and expanding to the U.S. Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, UW Professor of Law Mary D. Fan takes us through a look at how crimes are being solved through the use of digital searches. Keyword and geofence warrants are now tools helping law enforcement identify unknown perpetrators. However, courts are split over their constitutionality. Search and arrest warrants are in the text of the Fourth Amendment, but how do we apply constitutional rights with "technological probable cause" and the deployment of big data searches? Twice recognized as the large section Professor of the Year at UW Law, Mary D. Fan is the Jack R. MacDonald Endowed Chair and teaches criminal law. She has a J.D. from Yale, a master's from Cambridge and is a Ph.D. candidate in epidemiology at the University of Washington.  

The Supreme Court has categorically ruled that the application of neuroscience research to the legal culpability of minors committing crimes, no matter how serious, must be considered in the criminal justice system. In addition to maintaining public safety, the primary goals of the juvenile justice system include rehabilitation and successfully reintegrating youth into the community after time is served. But what if just going to prison as a young person ends up working against you when you seek parole? Parole systems, the back end of criminal justice reform, often do not receive much attention. In this episode, assistant professor of law David Garavito, who teaches Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at UW Law, explains the different kinds of parole systems with a particular lens on South Carolina's discretionary parole system, which disproportionately applies prejudice against minors who commit crimes.  Garavito's area of expertise is juvenile law. In addition to a J.D., Garavito holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Human Development, all from Cornell University, and is a New York attorney. His ability and insight to write on legal and policy matters relating to criminal law, human development, and the application of psychology and neuroscience make this a riveting conversation. Garavito's paper with John Blume and Amelia Hritz, "Caged Birds and Those That Hear Their Songs: Effects of Race and Sex in South Carolina Parole Hearings," will be published in the Journal of Legal & Social Change in April 2024.

In this episode of "Discovery," we interview our first return guest, Professor Robert Tsai of the Boston University School of Law. Tsai visited the UW Law Faculty Colloquium to discuss his forthcoming (and fourth) book, Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice, a historical thriller about the decline of the death penalty adjacent to the career of attorney Stephen Bright, executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. Bright argued four Supreme Court cases following the McCleskey v. Kemp ruling in 1987. The ruling declared that, even if the death penalty has a racially disproportionate impact in a state, it does not violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution unless a racially discriminatory purpose can be proved. The disappointing ruling mobilized a group of civil rights advocates, led by Bright, to actually double down on their efforts to fight the death penalty and tough-on-crime policies through the courts. Tsai, who attended Yale Law School, grew up in Port Townsend, Washington, and is now a Law Alumni Scholar at Boston University. Join us as he takes us through the journey of Stephen Bright's fight for justice.

If fishing in international waters is legal, what about mining asteroids and the moon for water ice and precious metals? Turns out in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is lawful, as governed by the Outer Space Treaty and Artemis Accords, and embraced as advancing the cause of space exploration. Of interest to NASA and other civil space agencies around the globe, as well as a number of companies and academic organizations, ISRU actually offers lucrative opportunities for the rise of the world's first trillionaire. So what laws govern the pursuit of commercial space exploration, and what legal prohibitions or safeguards exist against disputes over resources?  In this New Year episode of Discovery, we explore the legal landscape of ISRU with Austin Murnane, Senior Legal Counsel at Blue Origin, a rocket launch and human spaceflight business based in Kent, Washington. In 2023, Murnane spoke at UW Law's Space Course: "The Case for Space Stations" and inaugural Space Law Diplomacy Symposium. Murnane is a former U.S. Marine with a J.D. from Fordham University and published The War Storytellers in 2015. He also holds a master's degree in Space Resources and is currently working on his Ph.D.   Murnane shares insights about the regulation of space mining as well as multiple parties' interests, the continued evolution of the partnership between government and commercial parties, and an anticipated timeline for the development of technology that will make ISRU possible in outer space.  

On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against race-based admissions at college campuses nationwide after hearing companion cases by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) that challenged admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC). SFFA overturned the 2003 ruling by a more liberal Supreme Court in the case Grutter v. Bollinger, which affirmed that a student's race could be used as one of multiple factors in admissions decisions at the University of Michigan.  Affirmative action was rejected by the conservative majority on the bench, which agreed that UNC's policies violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and that Harvard's affirmative action plan discriminates against Asian American students, a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But did it really change the way campus admissions will operate?  In their forthcoming paper in the Texas Law Review, "The Goose and the Gander: How Conservative Precedents Will Save Campus Affirmative Action," Professor Guha Krishnamurthi of the University of Maryland Carey Law School contends (along with his co-author Peter Salib) that though affirmative action is legally dead, race will still figure into holistic admissions procedures-- just not as a check-box item. In this episode of Discovery, we speak with Prof. Krishnamurthi about the previous state of play in race-based admissions and his opinion that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling against campus affirmative action has no practical effect on the way schools operate. He argues that due to the Supreme Court's decades-old rulings that statistical proof cannot carry a constitutional discrimination claim, universities will only be liable in litigation if they admit that they practice affirmative action, so most schools will pursue diversity by other means, simply by operating in the shadows.

Over the last half century, Congress has passed strong laws relating to environmental protection, covering a range of resources and industries. Despite these bold and comprehensive laws, implementation can be challenging, especially when it comes to the court system's interpretation of them. Sanne Knudsen, the Stimson Bullitt Endowed Professor of Environmental Law at UW Law, calls out the United States Supreme Court as being hostile or apathetic towards environmental laws, despite their often-strong language. She believes environmental law is a rational response to the fact that earth has finite resources and they need to be protected. In this episode, Professor Knudsen calls on Congress to enact the Environmental Judicial Review Act — as she calls it — to remind the courts that Congress passes environmental legislation to ensure environmental protection. By passing a comprehensive act, Congress could reaffirm the values and strength of existing environmental laws, while also addressing pressing issues such as climate change.

On March 20, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for Arizona v. Navajo Nation, a case in which UW Law professor Monte Mills, director of the Native American Law Center, filed an amicus brief with other professors and the Native American Rights Fund on February 8, 2023. The brief requests that the Court acknowledge that the Winters water rights doctrine, established in 1908, enforces the fiduciary duty of the federal government to reserve adequate water, in this case the entire Colorado River, at the creation of an Indian reservation in one of the driest parts of the country.  In this episode, we discuss with Professor Monte Mills how the Winters doctrine is a foundational component to water resource management in the West and foundational to the exercise of the United States' trust duties to protect and secure tribal reserved water rights. Arizona v. Navajo Nation dwells at the intersection of Native treaty rights and water rights, and the court's decision could have serious ramifications. Monte Mills joined the UW Law faculty in 2022 as the Charles I. Stone Professor of Law and director of the Native American Law Center (NALC). Monte's research and writing focuses on the intersection of Federal Indian Law, Tribal sovereignty, and natural resources as well as race and racism in the law and legal education.

As part of UW Law's storytelling around Black History Month, the Discovery podcast interviewed Dr. Kara Swanson, professor of law and affiliate professor of history at Northeastern University in Boston, about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. This lesser-known event, which Dr. Swanson calls the "racially motivated wholesale destruction of a community," details the tragedy that befell the lives and property of the residents of the Greenwood area of Tulsa, Oklahoma – otherwise known as Black Wall Street – on May 31 and June 1, 1921. The Tulsa Race Massacre is not part of the property law curriculum in legal education but has much to teach us. History shows us that racial identity is significant to questions of property, so there are costs and consequences to excluding such events. The basic principle of trespass failed to withstand anti-Black racism. In this episode, Dr. Swanson takes the listeners on her journey of discovery and reflection of what we might learn if property law was taught with knowledge of the Tulsa Race Massacre and other events connected to race.  Dr. Swanson shares her scholarship on the law of trespass from a 2021 symposium, "The Tulsa Race Massacre: What's Race Got to Do With It?" which marked the tragedy's 100th anniversary. Dr. Swanson will be speaking with the 1L Perspective students at UW Law in March. A property law professor with interests in legal history, intellectual property law, gender and sexuality, and the history of science, medicine, and technology, Dr. Swanson has a Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard University. Before entering law school, she was a published research scientist.

U.S. Attorney Nicholas Brown is the first black U.S. attorney in Washington state history and the chief law enforcement officer in Western Washington. He chairs the Civil Rights subcommittee for all U.S. attorneys in the country. Brown recently visited UW Law as part of the Innovative Justice Speaker Series. A former "Survivor" alumnus from one of the first seasons, U.S. Attorney Brown is a Morehouse and Harvard Law School graduate who has served as General Counsel to Governor Inslee, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney in western Washington. Before his current appointment He was also a partner with Pacifica Law Group. In this episode kicking off Black History Month at UW Law, U.S. Attorney Brown defines the meaning of justice and how he works with communities and federal partners to improve public safety and to ensure civil rights for Western Washington residents.

Many of the performers and composers in legacy Black music have never been compensated for their cultural production, despite longstanding acceptance of their formative influence on the music industry. Copyright law doctrine includes formalities that continue to divest what is due to Black artists, widening the racial justice gap in the entertainment industry. A Yale Law School graduate and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Kevin J. Greene is changing the industry and the legal academy on the issue of racial justice in intellectual property. He is the John J. Schumacher Chair and Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. Prof. Greene has represented artists like George Clinton, Spike Lee, Harry Connick Jr., Bobby Brown and rap group Public Enemy. He has been featured in the Netflix show "Explained" and quoted by media outlets such as Bloomberg, Wired, The Daily Beast and Rolling Stone magazine. In this episode, Prof. Greene tells us about "The New Copyright Manifesto," a proposal to overturn outdated and unjust practices and appeal to the U.S. Copyright Office to advocate for reparations. He outlines how copyright registrations and copyright terminations divest Black cultural production and explains why this is not just an American copyright law problem, but a global one.