NP-hardness of hypercube 2-segmentation

The hypercube 2-segmentation problem is a certain biclustering problem that was previously claimed to be NP-hard, but for which there does not appear to be a publicly available proof of NP-hardness. This manuscript provides such a proof

Judging the Law of Politics

In this Review Essay I explore the rights-structure debate that has captivated the attention of election law scholars. The Essay juxtaposes the recent work of a leading individualist Professor Richard Hasen\u27s new book, The Supreme Court and Election Law, against the recent work of a leading structuralist, Professor Richard Pildes\u27 recent Foreword to the Harvard Law Review. I argue that even though the rights-structure debate produces much heat, it does not significantly advance the goal of understanding and evaluating the role of the Court in democratic politics. I aim to return election law to a dualistic understanding of the relationship between rights and structure, an understanding that prevailed in the early articulation of structuralism\u27s relevance to judicial review of democratic politics. I shall argue that election law cases cannot be divided into neat categories along the individual rights and structuralism divide. Election law cases raise both issues of individual and structural rights. Therefore, the label attached to election law claims is immaterial. The fundamental questions are what are the values that judicial review ought to vindicate and how best to vindicate those values. These are questions that transcend the rights-structure divide

Fourth Amendment Accommodations: (UN)Compelling Public Needs, Balancing Acts, and the Fiction of Consent

The problems of public housing-including crime, drugs, and gun violence- have received an enormous amount of national attention. Much attention has also focused on warrantless searches and consent searches as solutions to these problems. This Note addresses the constitutionality of these proposals and asserts that if the Supreme Court\u27s current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is taken to its logical extremes, warrantless searches in public housing can be found constitutional. The author argues, however, that such an interpretation fails to strike the proper balance between public need and privacy in the public housing context. The Note concludes by proposing alternative consent-based regimes that would pass constitutional muster

Colored Speech: Cross Burnings, Epistemics, and the Triumph of the Crits?

This Essay examines the Court\u27s recent decision in Virginia v. Black. It argues that Black signifies a different approach to the constitutionality of statutes regulating cross burnings. It shows how the Court\u27s conservatives have essentially accepted the intellectual framework and the mode of analysis suggested previously by the critical race theorists. In particular, this Essay explores the role that Justice Thomas plays in the case. The Essay explains Justice Thomas\u27s active participation as a matter of epistemic authority and epistemic deference

The Impact of Dual Credit as a School District Policy on Secondary and Postsecondary Student Outcomes

This study estimates the effects of dual credit on outcomes that trace a student’s journey from high school to undergraduate and graduate degree completion. Dual credit is a model program that allows high school students to enroll in college-level courses and simultaneously earn high school and college credit. This study investigates the potential for improving the design of dual-credit programs by exploring heterogeneous effects by program attributes. The study investigates if dual credit effects vary across course subjects. For a limited set of outcomes, the study investigates heterogeneous effects by the instructor’s highest degree earned, instruction mode, and location of instruction. Using panel data with school district fixed effects, this study finds that increases in the share of students earning dual credit are associated with increases in high school graduation; increases in university application, admission, and enrollment; shortened time to degree completion; and increases in degree completion. Districts that increase their average dual credit earned improve outcomes with each increase. Furthermore, dual credit courses produce larger increases in bachelor’s degree completion rates as compared to AP. Finally, evidence suggests that schools can most greatly amplify dual credit effects by prioritizing certain subjects.Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resource

Constitutional Pluralism and Democratic Politics: Reflections on the Interpretive Approach of Baker v. Carr

Baker v. Carr is one of the Supreme Court\u27s most important opinions, not least because its advent signaled the constitutionalization of democracy. Unfortunately, as is typical of the Court\u27s numerous forays into democratic politics, the decision is not accompanied by an apparent vision of the relationship among democratic practice, constitutional law, and democratic theory. In this Article, Professor Charles revisits Baker and provides several democratic principles that he argues justifies the Court\u27s decision to engage the democratic process. He examines the decision from the perspective of one of its chief contemporary critics, Justice Frankfurter. He sketches an approach, described as constitutional pluralism, for thinking about Baker and other cases involving judicial supervision of democratic politics. Using constitutional pluralism as an interpretive tool, he argues that the aim of judicial involvement in democratic politics ought to be to vindicate specific democratic principles. To the extent that a challenged democratic practice serves multiple and legitimate democratic ends, the federal courts should respect the judgment of democratic actors

Do We Care Enough About Racial Inequality? Reflections on the River Runs Dry

In response to Kimberly West-Faulcon, The River Runs Dry: When Title VI Trumps State Anti–Affirmative Action Laws, 157 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1075 (2009

Corruption Temptation

In response to Professor Lawrence Lessig’s Jorde Lecture, I suggest that corruption is not the proper conceptual vehicle for thinking about the problems that Professor Lessig wants us to think about. I argue that Professor Lessig’s real concern is that, for the vast majority of citizens, wealth presents a significant barrier to political participation in the funding of campaigns. Professor Lessig ought to discuss the wealth problem directly. I conclude with three reasons why the corruption temptation ought to be resisted

Dissent, Diversity, and Democracy: Heather Gerken and the Contingent Imperative of Minority Rule

This paper was presented at the 2012 Legal Scholarship Symposium. The full video is available here