OTD in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Here is a photo of LBJ handing a pen to Martin Luther King, Jr, at the signing ceremony. As the caption says, this was "the strongest civil rights legislation since Reconstruction Days."

HISTORY.

SPEECHLESS. LFGK

Illegal fireworks launch from the sidewalks to burst over the rooflines of Harlem, orange and blue.The NYPD cruiser double-taps its siren at the screaming revelers spilling out into the streets, and its bullhorn deadpans, "Knicks in five." New York loves New York.

It’s 2 against one, the spurs and the refs against the Knicks. Wtaf.

New Yorkers propose edits to AI company's subway ad campaign.

On June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court told Alabama to draw an equitable congressional map. Alabama flatly refused. Yesterday, SCOTUS validated Alabama's decision. "States can just ignore SCOTUS rulings hoping the Court will change its mind" is a pretty odd position for a court of law to endorse.

Important thread. mRNA-based treatments are, as predicted, showing promise as a clinical tool to prevent or significantly delay cancer deaths. Addressing honest but underinformed skepticism while defending good science against bad-faith charlatans will be crucial to realizing that promise.

The simplest long-run solution to the gerrymandering wars is a federal law expanding the House and electing members by proportional representation. Alabama has more Democratic voters than Hawaii. Massachusetts has more Trump voters than Mississippi. None of these voters deserve to go unrepresented.

Chris brings up an important piece of SCOTUS reform that I’ve written about before. The judges who grant cert should *not* be the ones who decide the merits. Ideally the cert bench would choose cases for the *next* merits bench *before* its members are selected. cardozolawreview.com/wp-content/u...

attn law profs/academics …saw this on LinkedIn - Clearinghouse of calls for papers docket.richardsonresearch.org made by U Hawaii

The "reactionary colorblindess" of the right-wing justices has reached its logical conclusion in finding that it is racist NOT to let Louisiana—and any other state for that matter—discriminate on the basis of race in voting. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

John Roberts has been happy to serve as the respectable, mild-mannered face of revanchist American racism for my entire life. I'm sure he imagines himself the clear-eyed, even-handed steward of a racially fractured society. But I doubt he can imagine a society where that isn't his prerogative.

A famous CompSci conjecture involves problems that are difficult to for computers to solve but whose solutions are easy for computers to verify. Workplace AI seems to have created the inverse: problems that humans can easily solve but whose computer-generated solutions are hard for humans to verify.

And now there are AI hallucinations in a bankruptcy court filing by lawyers at S&C. These lawyers' clients have to wonder what exactly it is they're paying for. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/n...

Very excited to be hosting the @stjohnslawiplc.bsky.social Intellectual Property Law and Philosophy (IP/LaP) Workshop at @stjohnslaw.bsky.social today. We've got a great lineup of papers (www.stjohnslawiplc.org/events/2026/...).

more seriously congrats to the hungarian people for kicking that asshole out

This won't kill this technology, it just makes pharma a sector dominated by European, Chinese and Indian corporations

Happy Surrender and Freedom Day! On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac. home.nps.gov/apco/planyou...

We may be overthinking this. Even the OLC memo makes clear that the President can't pardon himself. That would seem to imply that he can't pardon co-conspirators in his own crimes. [The effect of this argument on the legal consequences of J6 pardons is left as an exercise for the reader.]

"I can't believe the leopards would eat *my* face", sobs Justice who created the leopards-have-immunity-when-eating-people's-faces doctrine.

There's plenty of grist for schadenfreude in this transcript, but here's the most important thing Judge Quraishi said, and it makes me very sad. Because the rule of law requires legal institutions we can trust. That trust is fragile, and the damage done by poor stewards isn't always reversible.

Legal writers: I've posted to SSRN a short user's guide about how to use the Zotero citation manager and its Word plugin to automatically generate Bluebook citations that are 95%* compliant. The paper explains which fields to use for which type of source, and examples of generated citations.

Stares in Roger B. Taney

Thrilled to be co-hosting with Barton Beebe the 16th Annual Tri-State Region IP Workshop at @nyuengelberg.org Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at @nyulaw.bsky.social www.nyuengelberg.org/events/tri-s...

New @nberpubs: "The Economic Legacy of Racial Trauma in the American South" www.nber.org/papers/w3452...

Here's the crux of the PTO's new official guidance, out today, on AI and inventorship. It seems...fairly innocuous. 1/2 public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-21457.p...

Evidence against the (mistaken) interpretation of Coase which holds that allocation of entitlements doesn’t matter so long as parties can bargain: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/b... (gift link)

Below the line of the 1st page of Professor Dan Burk's last article, just published posthumously by the UC Irvine Law Review.

Four cheers for MIT. orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

"Attacks on academia are fundamentally about remaking the labor practices that define higher education." Deepa Das Acevedo, author of The War on Tenure (out now), in Time Magazine https://cup.org/4hahkid #HigherEd #AcademicSky #PoliSci 🗺️ 🗃️

They could have done something like this in the Trump immunity case and given a chance for the special counsel to take Trump's federal election subversion charges to trial. Expediting cases is a choice

Looking forward to talking about the patent law side of the current disruptions in the federal executive branch at this event this evening. www.connerinn.org/event-6240328

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

Thrilled that my article with @markpmckenna.bsky.social on "Amazon's Quiet Overhaul of the Trademark System" is now out in the California Law Review @califlrev.bsky.social

Donna Adelson's trial for Dan Markel's murder begins. #JusticeforDan

Just a reminder of my favorite idea for a law student note: Pick an important Supreme Court case from 5-10 years ago, and see how lower courts are interpreting it. It's helpful for practitioners and courts, and something law students can research and present effectively.

Maybe 5 people out there will appreciate this, but I am trying to parse a huge database dump of a foreign government's trademark registration data. I've just discovered that one of the trademarks is recorded as "<<<<Intelligence\\<<<<for<<<<<<\\<<<<Life<<<<<<". (Cf. xkcd.com/327/)

What's going on in the world of dupes, & how do these rapid-fire copies interact with the law? Fascinating @theverge.com piece with great quotes & analysis from two top experts: @lexlanham.bsky.social & @design-law.bsky.social www.theverge.com/cs/features/... #dupes #academia #fashion

Coming to America is a strange experience for someone with a complex racial, religious, ethnic and national background. These many identities get subsumed under a racial or national identity that is then hyphenated with America.

Of possible interest to law students studying intellectual property. www.uspto.gov/jobs/become-...

Closing public spaces rather than sharing them is a classic segregationist move

Last month there were allegations that some of my students may have used generative AI on my final exam. The incident led me to give some serious thought to how we are dealing with these tools in the professional education context. Here’s what I wrote to my students: jeremysheff.com/2025/06/02/g...

Sundar Pichai does not know how to live.

This is what the current federal administration is trying to destroy. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/h...

This is what the current federal administration is trying to destroy. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/h...

1. A must-read thread. I'll highlight three more problems with this opinion, which is the only case to prevent people from using a class action to challenge US government renditions to El Salvador. I often write about complex litigation, with a focus on class actions involving government bodies.