In “The Middle Finger and the Constitution,” his most recent column for the New York Law Journal, ECBAWM partner Ilann Maazel unpacks the Second Circuit’s recent decision in Radwan v. Manuel.

Noriana Radwan was a soccer player at the University of Connecticut (UConn) when, during a post-game celebration, she raised her middle finger to a television camera. Although she apologized, UConn canceled her athletic scholarship. Radwan sued, alleging First Amendment, Due Process, and Title IX claims. The district court dismissed all of Radwan’s claims on summary judgment.

On appeal, the Second Circuit reviewed issues of free speech, qualified immunity, procedural due process, and sex discrimination. In his column, Maazel explains the Court’s reasoning and how it arrived at its conclusion that Radwan’s case may proceed to trial to resolve the factual question of whether there are “sufficiently similar” incidents with male athletes that would support a claim of sex discrimination under Title IX.

Maazel also questions the repercussions of the Court’s ruling. “Whatever happens to Radwan’s case, however, Radwan leaves us in First Amendment stasis and a familiar qualified immunity quagmire,” he writes. “We can only hope that Congress or the Supreme Court will one day let plaintiffs hold public officials accountable when they break the law, clearly established or not.”

In “Criminal Injustice in New York State,” his most recent column for the New York Law Journal, ECBAWM partner Ilann M. Maazel provides insights into the New York state criminal justice system based on his work over the past seven years with clients seeking post-conviction relief. “From the perspective of this civil rights lawyer, the picture is not pretty,” writes Maazel. He explains that factors like minimal accountability for prosecutors, the erosion of the reasonable doubt standard, and sweeping grand jury immunity, among others, contribute to “serious, systemic problems that require systemic reform.”

In his latest column for USA TODAY, “Men-only military draft is a vestige of anti-women bias. Supreme Court should strike it down,” ECBAWM partner and civil rights attorney Ilann Maazel explores the United States’ current Selective Service law and the reasons it needs to change.

“The Military Selective Service Act discriminates against men, by imposing obligations, burdens and penalties that only men face,” writes Maazel. “The law discriminates against women by treating them as less than full citizens, conveying that women are less willing and able to defend the country, and perpetuating paternalistic stereotypes that, as Justice William Brennan once put it, ‘put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage.’”

Maazel also notes that the law undermines military preparedness by depriving the military of “half the talent and ability of the population.” “[W]e cannot achieve equality while federal law makes men soldiers and women partial citizens.”

This morning, ECBAWM partner Ilann Maazel published an op-ed in USA TODAY detailing six ways short of impeachment that Congress can protect America from the Trump Administration’s harmful policies and disregard for law and ethics.