Constitutional Law Exam 2025 (featuring tariffs and a scenario inspired by Black Mirror)
Per my usual custom around this time of year, I am posting the final exam I administered to my first-year students in constitutional law this past semester. Students had four hours to complete the exam, which was open-book but without access to the Internet or AI. Readers should feel free to take as much time as they wish and use whatever tools they find helpful!
Question 1 (35%)
The Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S., which present the question whether various tariffs President Trump has imposed are authorized by the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA). The plaintiffs challenging the tariffs argue, among other things, that IEEPA provides the president with no tariff authority at all. Assume for purposes of this question that the Supreme Court agrees with that argument and rules 7-2 for the plaintiffs. Here is an excerpt from the majority opinion authored by the Chief Justice and handed down in March 2026:
Numerous federal statutes expressly grant the president tariff authority, subject to various procedural and substantive limits. IEEPA contains no such language. We thus hold that IEEPA provides no authority for the tariffs at issue in this case. We express no opinion about whether some or all of the contested tariffs might be valid under other statutes that Congress has already enacted or that it might enact in the future to retroactively validate the challenged tariffs. Accordingly, we stay any relief for a period of 60 days and remand to the Court of International Trade (in the V.O.S. case) and the District Court for the District of Columbia (in the Learning Resources case) to provide the government the opportunity to argue that other statutory grants of power authorize some or all of the tariffs at issue in this case.
Within hours of the Supreme Court decision, President Trump posts to Truth Social:
The next day, the House of Representatives passes, on a party-line vote, the Make American Manufacturing Great Again Act (MAMGAA). The bill faces a filibuster from Democrats in the Senate, but after intense lobbying from the president, the Senate abolishes the filibuster and passes MAMGAA on a 51-50 vote (with Vice President Vance breaking the tie). The Act provides in full:
Section 1: Purpose
For much of U.S. history, tariffs raised tremendous amounts of money from foreign governments for the People of the United States. In recent years, our stupid leaders have allowed those foreign governments to treat us very badly. As a result, U.S. domestic manufacturing and our great workers have suffered. With this Act, Congress authorizes the President to impose tariffs to make American manufacturing great again.
Section 2: Express Delegation
The President is hereby authorized to impose tariffs of up to but not exceeding 1,000 percent on any and all foreign goods coming into this country if he finds that doing so is in the economic or security interest of the United States.
Section 3: Unreviewable Discretion
The President’s determination that a tariff is in the economic or security interest of the United States is committed to the President’s sole judgment.
Section 4: Retroactivity
The authority delegated by Section 2 can be exercised retroactively to validate any tariffs imposed between noon on January 20, 2025, and the enactment of this Act.
Section 5: We Know What We Are Doing
Congress is aware that this Act delegates enormous discretion to the President on a major question. Congress intends to delegate such discretion.
Section 6: Repeal or Modification
Congress may, by a 2/3 vote of each chamber, void or modify this Act or any tariff imposed under the authority of this Act.
Section 7: Sunset
This Act shall cease to be effective at noon on January 20, 2029.
President Trump signs the MAMGAA and immediately uses the power it confers, signing an executive order “hereby reaffirming as an exercise of my MAMGAA authority any and all tariffs invalidated by the Supreme Court.” The same executive order also increases the tariff on all goods imported to the United States from the Dominican Republic from 10 percent (where it stood pursuant to the “reciprocal” tariffs President Trump imposed in April 2025) to 76 percent, in apparent retaliation for the Dominican Republic’s victory over the U.S. in the semifinal in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. The executive order states only that the increase is “in the economic interest of the U.S.,” but the baseball-related motive is suggested by the final score of the semifinal game (7-6) and the Truth Social post by President Trump just minutes before signing the executive order:
Southwest Medical Supply (SMS) is an Oklahoma-based company that supplies syringes, catheters, and other single-use medical equipment to hospitals throughout the southwestern United States. Most of SMS’s goods come from the Dominican Republic (which exports roughly $1.5 billion worth of medical supplies to the U.S. annually). SMS’s contracts require it to deliver at previously negotiated prices, which took account of a ten percent tariff, but if SMS needs to pay the additional 66 percent tariff, it will lose approximately $4 million on its contracts. There are currently no cheaper alternative suppliers.
SMS’s CEO has retained the law firm at which you are working to seek as much legal relief as possible from the tariff. Because of your expertise, the partner in charge of the case has asked you to assess the strength of the most promising constitutional challenges that SMS could bring. Do so in the analysis and conclusion parts of a memo.
Question 2 (65%)
The San Junipero (SJ) corporation (incorporated in Delaware and headquartered and operated in Los Altos, California) sells “eternal life” (EL) by harnessing recent technological breakthroughs. For a fee of $500,000, a customer submits to a comprehensive brain scan, during which their “personality, memories, and other mental characteristics” are copied onto a computer. In addition, customers provide DNA samples from cheek swabs. Until their death, customers submit to semi-annual brain scans to update their stored files. Upon a customer’s death, San Junipero “activates” the millions of nerve cells developed through cloning of the cheek cells in a viscous medium that connects to computer chips to recreate the most recent version of the customer’s consciousness, which “lives” in a virtual world running on San Junipero servers in Los Altos. San Junipero promotional materials refer to the consciousnesses reflecting the data copied from customers and their DNA-based nerve cells as “eternals.” Eternals have Internet access and email accounts to communicate with living persons.
EL proved very popular almost immediately, garnering over 100,000 subscriptions in its first year. However, it also proved very controversial, so much so that some states, including Texas, banned EL. When Texas State Senator Chug Maxwell introduced the Fake Heaven Elimination Act (FHEA), he stated that “San Junipero is a scam. The customers are dead. The computer copies might think they’re real people, but they simply are not. Anyway, only faith in Jesus can grant eternal life.” On signing the legislation, Texas Governor Greg Abbott made the following statement: “Sam Juniper [sic] and other out-of-state tech companies that want to play God should now know that here in the Lone Star State, we believe in the real heaven. This technology is an abomination.” Unless enjoined, the FHEA will take effect in one month.
The FHEA deems any contract between a Texas citizen and San Junipero for EL (or with any other company for comparable services) “presumptively fraudulent and thus voidable at the customer’s request.” It further authorizes the state Attorney General to subject San Junipero (or any company offering comparable services) to fines of $1,000 for each day it provides service for an eternal based on the cells and brain scans of a person who, “at the time of their contract formation or death was a citizen of Texas.” The FHEA by its terms applies to “any relevant contract made at any point before, at, or after the date of the enactment of this Act.”
Chelsea Botsworth was a citizen of Texas who died at the age of 82. Fourteen months before her death, she purchased an EL contract with San Junipero, had her cheek swabbed and her brain scanned and then in the next year had two follow-up scans. Chelsea’s eternal was activated twelve hours after her death. Chelsea’s eternal observed (via Zoom) Chelsea’s funeral, which was followed by the burial of Chelsea’s body in a cemetery in Dallas, Texas.
The FHEA was enacted six weeks after Chelsea’s death. Chelsea’s eternal learned about it almost immediately and emailed Chelsea’s adult son Henry Botsworth (who lives in Dallas) to express the worry that San Junipero will “kill” her once the FHEA takes effect. Chelsea’s eternal also emailed a partner at the law firm at which you are employed, seeking representation. Once Henry signed a contract guaranteeing to pay legal fees on behalf of his late mother’s eternal, the firm agreed to take on Chelsea’s eternal, her estate, and Henry as clients.
Both Henry, who is the executor of his late mother’s estate, and Chelsea’s eternal have made clear that they do not want a refund from San Junipero; they want San Junipero to honor the contract and keep Chelsea’s eternal “alive.” Chelsea’s eternal insists that she is fully conscious and that she remembers everything up to the time of Chelsea’s last scan, which was two months before Chelsea’s death. Henry has informed the firm that those last two months, when Chelsea was dying of metastatic cancer, “were very rough on my mom, so I’m glad that she [i.e., her eternal] doesn’t remember them.”
The law firm has reached out to the San Junipero corporation. The company’s lawyers say they would be happy to keep Chelsea’s eternal “alive” if legally permitted to do so. Indeed, they would welcome a ruling invalidating the Texas law, because that would permit the company to continue to do business in the state. However, San Junipero’s lawyers also said that they will not provide assistance or join as a plaintiff in a lawsuit by Chelsea’s eternal, her estate, or Henry seeking to invalidate the FHEA because the company’s interests would be adverse to those parties in the event that a refund is sought.
The partner in charge of the case at your firm has asked for your help crafting a federal court lawsuit. She asks for a memo addressing standing, the Establishment Clause, the Dormant Commerce Clause, equal protection, due process, and any other constitutional provisions or doctrines that might be most helpful. Write the analysis and conclusion portions of the memo.
END OF EXAM
-- Michael C. Dorf