A remotely recorded podcast featuring Nathan Atkinson (Law School Profile), Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin. In this episode, Professor Nathan Atkinson explores a surprising parallel: elections and corporations are both systems for turning many dispersed voices into a single decision. Prof. Atkinson explains why the ranked choice reforms popularized after the 2000 Bush-Gore-Nader election may be the wrong fix for today’s polarization, drawing on Alaska ballot data to show how instant runoff voting can produce a winner most voters didn’t actually prefer. He makes the case instead for “consensus choice” voting — a head-to-head approach designed…

A remotely recorded podcast featuring Alexandra Huneeus (Law School Profile), Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In this episode, Prof. Huneeus joins the pod to discuss her book, Latin American Law in the Twenty-First Century, co-edited with Alejandro Chehtman and Sergio Puig. Prof. Huneeus explains that Latin America has long been an active architect of legal doctrine, not a passive recipient. She traces this influence through concrete examples, from the origins of diplomatic asylum to the region’s foundational role in articulating strong doctrines of sovereignty and non-intervention, doctrines born from early fears of international encroachment.…

A remotely recorded podcast with Mitra Sharafi (Law School Profile), Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In this episode of Wisconsin Law and Action, Professor Mitra Sharafi provides insight into her newest book, Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia, published by Cornell University Press. Prof. Sharafi  discusses how the British colonial stereotype of “native mendacity”, the racialized belief that South Asians were constitutionally dishonest, paradoxically drove advances in forensic science in British India and Burma. Prof. Sharafi explains that this fear of fabricated evidence accelerated the…

A remotely recorded podcast with Anuj Desai (Law School Profile), Volkman-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In this episode of Wisconsin Law and Action, Professor Anuj Desai speaks about the nature of First Amendment law and its institutional contexts. Desai explains that free speech serves four core social values — truth-seeking, democracy, self-actualization, and enabling peaceful social change — and that speech disputes are best understood within specific institutional settings, from the postal system and libraries to parks and universities. He introduces the key legal distinction between “speakers” and “conduits,” tracing it from historical examples…

A remotely recorded podcast with Bridget Lavender (Law School Profile), State Democracy Research Initiative (SDRI) staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School. For this episode, Bridget joins the podcast to provide a deep dive into the difficulties of researching, explaining, and influencing state-level cases and statutes. Bridget highlights how it is SDRI’s mission to fill the gap in legal research by focusing on state constitutions and state-level democracy. One great example is Bridget’s explainer about whether states can prohibit Federal agents from masking while on the job, updated to include recent case decisions. The bulk of the conversation…