Laura Heymann
@laheymann.bsky.social
Law professor at William & Mary. Opinions always my own.
Pinned
Laura Heymann
@laheymann.bsky.social
· Feb 11
Reporters, please use some Socratic Method:
(1) listen to and reflect on what the interviewee actually says
(2) ask follow-up questions
(3) so that the interviewee and those watching the exchange understand when problematic reasoning is being used.
(1) listen to and reflect on what the interviewee actually says
(2) ask follow-up questions
(3) so that the interviewee and those watching the exchange understand when problematic reasoning is being used.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Jim Ryan's letter is not just surreal and troubling; it provides a series of deeply sobering lessons—about the perils facing public universities today; about what it means to "work with" this Department of Justice; & about what leadership does (and doesn't) entail at this especially fraught moment.
Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ.
It's a surreal--and troubling--read.
drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...
It's a surreal--and troubling--read.
drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...
November 14, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Jim Ryan's letter is not just surreal and troubling; it provides a series of deeply sobering lessons—about the perils facing public universities today; about what it means to "work with" this Department of Justice; & about what leadership does (and doesn't) entail at this especially fraught moment.
No notes.
What an amazing essay from the former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin. I'll share a few sections in the reply but seriously, read the whole thing. It's all insightful and beautifully written.
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 9, 2025 at 6:30 PM
No notes.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
November 3, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Really excellent piece by @sivav.bsky.social. Anyone who cares about higher education (or free expression or democracy) should read this essay.
Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down
How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education
newrepublic.com
October 8, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Really excellent piece by @sivav.bsky.social. Anyone who cares about higher education (or free expression or democracy) should read this essay.
Essential reading. Universities must stand together on this.
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion
www.nytimes.com
October 3, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Essential reading. Universities must stand together on this.
Seems like a governmental pyramid scheme -- the early joiners are promised untold riches and expected to recruit others, and everyone but the one at the top loses in the end.
Some schools will be starved of resources. Other schools will be offered bribes. The end goal is the same. To make the universities an extension of the Trump administration. Shame on any of these institutions willing to take the bribes.
October 2, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Seems like a governmental pyramid scheme -- the early joiners are promised untold riches and expected to recruit others, and everyone but the one at the top loses in the end.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
A letter to Alan Garber & John Manning
I write letters
To Alan Garber & John Manning: As a member of the law faculty (and, not for nothing, a professor of the First Amendment), I am writing you...
tushnet.blogspot.com
July 31, 2025 at 2:38 PM
A letter to Alan Garber & John Manning
All this built-in generative AI is starting to feel like a technological snowplow parent -- popping up at the first opportunity to offer to clear the path and ease the difficulties that actually foster cognitive development, leaving a thin sheet of ice in its wake.
July 28, 2025 at 3:35 PM
All this built-in generative AI is starting to feel like a technological snowplow parent -- popping up at the first opportunity to offer to clear the path and ease the difficulties that actually foster cognitive development, leaving a thin sheet of ice in its wake.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
You can never bend the knee enough to appease an authoritarian bully.
This is a devastating blow to academic freedom & freedom of speech at Columbia.
Never in the history of this nation has there been an administration so intent on the utter destruction of higher education as we know it.
This is a devastating blow to academic freedom & freedom of speech at Columbia.
Never in the history of this nation has there been an administration so intent on the utter destruction of higher education as we know it.
Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump
www.nytimes.com
July 24, 2025 at 1:37 AM
You can never bend the knee enough to appease an authoritarian bully.
This is a devastating blow to academic freedom & freedom of speech at Columbia.
Never in the history of this nation has there been an administration so intent on the utter destruction of higher education as we know it.
This is a devastating blow to academic freedom & freedom of speech at Columbia.
Never in the history of this nation has there been an administration so intent on the utter destruction of higher education as we know it.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Talk about The Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones all you want, but the greatest US television program ever made is Sesame Street. It's not even close. 50+ years of treating kids across class, ethnicity, religion not as mini-consumers...but as citizens with a stake in this world.
July 18, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Talk about The Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones all you want, but the greatest US television program ever made is Sesame Street. It's not even close. 50+ years of treating kids across class, ethnicity, religion not as mini-consumers...but as citizens with a stake in this world.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
"Alligator Alcatraz" is wrong and media should not use it. It's propaganda. Alcatraz held people convicted of crimes, particularly violent crimes.
The Florida camp holds people *not* convicted of any crime. If they had been, they'd be in prison elsewhere.
The site is a textbook concentration camp.
The Florida camp holds people *not* convicted of any crime. If they had been, they'd be in prison elsewhere.
The site is a textbook concentration camp.
I know the media is going to unthinkingly start using “Alligator Alcatraz,” but it’s disgusting and sadistic and I intend to call it what it is, a fucking concentration camp, and fuck those people who are doing this and giving it a cutesy name.
July 2, 2025 at 12:31 AM
"Alligator Alcatraz" is wrong and media should not use it. It's propaganda. Alcatraz held people convicted of crimes, particularly violent crimes.
The Florida camp holds people *not* convicted of any crime. If they had been, they'd be in prison elsewhere.
The site is a textbook concentration camp.
The Florida camp holds people *not* convicted of any crime. If they had been, they'd be in prison elsewhere.
The site is a textbook concentration camp.
💯 Modeling this is one way: "That's a great question. I'm not sure of the answer myself. Let's talk through how we might get there, and then I'll think about it some more and get back to you."
my hottest educational take is that schools should actively, non-punitively teach students how to admit when they don't know something, aren't sure or have made a mistake, with various teaching frameworks adapted to support this ideal, because people who can't admit fault are breaking the world
June 18, 2025 at 9:51 PM
💯 Modeling this is one way: "That's a great question. I'm not sure of the answer myself. Let's talk through how we might get there, and then I'll think about it some more and get back to you."
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Last month there were allegations that some of my students may have used generative AI on my final exam. The incident led me to give some serious thought to how we are dealing with these tools in the professional education context. Here’s what I wrote to my students: jeremysheff.com/2025/06/02/g...
Generative AI in the Law School Classroom – Jeremy Sheff
jeremysheff.com
June 2, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Last month there were allegations that some of my students may have used generative AI on my final exam. The incident led me to give some serious thought to how we are dealing with these tools in the professional education context. Here’s what I wrote to my students: jeremysheff.com/2025/06/02/g...
Definitely no. Apart from the homogeneity this is likely to encourage, it will almost certainly have disparate impacts. Yet another part of the application that applicants with resources will learn how to strategize around.
NO:”Students would be evaluated based on things like how well they accepted and used the AI characters’ ideas and feedback. It’s not clear how well simulation tasks of this sort can measure students’ ability to work with other people, particularly in problem-solving and healthy disagreements.”
Some of the most elite colleges in the US are making “civility transcripts” part of the admissions process.
Tone-policing as university policy.
www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...
Tone-policing as university policy.
www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...
May 26, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Definitely no. Apart from the homogeneity this is likely to encourage, it will almost certainly have disparate impacts. Yet another part of the application that applicants with resources will learn how to strategize around.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Defending our civil liberties isn’t new to us, it’s true to us.
Support our work and join the fight.
Support our work and join the fight.
Home | American Civil Liberties Union
The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union — beyond one person, party, or side. Our mission is to realize this promise of the United States Constitution for all and expand the reach of its guarante...
aclu.org
April 17, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Defending our civil liberties isn’t new to us, it’s true to us.
Support our work and join the fight.
Support our work and join the fight.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Steve Kerr: "I believe in academic freedom. I think it's crucial for all of our institutions to be able to handle their own business the way they want to. And they should not be shaken down and told what to teach, what to say, by our government. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
Steve Kerr wore a Harvard basketball shirt after the Warriors’ win tonight: “Yes, this is me supporting Harvard. Way to go. Way to stand up to the bully.”
April 16, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Steve Kerr: "I believe in academic freedom. I think it's crucial for all of our institutions to be able to handle their own business the way they want to. And they should not be shaken down and told what to teach, what to say, by our government. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.
April 15, 2025 at 3:52 AM
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
Along with @prmalone.bsky.social, @heidikitrosser.bsky.social, and several colleagues at Stanford, I filed this amicus brief on behalf of 363 law professors in support of Perkins Coie and the rule of law. We will file similar briefs for Jenner and Wilmer Hale
law.stanford.edu/publications...
law.stanford.edu/publications...
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE 363 LAW PROFESSORS IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND FOR DECLARATORY AND PERMANENT INJUNCTIVE RELIEF | Stanford Law School
Amici 363 law professors submit this brief in support of Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment and for Declaratory and Permanent Injunctive Relief
law.stanford.edu
April 3, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Along with @prmalone.bsky.social, @heidikitrosser.bsky.social, and several colleagues at Stanford, I filed this amicus brief on behalf of 363 law professors in support of Perkins Coie and the rule of law. We will file similar briefs for Jenner and Wilmer Hale
law.stanford.edu/publications...
law.stanford.edu/publications...
Fantastic essay, and a model for how to thoughtfully respond to feedback.
The key quote: "Although these are unprecedented times, a news headline should not quietly aid the erosion of our social consensus about the law, even if we ourselves are struggling to do our jobs because of that erosion."
The key quote: "Although these are unprecedented times, a news headline should not quietly aid the erosion of our social consensus about the law, even if we ourselves are struggling to do our jobs because of that erosion."
On Tuesday I edited a story about the FTC firings. Readers took issue with our framing — not just us, but other publications as well. And you know what? Y'all were right. www.theverge.com/policy/63339...
We ran the wrong headline about the fired FTC commissioners
Our readers have a point.
www.theverge.com
March 20, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Fantastic essay, and a model for how to thoughtfully respond to feedback.
The key quote: "Although these are unprecedented times, a news headline should not quietly aid the erosion of our social consensus about the law, even if we ourselves are struggling to do our jobs because of that erosion."
The key quote: "Although these are unprecedented times, a news headline should not quietly aid the erosion of our social consensus about the law, even if we ourselves are struggling to do our jobs because of that erosion."
Very much agree. One of the great benefits of the Internet age is that it can bring before the public eye things that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. That is also one of its great challenges.
Tressie McMillan Cottom - who teaches at a university - is the only one offering insight.
March 15, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Very much agree. One of the great benefits of the Internet age is that it can bring before the public eye things that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. That is also one of its great challenges.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
One columnist, a professional pundit, is living in a paranoid delusion. The other, a sociologist, is living in America.
March 15, 2025 at 12:01 PM
One columnist, a professional pundit, is living in a paranoid delusion. The other, a sociologist, is living in America.
Reposted by Laura Heymann
As the Trump administration & many state governments appear poised to accelerate attacks on higher education as a public good, the AAUP urges colleges & universities to resist the coming onslaught of political interference & defend the core values of higher education.
🧵
www.aaup.org/news/against...
🧵
www.aaup.org/news/against...
Against Anticipatory Obedience
While administrators and faculty members may have to comply with legislation and court orders, even where these run counter to our values and to professional and constitutional principles, we are free...
www.aaup.org
January 23, 2025 at 4:16 PM
As the Trump administration & many state governments appear poised to accelerate attacks on higher education as a public good, the AAUP urges colleges & universities to resist the coming onslaught of political interference & defend the core values of higher education.
🧵
www.aaup.org/news/against...
🧵
www.aaup.org/news/against...