Conference update! 📬📬 We are thrilled by the outpouring of proposals we received for the inaugural ALPE conference. Those of you who submitted proposals should have received a final decision via email on October 20th. If you did not get an email, check your spam folders, and feel free to reach out!

A Bard College student was kidnapped by ICE and Bard’s administration is advocating for his release and has created a website to assist the rest of the community in joining them. That’s what academic leaders should be doing for their students right now. www.instagram.com/p/DQKSTDJkeF...

Good for everyone to understand a little more about the “Campus Reform” grift. yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/10...

Today, Rana Jaleel & Risa Lieberwitz of the @aaup.org explain how the Trump administration has used Title VI to pressure universities to undermine free speech and entrench inequality, and how universities have largely crumbled in the face of this pressure. lpeproject.org/blog/the-cor...

From me in @lpeblog.bsky.social today: The lesson of the US investment in Intel is "public capital without accountability. The result is not sovereign wealth but corporate capture—an arrangement that entrenches incumbent power while eroding the state’s ability to direct economic development."

W/ @genevievelakier.bsky.social, the @aaup.org today released a letter to the Offices of the General Counsel at US colleges & universities. We detail why the Compact violates the Constitution & urge that no one signs it. www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

MSNBC captured the crowd from the Boston "No Kings" rally:

Amazing sign being held by a small child

Are people allowed to peacefully protest their government in America? The GOP is doing everything they can to suppress turnout on Saturday.

Proud to join this group of 39 Brown University alumni who are law professors in urging the university to reject the Trump-Vance presidency's enforced loyalty "compact": drive.google.com/file/d/1COIp...

Wow - California's public insulin will be on the market in Jan! Big milestone for public pharma efforts. Could help millions of diabetics, esp if they can build a more public supply chain too. We describe why public pharma is important in this paper ... www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Old enough to remember when kids being anti-semitic was the basis for a federal government assault on higher education

Excited about the first @lpenyc.bsky.social Night School event of the new academic year, now at @cuny.edu Law — with @masonbwilliams.bsky.social and Gregory Louis in conversation with @llchristyll.bsky.social!! RSVP below!

“One of them, Albert “Skip” Caissie Jr., 78, said in a phone interview that he wasn’t aware that he was involved in a Supreme Court case.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...

Virginia State Senate Dems just brought down fire and fury regarding the “Compact,” notifying the President and Rector that UVA would lose ALL STATE APPROPRIATIONS if it signs and cedes the University to “federal political control.” Notably, their letter directly restates points made here by @siva.

"A rival petition began circulating Sunday, calling on the Rutgers chapter of TPUSA to be disbanded, accusing it of inciting violence. As of today, that petition had several hundred more signatures than the petition calling for Dr. Bray’s firing..." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/n...

The “compact” for higher ed is an unserious document written by unserious people from a position of spectacular ignorance. No one should take it seriously. Sadly, my bosses are taking it seriously. newrepublic.com/article/2013...

The key thing now is "that the government does not actually have the capacity to successfully negotiate a bespoke 'deal' with every university in the country. All universities have to do now is do nothing—no accepting the compact, no counter-offers, nothing." Great analysis by @fishkin.bsky.social

"It wanted to signal strength. Instead, it’s revealing its weakness. The administration’s need to break the academy is forcing it to make a desperately risky gamble." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...

NO LOYALTY OATHS IN HIGHER ED! Trump's attacks on our universities are an attempt to consolidate power. This loyalty oath directly undermines our right to academic freedom & goes against every democratic principle our country should uphold. Please click below, sign, & share. #DefendHigherEd

"I am purposefully “belittling” a “conservative idea.” Or maybe I am not. I’m not really sure what the legal threshold of “belittling” is, and while I have a pretty good idea which ideas should be considered “conservative” ... I am pretty sure McMahon does not."

My friend @sivav.bsky.social with a sharp essay in the New Republic explaining why universities that sign Trump's noxious "compact" are not only cowards but utter fools. newrepublic.com/article/2013...

ICYMI, I did a blog post today at @lpeproject.bsky.social that’s really about the death of a 20 c mode of liberal/progressive politics. It’s about the need, as a first-order objective, to relegitimize the state around a representational legitimacy.

I am proud of MIT, where our branch of AAUP has voted unanimously to endorse this statement urging MIT leadership and the MIT Corporation to reject the Compact wholesale docs.google.com/document/d/1...

interesting read - a call for states to issue bonds to compensate for the money illegally being impounded by trump. has anyone tried it?

www.avclub.com/apple-remove... I’m old enough to remember when it was a matter of Very Serious Conservative Principle that the federal government couldn’t tell companies what online content to allow.

The Trump admin’s offer to give preferential treatment to institutions that toe the party line reeks of bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda. This is corruption. Adherence to ‘loyalty oaths’ would usher in a new era of thought policing in American higher education.

This is extortion. Faculty, students, staff, alumni across the country need to get to their Presidents & Trustees today. Just say no. This blackmail only works if most everyone folds. Capitulation now means the end of American higher education for a generation. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

WE WON: "This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall w/in..this district court squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in US..have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.”"

holy moly - huge win for AAUP in the case against ideological deportations. and check out this opening! storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

No surprise, this is very good. pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

What we might refer to as a "Kavanaugh Stop"

To kick off a series on @lpeblog.bsky.social exploring the perverse use of antidiscrimination law by the Trump admin, I wrote about the radical interpretation the admin has adopted of Title VI and what it means for TItle VI's past & future. lpeproject.org/blog/title-v...

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.

Today, @gabrielwinant.bsky.social breaks down the core theoretical divides between Marxism and antitrust—and considers how, despite these differences, the two traditions might inform one another in a constructive give and take.

Today - 15th - is the day to submit ALPE conference proposals!!

"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!

"Harvard can't use race as a factor in admissions, but ICE can use race as a factor in detentions" is a retrenchment essentially to a pre-Civil War understanding of the Constitution. It's vanishingly few steps removed from "Latinos have no rights which the white man is bound to respect."

great set of folks coming to YLS this fall

Ten days left to submit proposals for the inaugural ALPE conference in Richmond. Come join us for this exciting launch! lpeproject.org/blog/cfp-ina...

LPE folks!! This is THE WEEK to get those panel / paper / roundtable proposals for the big Feb ALPE conference finalized. Proposals due Monday, Sept 15. CFP here: lawandpoliticaleconomy.org?page_id=63

literally cannot make this shit up.

We also received a new addition to the Law of Calvinball

Havard & AAUP beat back the Trump Admin's efforts to freeze funds at the district court level. When we fight we (have a much better chance of) win(ing) Go @veenadubal.bsky.social!

The conclusion reached by Judge Burroughs:

Been great to hear the buzz of conversations as people are planning their papers and panels for the ALPE conference - submissions are now open!! Spread the word.