The president of a university actually defends forcing a professor to remove Plato from his course by saying, "We didn't ban ALL Plato." Um, first, no one said you did. Second... dailynous.com/2026/01/13/a...

I read a million words about relational egalitarianism so you don't have to! My review article, forthcoming in Annual Review of Political Science, is now available in "Review in Advance" form. (I.e., pre-proof corrections.) doi.org/10.1146/annu...

I read a million words about relational egalitarianism so you don't have to! My review article, forthcoming in Annual Review of Political Science, is now available in "Review in Advance" form. (I.e., pre-proof corrections.) doi.org/10.1146/annu...

NYU Politics is hiring two visiting assistant professors, preferably in political theory, in support of civic education courses for the 2026-27 academic year. Feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions. apply.interfolio.com/179756

News reports Border Patrol shot two people in Portland, Oregon

By Democracy Project Faculty Director Sam Issacharoff in today's Chicago Sun-Times: "Inexperienced, poorly trained ICE and border patrol agents could face legal trouble" chicago.suntimes.com/other-views/...

About that FIFA "peace" prize.... Bloomberg reporting SG Sauer "ordered Brooklyn prosecutors to abandon 2 FIFA bribery convictions amid pushback from their Trump-appointed US atty--potentially unraveling dozens of other int'l soccer corruption cases & 100s of millions of $ in recovered penalties."

This is the big story: 1) The President ordered a killing campaign outside of the law. 2) He got OLC to make up a fake war to justify killing real people. 3) And he got the military to carry out the killings. Purporting to justify those killings is aiding in covering up that plain reality 👇 2/2

It's very FIFA to give a peace prize to someone whose administration is currently experiencing political trouble because it's murdering civilian foreigners.

There's been weirdly little coverage of this point. Trump/ McMahon are demanding an end to gender-based affirmative action in admissions and they clearly still believe we're in the world where aa benefits young *women* applicants, but that world is long gone. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

I spoke to the New York Times in this great explainer piece by Charlie Savage www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/u...

Kavanaugh, J.

Couldn't agree more with Bouie here.

Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing "Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions." Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social

My article “𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗧𝗼𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘁” interrogates the ideologically fraught relation between contemporary political theory and the history of thought. Published in 𝘊𝘙𝘐𝘚𝘚𝘗 in a symposium on @lrafanell.bsky.social’s excellent book 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘈𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘉𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴. PolTheory #philsky

If you're a PhD student in political theory, definitely submit an abstract. This was a terrific conference last year, and the organising committee is an amazing group. philevents.org/event/show/1...

They lied about it. All of it. A thug cop shot an unarmed woman five times without justification, boasted about it to his colleagues, and then this administration tried cover it all up by arresting her and charging her with felonies.

Ellis repeatedly accuses multiple CBP and ICE officials of lying (under oath) and says their "widespread misrepresentations call into question everything" they "say they are doing in their characterization of what is happening." She broadly discredits their testimony as objectively false.

A Trump supporter started murdering his way through an assassination list of Democratic law makers FIVE MONTHS AGO. He murdered my colleague Melissa Hortman, and her husband Mark — and attempted to assassinate my dear friend John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. I was also on the hit list. WTF

remember this "case" began with DHS press person claiming that multiple vehicles had ambushed and cornered CBP agents in a scene reminiscent of Baghdad 2007

Society if Clifford "Buzz" Grambo were Attorney General in 2021:

Federal agents in Chicago used tear gas more times in one day last month than Chicago police did all year. Great reporting: southsideweekly.com/feds-tear-ga...

NEW: In 2024, Tierra Walker was sick and getting sicker. She was also pregnant. She knew abortion was illegal in Texas, but thought there was an exception for women like her, whose health was at risk. Doctors told her there was no emergency. Then she died. www.propublica.org/article/texa...

Train yourself so that it is easy to stand up for someone when the time comes. Train yourself not to start ruminating about the bad consequences to you of sticking your neck out for someone. Develop a sense of honor. Courage will follow.

It's weird that someone with such a developed sense of shame, such empathy for others' "pain," and such a commitment to taking "full responsibility" decides to take that responsibility only a few days after the shameful behavior becomes public. Odd coincidence! www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

“Summers holds Harvard’s highest faculty distinction as a University Professor. He also serves as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. Summers will continue to direct the center” lol what a joke. Strip him of these titles, at minimum

Most or all of the sexist and racist correspondence between Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein about the mentee Summers wanted to have sex with occurred after Julie Brown’s story came out: www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/11/the-...

US citizen Maria Greeley, a Latina who was adopted, was walking home from work downtown when masked agents zip tied her. They said she “doesn’t look like a Greeley.” This is how the government treats people under current deportation policies. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/15/l...

For two months, the U.S. government has been racial profiling as masked federal agents hunted for immigrants throughout Chicago. They’ve repeatedly snatched up U.S. citizens while traumatizing communities. “I felt like a piece of trash.” Here is our story www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/15/l...

WE WON. I am *begging* you to take note of who did this. *Not* UCLA admin—they’re still scuttling around behind closed doors, attempting to appease—but FACULTY AND STAFF, led by AAUP.

UVA Pres. Ryan's letter isn't just about the DOJ though. It credibly details dubious conduct from many people who were supposed to put UVA's interests first and didn't (likely because they agreed with DOJ's far-right pressure campaign): the Board, the AG, outside counsel, etc.

Not only are race-conscious policies often justified; it's usually an easy case, given any sensible political-philosophical foundations plus the most basic, "I wasn't born yesterday," knowledge of facts. The anti-affirmative-action position has strong intuitive pull but is really hard to justify.

Fantastic @americalabs.org and @nehls.bsky.social interview of Ruth Bloch Rubin, one of the smartest Congress scholars out there firstbranchforecast.substack.com/p/interview-...

NIH scientist Dr. Jenna Norton was just placed on nondisciplinary leave. She led a team who wrote a sign-on letter critical of The Regime. A person at NIH asked to give a reason for her leave called her “radical leftist”; while the NIH Director has claimed that “dissent is productive”.

"You know us...So please trust us now when we say that what is happening in the Chicago area is wrong." Powerful letter from retired Chicago broadcast journalists about what ICE/CBP is doing to our city: "it is terror" www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/13/l...

I've assigned a chapter on "Decolonizing Global Governance" (organized around a reading of Nehru) from Shuk Ying Chan's book, "Postcolonial Global Justice" for my new Global Political Justice class today. It is really good; highly recommend for both research and teaching.

As usual, the good folks at the Crimson do their homework:

NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find: - NONE of the arrested were criminally charged - NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists." - ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.

As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history. Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX

This man had absolutely no business being in academic leadership and everyone who said so twenty years ago should be taking a deserved victory lap. (And, more importantly, we should all be listening to them more.)

My takeaway from every new Epstein revelation is that some powerful people victimized many powerless young women, many more knew, some actively enabled it--and we're still being told that MeToo and accountability for sexual violence have gone too far

I'm trying to figure out why the American elite (Larry Summers) thinks sexual harassing women should be irrelevant to one's chances to work for a network or a think tank, but also sexually assaulting girls should be irrelevant to whether one merits a friendly correspondence. Oh, wait.

The fact that this, and every other Trump pardonee who has subsequently broken the law, has not ended Trump's political career, that it barely even registers on the national discourse, underlines just how far we are from a functioning democracy that values accountability.

BREAKING: Mark Wolf, appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, writes that he is resigning as a judge to have the freedom to speak out against the president's assault on the rule of law. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

ICE detention is tantamount to torture.

The NYT has used some version of this sentence in multiple stories about the Columbia settlement but it is highly misleading. Yes, the Columbia settlement included that pledge, but it also included multiple terms that “dictate academic matters.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...

The elimination of USAID was an unforgivable moral atrocity that should haunt Trump, Elon Musk and Marco Rubio for the rest of their days and beyond

Coming to bookstores this spring: "If I Did It," by Sandwich Guy.

Ellis turns to the testimony of U.S. Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino. How he denied using force against a man he tackled and said he didn't see the Rev. David Black hit by pepperballs. "More telling," she says, "defendant Bovino admitted that he lied."