The perm is not possible---the case would be moot, so the Court would lack jurisdiction to decide the case.

ONE of the major impediments to the judicial protection of collective rights1 is the group of doctrines falling under the rubric *606 of “justiciability” — standing, ripeness, and mootness.2 These are the gatekeeper doctrines; each regulates a different dimension of entrance to the federal courts. The law of standing considers whether the plaintiff is the proper person to assert the claim, the law of ripeness ensures that the plaintiff has not asserted the claim too early,3 and the law of mootness seeks to prevent the plaintiff from asserting the claim too late.4 By keeping certain public-minded plaintiffs and public-law claims out of federal court, these doctrines have shifted much of the battle for collective rights to the more steeply pitched fields of state courts or the political process.5 In particular, defendants in public law litigation have had considerable success keeping such cases out of the federal courts by invoking the “case or controversy” requirement *607 of Article III.6 Under current Supreme Court precedent, if a plaintiff cannot demonstrate that she possesses an ongoing “personal stake” in the outcome of the litigation, a federal court has no jurisdiction to adjudicate the claim on the merits.7 No amount of judicial discretion can overcome this jurisdictional defect, because Article III demarcates the outer limit of federal court power.8 As a result, many attempts to establish entitlements to important collective rights fail before courts can give them full consideration.

Of the three doctrines, standing has received the most scholarly attention,9 perhaps because the case law on standing is so internally inconsistent.10 But the mootness doctrine also constitutes a substantial barrier to the adjudication of collective rights claims. Consider the following examples:

* A student at a public high school challenges the school's requirement of ROTC instruction on the grounds that it violates his First Amendment rights. While the action is pending, he graduates. The action is dismissed.11

* A women's hospital (including staff members and a patient) challenges a prosecutor's stated policy of refusing to prosecute anti-abortion protesters who violate various criminal trespass statutes. The plaintiffs argue that the non-prosecution policy violates the Equal Protection Clause. On appeal, the district attorney represents that he has discontinued the policy. The action is dismissed.12

* A major metropolitan fire department draws up a hiring list based on an examination that has a disparate adverse impact on blacks and Chicanos. A group of applicants files a class action raising the previously undecided question whether 42 U.S.C. § 1981 prohibits the *608 use of employment criteria that create an adverse impact on racial minorities when no discriminatory intent can be proven. While the case is pending, the department abandons its plan to use the hiring list. The action is dismissed.13

Each of these cases presented the courts with an opportunity, as Professor Owen Fiss would say, “to give concrete meaning and application to our constitutional values.”14 Decisions on the merits of these cases would have given people a far clearer idea of what they could do without fear of state-sanctioned punishment, and what others could do that they would constitutionally be forced to tolerate. By clarifying critically important areas of the law, decisions on the merits of these cases would have served the public interest.

The barrier to federal court adjudication of these claims is the Article III “case or controversy” requirement and the normative concerns thought to underlie it. The Supreme Court has adhered to an interpretation of Article III that forbids federal adjudication of cases in which the plaintiff has no ongoing personal stake. Contributing to the Court's interpretation has been the concern that the adjudication of such cases would require federal courts to render advisory opinions.15 Another factor may be the belief that the constitutionalization of the justiciability doctrines provides a form of “due process” protection for the interests of future litigants who find themselves in situations similar to that of the plaintiff in a mooted case.16