I’ve seen many instances such as this, describing the United States as a settler-colony in the past tense, and the ahistorical analysis of the history of Indian citizenship in the birthright citizenship debate completely obfuscate the nature of the U.S. constitution and American law as colonial.
When Billie Eilish said “no one is illegal on stolen land,” Professor Epstein wrote a glib op-ed dismissing that statement without engaging the legal doctrine of aboriginal title. Like the Nations in British Columbia, many California Tribes have outstanding claims.
nationalpost.com/news/canada/...
#SCOTUS just granted emergency relief in *both* the California teachers case (putting back on hold, at least in this case, California’s law barring teachers from outing transgender students to their parents) *and* the Malliotakis redistricting cases.
The Democratic appointees dissented in both.
🙃
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied. JUSTICE KAGAN would grant the petition for a writ of certiorari. JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE JACKSON joins, dissenting from denial of certiorari. This case asks whether federal law prohibits the poorest prisoners from splitting the $350 fee required to file a federal lawsuit when it allows everyone else to do so. The answer statutorily appears to be no. Because the decision below held otherwise and deepened a split among the Courts of Appeals, the Court should grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.
Petitioners Topaz Johnson and Ian Henderson were incarcerated at High Desert State Prison in California when they filed this lawsuit in federal court. According to their complaint, corrections officers forced them and a third prisoner to stand in filthy cages that reeked of urine and measured 2.5 feet by 2.5 feet. They alleged that the officers forced them to stand in those cages for nearly nine hours with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
By a 6–3 vote, SCOTUS refuses to review a judge-made rule that bars indigent prisoners from splitting the filing fee among themselves when filing a federal suit—even though everyone else is allowed to split that fee. These defendants were allegedly tortured. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...
bsky.app/profile/alja...
Nothing justifies this.
The majority of Americans oppose a war with Iran (estimated between 70% and 85%).
When is democratic representation going to kick in on foreign policy? The U.S. has been engaged in military actions in the Middle East my entire life thus far. When does it end?
Amazing news about Alaska Native language revitalization and integration in Alaska pedagogy 🙌
Article I vests Congress with the power to tax and spend for the general welfare. The president —let alone the Vice President—does not have the authority to do this.
General welfare ≠ “good stewards”
Torey Dolan and Steven Wright join the Wisconsin Law in Action podcast to discuss how the Voting Rights Act has been challenged and debated at the Supreme Court in recent years, focusing on the Louisiana v. Callais case. Listen and subscribe: buff.ly/eXTcBMT.
I've been predicting that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Callais gets another "Alito special:" As in Brnovich, a decision cutting out the heart of the Voting Rights Act without striking it down formally and taking the political heat.
A new vote by mail legal rabbit hole I will be falling into 🙃
this is some bullshit. the Court is giving sovereign immunity to postal workers who allegedly engaged in intentional racial discrimination
Thomas's rationale is that you can't sue the government over lost mail, but there's a difference between mail that's lost and mail that's withheld bc of racism!
Don't look at the Court's correct ruling on tariffs and what I anticipate to be a correct striking down of the birthright citizenship executive order as evidence of a moderate Supreme Court. The Justice have done, and continue to do, lots of mischief, including accreting more power for themselves.
I already taught separation of powers between the President and Congress this semester, you can’t make me go back!
BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide.
This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.
Legal Academia needs a publishing forum for memes so I can get my con law memes published.
NEW: The U.S. Supreme Court has received an emergency request from Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York to pause a state judge’s order for a new congressional map that would redraw Malliotakis’ district, which the judge found illegally dilutes Black and Latino voters’ collective power
“Our communities are being erased in real time — first from our streets through aggressive immigration enforcement, and now from the data that determine political power and public investment for the next decade. “Two years ago, the Census Bureau set forth plans for a 2026 census test that was intended to be a field test of Census 2030 operations. Last week, the Bureau abruptly released — without stakeholder engagement — a drastic proposal to change its testing plan. These changes include testing a citizenship question, dramatically reducing the number of testing sites from six to just two, testing in areas without a substantial Latino population, and other significant changes. If the Bureau proceeds with these plans, it will fail to obtain reliable information on how to reach hard-to-count communities, including Latinos — particularly very young Latino children who have experienced persistent and growing undercounts. “This is unacceptable and would set the Bureau up to fail in 2030 by sabotaging its ability to obtain a fair and accurate count of Latinos and the nation’s population as a whole. “An undercount of Latinos in 2030 would result in fewer resources for schools, health care, housing, and emergency services, and less representation in our democracy. The Constitution is clear: everyone who lives here must be counted. NALEO Educational Fund, alongside our NALEO members, will continue working with congressional leaders and community partners to demand robust testing, transparency, and a census that counts every person. Our communities deserve to be safe, seen, and counted — not erased.”
NEW: @naleoofficial.bsky.social says if the Census Bureau moves forward with its planned cutbacks to the 2026 Census Test, they will "set the Bureau up to fail in 2030 by sabotaging its ability to obtain a fair and accurate count of Latinos and the nation’s population as a whole"
Timely and needed!
LOL
Ironically, he ends with some knock on “performative politics.” Well, I take offense at performative legal grandstanding that assumes without engagement that Indigenous land claims are not legal claims but solely moral claims.
Skimmed this piece out of pure masochism and despite all its legalese, there seems to be no engagement with the doctrine of aboriginal title or the reality that the Senate’s refusal to ratify the California Indian Treaty clouds land claims in California.
As far as I know, this is DHS's first effort to explain their position that I-205 forms allow entry into the home. They rely on the dicta in the 1960 Abel case (before Payton) and re-imagine the plurality opinion in Lucas as if it were the majority (and then overrely on it).
Screenshot of order denying emergency application, with no noted dissents.
As expected, #SCOTUS denies the emergency application to block California’s congressional redistricting—with no public dissents.
Among other things, this is also a good addition to the “be cynical but not nihilistic about the Court” file.
If the 216k word article was accepted, could you imagine how that average would look?!
I want to meet her.
Leaving aside the rest of the inappropriateness of this, I wanna know how enforcement works. Does the Supreme Court file suit in district court?
