#ICEOUT produced protests in all 50 states with just 2 days notice! In the sun, the rain, & the snow! For Nicole Good & all those ICE is harming. People came out in large cities, small towns; and in 🔴 & 🩵 states. Catch up quickly! Here's my montage of 40 different cities in 2 videos. 🎵 🧵👆🏻

The worst thing to happen to academia was the emergence of a nomadic administrative class like the one in corporations who just move from institution to institution setting fires and walking away. Say what you will about the flaws of faculty governance, but at least they believe in the mission.

this is like that scene in office space where the consultants end up loving peter

What a great day celebrating Austin Sarat’s FIFTY years of teaching at Amherst College.I got to speak on this panel in the morning and then again in the afternoon about how influential his scholarship and mentorship has been to me.

Married!

Cowardice.

Summer reading

Emory has “de-promoted” President Greg Fenves, removing him as president and creating a chancellorship position for him to occupy, presumably at a high salary, as budgets are being slashed 30% across all units and a pay and hiring freeze are in effect. www.chronicle.com/article/emor...

The deluge of flimsy white folding chairs has flooded the quad—graduation is nigh…

The Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History has announced its 2025 Fellows! I was glad to be able to participate on the selection committee for this incredible cohort of scholars. www.law.wisc.edu/hurst-instit...

Today, Emory University @emoryuniversity.bsky.social faculty marched today to protest the erosion of shared governance at our institution and to urge President Greg Fenves to join the 200 college & university presidents who signed the AAUC’s statement of commitment to academic freedom.

Last week, I spoke at a conference on capital punishment & religion at the University of Texas Law School. Best of all was meeting a hero of mine, Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking"-- kind, down-to-earth, funny, and still doing the work at 85. We should all be so lucky!

So thrilled for my advisee, Emilyn Hazelbrook, who defended her incredible honors thesis on battered woman syndrom, "Premeditated But Not Guilty: The Rise and Fall of the Battered Woman Legal Defense." Her committee awarded her highest honors!

Our Bronze Star Award Arrived!!! SILVER, we’re coming for you! Let me know if you need any pointers, @elizwilsonemory.bsky.social

🔥 Rep. Al Green is not new to standing up

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an article today on the low morale of many faculty at Emory. I joined my colleagues (I'm the one in red) in protest of the erosion of shared governance at Emory. www.ajc.com/education/em...

The President of Wesleyan is consistently the only University leader who stands up for the academic mission! @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social #Academicsky slate.com/life/2025/02...

Emory Pres. Greg Fenves, who unleashed police violence on peaceful protestors last April, has signed an agreement with the US Dept of Eductation to enact reforms to protect students against anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian Discrimination. The DOE rightly characterized the violence as "gratuitous."

This is a fantastic article that gives much needed scholarly attention to the 2019 film “Clemency” with Alfre Woodard and its portrayal of the psychic toll executions place on those who carry them out.

Moon over Emory

New Year, New Novel, Same Cuddly Cat

Back when I started teaching at Emory, President Carter would have lunch monthly with 4 faculty members. I was lucky enough to meet him this way. He showed courage and leadership calling for an end to the death penalty in the United States. His moral vision is needed now more than ever.

Too much Christmas!

This is good news. In the 1980s and 90s, politicians in both parties used executions to pander to fear and show their strength and moral clarity. Trump has sought to revive that practice as part of his politics of fear and loathing. Now he can’t. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/u...

Our undergrad program, which I lead, was awarded a "Bronze Star Award" for the soul-sucking, bureaucratic self-assessment report we have to file. We have been encouraged to "show off" our certificate to others. I haven't been this excited since I won a certificate for "Most Polite" in Grade 5!

Got engaged to this kind and handsome fella two nights ago :)

I spoke with US News and World Report about efforts to get President Biden to commute the sentences of inmates currently on federal death row. “We know that support for the death penalty is concentrated amongst white Protestant Republicans – a key part of his base.” www.usnews.com/news/nationa...

Visual Criminologists: Check out Emory Ph.D. candidate David Nichols's article on the degrading images of men in El Salvador's prisons produced and released by the state in 2020. This piece, published in the journal Social Text, is open access for three months: read.dukeupress.edu/social-text/...

Interested in the past and present of the American death penalty? My first book, "Executing Freedom: The Cultural Life of Capital Punishment," is once again on Amazon's digital remains table for $0.75. www.amazon.com/Executing-Fr...

I mean who doesn’t love a “light academia soft piano soundtrack”?!

US Historians please share widely this opportunity to teach for the Bard Prison Initiative. It’s a 1-2 year teaching fellowship and you’ll be teaching the most engaged students you’ve ever taught, bar none. 🗃️ www.bard.edu/employment/d...

From a long Q&A with the new Stanford President. Tremendous. stanfordreview.org/levin-interv...

Thanksgiving at our friends’ home in Fort Worth featured their pets, including best friends Chester and Wilbur. Wilbur grooms Chester daily 💜

Law & Humanities scholars: Stanford will host the next Law & Humanities Junior Scholars workshop next June. Open to graduate students and early career scholars. Get incredible feedback on your chapter or article in progress--travel and accommodations provided. Apply! Deadline is December 9.

Advanced doctoral students, early career faculty, and recent J.D.s: Doing work in legal history, broadly defined? Apply for the 2025 Hurst Institute in Legal History, a two week workshop and seminar in June. Deadline 1/15/25. More info: www.law.wisc.edu/hurst-instit...