Columbia Undergraduate Law Review High School Essay Contest

Columbia Undergraduate Law Review High School Essay Contest is a writing competition for high school students interested in exploring legal issues and honing their writing skills. This annual contest provides a platform for young scholars to engage with complex legal topics, express their perspectives, and showcase their analytical abilities.

Interested in the competition?

Competition Overview

Current high school students worldwide

Eligibility

Free

Entry Fee

June 27, 2026 at 11:59 PM EST

Submission deadline

First week of August

Results and winners are notified

📌 Note: Aralia is not the organizer of this competition. For official rules, deadlines, and updates, please refer directly to the competition organizer. Aralia provides listings and information about competitions for student reference. Aralia is an online education platform offering competition preparation classes to students worldwide.

Competition Details

1. Eligibility

This competition is open internationally to all current high school students (recent graduates not included).

2. Contest Prompt

Due Process and the Limits of Government Power

Immigration law has been and continues to be at the forefront of various legal battles, frequently centering around the balance between protecting individual liberties–particularly those of non-citizens–and upholding national sovereignty and security. While the U.S. Constitution provides protections to all individuals within U.S. territory, the judiciary has historically deferred to the broad authority of the executive and legislative branches to regulate the entry and exclusion of non-citizens, often with minimal judicial oversight. However, in the instances where courts do intervene, decisions carry considerable weight for the future of non-citizens or refugees. Today, key concepts such as asylum law, birthright citizenship, the regulation of travel and re-entry, and deportation and detainment processes remain under fierce scrutiny amidst ongoing immigration-related crises both in the U.S. and abroad.

Given the ongoing conflict between providing legal protections for non-citizens while also maintaining a state’s ability to oversee issues of immigration, discuss how courts ought to balance the protections for disenfranchised individuals with a government’s broad authority to supersede such protections in the name of national sovereignty. To what extent should non-citizens have access to legal recourse within the U.S. and around the world? Does the government’s interest in national security justify a diminished standard of legal protections in immigration proceedings? Reflect on these questions and present a legal argument in response to this prompt. Use legal reasoning and historical or contemporary examples to support your argument.

3. Prompt Requirements

Your response must make reference to at least one court case or legal document. You are welcome to use the case or legislation mentioned in the prompt.
No more than 1,500 words with the Chicago citation format
All essays should be submitted as PDF files.
Each contestant may only submit one essay for consideration

4. Winners

The winning essay will be published on the CULR website, and the winner and runners-up will be invited to a speaker event hosted by CULR.