Nothing is more important to us at Marquette University Law School than preparing students for the practice of law. Legal education is our mission, and we work every day to serve it. Whether through teaching in fundamental subject areas, responding to new developments in the law, connecting students with the profession, or all of the myriad ways that we encourage the growth of the whole person, student development is our North Star. This is no small project: As all Marquette law students and Marquette lawyers know, the law is ever increasing in its scope and complexity, and the knowledge, skills, and values required for practice are substantial. We would like to do more; the three years we have with students are chock-full.
One way that Marquette Law School contributes to students’ practice readiness is through our program of experiential education, including our workshops, field placements, and clinics. We work hard at these curricular offerings and are proud of our program, including the fact that Marquette law students frequently exceed the current requirement that they take 6 credits of experiential classes.
So I would like to outline why I have submitted comments to our accreditor, at the American Bar Association, vigorously objecting to the proposal to mandate a doubling of the number of experiential-learning credits that each law student would be required to earn. The accreditor has not provided a sufficient reason for mandating such a substantial and costly revision of the upper-level curriculum of law schools—especially considering that the impact on other parts of law schools’ missions could be significant.
. . . . The proposed revisions to the Standards, doubling to 12 the number of experiential-learning credits that each law student must earn and therefore that every law school must provide to every student, should be withdrawn. The basis for this conclusion should not be mistaken. Marquette University Law School shares the widespread view that simulations, clinics, and field placements are valuable in legal education. Indeed, many of our law students routinely exceed the requirements of the current Standards. Marquette Law School works hard at and takes great pride in its experiential program, whose contours and features serve our communities impressively.
Yet the Council’s proposal would mandate a startling redirection of resources. Given the integrated nature of a program of legal education, the proposal would constitute an unprecedented invasion into the upper-level curricula of law schools, diminish substantially the schools’ appropriate autonomy, and impair their ability to innovate and to adapt their programs to local needs and institutional missions—all at a time of other extraordinary pressures on legal education. More succinctly and concretely: The proposal ignores the curricular tradeoffs that will necessarily result for schools and students and dismisses the likely financial costs of the new requirements.
The proposal’s apparent general animating philosophy—which has scant regard for the precept that accreditation standards are intended to establish minimum requirements for “adequate” education while protecting each school’s leading role in defining its own educational program—is regrettable enough. More specifically objectionable is that the proposal to double the current minimum requirement of experiential-learning credits lacks adequate evidentiary support. Valuable though experiential education is, a “more is better” approach to its requirement is not adequately supported in the proposal—notwithstanding the observation that other, very different professions, with different educational pathways, have more experiential education. Given the weak evidentiary basis for increasing the number of mandatory experiential-learning credits, the absence of a rigorous (or really any) cost-benefit analysis should prompt the proposal’s withdrawal..
The Marquette Law School poll has conducted multiple national polls of opinion on cases before the U.S. Supreme Court in the October 2024 term. This post shows this results for cases that have been decided or are still pending. Additional polling will be conducted in July following the end of the term.
Links to SCOTUSBlog page for each case provide more details of the cases.
Classified documents
A federal judge in Florida has dismissed the case charging Trump with illegally retaining classified documents and obstructing government efforts to recover the documents. The judge ruled that the appointment of the special counsel violated the Constitution. Do you favor or oppose this ruling?
In January the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring the social media app TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, to be sold or banned in the U.S. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?
In January the Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump’s request to halt his criminal sentencing in New York where he was convicted in May on 34 felony counts, allowing sentencing to proceed. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?
In January the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning a Texas law meant to prevent minors from accessing sexual materials on the internet, through a requirement that adults prove they are 18 or over by submitting government-issued IDs in order to access sexually oriented websites. Do you think the court should uphold this law or strike it down for infringing on the rights of adults?
[In March, the Supreme Court rejected President Trump’s request to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid, sending the case back to a lower court for further proceedings.] How much do you favor or oppose this decision?
[In March, the Supreme Court ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was entitled to impose specific requirements on permit holders to prevent pollution but not to make the permit holders responsible simply because water quality has fallen below the agency’s standards.] How much do you favor or oppose this decision?
[In April, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case asking whether a state that generally funds charter schools as alternatives to traditional public schools may refuse to fund a charter school simply because it is explicitly religious.] How do you think the Court should rule?
Poll dates
The state may refuse to fund the religious charter school
The state is required to fund a religious charter school
3/17-27/25
57
43
Party ID
Poll dates
The state may refuse to fund the religious charter school
The state is required to fund a religious charter school
[In December, the Supreme Court heard arguments challenging a Tennessee law that prohibits medical providers from prescribing puberty-delaying medication or performing gender transition surgery for youth under 18.] How do you think the Court should rule?
Poll dates
Uphold the Tennessee law
Overturn the law
3/17-27/25
72
27
5/5-15/25
70
30
Party ID
Poll dates
Uphold the Tennessee law
Overturn the law
Republican
3/17-27/25
90
10
Republican
5/5-15/25
92
8
Independent
3/17-27/25
79
21
Independent
5/5-15/25
73
27
Democrat
3/17-27/25
52
48
Democrat
5/5-15/25
44
56
Trump administration must facilitate return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
In April, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law requires the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a man erroneously deported to El Salvador. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?
In April, the Supreme Court said that those the administration is seeking to deport under the Alien Enemies Act must receive notice that they are subject to deportation within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek court review before such deportation occurs. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?
In April, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case asking whether parents of elementary school students should be able to opt their children out of reading classes concerning stories about LGBTQ+ characters, if those stories conflict with the families’ religious beliefs. How do you think the Court should rule?
Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s “background circumstances” rule — which requires members of a majority group to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard to prevail on a Title VII discrimination claim — cannot be squared with either the text of Title VII or the Supreme Court’s precedents.
Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Jackson on June 5, 2025. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined.
Holding: Because Mexico’s complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act bars the lawsuit.
Judgment: Reversed, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on June 5, 2025. Justices Thomas and Jackson filed concurring opinions.
Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s moment-of-threat rule — a framework for evaluating police shootings which requires a court to look only to the circumstances existing at the precise time an officer perceived the threat inducing him to shoot — improperly narrows the Fourth Amendment analysis of police use of force.
Judgment: Vacated and Remanded , 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on May 15, 2025. Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett joined.
Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit erred in setting aside as arbitrary and capricious the FDA’s orders denying respondents’ applications for authorization to market new e-cigarette products pursuant to The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009; the 5th Circuit also relied on an incorrect standard to reject the FDA’s claim of harmless error regarding the agency’s failure to consider marketing plans submitted by respondents.
Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Alito on April 2, 2025. Justice Sotomayor filed a concurring opinion.
Emergency application for stay is granted on Aug. 8, 2023. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh would deny the application for stay.
Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should stay the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas baring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from enforcing a 2022 rule regulating “ghost guns” as firearms.
Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.
Issue: (1) Whether the majority of the three-judge district court in this case erred in finding that race predominated in the Louisiana legislature”s enactment of S.B. 8; (2) whether the majority erred in finding that S.B. 8 fails strict scrutiny; (3) whether the majority erred in subjecting S.B. 8 to the preconditions specified in Thornburg v. Gingles; and (4) whether this action is non-justiciable.
You might think that adding up the results of a statewide April election in legislative districts should be simple, but it’s not.
First problem: the state currently doesn’t include political district numbers in the results for nonpartisan elections.
Second problem: votes in Wisconsin are counted, not in wards, but in combinations of wards called “reporting units,” and April nonpartisan elections can use different reporting units than in November elections.
Third problem: the reporting units used in April sometimes straddle partisan district lines.
So, my media consumer advisory is this; if you read an article telling you the results of an April election apportioned into legislative districts, you should expect to see an explanation of how the author obtained that data.
Here is how I do it. First, I identify the individual wards comprising each reporting unit. Then, I match those wards to the most recent GIS ward file I can find.[1] Every ward falls within a single political district, so I check to be sure that each ward in every reporting unit is assigned to the same district. If a reporting unit is split across multiple districts, I divide its vote according to the proportion of the reporting unit’s registered voters residing within each district.[2]
Here are the results of the 2025 April Supreme Court election between the Republican-endorsed candidate Brad Schimel and the Democratic-endorsed candidate Susan Crawford.
Crawford won 55.0% of the vote. Under the maps as currently used, this worked out to 54.5% of Assembly districts (54/99), 57.6% of Senate districts (19/33), and 50% of Congressional districts (4/8).
Table 1: Results of the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court Election in legislative districts
seats won by
Schimel
Crawford
State Assembly
45
54
State Senate
14
19
Congress
4
4
The next table compares those results with some of the other recent redistricting plans, either proposed or used. Under the GOP-drawn maps used in the 2022 election, Crawford’s 10-point net victory would’ve resulted in 5-seat Republican majority in the Assembly and a 3-seat Republican majority in the Senate.
Table 2: Results of the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court Election in select alternative legislative districts
Wisconsin’s state legislative maps now closely reflect the results at the top of the ticket. Both Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin translated their narrow 1-point victories into 1-seat majorities of assembly districts. But actual Republican assembly candidates won a 5-seat majority.
In previous analyses, I found that incumbency advantage was worth about 4 points (net) for Republican Assembly candidates in both 2024 and 2022. This advantage means that the Republican Assembly majority can likely withstand election years resulting in a narrow statewide victory for Democrats. But anything approaching Crawford’s landslide victory puts many Republican incumbents in competitive districts much more at risk.
Here are the 6 closest battleground seats in the State Assembly. They are all seats which split their vote between the Assembly and presidential races. Five of them voted for Harris and a Republican legislator, while one voted for Trump and a Democratic legislator. In all instances, Susan Crawford defeated Schimel by double-digits.
Table 3: Election Results in Key Battleground Districts of the Wisconsin State Assembly
Dem or Lib % minus Rep or Con %
State Assembly
President
US Senate
WI Sup. Ct.
21st
-2.8
4.0
7.0
19.3
51st
-3.4
3.5
7.8
19.9
53rd
-1.2
4.4
6.1
18.0
61st
-3.2
2.2
3.7
13.5
88th
-0.7
0.3
1.2
11.3
94th
0.6
-2.1
0.0
12.3
Likewise, there are 4 battleground State Senate districts, one of which (the 31st) is currently represented by a Democrat and the rest by Republicans. Because Wisconsin elects odd-numbered senate districts during midterm years, these seats will hold their first elections under the new boundaries in 2026. As in the Assembly battlegrounds, Crawford won each of these districts by more than her statewide margin of victory.
Table 4: Election Results in Key Battleground Districts of the Wisconsin State Senate
Dem or Lib % minus Rep or Con %
President
US Senate
WI Sup. Ct.
5th
5.9
5.0
13.5
17th
1.0
4.6
17.9
21st
1.2
2.2
10.7
31st
2.2
4.7
18.0
[1] I begin with the most recent LTSB stateward ward boundary file (Jan. 2025 in this case). When recent annexations or incorporations make these boundaries already out-of-date, I obtain updated boundaries from the county. For the April 2025 election, I needed updated ward boundary files from Dane and Waukesha counties.
[2] I do this using a geocoded copy of the state’s voter file, but it could also be done using the state’s monthly ward-level registered voter report.
