Keith E. Whittington
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Keith E. Whittington
@kewhittington.bsky.social

David Boies Professor of Law, Yale Law School. Founding Chair, Academic Freedom Alliance; Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution. All opinions are mine alone.

Keith E. Whittington is an American political scientist and legal scholar. He has been the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University since 2006. In July 2024, he joined the Yale Law School faculty. Whittington's research focuses on American constitutionalism, American political and constitutional history, judicial politics, the presidency, and free speech and the law. .. more

Political science 49%
Law 25%

Published back in March but perhaps of renewed interest

Judicial Impeachments Should Be a Last Resort thedispatch.com/article/trum...
Judicial Impeachments Should Be a Last Resort
Trump’s push to remove judges who rule against him undermines the rule of law.
thedispatch.com

Proposed revision of Texas A&M system policy 08.01 poses significant risks to academic freedom, back to early 20th century fights over presidents vetoing course materials that offend political sensibilities

70% off paperback until end of October

Speak Freely | Princeton University Press press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...
Speak Freely
Why colleges and universities live or die by free speech
press.princeton.edu

Do you or your students want to think through the complexities of academic freedom and government speech at public universities? I have something for you

www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Tea...
You Can't Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms
Amazon.com: You Can't Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms: 9781509564538: Whittington, Keith E.: Books
www.amazon.com

The next national faculty FedSoc annual conference will be electric, as the kids say these days

Reposted by Robert C. Richards

New analysis from me on the many flaws and dangers of the proposed Compact.
thedispatch.com/article/trum...
An Unconstitutional ‘Deal’ for Higher Education
The Trump administration's Plan A didn't work. Plan B is even more coercive.
thedispatch.com
A joint statement from Robert George (Princeton), Jeannie Suk Gersen (Harvard), Tom Ginsburg (Chicago), Robert Post (Yale), David Rabban (Texas) & Keith Whittington (Yale) on the Compact. A politically diverse group known for writing & work on campus issues.
tomginsburg.substack.com/p/on-the-com...
On the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education
By Professors Robert P. George (Princeton), Tom Ginsburg (Chicago), Robert Post (Yale), David Rabban (Texas), Jeannie Suk Gersen (Harvard), and Keith Whittington (Yale)
tomginsburg.substack.com

Two new items from me today on the Trump administration's new Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education
www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/u...
www.washingtonexaminer.com

I argue that private universities should generally adopt free expression policies that mirror the 1st Amend, indicate scope & limits of that approach, identify core principles that such a commitment would require & consider the rationale for a 1st Amend regime & its primary alternatives.

In the latest issue of the Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues, with a symposium in honor of Larry Alexander

digital.sandiego.edu/jcli/vol27/i...
The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues | Vol 27 | Iss 1
digital.sandiego.edu

New article now available

Plenty of those need to be cleaned up in revisions
For some reason the Trump cert petition did not cite my piece, but figure it might become relevant

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
By Birth Alone: The Original Meaning of Birthright Citizenship and Subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States
The citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment entrenched birthright citizenship into the Constitution. Building on a recent revisionist scholarly literatur
papers.ssrn.com

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders

Yet another no good, very bad day for the Constitution

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...
Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told
www.nytimes.com

My conversation w/ @jacklgoldsmith.bsky.social on whether Trump is a reconstructive president and what that means

open.substack.com/pub/executiv...
Is Donald Trump a Reconstructive President?
When presidents push back against the courts
open.substack.com

If I’m ever elected president, I will work into every speech my grievances with Reviewer 2
🇺🇸🇺🇳 Trump: Years ago, I bid $500 million to rebuild the UN complex, marble floors, mahogany walls, best of everything.

They chose another plan, cost $2–4 billion, far worse, massive overruns, no marble floors. I was right.
🇺🇸🇺🇳 Trump: Years ago, I bid $500 million to rebuild the UN complex, marble floors, mahogany walls, best of everything.

They chose another plan, cost $2–4 billion, far worse, massive overruns, no marble floors. I was right.

Some excellent news regarding my new center at Yale. Maybe there’ll be some work for him to do at some point

Joe Cohn Joins the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech as Executive Director law.yale.edu/yls-today/ne...
Joe Cohn Joins the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech as Executive Director
Cohn joins the center after a legal career dedicated to defending free speech rights and campus civil liberties.
law.yale.edu
Opinion | The academic-freedom expert Keith Whittington weighs in on the rash of recent firings.
Opinion | The Assassination That Broke Campus Free Speech
Professors are allowed to say hateful things. That doesn’t mean they should.
www.chronicle.com
Opinion | Academic freedom expert Keith Whittington weighs in on recent events in Texas.
Opinion | What the Texas A&M Firing Portends for Faculty Speech
On its face, this looks like a textbook violation of academic freedom.
www.chronicle.com

Rosie O’Donnell discourse leads me to Robert Dahl and his critics and how constitutional constraints are shed

Reposted by Anthony Burke

Nearly half off for Kindle edition

“Written with a commendably cool head, Whittington’s book will be a key guide for legal experts as well as lay readers.”

The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool a.co/d/aQl4iXs
The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool
The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool - Kindle edition by Whittington, Keith E.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool.
a.co
I know there's a lot happening today, but this is sneaking in under the radar. This proposed new rule would absolutely crush foreign PhD students, potentially making it impossible for them to enroll with any certainty of their ability to finish www.politico.com/news/2025/08...