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Does Federal Civil Rights Law Forbid Race-Based and Sex-Based Affirmative Action by the Harvard Law Review?

5 days ago | dorfonlaw.org | Michael C. Dorf

The NY Times recently reported that the Justice Department is using a "cooperating witness" in its investigation of the Harvard Law Review (HLR) for alleged discrimination against white men. The Times article's primary focus is on the unusual circumstance that the cooperating witness--who was a HLR staffer until his graduation last week--is also now employed by the government and working for White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
The US Brain Drain and the World: Lose-Win Will Be a Net Loss

5 days ago | dorfonlaw.org | Neil H. Buchanan

There have recently been increasing reports about the migration of intellectuals out of the United States, along with a parallel decrease in foreign scholars moving to the US.
Resist Schadenfreude to Make Common Cause with the Federalist Society

1 week ago | dorfonlaw.org | Michael C. Dorf

Here's a recent social media post from President Trump:As the foregoing rant makes clear, the occasion for Trump's turn against Leonard Leo, some of the judges Trump appointed in his first term, and the Federalist Society was the fact that some of those people believe that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not grant the president the authority to impose the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed.
Is It Time to Become a Deficit Scold?

1 week ago | dorfonlaw.org | Neil H. Buchanan

Congressional Republicans are in the middle of negotiating and (possibly) passing an absolutely disastrous and cruel budget bill, with the only question being how many people it will impoverish, harm, and kill if it passes. One thing we do know is that any eventual bill will also result in larger annual budget deficits and thus a larger overall federal debt, which is what Republicans do when they are in power.
Justices Alito and Thomas are Problematic Champions of Student Free Speech

1 week ago | dorfonlaw.org | Michael C. Dorf

L. M. was a 7th-grade student in a Massachusetts public middle school. He wore a t-shirt to school with the message "There Are Only Two Genders" in evident protest of the school's lessons and activities promoting gender identity diversity and inclusivity. He was told by school authorities that he could not wear that shirt. He then donned a shirt that said "There Are CENSORED Genders." The school told him to change from that shirt as well. He did. Then he sued.
Towards a Functional Theory of Independent Agencies

1 week ago | dorfonlaw.org | Michael C. Dorf

N.B. The spending bill passed by the House of Representatives last week (and now before the Senate) includes $25 billion for the development and eventual deployment of a missile defense system that President Trump is calling "Golden Dome." My latest Verdict column explains why this is a terrible idea: it won't work but will likely be destabilizing, increasing rather than decreasing the risk of nuclear war.
A Quick-ish Update on Social Security in the Post-Rational World

1 week ago | dorfonlaw.org | Neil H. Buchanan

Is Social Security "going broke"? Is it doomed? Is it a Ponzi scheme? No to all of those things. Two months ago, I returned to those questions in a two-part Verdict column and a complementary Dorf on Law column, emphasizing in particular Elon Musk's completely ignorant but predictable endorsement of the Ponzi scheme accusation.
Conservative Confusion on Taxing Universities and Encouraging Charities

2 weeks ago | dorfonlaw.org | Neil H. Buchanan

The budget bill that Republicans just passed in the House is simply terrible, and I will join in the chorus of criticism soon enough with a full column (or more) denouncing its overall awfulness. But in this relatively short column today, I will instead note two longstanding items on the Republicans' wish list that made their way into the current version of the bill and which will almost certainly survive to become part of whatever monstrosity is ultimately signed into law.
Conditional Funding Can Raise Difficult Legal Questions. Trump’s Freezes Don’t

2 weeks ago | dorfonlaw.org | Michael C. Dorf

[Note: Tomorrow I'll be attending an all-day gathering of constitutional scholars and lawyers hosted by the Knight Institute at Columbia to discuss federal funding and the First Amendment. Each of the participants wrote a short paper. They are collected here. My contribution can be found here and is reproduced below.]-----InAgency for Int’l Dev. v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l, Inc. (2013), the Supreme Court invalidated a condition on federal spending.
Federal Courts Exam 2025 Featuring State Incorporation of Federal Law and the (Real) Proposed No Kings Act

2 weeks ago | dorfonlaw.org | Michael C. Dorf

Per my usual custom, below I have posted the final exam I gave the students in my Federal Courts class this past semester. They had four hours to complete the exam and were permitted access to their casebooks, notes, and outlines but not the Internet or AI tools. Note that the "No Kings Act" quoted at length in questions 2 and 3 is taken verbatim from the actual bill that was introduced in the Senate last year.