"neither the courts nor the bad faith of the Trump administrators are entirely to blame, although both have played a role. Instead, the transformation of Title VI reflects a deeper problem with how the federal civil rights regime has come to operate."

Today, @genevievelakier.bsky.social explains how Title VI, perhaps the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement, has become one of the most powerful forces against desegregation.

Week in Review: @gabrielwinant.bsky.social on Marxism and Antitrust, Andrew Bilodeau on labor unions for incarcerated workers, and a collection of some of favorite posts on LPE & Criminal Law. Plus, the best of LPE from around the web in the 🧵👇

Part of the success of “cancel culture” as a meme is that it makes dissimilar activity look the same. Protesting a speaker is not the same as shunning sexual predators is not the same as the federal government silencing dissent.

An incredible resource to share with students, as well as a great entry point for those new to LPE. Earlier entries in the series cover some of our favorite posts on antitrust, admin law, housing, tech: lpeproject.org/symposia/fro...

Love these newsletter style posts from @lpeblog.bsky.social @lpeproject.bsky.social, this one highlighting posts about the intersection of criminal law with political economy, e.g. carceral state lpeproject.org/blog/from-th...

Why do republicans seem to have so much leverage to exercise when they're the minority party and democrats seem to have zero? I understand some pieces of the explanation but don't feel like I have a handle on the whole thing. Is there a good one stop shop explainer?

"In the era of Trump, censorship... very likely will target the economic infrastructure of speech rather than speech itself. But this does not make it any less a threat to the democratic values that the First Amendment is supposed to protect." A good day to revisit @genevievelakier.bsky.social!

Everyone said things were going to keep getting stupider, but I’ll admit I wasn’t prepared for this.

"Instead of demanding, as unions have in the past, that their workplaces stop bringing in incarcerated workers, they can demand that incarcerated workers be brought up to similar wage and benefit structures."

"The contrasting positive vision... is the diminishment of the power of capital over our flourishing, a diminishment which takes the form of the insulation of human life from markets, not its more successful integration into them." Don't miss Gabe Winant on Marxism and Antitrust!

Helpful provocation from Gabe Winant, who still hasn't migrated from X. Nice of him to write it out like this. I don't think it all hangs together. Might have to respond lpeproject.org/blog/marxism...

I really appreciated this essay for engaging core issues regarding how to think about the economy and the (burning) world and our place in it. Even if you don't care about antitrust *or* marxism, i recommend it.

Good reflections here on the different assumptions that characterize Marxism and (at least much of) the modern Antitrust movement.

All aboard 🚂! Today's the LAST DAY⏳ to submit a proposal 📄 to the first-ever ALPE conference.

Indeed it was illegal. But we can thank SCOTUS for making full relief impossible.

the person behind this unhinged, anti-factual editorial is set to decide coverage at one of the nation’s major news networks

The week in review: @jonathanfharris.bsky.social on how states are rewriting the rules on worker mobility, @katejackson.bsky.social on the rise of populism in corporate governance, and a last call for ALPE proposals! Plus, the best of LPE from around the web in the 🧵👇

Don't let the embarrassment that is Ezra Klein's op-ed distract you from the embarrassment you will feel if you forget to submit your ALPE proposal by Monday 😳

According to the standards that EK set in the article, wouldn't he also be forced to say that David Duke did politics the right way? He loved debating people at college campuses!

Today at the Blog, it's last call 🚨🚨 Submissions for the first-ever Association of Law & Political Economy Conference are due Monday, Sept. 15 ⏰ Don’t miss your chance to be part of this landmark event. For updates, make sure to follow: @a-lpe.bsky.social lpeproject.org/blog/cfp-rem...

"Corporate law, although always far from perfect, was supposed to ensure that the titans of industry acted lawfully and in the best interests of not only the stockholders, but their companies. Now, it seems, Delaware has opted for backsliding." Don't miss this great new post by Kate Jackson!

One puzzle I’m working through is how authoritarian political movements impact civil society orgs. We’re getting more familiar with what authoritarianism will do to them when in power. It’s a top-down theory of change. But does the underlying political & social movement have an independent impact?

Very interesting post on the emerging politics of corporate law from @katejackson.bsky.social. But why “populism”? These aren’t agrarian antimonopolists. The classical term is “demagoguery”, no? lpeproject.org/blog/a-popul...

"Unlike Constitutional law, business law never seemed like any kind of democratic bulwark... Regrettably, we may soon learn to miss Delaware’s small contribution to the rule of law and democracy."

Ten days! Submit! Tell your friends to submit! My panel is coming together--and you won't want to miss it!

Don't let the national embarrassment that is Brett Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court distract you from the national embarrassment that is Andrew Ferguson and the FTC.

"FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson claims that the Commission can more effectively protect worker mobility through individual enforcement actions... But such one-off actions won’t be nearly as effective as the blanket ban and won’t clearly signal to 30 million workers that their non-competes are void."

Nico, my favorite pup at the Santa Fe shelter, is currently being featured on their Facebook page — if you’ve got a sec, give their post a like to boost it in the algorithm and help him find his forever home 🖤🤍🖤 Here's the link to the post: www.facebook.com/share/p/1CUV...

More reasons to share this post: Nico has been in the shelter since March, when he was surrendered because he came down with such a powerful case of the zoomies that he crashed into his owner and broke both of his legs. 😭 😭 The perils of being a mesomorph!

Nico, my favorite pup at the Santa Fe shelter, is currently being featured on their Facebook page — if you’ve got a sec, give their post a like to boost it in the algorithm and help him find his forever home 🖤🤍🖤 Here's the link to the post: www.facebook.com/share/p/1CUV...

NEW: @lookheron.bsky.social evaluates the FTC’s transformation into a political tool to advance a conservative social agenda. He argues that no initiative better exemplifies the agency’s politicization than its investigation into gender-affirming care that threatens transgender rights and autonomy.

The week in review: it was a Labor Day special, with @mikewishnie.bsky.social on faculty unions, and Eamon Coburn on the long-eroded social norms against union busting. Plus, the best of LPE from around the web in the 🧵 👇

Nobody who voted to confirm RFK is fit to hold public office

I absolutely love this blog post by Eamon Coburn because it brings moral conversations into labor law in an explicit way. I may write a response to it because I liked it so much. It's a great pickup by the LPE Blog.

"A common refrain is that, unfortunately, NLRA violations are just 'economically rational' for employers.... We do not view other types of workplace harms this way. Wage theft is broadly viewed as wrongful... Discrimination cases are even further removed from the economic in the public mind."

Nearly every large organization - Columbia, Starbucks, REI, Trader Joes, Amazon, etc - has embraced an illegal anti-union playbook. While we should increase the legal penalties for such behavior, Eamon's right that we also need a shift in social norms to safeguard organizing rights.

It seem that my article on the history, present, and, potential future of market governance in the meatpacking industry is out! The doctrinal focus is on the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 & its use of my white whale: "unfair acts or practices" northcarolinalawreview.org/wp-content/u...

This is important. The first 24 hours of press coverage fumbled the ball. But the US just murdered 11 people in international waters. Analogies to the US’s (highly suspect, morally and legally) targeted killings of suspect terrorists don’t work. This crossed their own lines, and they know it.

"Other academic workers have modeled solidarity and strategic risk-taking in recent campus organizing campaigns... Which [private university tenured] faculty will be the first to do so?" Don't miss Mike Wishnie on the potential for union organizing among tenured faculty at private institutions.

Conventional wisdom says tenure-track/tenured faculty at private universities lack statutory rights to form unions and bargain collectively. That's wrong. Thanks Helen Zhao & James Brandt for fine research and editing. lpeproject.org/blog/why-not...

Good news for tenured faculty at private universities: you have the right to form a union! Bad news for tenured faculty at private universities: armed with this knowledge, you have no excuse not to form a union!

Over the past two years, its become painfully clear to most ladder faculty that they have little say over the operation of their university (cough, Columbia, cough). If they want that to change, they should unionize.

Tomorrow(!), the blog returns to its regularly scheduled publishing program. But before we do, we wanted to share a brief 🧵 of helpful resources for new law students who might be curious about the Law and Political Economy movement.

If you haven't checked out the LPE Project syllabus bank you're missing out!! (also, if you are teaching an LPE or LPE-adjacent course, please send us your syllabus!) lpeproject.org/syllabi

I am really looking forward to this new class. (Finally felt I had a class worth sharing with the @lpeblog.bsky.social syllabus bank) lpeproject.org/syllabi/law-...

Notable that the pundits writing essays about staying on Twitter/X always frame it as some kind of principled stand, and never acknowledge the reality that, as a tool for driving traffic, X is dogshit. Twitter was never great for it, but post-Elon, it’s been worthless. You’re not “reaching” anyone!

I really don't think people appreciate how much Musk throttling links made twitter useless for anything but rage-bait posting.

Today's the day: submissions are now open for the inaugural Association of Law & Political Economy conference!

(1) Hi y’all 👋 I’m on the academic hiring market this year!! I’m a PhD at Yale. My job talk is a timely piece of legal history exploring Myers, Humphrey’s Executor, and the future of the unitary executive (not in the news at all 😅). Happy to send a copy!