What a crew!

History might offer us some lessons for the present, but only if we're honest about it. The "Hayes Tilden Compromise" is a myth. Reconstruction remained strong in some southern areas well after 1877 while, in others, white violence had effectively choked Black political success well before then.

Proud of my students for their research, which for the first time located the descendants of those enslaved by Columbia University's founders. www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2026/05...

And in 1910, a Republican, William Howard Taft, appointed Edward Douglas White, Jr., a former Confederate soldier and rumored KKK member, Chief Justice. White had voted with the majority in Plessy.

There’s even a history of a former Confederate-turned-U.S. Supreme Court justice espousing that view (and confirmed by the Senate in 1888 despite it being well known).

...also when justices feel the need to cite Marbury v. Madison, you KNOW they're up to some bullshit (and they do, too)

MAKE THE GUARANTEE CLAUSE GREAT AGAIN

Huge congratulations to @gauthamrao.bsky.social!! This book is going to have such a big impact! 🎉

There's been a running theme in Roberts & co's thought wherein the political process is corrupt and distasteful and the judicial process is not.

@rachelshelden.bsky.social has a new book out later this year that explores the history of the Supreme Court justices as political actors. you can preorder it now. uncpress.org/978146969713...

This is great, but two friendly amendments. The consolidation of judicial supremacy began long before the 1990s. And even as the Court holds that Congress may not respond to its decisions, Congress *does not need this majority’s approval* to check the Court’s power and respond anyway.

These remarks feature most of Roberts’ usual talking points but one quote stood out to me—that justices are “not simply part of the political process.” At a minimum, constitutional interpretation is absolutely part of the *political* process & always has been. To say otherwise is deeply unserious.

Could there be a timelier book? I think not.

you know, Abraham Lincoln was famously a man of the people who famously did not talk in "plain English."

“Americans have to reacquaint themselves… with the idea that we, the people, make constitutional meaning. To the extent that the Supreme Court claims broad authority to say what our Constitution means, it is in large part because we have given this authority to them through our indifference.”

Oh no

Great piece by @nikobowie.bsky.social & Daphna Renan, also reminding us of the constitutional culture we once had, when the people routinely claimed their authority over the Constitution and refused to let an unrepresentative Court dictate their future. (gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/o...)

For a Court as fetishistic about “history” as this one, it is remarkable to read opinions in which phenomena like racially polarized voting and turnout gaps are treated as if they just kind of spontaneously apparate or vanish, with no relationship to law.

Here are young Reagan DOJ lawyer John Roberts's memos from 1982 opposing the VRA Section 2 amendment that Congress still passed and his Court just gutted 44 years later: www.archives.gov/files/news/j...

I don't think it's a coincidence that lots of folks are publishing books this year that explain/contextualize this #SCOTUS & the current moment. Some to look for (& if you've got one I've missed, pls add!). Mine, the Political Supreme Court, will be out in October 1/ uncpress.org/978146969713...

Unelected jurists over time have destroyed a tremendous act of popular sovereignty and engine of pluralistic democracy, turning it into little more than a historic relic.

So very excited for this book to be out in the world!!

Look at this beauty!! ❤️

And if circuit riding takes get you up in the morning, do I have a book for you! (At least, that you can preorder) 😆 uncpress.org/978146969713...

If we really wanted to bring back circuit riding like the old days, the justices would hail from their circuits and really know their communities. (Travel on horseback and making the justices cover their own expenses for these required circuit trips could be optional.)

The wonderful @colsonwhitehead.com www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/o...

Just confirming that Made by History will now be back up and running in the next few weeks with a new home and new partners at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Exciting! So, if you have pitches, now's the time to start sending them to [email protected] 🗃️ #MadebyHistory #HistoryMatters

So excited to see this article in print!! 🎉 Tanner's work is always terrific, but this piece is especially good in challenging us to understand tribal constitutions on their own terms while also pressing on what Indigenous constitutionalism can tell us about American constitutionalism more broadly.

Y’all, the preorder links for The Political Supreme Court are here! Direct from UNC Press: uncpress.org/978146969713... Bookshop: bookshop.org/p/books/the-... Amazon: a.co/d/08lXOMa7 Barnes & Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-politi...

#ICYMI: I wrote yesterday about the effort by a handful of academics to create a literature supporting President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order—and how such backfilling has only been encouraged by the way that #SCOTUS has utilized (and cited) legal scholarship in recent years:

After years of research, Daphna Renan & I are thrilled to announce preorders of SUPREMACY. Why is US democracy so broken? One reason is we've wrongly accepted that 9 justices have the final say over the Constitution. This book traces how that happened—& how we can reclaim power to govern ourselves.

About to start my fellowship at @mhs1791.bsky.social in a few minutes. I’m working on a book about the origins of criminalized migration in the US, largely from the vantage point of the migrants themselves. What did it mean to be an illegal migrant before the Civil War? I’m finding out.

Not sure whether this is apt or terrible timing but here’s the official cover of my book due out with @uncpress.bsky.social W. Hodding Carter III imprint this fall. 🎉

@jamellebouie.net succinctly lays out the "sudden burst of revisionism" among conservative legal scholars who are now providing Trump intellectual cover by questioning the standard view of the 14A & birthright citizenship - a view they once accepted themselves (gift link)

In baseball, we call this a wheeeeeeeeeee!

Read the whole 🧵

💯 but this is not baked in. Justices were required to interact w/ the public by riding circuit where they oversaw jury trials w/out the help of law clerks until the late 19th c. Their DC courtroom was in the Capitol until 1935. The sequestration, acolytes, & temple-like building are modern creations

Can’t wait for this amazing book to be out in the world!! And so excited to have the second book in W. Hodding Carter III @uncpress.bsky.social series following @gauthamrao.bsky.social’s (coming to you this fall!) Hope to see you in Philly to celebrate at the #OAH2026 🎉

Got mine, @unlawfulentries.bsky.social!!

That pitch missed by 4 inches

Hot off the press! I wrote an article that got published in the Journal of American History. It explores how abolitionists used runaway slave advertisements to ridicule slaveowners and slaveowners' northern allies. 🗃 academic.oup.com/jah/article/...

New symposium on my book is out in the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities! It features essays by an extraordinary group of scholars from across Law and History followed by my response. yaleconnect.yale.edu/yjlh/yjlh-is...

Same, seeing how different programs structure(d) comps is always fascinating. 1. US Political History 1787-1877 2. US History to 1877 3. US History 1877 to the present 4. Modern France Written & oral exams. 3/4 written exams closed book/closed note.

Lots of great advice in this thread! Other JOURNAL thoughts: 1) It's a long process: *at least* 2 years from 1st submission to publication 2) Not all journal editors are created equal: really good editors will assess the reader reports for you--pay attention, this is a pathway to publication!

Ellis does a disservice by repeating a common misinterpretation of this letter. She is talking about protecting wives from abusive husbands.

So very lucky to know @unlawfulentries.bsky.social and this is good advice whether you have a publicist or not!