Author: BC Law Impact Guest Posts

NTIA Streamlines BEAD Program, But Risks Further Delays

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

On June 6, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) issued its long-awaited overhaul of the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. This new policy notice repeals many administrative burdens imposed by Biden-era NTIA oversight and aligns the program more closely with Congress’s original intent. This revised guidance promises to enhance broadband deployment by increasing flexibility and reducing costs to taxpayers. But it also risks further delays in a program already criticized for its sluggish rollout—and in the meantime, private enterprise is closing many of the coverage gaps BEAD sought to address.

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Tick Tock . . . The Clock Is Running Out on Enhanced Premium Subsidies for Obamacare

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This post has been republished from Professor Patricia McCoy’s Substack. Her new book, “Sharing Risk: The Path to Economic Well-Being for All,” is available from The University of California Press.

Today, financial pressures are a real sore point for ordinary Americans, now that half of U.S. households lack enough income to live on. For earners in the bottom half, homeownership is increasingly unattainable, retirement savings are scant, and college education usually means going into debt. Their wages have been stagnant and their jobs are insecure. Many live lives of quiet financial desperation.

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How Congress Could Shoot Itself in the Foot

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This post has been republished from Professor Patricia McCoy’s Substack. Her new book, “Sharing Risk: The Path to Economic Well-Being for All,” is available from The University of California Press.

Millions of American families live in an economic sweat box, with heavy financial risks but not enough money to pay for basic living needs. Chief among those risks are high medical bills, as my new book, Sharing Risk: The Path to Economic Well-Being for All discusses. In fact, health care costs so much that over half of all U.S. adults ran up debt due to medical or dental bills between 2017 and 2022. Many of them couldn’t pay for medical care otherwise. A disturbing number went bankrupt or lost their homes due to late medical bills. Others put off needed medical care to avoid running up debt.

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The Struggling Majority

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This post has been republished from Professor Patricia McCoy’s Substack. Her new book, “Sharing Risk: The Path to Economic Well-Being for All,” is available from The University of California Press.

A few years ago, I was doing research as a law professor at Boston College, and I stumbled across this disturbing fact: more than half of American households do not have enough income every month to pay their basic expenses. We’re not talking about small luxuries like dining out, going to the movies, or streaming services either. Instead, these families do not even have enough money to pay for their bare-bones essentials every month, including food, housing, and clothing. They are constantly juggling bills and robbing Peter to pay Paul. They cannot get ahead.

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The House Should Act Quickly to Repeal the Illegal, Expensive E-Rate Expansion

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

Earlier this month, the Senate passed S.J.Res.7. The resolution, sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz, would repeal a Biden-era Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule allowing E-Rate funds to subsidize Wi-Fi hotspot lending programs for off-campus use. This well-intentioned but misguided rule violates clear statutory limits on agency power and threatens an increasingly unstable Universal Service Fund (USF). The House should follow the Senate’s lead to revoke this initiative before the estimated June 4 deadline for congressional action.

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A Message to My Students: ‘Fight for Our Democracy’

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This post is an edited version of Professor Kent Greenfield’s final lecture to this spring’s first-year constitutional law class. It was originally published in WBUR’s Cognoscenti.

Today completes my 30th year teaching law. You’ve been wonderful this semester. Thank you.

But It has been a difficult time to teach constitutional law, and it must have been a difficult time to learn it. We are in a dangerous moment.

How do we make sense of the law right now? Of our profession?

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So, Are We Gonna Ban TikTok, Or…?

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

It has been 373 days since Congress enacted the TikTok divest-or-ban law, 105 days since the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law as constitutional, and over three months since the ban was scheduled to take effect. Yet except for a brief Inauguration Day interruption, the Chinese-controlled app has been, and remains, readily available in the United States, collecting data on 170 million Americans—data that could potentially be exploited by foreign adversaries.

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The Vital Lessons I’ve Learned in BC Law’s Clinics

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Last month, as part of BC Law’s Immigration Clinic, my clinic partner and I advocated for our client’s release from detention during a bond hearing in front of an immigration judge, and were denied. Given his circumstances of indefinite long-term incarceration and mental illness, this denial was heartbreaking and unjust in more ways than one. I dreaded making the call to my client to discuss the outcome of the hearing and our next steps. I expected to hear intense sadness and frustration, and I certainly would not have blamed him if he took part of that out on me. But instead – though he was undeniably sad – he told me that my argument was perfect and exactly what he would have wanted to say if he were able to speak during the hearing. He expressed his gratitude for all our hard work and representation, despite the outcome. Of all the responses I imagined, this perhaps shocked me the most.

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‘A Culture of Excellence, Dialogue, and Integrity: Q&A with LLM Student Shrishti

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Get to know Boston College Law School from the perspective of our current student, Shrishti, who is concentrating on Intellectual Property and whose home country is India:

What motivated you to pursue an LLM, and why did you choose this particular program?

I pursued an LLM to expand my global legal perspective and gain a deeper understanding of U.S. legal frameworks. BC Law stood out for its strong academic tradition, commitment to ethical leadership, and its inclusive approach to integrating international students into the fabric of the law school. I wanted a program that was both intellectually rigorous and personally transformative — and BC Law delivered.

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Lawlessness and Trump’s Lawyers

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BC Law Professor R. Michael Cassidy serves as Chair of the Board of Bar Overseers in Massachusetts. The views expressed in this essay do not represent an official position of the Board, or of BC Law. This op-ed originally ran in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Events since January 20, 2025 have called into question the ability of attorneys to safeguard the rule of law. President Donald Trump has sought retribution against law firms that previously opposed him or represented the Democratic National Committee. He has called for the impeachment of federal judges who issued orders against him, labelling one of them a “radical left judge” and a “lunatic.” He has commenced an investigation into law firms that engage in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Most recently, he called upon Department of Justice lawyers to refer for discipline any lawyer who opposes a Trump policy on grounds the DOJ alone deems frivolous or unfounded.  

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