Alexander Barouch

By Kristin Leaptrott. On March 3, 2022, President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (“EFASA”). This law represents a significant “win” for the MeToo movement as it prohibits employers from enforcing mandatory arbitration agreements against employees bringing claims against their employers for sexual harassment or sexual assault in the workplace. Me Too is a social movement that supports sexual assault survivors and sheds light on the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Activist Tarana Burke started the Me Too movement in 2006, but Me Too reached a global audience in 2017 when celebrities like Alyssa Milano started using the hashtag #MeToo on social media to talk about their experiences with sexual assault in the entertainment industry. The Me Too movement…

By Julianne Baggett. A day before the International Transgender Day of Visibility, Governor Douglas A. Ducey signed two anti-trans bills into law: Senate Bill 1138 (“SB1138”) and Senate Bill 1165 (“SB1165”). Previously, SB1138 had died in committee after the Senate Health and Human Services Committee heard three hours of public testimony. Less than one week later, the committee revived the bill with a “strike everything” amendment that narrowed its language and then voted to pass the bill without permitting public testimony on the newly-amended version. In effect, SB1138 forbids transgender individuals under the age of eighteen from receiving certain gender-affirming surgeries. While Senator Pace insisted that the revised bill comports with the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s (“WPATH”) standards of care that were established in 2012, the bill limits…

By Chloe Plaisance. Earlier this year, members of the Arizona legislature introduced House Bill 2112, a bill regulating classroom instruction that prohibits educators from teaching Critical Race Theory (“CRT”). This comes just months after a CRT ban was stricken from the annual state K–12 budget bill. CRT is a field of study that has caused quite a bit of national controversy along political party lines. Although CRT is only gaining attention as of recently, it is an academic concept that has been around for over 40 years. CRT teaches that race is a social construct, and that racism is structurally embedded in our society through legal systems and policies. Some themes of CRT that have been brought to light in the last few years are white privilege and systemic racism.…

By Nicholas Hodder. The San Pedro River flows northward from the mountains in Sonora, Mexico, crosses the border into Arizona, and continues 140 miles to its confluence with the Gila River in Winkelman, Arizona. It is the last major, undammed desert river in the American Southwest. It hosts over 300 species of migratory birds, including over 100 species that breed along the river. That accounts for two-thirds of the avian diversity in the entire United States. Tragically, this ecologically significant river is in danger of drying up. The Drying River and the Depleted Aquifer The San Pedro River, in a sense, is already dry. For many stretches of the river, no water flows on the surface except in direct response to rain, often during the monsoon season. But this does…

By Keith Knight. In January 2022, an Arizona State Senator, Wendy Rogers, introduced SB 1341, a bill which seeks to amend the Arizona Revised Statutes to add Bitcoin as a legal tender in Arizona. Thus far, only one jurisdiction in the world has taken the decision to make Bitcoin legal tender, El Salvador. Though it might sound like an exciting and innovative move, Arizona should not take the decision to make Bitcoin a legal tender. What is Legal Tender?  According to 31 U.S. Code § 5103, “United States coins and currency are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.” A centralized legal tender is vital to any nation or state as it creates a system of trust and certainty which allows financial growth to occur. It is…

By Kristina Major. On February 2, 2022 people across the United States celebrated the 36th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, commemorating Title IX’s 50th anniversary. This year, the day followed weeks of discussions surrounding the fact that many cheer, dance, and spirit programs are not granted the same Title IX protections as other college women’s athletics programs. In January 2022, Louisiana State University’s (LSU) Tiger Girls made headlines after becoming the 2022 Division 1A Hip Hop National Champions at Universal Dance Association (UDA) College Nationals only a year after LSU refused to send them to nationals. In the past few years, both Arizona State University’s Sun Devil Dance Team and the University of Arizona Pom & Dance Line have also competed at UDA Nationals. While cheerleading has…

By Alexander Egber. It’s hard to find a more contentious issue in American politics today than voting rights. Most of the media’s attention on the topic has justifiably focused on the current Congress’s effort to pass federal voting rights legislation that would supersede the Supreme Court’s much-discussed decisions in Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. These decisions chipped away at the potency of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and presumably made it more difficult to challenge voting laws by arguing they have a racially disparate impact. Legal challenges to voting laws come in other flavors as well, though. Another prominent legal theory that election litigators use is that a law violates equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. That’s the precise theory the Arizona Democratic Party…

By Kaylee Racs. On February 25, employees at a Mesa, Arizona Starbucks voted 25–3 in favor of unionizing their store. The Starbucks, located at Power and Baseline roads, became the third company-owned store across the nation, and the first outside of New York, to organize a successful union push. The employees’ victory comes on the heels of an influx of union applications filed in Starbucks stores across the nation—more than 100 in the last six months alone. Though this number seems small in light of Starbucks’ almost 9,000 company-owned stores, it represents a movement towards unionization in an industry with traditionally low entry rates. The History of Labor Unions in the United States Membership in labor unions peaked during the 1940s and 1950s, with a little more than a third…

By Gabriela Berigan. The 2020 election caused a severe divide between the political parties. This divide was more notable in swing states, which ultimately decided the results of the election. Trump challenged these states on multiple instances but was unsuccessful on all but one occasion. There were four different challenges in Arizona specifically, but these were all dismissed for varying reasons. Because these challenges were unsuccessful, the House and Elections Committee in Arizona has proposed HB2787, which would divide Maricopa County into four separate counties. 2020 Election Fraud Challenges Extreme political tension between the two parties caused debate over the validity of the 2020 election. Democrats did everything in their power to get Trump out of office after his first term. But determined Republicans intended to keep Trump in for…

By Turner Smith. Arizona Senate Republicans narrowly voted to pass Senate Bill (“SB”) 1164 on February 15, 2022. SB 1164 bans abortions after 15 weeks. SB 1164 advanced to the House where it received its first read on February 28, 2022. With a very slight Republican majority, SB 1164 will likely pass. Governor Doug Ducey, who has a strong “pro-life” record, will almost certainly sign SB 1164, should it come across his desk. SB 1164 is modeled closely after Mississippi’s 2018 House Bill (“HB”) 1510, which similarly bans abortions after 15 weeks. The constitutionality of that bill is currently being considered by the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in December 2021. Like HB 1510, SB 1164 provides only one exception—for cases of medical emergencies. It does not make an exception…