Chihiro Isozaki
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cisozaki.bsky.social
Chihiro Isozaki
@cisozaki.bsky.social
4.6K followers 490 following 50 posts
Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. Adjunct Professor at NYU Law. civil rights, court reform, state con, history & the constitution. // she/her. all views my own. & yes, I have seen Spirited Away.
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cisozaki.bsky.social
Happy election day 🗳️ to my state-side friends! And while you're in line for the polls (or relaxing on your couch because you voted early!), check out my latest case trends piece on some recent cases in the states that are shaping election processes and the constitutional right to vote 👇👇👇
statecourtreport.org State Court Report @statecourtreport.org · 6d
NEW: State constitutions and state high courts are central in defining how, and by whom, elections are run — and who gets to participate in them. Check out @cisozaki.bsky.social’s Election Day 2025 edition of our series on state constitutional trends.
Case Trends: State Courts Shape the Right to Vote
State high courts continue to settle disputes over voting and election processes, including obstacles to by-mail voting — and to define the right to vote under their own constitutions.
statecourtreport.org
November 4, 2025 at 9:43 PM
cisozaki.bsky.social
Attending #NAPABA2025? Join us for “Originalism’s Impacts" (Sat 11/8, 9:15am) w folks from from the state judiciary, @legaldefensefund.bsky.social, @myconstitution.bsky.social & @publicrightspro.bsky.social - we'll explore how originalism is reshaping the law & equal justice for #AANHPI communities!
October 29, 2025 at 3:20 PM
cisozaki.bsky.social
Check out the second piece in my new "case trends" series for @statecourtreport.org, where I explore state constitutional developments in the repro/trans rights space.
statecourtreport.org State Court Report @statecourtreport.org · 28d
NEW: "With the federal vacuum forcing states to chart their own course, state courts are increasingly drawing on their distinctive constitutional history and culture to shape the future of reproductive and trans rights.” @cisozaki.bsky.social looks at case trends post-Dobbs and Skrmetti.
Case Trends: Post-Dobbs and Skrmetti, State Courts Are Battlegrounds for Transgender and Reproductive Rights 
State courts are leaning on their unique state constitutional provisions, departing from federal precedent, and deciding who can challenge restrictive laws. 
statecourtreport.org
October 13, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
aliciabannon.bsky.social
I hope you can join us at The Power of State Constitutional Rights, a symposium on Nov 6-7 in Chicago, organized by @brennancenter.org & Northwestern Law Review. We'll be hearing from judges, scholars and practitioners about the future of state con law. RSVP below! brennan.swoogo.com/stateconstit...
The Power of State Constitutional Rights
Judges, practitioners, and scholars explore critical issues facing state courts and constitutions.
brennan.swoogo.com
September 18, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
statecourtreport.org
NEW: Five years on, courts are still weighing the constitutionality of state responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. @cisozaki.bsky.social kicks off her new series on 2025 state constitutional trends with this look at the legal legacy of Covid-19.
Case Trends: State Courts Continue to Grapple with Covid-19 Policies  
Courts are still weighing the constitutionality of state responses to the pandemic more than five years after its start.
statecourtreport.org
September 11, 2025 at 1:25 PM
cisozaki.bsky.social
As manager of @statecourtreport.org's case database at the @brennancenter.org, I'm rolling out a series discussing trends we're seeing in our database cases. Read the first of the series here, and find out what state courts are saying in response to challenges to Covid-19 era government policies 👇👇
Case Trends: State Courts Continue to Grapple with Covid-19 Policies
Courts are still weighing the constitutionality of state responses to the pandemic more than five years after its start.
statecourtreport.org
September 10, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
statecourtreport.org
NEW: SCOTUS's controversial invocation of originalism has sparked a lively debate among justices about interpreting state court cases using "history and tradition." @cisozaki.bsky.social & Maryjane Johnson review recent critiques of originalism and alternative interpretive methods to consider.
State Justices Continue to Challenge Originalism
A lively debate about the value of “history and tradition” in analyzing cases is ongoing in state courts. Some justices are pushing for alternative interpretative methodologies.
statecourtreport.org
August 13, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
statecourtreport.org
NEW: In celebration of May’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, Zoe Merriman and @cisozaki.bsky.social look at former Hawaii Justice Masaji Marumoto’s trailblazing career and legacy on the bench.
Honoring Former Hawaii Justice Masaji Marumoto’s Legacy on the Bench
A look at Marumoto’s trailblazing career, in celebration of May’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month.
statecourtreport.org
May 20, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Republican challenger concedes a 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court election to the Democratic incumbent.
May 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
jamellebouie.net
i’m sorry, i’m tired of this shit. there was no pronoun policing. i have encountered exactly three or four land acknowledgments in like ten years, and the most you’ll hear about “intersectionality” is in liberal nonprofits. this is just freefloating resentment masquerading as analysis.
ericmgarcia.bsky.social Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · Mar 6
Elissa Slotkin told Tim Alberta why her response to Trump's joint address did not touch on a laundry list of priorities from various advocacy groups.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
None of this would seem a revolutionary approach to rhetoric. Still, it was fraught with risk all the same: Democrats “have been on their heels since the election,” Slotkin told me, and the party faithful have been agitating since January 20 for someone, anyone, to stand up to Trump. The announcement of Slotkin had already been met with grumbling from progressives online; anything short of oratorical firebolts would confirm the complacent, feckless approach of the D.C. governing class. Slotkin viewed the stakes somewhat differently: This speech could, at least symbolically, commence a new chapter of Democratic Party opposition to a president whose success is inextricable from the tone-deaf ineptitude of Democratic Party opposition. If her team’s resistance to Trump’s first term was marked by hysteria and hashtags—all the land acknowledgments and pronoun policing and intersectionality initiatives—Slotkin saw last night the opportunity to set a different tone.
March 6, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
jamellebouie.net
everyone seeing how when you takeaway the DEI the planes start falling out of the sky
nancylevinestearns.bsky.social Nancy Levine Stearns @nancylevinestearns.bsky.social · Feb 26
💥 BREAKING: At John Deere's annual shareholders meeting today, shareholders overwhelmingly rejected an anti-DEI proposal brought by the same group that targeted Costco and Apple. An anti-DEI proposal from the NCPPR received less than 1 percent of votes.

Deere shareholders: DEI is in. Bigots are out
February 26, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
adamserwer.bsky.social
The attacks on DEI are a pretext for a much more radical agenda of reversing the gains of the civil rights movement, an objective the Trump administration is pursuing with zeal. A Great Resegregation. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
If the Great Resegregation proves successful, it will restore an America past where racial and ethnic minorities were the occasional token presence in an otherwise white-dominated landscape. It would repeal the gains of the civil-rights era in their entirety. What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy. They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy. Like elections in authoritarian countries where the autocrat is always reelected in a landslide, they want a system in which they never risk losing but can still pretend they won fairly.
February 22, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
motherjones.com
Elon Musk is now trying to flip the balance of power on the top court in one of the country’s most important swing states.

Read @ariberman.bsky.social on the very high stakes in Wisconsin and the Tesla founder's plot to buy the state supreme court.
Elon Musk is trying to buy the Wisconsin supreme court
“His attack on democracy isn’t limited to gutting the federal government. He wants it all.”
www.motherjones.com
February 20, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
rgoodlaw.bsky.social
This is, in no uncertain terms, a rout.

The New York Times published an unfortunate op-ed trying to legally justify Trump administration's #Birthright citizenship order.

Here, five leading scholars show, with analytic precision, how that op-ed was "fundamentally flawed and irresponsible."⬇️
The Fundamental Flaws in the Barnett/Wurman Defense of Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
"In their apparent effort to give credence to the Trump Executive Order, Professors Barnett and Wurman indefensibly ignore these core, constitutive principles."
www.justsecurity.org
February 20, 2025 at 2:01 PM
cisozaki.bsky.social
Fantastic new piece by my @brennancenter.bsky.social colleagues @douglaskeith.bsky.social & Yasmin Abusaif explaining what courts can do if the Trump administration flouts court orders 👇🏻👇🏻
brennancenter.org Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · Feb 19
If the Trump administration ignores court orders, judges have a range of options available to ensure compliance. Here are some of the most powerful tools at their disposal:
What Courts Can Do If the Trump Administration Defies Court Orders
Judges have a range of tools for enforcing their orders in the face of noncompliance.
www.brennancenter.org
February 20, 2025 at 4:05 AM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: A Ninth Circuit panel DENIES the Trump administration’s request to limit the nationwide scope of a Seattle court’s injunction that blocks Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. The panel included two Republican appointees, and one Democratic appointee
Before: CANBY, M. SMITH, and FORREST, Circuit Judges. Order by Judges CANBY and M. SMITH; Concurrence by Judge FORREST. Appellants have not made a "strong showing that [they are] likely to succeed on the merits" of this appeal. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009) (quoting Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S. 770, 776 (1987)). The emergency motion (Docket Entry No. 21) for a partial stay of the district court's February 6, 2025 preliminary injunction is denied The existing briefing schedule remains in effect. The clerk will place this case on the calendar for June 2025. See 9th Cir. Gen Ord. 3.3(f).
February 20, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
altcdc.altgov.info
Today is EO9066 Day of Remembrance. 🇺🇸

This EO ordered the incarceration of Japanese residents. They were citizens and immigrants denied citizenship due to racist laws. Their stories are more important than ever.

Take some time to listen to their stories.
A Community Grows, Despite Racism - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment
The roots of Japanese Immigrants The roots of Japanese immigrant communities in both the continental United States and in Hawai`i began with the start of mass migration of laborers from...
densho.org
February 19, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
apiavote.bsky.social
On this Day of Remembrance, we honor the 120,000 Japanese Americans unjustly imprisoned during WWII because of their heritage. Their resilience remind us to never forget the lessons of history. We will continue to fight for justice, equality, and civil rights for all.
February 19, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
nhannahjones.bsky.social
Allowing the administration to define broad swaths of history, programming and civil rights compliance as “DEI” and then regurgitating that language instead of clearly articulating what specifically is being targeted is spreading disinformation and propaganda.
February 17, 2025 at 2:47 PM
cisozaki.bsky.social
ICYMI: 16 state AGs put out guidance yesterday encouraging companies not to end programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and reiterating that (1) most "DEI" practices and policies are lawful, and (2) help prevent orgs rectify unlawful discrimination.

🔗: www.mass.gov/doc/multi-st...
"The Federal Government has recently targeted private sector diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies and practices through an Executive Order entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” The Executive Order directs executive agencies to “combat illegal private-sector DEIA preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.” Preferences based on protected characteristics in hiring and promotion have been found to be unlawful under federal law, except under narrow circumstances. In operation, the Executive Order merely restates this legal principle. But by mislabeling these practices as “DEIA,” the Executive Order creates confusion as to lawful practices and policies to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. To be clear: the Executive Order cannot and does not prohibit otherwise lawful practices and policies to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility"
February 14, 2025 at 10:37 PM
cisozaki.bsky.social
As @jamellebouie.net points out, the Trump administration’s crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is really an attempt of powerful elites to roll back the very concept of civil rights.

What’s going on here? 🧵👇
Opinion | Trump Is on the Wrong Side of History by Design
The genius of the right-wing crusade against D.E.I. is that the term is amorphous enough that it can mean many different things to many different people.
www.nytimes.com
February 14, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
monicamarks.bsky.social
I've lived democratic backsliding & authoritarianism across multiple countries. I've watched repression creep across staff planning sessions & editorial rooms, from both the left & right.

The #1 way it happens? Self-censorship.

Before your opponents ever censor you, self-professed allies do.
aoc.bsky.social Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · Feb 7
Hell yeah. Hold the line. This is what we need people to do.

Slow things down, don’t comply in advance so the courts have time to stop them. It’s starting to work.
ellenlweintraub.bsky.social Ellen L. Weintraub @ellenlweintraub.bsky.social · Feb 6
Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner and Chair of the FEC. There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn't it. I've been so fortunate to serve the American people and stir up some good trouble along the way. That's not changing anytime soon.
February 7, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
muellershewrote.com
BREAKING: Judge Carl Nichols - a Trump appointee - announced he will pause Trump’s effort to gut USAID. www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...
Judge to pause Trump administration effort to gut USAID's workforce by thousands
Two labor groups had sued the Trump administration after it said that thousands of USAID employees would be placed on administrative leave starting at 11:59 p.m. Friday.
www.nbcnews.com
February 7, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
jayapal.house.gov
This is a manufactured crisis — one that serves to distract you from the fact that Trump and Republicans ran on raising wages and lowering costs, but have no real solutions to help you build a better life.

They are trying to get you to look the other way. Don’t.
February 6, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Reposted by Chihiro Isozaki
jayapal.house.gov
We should be focusing on the real obstacles that female athletes face, like a lack of financial resources and vulnerability to abuse.

Instead, Republicans are attacking a group that represents less than a fraction of 1% of student athletes.
February 6, 2025 at 8:35 PM