Robert L. Tsai
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robertltsai.bsky.social
Robert L. Tsai
@robertltsai.bsky.social

Author of DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE (@WWNorton.com), amzn.to/45LFzNg | Next: BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF COAL COUNTRY (NYU) | Prof & Harry Elwood Warren Scholar, Boston U | constitutional law & politics, legal history, democracy | https://linktr.ee/roberttsai .. more

Political science 53%
Law 24%
Pinned
Just a photo of me with my 2024 spring child

Appreciate it. Likewise!

Thanks! Being able to walk is something we learn early and then take for granted. I was shocked how much everything changed (including how the world looked from a wheelchair)

I learned to walk again after being hospitalized for 6 weeks

☺️
“Like Prime, but with human beings.”
NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Yours is an entirely defensible position

“A Gallup poll this year found that 52 percent of Americans favored the death penalty, the lowest since the early 1970s.”
Their Death Sentences Were Commuted by Biden. They Could Face Execution Again.
www.nytimes.com
BREAKING: The Trump administration is suing D.C. over its ban on semi-automatic (AR-15) weapons.

DOJ's Civil Rights Division under Harmeet Dhillon is seeking a court ruling that D.C.'s law "prohibiting registration of the AR-15 by law-abiding citizens violates the Second Amendment."

“If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interviewed,’ then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.”
Read the full email Sharyn Alfonsi sent her team about CBS pulling their segment on the Trump admin’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants
Read the full email Sharyn Alfonsi sent her team about CBS pulling their segment on the Trump admin’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants

Mark Graber’s introductory essay on “Caste as Practice, Analogy, and Metaphor” digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/
In the summer of 1950 most US newspapers ran an AP story about how race had become the main issue in the upcoming Georgia governor's race. Segregationist Herman Tallmadge, governor from '47 to '55 and then a Senator until 1981 made a name for himself by refusing to "apologize for being a white man."

“The states Neff identified are led by Republicans—Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. The draft MOU represents a new effort by the Trump administration to gain access to some states’ voter data”
Trump’s DOJ offers states confidential deal to remove voters flagged by feds • Stateline
The U.S. Department of Justice has sent confidential draft agreements on voter data sharing to more than a dozen states, part of the Trump administration’s effort to obtain unredacted voter rolls, wit...
stateline.org

Congratulations to Cristina Rodriguez, next Dean of @yalelawschool-yls.bsky.social. Wise choice!
Cristina Rodríguez Selected as Next Dean of Yale Law School
Rodríguez will assume the deanship on Feb. 1, 2026, as the Sol and Lillian Goldman Dean and Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
law.yale.edu
My forthcoming book—
For which I began research in 2006.
Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press.

Cover will be added soon.

The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery
The King's Slaves
A provocative account of how empire and absolutism institutionalized slavery in America
press.princeton.edu

Spoke to members of the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project. #DemandTheImpossible

Now in print: Is “Caste” still a useful concept? (with Sandy Levinson) bit.ly/4akuBmS

Sounds like Bill!

“Snyder shows that superb lawyering, hard work, and a clear strategy can save a client”
A Martyr for Free Speech | Los Angeles Review of Books
Historian Paul Finkelman praises Brad Snyder’s new account of a wrongfully convicted civil rights hero.
lareviewofbooks.org

Reposted by John Fabian Witt

Finkelman reviews @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social: “Snyder details Herndon’s legal odyssey with great insight. He does not make the point directly but provides the evidence that good lawyering matters.”

Bill Nelson was a generous and talented legal historian. I benefitted from his time, as did many other scholars. legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2025/12/will...

RIP “Meathead”

Au contraire! The L.A. Bowl is tonight

That’s certainly part of the problem, but not the only one

The U.S. Supreme Court behaves like a constitutional policy making body rather than a neutral interpreter of clearly written law.

Reposted by James Goodwin

“Judge Paula Xinis had reached her limit. She invited the lawyers of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to seek contempt of court sanctions … She’d ‘gotten nothing’ from the Administration as far as complying with a court order to ensure the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States.”
Can Judicial Resistance Last?
The law can protect democracy—but only up to a certain point. After that, it’s up to the people. And there’s the challenge.
democracyjournal.org