UCLA’s funds reinstated after yesterday’s court order! Thanks to the brave researchers and their amazing counsel, including Dean Chemerinsky, who brought suit. This is just another turn in the ongoing fight, but a great result for now.

About to do this. My main point-smart law professors can take centuries of history and basically advocate for anything (or against it). The problem is the method. It is just wrong.

How did I not know Boris Becker spent 8 months in prison…https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMLBFMR8/

Hey @espinsegall.bsky.social thanks as always for being on the pod w/ @petedominick.bsky.social & teaching us all about going to hell in a hand basket. A news roundup plus this great guest await on today's ep, listeners! standupwithpete.com/1442-prof-er...

women being blamed for autism is very 2025 and also very 1692

“Trump’s lawyers were in the same position that Trump's cabinet of sycophants find themselves when required to attempt to outdo one another in expressing admiration, gratitude, and even love for the god-like president.” Must read by Mike about Trump’s libel lawsuit: www.dorfonlaw.org/2025/09/who-...

There was some easy-to-miss amusing news last week. A federal judge struck what he called Trump's "tedious and burdensome" complaint against the NY Times. As I explain on the blog, the lawyers packed the pleading with hyperbole for no tactical legal purpose but to please the narcissistic client. 👇

I've got the Legal Eagle! @espinsegall.bsky.social + News and Clips! standupwithpete.libsyn.com/1442-prof-er...

BREAKING: They have also just overruled Eric's opinion that they are not a real court on the shadow docket.

The Court is overruling federal laws, its own precedent, and lower court decisions, on the emergency docket which, quite simply, real courts do not do.

J. Kagan dissent: "Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars.Still more, it should not be used,as it also has been,to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers."

Some thoughts on “The Big Chill: What a Law Professor Can and Cannot Say These Days.” I hope I’m still around tomorrow. www.dorfonlaw.org/2025/09/the-...

It's @petedominick.bsky.social & legal Eagle @espinsegall.bsky.social LIVE right now on YouTube! Come join us! www.youtube.com/live/bUIzTlH...

"Can a Family Resurrect the American Chestnut Tree in Appalachia?" My story for @barnraiser.bsky.social about one family carrying the torch. This is a story against the grain. A story of hope in a dark time. A story of long time horizons. 1/n barnraisingmedia.com/can-a-family...

Will be discussing my latest piece on “The Big Chill: What Law Professors Can and Cannot Say,” live with @petedominick.bluesky.social at 12:30. www.dorfonlaw.org/2025/09/the-...

Some thoughts on “The Big Chill: What a Law Professor Can and Cannot Say These Days.” I hope I’m still around tomorrow. www.dorfonlaw.org/2025/09/the-...

On the blog, @espinsegall.bsky.social, who is a faculty member of a public university in a blue city in a purple state run by a Republican statewide government, wonders what is and is no longer permissible for him to say. 👇

The Texas A & M firing of a faculty member and forced resignation of the university President is just ….I have no words. But I might have some tomorrow with @petedominick.bsky.social and on @dorfonlaw.bsky.social

John Roberts and his band of partisan hacks should face consequences for licensing this. We're way beyond the rules now. If Democrats ever take power again, they should pass legislation to overturn the Supreme Court's absurd presidential immunity ruling. And strip courts' jurisdiction to review. 1/

I am pleased to report that Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins has dropped another total evisceration of the Supreme Court. He says originalism is a fraud—and the Republican justices are shamelessly making up facts and history to impose radical Christian nationalism: slate.com/news-and-pol...

No animal was hurt at all by the way.

I had a slightly argumentative but important discussion with Boris Sanchez on CNN about why Jimmy Kimmel was fired and the larger context of what this mean. Don't let them cancel me for speaking out. patreon.com/petedominick www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MOd...

My wife has a strange view on the relationship between dogs and guinea pigs.

Already a Sweeney Saturday.

Trumps complaint (campaign speech) against the Times dismissed with leave to amend because……too many reasons to list here.

The chilliest the air has been in my lifetime. That’s all.

Trump said the quiet part out loud: his critics must be silenced. But FCC Chair Brendan Carr has suggested he would restore the so-called "fairness doctrine" that conservatives despised and Reagan ended. Carr would apply it unfairly, but even if applied fairly, is it still constitutional? Details👇

I largely agree, as I suggest in this working paper with respect to modern separation of powers doctrine/theory: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=522...

An important two days are coming up for public health - the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will meeting to discuss the hepatitis B vaccine, the MMRV vaccine and COVID boosters, as well as the safety review of COVID vaccines already delivered. 1/

The Trump/RFK Jr. CDC has reverted to calling mpox "monkeypox." There's no scientific or other policy basis for the change. Expressing and encouraging racism and homophobia are, for the Trump administration, a feature, not a bug. Details on the blog. 👇

I feel like the constitutional and political Twitter debates in the early days of Twitter in which I participated along with numerous conservatives, libertarians, and progressives most of which were relatively civil could get many of us fired today. Think about that. Sigh.

Trump’s lawsuit against the New York Times is…really something. Really, really something. Sigh. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

So I guess the Epstein thing is over? I’m so old that I remember folks on the Right demanding answers.

I don’t think there’s any apology that he could have given that would make it ok for him to keep his job.

What Brian Kilmeade said was truly awful. His apology got me thinking about apologies, and their value. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/b...

On the blog, I summarize and link to my new essay in the UC Davis Law Review online: "Play in the Joints Beyond the Religion Clauses." It critiques recent SCOTUS cases that shrink the zone between what Free Exercise requires and Establishment forbids. It also praises buffer zones more broadly. 👇

Everything you need to know about the Court/non-court in one easy graph courtesy of The NY Times:

Flag flying half mast at Fort Sumter. And I just don’t know what say.

Fox News has destroyed America in so many ways, and does so almost every day.

If your response to school shootings, mass shootings, and targeted assassinations is let’s get more guns for everyone, I just don’t know what to say.

We are told that Charlie Kirk was "doing politics the right way" by going to universities to speak his mind. We are told that universities do not allow people with Charlie Kirk's views to speak their minds. It is odd to be told both those things.

Really necessary warning?

I always thought a big factor in Roberts agreeing to save the ACA was his desire to make the Kennedy Court the Roberts Court. I explained why to Bloomberg (among many other things). nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Shared my thoughts on the Roberts Court with Bloomberg and the wonderful June Lasso: nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

That is the trouble with being Not A Court. You can do whatever you want and not explain it.

“We’re out here flailing. … I’m not criticizing the justices. They’re using a vehicle that’s there, but they are telling us nothing. They could easily just give us direction and we would follow it.” A lower court judge about SCOTUS. www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

What an incredible waste. These contraceptives would have prevented many unintended pregnancies and maternal deaths.

Third and final installment of “Mourning the 20th Anniversary of the Roberts Court.” This one cuts deep. Rule of law or Rule of People? www.dorfonlaw.org/2025/09/mour...

“When it comes to the Roberts Court, we are governed by the rule of people, not the rule of law, and that should make us wonder whether we know what law is." www.dorfonlaw.org/2025/09/mour...