Sitting outside a hearing room for the Maryland State Senate waiting to testify on a good bill that requires federal officers when implementing state laws or when working with Maryland state police officers to obey Maryland's ban on racial profiling. Will try to post my written testimony shortly.

Last year, Professor Penny Andrews put on a wonderful program on Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty. For those interested, you can watch the whole thing at the link below. I promise it will be more informative than the State of the Union, which is admittedly a low bar. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

The Supreme Court supports the Wall Street Journal over MAGA and this is called a great example of judicial independence.

Congratulations. A great project.

Should we commonly refer to Trump as the most prominent member of the "Epstein class." Captures a group of extraordinarily powerful men who live for pleasure and making money and are disdainful of conventional law and morality.

An honor to have my name associated with your masterpiece.

Again proving my most valued ability as a law professor is the ability to sign my name. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Cute media quote of the day. “The Bill of Rights, we thought, were the first 10 amendments,” said Mark Graber, a constitutional law scholar and University of Maryland professor. With the newly discovered memo, he said: “I guess now we’re down to nine.” keyt.com/politics/cnn... T

A terrific symposium on a very important book balkin.blogspot.com/2026/01/balk...

Some really wonderful essays and by far and away the best cover I will every have.

The time for the 25th amendment and other legal challenges to Trump has largely passed, although many are important rearguard actions. Trump must be defeated politically before he can be caged legally.

Any one for the Civil Rights Act of 1871?

An excellent analysis of the Good murder by an expert. asharangappa.substack.com/p/friday-rou...

Thanks for the kindness with this post and the others. I look forward to celebrating your new book very shortly.

I long for the headline, "American Jews accuse the Israeli Government of anti-Semitism" or "American Jews accuse the Israeli Government of Being the Gravest Threat Globally to the Moral Integrity of Judaism." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/n...

The only reason to have children is grandchildren. Be patient.

Has any one noticed the resemblance between Trump's rants on Truth Social and Howard Beale's rants in the movie Network.

So the answer turns out to be almost four years ago.

I respect Peter Wehner (and David French), but when was the last time the Times published an analysis of how Jewish scripture (or Islamic or . . . ) might lead us to understand our world. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/o...

Is there any possibility that after Trump leaves office the "Trump Class" battleships will be renamed after someone in the Kennedy family (not RFK, Jr.)

It's a really good collection and I like my essay on Race and American exceptionalism (updated to talk about Trump and American exceptionalism). But $325.00? Clearly the audience is Trump and fellow billionaries. www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/com...

My friends have always told me that I was the most qualified person for a job I did not get. Remarkably, other people's friends told them they were the most qualified person for the jobs I got.

Just signed my four year phased retirement agreement. Fall is now officially open for writing and speaking.

Do diversity hires include the numerous white males who only got admitted to prestigious schools because of explicit and implicit quotas of Jews and Asians from New York, Boston, and the like. Wonder if Vance gets into Yale if we go by test scores and college achievement.

Just got a reminder that one of the most important roles of very senior scholars is making sure that younger scholars are free to speak in their voice.

Blast from the past. Am lecturing at the University of Milan this week (thank you Antonia Baraggia). As I waiting outside the University, I was approached by student members of the Communist Party handing out literature. Shades of Columbia University, New York, 1980!

Sign me up for a copy and review. Mazel tov.

It is also statutory interpretation of a statute that has been revised. See also Milligan, which rejects a presidential judgment about the need for military to engage in law enforcement.

On birthright citizenship. Curiously, the main source is the thirteenth amendment, not the fourteenth. Republicans believed that persons were either aliens or citizens. There was no other category. So once slaves were emancipated, they automatically became citizens.

Officially on sale in the lobby. www.cambridge.org/us/universit...

Actually, this is horribly wrong. I am not going to be in any of the three categories. Does not make any of this less of a wrong.

I use the first, but no one cares.

On pre-sale in the lobby. Lots of wonderful essays (and I contribute on how the insights the four children of the Passover service might influence our approach to the Declaration. www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Co...

More adventures of the headline hog. marylandmatters.org/2025/11/07/b...

For the record, we made it.

We may need Paul Revere

So far so good. At the airport flying back from the Loyola Constitutional Law Colloquium. Spouse is flying back from a psychiatry conference in Toronto. Will we both get to Boston for a performance of Guys and Dolls starring daughter 3?

On the meaning of "regular forces" in 1908. balkin.blogspot.com/2025/11/regu...

Historical experience suggests that when a justice disappoints their immediate political sponsor, there is almost always both a political and a legal reason for the disappointment, that pure law rarely triumphs over pure politics.

Graber also believes law matters, but not that only law matters. We need more sophisticated analysis that detail the place between blind faith and pure cynicism.

Could it possibly be that both Spanberger and Mamdani are the future of the Democratic party and that future depends on their supporters learning to get along and support different kinds of Democrats in different places?

On why judicial biographies are almost always bad, unless you collect cliches. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/02/a...

Excited to join

Section 6 of the Trump Compact mandates that the Justice Department determines who is a man and a woman and not individual students, even when their claim is based on medicine, philosophy, and other academic disciplines. Who gets tenor parts depends on the DOJ, not their voice.

Under Part 5 of Trump's Compact's the DOJ determines grading curves and whether a professor acts fairly who gives an A to essays that demonstrate the unitary executive is an historical fiction or that aspirin is not a leading cause of autism.

Under Part 4 of the Compact, the DOJ determines whether a med school can comment on policies that threaten public health, such as sharp limits on vaccination, and a law school can comment on policies that threaten the rule of law, such as singling out specific people for revenge prosecutions.

Under Section 3 of Compact the Department of Justice gets to determine whether women and persons of color with outstanding achievements were nevertheless hired because of their race or gender (but not apparently whether less qualified conservatives are being hired for prestigious positions).

Under Part II of the Compact with Universities, the DOJ decides whether university members can belittle the idea that bleach can cure COVID or that abortion is a leading cause of breast cancer.

Part I of Trump's academic compact would permit the DOJ to decide whether a graduate school could recruit at an historic black college or university and how much weight a graduate program in philosophy could place on a submitted essay as opposed to a standardized test.

The core of academic freedom is the principle that university presidents, deans, and faculty determine how best to produce and disseminate knowledge. The Compact would make the Department of Justice the final authority on how to best produce and disseminate knowledge. It's that simple.