Deepak Bhargava of Freedom Together bundles good lessons from The Radical Fund for funders today. More to say about the interaction of class and race.

Thoughtful review of The Radical Fund in @dissentmag.bsky.social by @cdunning.bsky.social. (Will hand-wringing keep the left from doing what’s required to build power while in exile?) dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

Amazing students and great to see you Robert!

I'm delighted to announce BU's Clark Legal History Series @bostonu.bsky.social @bulaw.bsky.social Weds 4:20 to 6:20: Starting 1/21: @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social presenting his outstanding new book "The Radical Fund" Then @sherifgirgis.bsky.social @beaubaumann.bsky.social & more:

Always fun to talk to @profmmurray.bsky.social — esp about The Radical Fund! @simonandschuster.bsky.social

Nice note on The Radical Fund in the @nytimes.com! Missed it last week. “Engrossing” sounds good! @simonandschuster.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/b...

This one was fun to write: did 2025 put a final stake thru the heart of the process school? Or was it maybe the beginning of a revival? (Take our course this spring for more!) @yalelawschool-yls.bsky.social @samuelmoyn.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/o...

William E. Nelson, one of the giants of U.S. legal history has passed. I have fond memories of spending a year as a Golieb Fellow at NYU under his tutelage -- as do many others. Sending love and comfort to his family and to all those who who counted him as a friend.

Finkelman reviews @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social: “Snyder details Herndon’s legal odyssey with great insight. He does not make the point directly but provides the evidence that good lawyering matters.”

I'll be at Harvard Book Store this eve at 7 pm, in conversation with @noahrfeldman.bsky.social about The Radical Fund. Among other things, my best effort in 30 years to capture the history of the law in all its multifariousness. Join us! @harvardbookstore.bsky.social @simonandschuster.bsky.social

Hey New Haven join the conversation with Kica Matos @nilc.org and me about The Radical Fund, 6:30 this evening at Possible Futures on Edgewood. Liberals and leftists in political exile, a century ago and today. Should be fun! possiblefuturesbooks.com/events/39805...

Many thanks to the @brennancenter.org for compelling conversation about #TheRadicalFund this week. Esp nice to reconnect with former student Lauren Miller Karalunas @yalelawschool-yls.bsky.social

If only there were a story about someone with $1 million giving it away . . . . #TheRadicalFund

Like someone with a $1M net worth giving away $1,090... mostly to themselves

How a band of visionaries and a million dollars upended America – in the 1920s, which had some remarkable similarities to our own era: Historian @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social explains – on @thenation.com podcast bit.ly/4ozD5dV

The 1920s had some striking things in common with our own ominous political world today—starting with "gates being shut after several decades of really extraordinary immigration the US"— @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social – on @thenation.com podcast bit.ly/4ozD5dV @simonbooks.bsky.social

In Detroit for the ASLH conference? I'm at the Fraser Center Wayne State at 4 pm this afternoon to talk about the archives that brought the story of #TheRadicalFund to life. @reutherlibrary.bsky.social labor.wayne.edu/event-flyers...

Interesting and fun convo with @jonwiener.bsky.social and @thenation.com about resonances between the 2020s and the 1920s: www.thenation.com/podcast/arch...

Smart questions from @zelizer.bsky.social in this conversation earlier today. Did the right co-opt progressives’ most generative 20th c tactics? #TheRadicalFund open.substack.com/pub/johnfabi...

I'm at the Warren Center @harvard.edu today at 4 pm in Robinson Hall's lower library to talk about The Radical Fund. Come on out. I promise good pictures!

Lookong back to look ahead—thoughtful and revelatory by @nickperkins.bsky.social on Mamdani and Walter Lippmann. jacobin.com/2025/11/lunn...

Harlem Congressman Vito Marcantonio is Mamdani’s closing message—and practiced at the Garland Fund’s law firm. Of course. #TheRadicalFund is all around us. @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

TOC, "Gerontocracy in America" (June 2026) us.macmillan.com/books/978037...

New HistPhil post: David Pozen continues our book forum on @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social' s The Radical Fund, questioning whether, given evolution in nonprofit law since the fund's heydey, it can serve as a model for contemporary philanthropy seeing to "upend America." histphil.org/2025/11/03/c...

Oh my, the 2020s bidding hard to look like the 1920s. First Billie Eilish, now Gatsby and the Roaring 20s at Mar-a-Lago #TheRadicalFund @simonandschuster.bsky.social

Radicalism (in its Latin sense at least?) is fast becoming a keyword for the age. @fotoole.bsky.social is lucid in the @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Radical constitutional change is in the air; now Sai Prakash & @casssunstein.bsky.social are in the mix with a fascinating account of social movements and elites. But what if elites are also a social movement to be explained? #TheRadicalFund virginialawreview.org/articles/rad...

A new pod episode! Come for the nudist beach scenes from the 1920s—stay for fights over the material foundations of 20th-c liberalisms.

Over at HistPhil by @bensoskis.bsky.social a forum on The Radical Fund starts with an essay / post by yours truly on political nonviolence and the tax code, 2020s and 1920s. @simonandschuster.bsky.social histphil.org/2025/10/27/w...

Laura Weinrib @harvard.edu gets it better than I did! The Radical Fund's internal battles in the 1920s presaged New Deal-era fights over the power to decide in collective bargaining, in civil rights, and elsewhere. Power, not rights. @jackbalkin.bsky.social balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

Now fists are flying! Larry Kramer at LSE says The Radical Fund is "beautifully written, deeply engrossing," and a "tour de force"--but also that it's "not really about the Garland Fund"! Has Larry seen to the secret soul of the book? balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/wher...

My friend @marydudziak.bsky.social calls The Radical Fund a compelling salve for chaotic times—but has doubts! Is money the way out? balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/what...

David Pozen @columbiauniversity.bsky.social offers a shot across the bow: does 21st c nonprofit tax law make a Garland Fund 2.0 impossible? balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/coul...

Yale Professor @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social went back a century and found our present The Radical Fund tells the story of Charles Garland who refused his inheritance to see it fuel resistance Subscribe free to watch First Draft with @sjdemas.bsky.social now www.lincolnsquare.media/p/a-1920s-ro...

Looking forward to this one, in just a few minutes live on substack at 11!

Over at Balkinization @jackbalkin.bsky.social, my old dean at Columbia Law David Schizer sees the Garland Fund as a quintessential philanthropic incubator of new ideas. He also notes it was riddled with conflicts of interest. Flaw? Or secret sauce! balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/less...

Talked with @emilybazelon on @Slate.com Gabfest Reads about The Radical Fund. Don't miss the turn to Lippmann near the end -- and the fund's prophetic insight that censorship is only a one piece of a free democratic discourse. @Simonandschuster.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVk...

Read wise @jamalgreene.bsky.social on how to make change from the rubble of a failing state—and on an abiding question: “whether to pursue social change through corrupted existing institutions or whether to try, at great risk, to build new ones.” balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/warl...

The @wsj.com calls The Radical Fund “fascinating”—and says it would be at the center of the fight between liberal funders and the Trump administration were it around today. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Gorgeous on Pennsylvania Ave in DC this afternoon.

Over at @jackbalkin.bsky.social’s Balkinization, David Bernstein proposes that The Radical Fund is a cautionary tale of liberalism’s vulnerability to cooperation by illiberal forces—and takes up the CPUSA’s efforts to capture the fund as a case study. balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

My friend and mentor Willy Forbath asks a big question: were social democracy’s compromises a century ago generative or constraining? The debate is on! balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

The great Risa Goluboff @uvalaw.bsky.social says The Radical Fund is of a piece with the long civil rights movement literature. Is she right? Or is it a critique of the LCRM’s starting premise? Maybe both! @simonandschuster.bsky.social balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/putt...

In DC tonight? I’ll be talking with @davidcole-gtown.bsky.social about progressivism in its wilderness years—and a lost story of experiments for a better world. At @politicsprose.bsky.social on Conn Ave tonight at 7

Oh my, a review from Michelle Adams @umichlaw.bsky.social calls The Radical Fund “a powerful and under-appreciated story” and an “invitation to reconsider what democratic education still demands.” @simonandschuster.bsky.social balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

Come join us this evening @nyhistory.bsky.social for a lost history of the 1920s -- and the paths that got us through eerily similar democratic crisis a century ago. With the great David Blight, 6:30 pm at 77th & CPW. @simonandschuster.bsky.social

Pub day character! Charles Garland: Handsome heir to Wall Street fortune, critic of inheritance, and founder of utopian farming communes. His money incubated social movements during liberalism's lean years, even as his own life spiraled out of control. @SimonandSchuster.bsky.social #TheRadicalFund

1 day to publication, it's Woodrow Wilson: Wartime president whose draconian speech repression campaign & simultaneous program of propaganda shaped the Garland Fund's approach to politics; his 1913 firing of James Weldon Johnson helped shape the course of the 1920s. @SimonandSchuster.bsky.social

Talking with @leahlitman.bsky.social and @kateshaw.bsky.social on @strictscrutiny.bsky.social about #TheRadicalFund was fun. Like a fantasy novel, says Litman--but it's history, replies Shaw! Dear reader, you will have to decide for yourself. @simonandschuster.bsky.social crooked.com/podcast/will...