Reference
Frequently Asked Questions
What this project claims, what it does not, and how to cite it. A flagged provision is a lead for legal review — not a finding of unconstitutionality.
What is Hidden in Plain Text?
Hidden in Plain Text is an LLM-assisted research effort to surface potentially discriminatory provisions in U.S. local codes. This website is designed to help the public, including researchers and public officials, identify suspect laws in their jurisdictions.
Does a flagged provision mean it is unconstitutional?
No. While many of the laws we include may be unconstitutional, others may not be. We caution that further legal analysis is required for all laws included on this website. When possible, users should consult the original municipal code to verify context and interpretation.
How should I cite findings from this site?
Bluebook
Dan Bateyko, Yasmine Mabene, Derek Ouyang & Daniel E. Ho, Hidden in Plain Text: LLM-Assisted Detection of Discriminatory Local Laws, in Proc. 21st Int'l Conf. on Artificial Intelligence & Law (ICAIL) (2026). https://hidden-in-plain-text.reglabapp.com/
BibLaTeX
@inproceedings{bateyko2026hidden, author = {Bateyko, Dan and Mabene, Yasmine and Ouyang, Derek and Ho, Daniel}, title = {Hidden in Plain Text: LLM-Assisted Detection of Discriminatory Local Laws}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL '26)}, year = {2026}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA} }
What are the limitations of this project?
- Not all municipalities or code versions are represented in our data collection.
- OCR parsing artifacts across codes can affect the quality of the text formatting.
- The project does not provide legal advice and should not be treated as such.