Christopher Fariss
banner
cjfariss.bsky.social
Christopher Fariss
@cjfariss.bsky.social

Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan. cjfariss.com

Political science 50%
Sociology 24%
Proud to publish this piece from my former student, who writes that Russia's lawfare in the European Court of Human Rights is "transforming [it] into an unwitting accomplice in one of the most sophisticated disinformation operations of the modern era.”

americansunlight.substack.com/p/russias-la...
Russia’s Lawfare Playbook: How the Kremlin Weaponized Human Rights Courts to Launder Disinformation
When the Kremlin wants to legitimize a lie, it doesn’t just hold a press conference – it files a lawsuit.
americansunlight.substack.com
This is a really good piece, in part because it's a really good example of how to let the reader into the conversations you have with the people you are writing about and how that shapes your thinking:
Opinion | Stop Acting Like This Is Normal
www.nytimes.com
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a peer-to-peer evaluation of a country's rights record. All 193 UN member states are expected to participate, and even states like Russia and China do.

Today, the US took the unprecedented step of withdrawing from the UPR www.reuters.com/world/europe...
US withdraws from key UN human rights report, draws criticism from rights advocates
The United States will not participate in a U.N. review of its human rights record, officials said, a move that rights advocates called a worrying retreat from Washington's global engagement on rights and justice issues.
www.reuters.com
As of today, Elon Musk is thought to be responsible for the death of 300,000 adults and kids due to the illegal closure of USAID (source: www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?vi...)

That's a 103 deaths per hour, each day. And it will get worse.

His legacy is one of death, destruction, and failure.
On Friday, my son stayed home from school because he had a sore throat and wasn’t feeling well. He went with my husband to his office for the morning while I handled our daughter. When he came back at lunch, he was not interested in eating, saying his throat hurt too much. 1/n
Given the literal definition of deportation is removing a foreigner or noncitizen from the country, we - journalists, media orgs - should probably all stop referring to the ‘deportation’ of a 2 year old US citizen. It’s NOT a deportation.

I’m not sure what it is. A kidnapping?
Your Michigan Medicine colleagues would appreciate if you relay the message that a basic medicine we use 1000x per day in the hospital, heparin, is also dependent on China, and people will die without it
University presidents, the time is now! Unshackle the general counsel's office! File all the lawsuits! Release the faculty upon the op-ed sections! Write to your alumni, parents, and donors! You have nothing to lose but a tiny percentage of your enormous endowments... www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/u...
Trump Officials Freeze $1 Billion for Cornell and $790 Million for Northwestern
The funding pause amid civil rights investigations into both universities sharply escalates the Trump administration’s campaign against elite colleges.
www.nytimes.com
This year we will be in Michigan in August. Apply if you are midway through your PhD program in the social sciences to learn from the best in the discipline how theory and empirical methods come together!
Applications for the 2025 EITM Summer Institute are now open! Program dates: Aug 4-15. Program location: University of Michigan. Deadline: April 15. eitminstitute.org/institute/20...
2025 – Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) Institute
eitminstitute.org
Applications for the 2025 EITM Summer Institute are now open! Program dates: Aug 4-15. Program location: University of Michigan. Deadline: April 15. eitminstitute.org/institute/20...
2025 – Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) Institute
eitminstitute.org
A good reminder to follow everything Eunji Kim does. She is so smart and just has an intuitive understanding of how people engage with entertainment media. She’s also hilarious. oh and her new book is coming out in a month:
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
WOW. Watch a constitutional law expert completely DEBUNK Republicans’ censorship crusade, while articulating exactly how Donald Trump is threatening freedom of speech. 🔥
I guess I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. Fuck decorum. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/american-f...
American Foreign Policy Is Being Run by the Dumbest Motherfuckers Alive
The fuckwittery on display right now by Trump's foreign policy team boggles the mind.
danieldrezner.substack.com
Trump’s commerce secretary Howard Lutnick says if Social Security skipped a check, his mother-in-law wouldn’t complain—and if you would, it indicates you are probably a fraudster. Insane.
I'll be moderating a panel on Birth Right Citizenship at @umfordschool.bsky.social (and try to bring a comparative perspective). The panel includes legal scholars and historians (see below), join us on FRIDAY March 28th!

fordschool.umich.edu/event/2025/c...
Current and Historical Challenges to Birthright Citizenship
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow restrictions on birthright citizenship to partly take effect, even as the initial executive order is blocked nationwide by three federal a...
fordschool.umich.edu
The people Attorney General Bondi is calling “terrorists” have had no trial and no chance to defend themselves. We do not know who they are. Ignoring the Constitution does not make us safe. It puts us all in peril.
Great way to advertise the book 👍🏼 I didn't know about it but now I do and immediately bought the book.

www.vanityfair.com/news/story/m...
Ex-Facebook Employee Is Blocked From Promoting Tell-All Memoir
Meta has forcefully denied the allegations in a new memoir, “Careless People.” Now, an arbitrator has prohibited the author from distributing it.
www.vanityfair.com
President Trump on Friday opened a third attack against a private law firm, restricting the business activities of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison just days after a federal judge ruled such measures appeared to violate the Constitution.
Trump Expands Attacks on Law Firms, Singling Out Paul, Weiss
Experts have warned that the president’s efforts threaten the ability of lawyers to do their jobs and private citizens to obtain legal counsel.
www.nytimes.com
vote your vote, but don't lie to constituents. have some fucking dignity.
Arlington National Cemetery has scrubbed information about prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members and topics such as the Civil War from its website, part of an effort across the Defense Department to remove all references to diversity, equity and inclusion from its online presence.
Arlington Cemetery website scrubs links about Black and female veterans
Pentagon leaders have ordered that their websites and social media pages remove articles and images that “promote” DEI.
www.washingtonpost.com
Trump and Republicans set this up as an unprecedented power grab so they can slash and burn government services on their terms.

I’m a firm NO — on cloture and final passage — on this ‘CR’
I'm just a small-town professor. I'll never be a provost or chancellor. But here's some free advice: we're about to hold the most watched college sports event in 🇺🇸. Every college president should be all over TV, at every game, explaining why the March Madness of federal budget cuts is a huge crisis.
👇🎯 The public isn't going to understand this, unless the presidents of R1 universities around the country <loudly> & <collectively> get out into the public square & start explaining this & calling out the existential threat to the entire 🇺🇸 university system. The silence is deafening right now.
The public really needs to understand this. Every university system in the world rests on public funding, there has never been an alternative model at any time in history.

We have universities for literally the same reason that we have roads and armies.
Last week, I presented at my final Conflict & Change PhD Workshop @uclspp.bsky.social. Once again, ECRs from around the world shared their projects. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been involved as both an organizer and a presenter from the beginning of my PhD! Hope to come back someday. 🙂

We find similar evidence from residence of Texas across two different types of natural disasters: doi.org/10.1016/j.gl...
Another paper showing climate shocks lead to support for climate action among conservatives. Analyzing data collected in Florida, the paper finds Republican positions change after personally experiencing loss from climate-exacerbated extreme events.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Tyranny requires your fear, your silence, and your compliance.

Democracy requires your courage.
📢 “He’s trying to steal Medicaid to enrich himself. He’s gutting NASA to line his pockets with SpaceX. He’s looting everything good in America for private profit.” - @aoc.bsky.social at today’s #SaveOurServices NYC rally.

The fight isn’t over. Join us: go.savepublicservices.com
This event is happening this Wednesday at the #Umich Ann Arbor campus, come and please share!