Sameer Ashar
@sameer-ashar.bsky.social
Clinical Professor of Law, UC Irvine | Workers, Law & Organizing Clinic | law & social movements, legal education, abolitionist futures | losing my edge
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Sameer Ashar
@sameer-ashar.bsky.social
· Oct 15
Movement Law Under Fascism
As fascist tendencies intensify across the United States, social movements continue to organize against the forces of state repression. Legal scholars must stand with these movements…
lpeproject.org
Appreciate thinking with @jocelynsimonson.bsky.social & Amna Akbar again, inspired by resistance movements confronting incipient fascism across terrains of struggle
lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
I havent read such a banger of an essay in a very long time. This is so well-written!
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 8, 2025 at 5:37 PM
I havent read such a banger of an essay in a very long time. This is so well-written!
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
160 faculty from all 5 UC law schools signed this open letter detailing why the Trump demands to UCLA are unlawful, unconstitutional, and wrong: sites.google.com/view/uclawfa... Great to work with @fishkin.bsky.social @blakeprof.bsky.social @seanashiffrin.bsky.social on this statement.
Home
UC Law Faculty to Regents: Resist the Unlawful Demands
sites.google.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:05 PM
160 faculty from all 5 UC law schools signed this open letter detailing why the Trump demands to UCLA are unlawful, unconstitutional, and wrong: sites.google.com/view/uclawfa... Great to work with @fishkin.bsky.social @blakeprof.bsky.social @seanashiffrin.bsky.social on this statement.
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
thread
A family friend was telling us about what her husband shared about his experience in Broadview before he was deported back to Mexico. She's been sharing to friends and family because she's just in disbelief & horror what her husband told her. She wasn't able to talk to him until he was in Mexico.
November 7, 2025 at 4:02 AM
thread
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
Have to say, it makes you think given that Germany really was in catastrophic economic straits. Whereas we are... not that, in all reality. Almost as if superstructures of racial/class domination could be used to sustain a fascist and reactionary regime for years despite materialist fundamentals.
November 5, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Have to say, it makes you think given that Germany really was in catastrophic economic straits. Whereas we are... not that, in all reality. Almost as if superstructures of racial/class domination could be used to sustain a fascist and reactionary regime for years despite materialist fundamentals.
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
here is my story about how Zohran's focus on community amid the loneliness epidemic helped young people connect their politics to an organizing infrastructure, that interviewed ZM, and does not use the NYT's framing of "they don't know how to make friends" :-) and also ran 4 days before NYT's lol
Zohran Mamdani's Establishment-Fighting Campaign Built Community for Young People
“What Mamdani has done is not only inspire and mobilize young people, but he has exposed the establishment and some of their calcified views of participation and inclusion.”
www.teenvogue.com
November 5, 2025 at 2:14 PM
here is my story about how Zohran's focus on community amid the loneliness epidemic helped young people connect their politics to an organizing infrastructure, that interviewed ZM, and does not use the NYT's framing of "they don't know how to make friends" :-) and also ran 4 days before NYT's lol
“Mamdani shows how new constituencies are born from taking political risks and made through probing investigation and performative interaction.“
New online: Nikhil Pal Singh on Zohran Mamdani. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
Zohran's Promise - Dissent Magazine
The Mamdani campaign extended the arena of political participation to ordinary and unseen people of every place and pursuit. The challenge going forward will be sustaining faith in the idea that the c...
www.dissentmagazine.org
November 5, 2025 at 4:59 PM
“Mamdani shows how new constituencies are born from taking political risks and made through probing investigation and performative interaction.“
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
One way to explain why prisons are so big & bad in the US is that weak feds didn't create a post-68 (de)industrial policy, so unregulatable, austere states built racist solutions to structural problems. Now the racist solutions are pursued by fully funded, unregulatable federal cops and prisons.
November 4, 2025 at 11:23 PM
One way to explain why prisons are so big & bad in the US is that weak feds didn't create a post-68 (de)industrial policy, so unregulatable, austere states built racist solutions to structural problems. Now the racist solutions are pursued by fully funded, unregulatable federal cops and prisons.
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
What are three policy proposals that you heard from @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social during his campaign & where do you currently live? [I want to see something/ I allowed QP on this]
November 4, 2025 at 3:35 PM
What are three policy proposals that you heard from @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social during his campaign & where do you currently live? [I want to see something/ I allowed QP on this]
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
you ever think about how this guy is a professor in good standing in elite colleges
November 3, 2025 at 10:39 PM
you ever think about how this guy is a professor in good standing in elite colleges
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
University of Toronto law professor David Dyzenhaus, says that Harvard Law professor Adrien Vermeule “moved away from just being interested in [Carl] Schmitt,” a former Nazi scholar, “to actually embracing all dimensions of Schmitt’s theory: both the political dimension & the legal dimension…” 1/
November 2, 2025 at 7:39 PM
University of Toronto law professor David Dyzenhaus, says that Harvard Law professor Adrien Vermeule “moved away from just being interested in [Carl] Schmitt,” a former Nazi scholar, “to actually embracing all dimensions of Schmitt’s theory: both the political dimension & the legal dimension…” 1/
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
Come out on 11/6 in SF to listen to the preliminary injunction hearing in AAUP v Trump! Show the federal courts that we stand up for academic freedom and will not capitulate!
WE are the UC!
WE are the UC!
November 2, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Come out on 11/6 in SF to listen to the preliminary injunction hearing in AAUP v Trump! Show the federal courts that we stand up for academic freedom and will not capitulate!
WE are the UC!
WE are the UC!
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
People like to repeat the lies that Occupy accomplished nothing but it’s not true. It reduced the shame of medical & student loan debt to a public that had largely bought the idea that Millennials were ingrates to the previous generations. It set a precedent for uprisings against police brutality.
#OtD 2 Nov 2011 10,000s took to the streets of Oakland and attempted to organise a general strike in protests originating in the Occupy movement, shutting down a significant proportion of the city's businesses, including the Port of Oakland stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9224...
November 2, 2025 at 6:18 PM
People like to repeat the lies that Occupy accomplished nothing but it’s not true. It reduced the shame of medical & student loan debt to a public that had largely bought the idea that Millennials were ingrates to the previous generations. It set a precedent for uprisings against police brutality.
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
The women married to fascists are usually also fascists. They weren't "tricked" into being with these people. They chose them.
November 1, 2025 at 2:17 AM
The women married to fascists are usually also fascists. They weren't "tricked" into being with these people. They chose them.
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
probably a good time for a south asian critical race theorist to write on the sort of ladder pulling we see here
October 30, 2025 at 4:24 PM
probably a good time for a south asian critical race theorist to write on the sort of ladder pulling we see here
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
Developed an old roll of film that had one single frame from the 2024 UCLA encampment and man idk if there's a more vindicated group from the last few years than the student protestors, pretty much every single issue they dealt with has since been deployed at scale
October 30, 2025 at 5:44 AM
Developed an old roll of film that had one single frame from the 2024 UCLA encampment and man idk if there's a more vindicated group from the last few years than the student protestors, pretty much every single issue they dealt with has since been deployed at scale
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
“Stop conferring symmetry where there is none. Stop calling capture “jurisprudence.” Stop laundering tyranny as “the [ #SCOTUS] decisions.” Name shadowcasters, not the shadows. Then act as if the govt belongs to the people who live under it—because if we don’t, it never will.” @mikepod.bsky.social 🔥
Calling This Court "Supreme" Is Obeying in Advance
When will legal elites stop passing off tyranny in robes as the rule of law?
open.substack.com
October 28, 2025 at 1:36 PM
“Stop conferring symmetry where there is none. Stop calling capture “jurisprudence.” Stop laundering tyranny as “the [ #SCOTUS] decisions.” Name shadowcasters, not the shadows. Then act as if the govt belongs to the people who live under it—because if we don’t, it never will.” @mikepod.bsky.social 🔥
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
“oh so you think the east wing being demolished is worse than-“ it’s a synecdoche, man. a visual metaphor. there’s a reason the aliens in Independence Day don’t aim a huge laser at SNAP benefits
October 23, 2025 at 6:04 PM
“oh so you think the east wing being demolished is worse than-“ it’s a synecdoche, man. a visual metaphor. there’s a reason the aliens in Independence Day don’t aim a huge laser at SNAP benefits
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
"You want a movement, I hear. We all do. But the question is never “will somebody do something?” They are. We are. Our job is to notice, and to ensure that none of our flames burn out."
Also our job is to join in, where we can, how we can, with what we have.
open.substack.com/pub/thewhite...
Also our job is to join in, where we can, how we can, with what we have.
open.substack.com/pub/thewhite...
Here is a very specific thing you can do right now that will meet the moment quite nicely
Maybe do it five or six times, actually
open.substack.com
October 22, 2025 at 3:50 PM
"You want a movement, I hear. We all do. But the question is never “will somebody do something?” They are. We are. Our job is to notice, and to ensure that none of our flames burn out."
Also our job is to join in, where we can, how we can, with what we have.
open.substack.com/pub/thewhite...
Also our job is to join in, where we can, how we can, with what we have.
open.substack.com/pub/thewhite...
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
DAILY MEMO: After No Kings Protests, Feds Wreak Havoc in Santa Ana and O.C.
Today's video is too long for BSKY, so you'll have to find it here, apologies.
lataco.com/daily-memo-a...
Today's video is too long for BSKY, so you'll have to find it here, apologies.
lataco.com/daily-memo-a...
October 21, 2025 at 5:11 AM
DAILY MEMO: After No Kings Protests, Feds Wreak Havoc in Santa Ana and O.C.
Today's video is too long for BSKY, so you'll have to find it here, apologies.
lataco.com/daily-memo-a...
Today's video is too long for BSKY, so you'll have to find it here, apologies.
lataco.com/daily-memo-a...
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
“By cloaking naked power in the trappings of the law, the Trump administration channels objections to its behavior into sterile disputes about who has the best lawyers. The longer Americans indulge this preference for the language of the law over morality, the weaker their moral voice becomes.”
The Moral Stupefaction of the American Public - Boston Review
Trump’s actions are illegal, yes. Worse than that, they are wrong—precisely what the legality debate is meant to obscure.
www.bostonreview.net
October 20, 2025 at 4:20 PM
“By cloaking naked power in the trappings of the law, the Trump administration channels objections to its behavior into sterile disputes about who has the best lawyers. The longer Americans indulge this preference for the language of the law over morality, the weaker their moral voice becomes.”
On resistance to immigration enforcement and the perils of legalism
“many people are acting and thinking in new and significant ways, that it is important to try to understand accurately, that I think the left has important responsibilities here that I think are not being sufficiently attended to“
“many people are acting and thinking in new and significant ways, that it is important to try to understand accurately, that I think the left has important responsibilities here that I think are not being sufficiently attended to“
wrote this trying to think out some stuff about the present political moment
buttondown.com/nateholdren/...
buttondown.com/nateholdren/...
A letter on epistemological breaks, morality, and the current conjuncture
Dear comrades and fellow travelers, I wrote this to clarify my own thinking by the writing, and with the hope that it might spark a little conversation which...
buttondown.com
October 19, 2025 at 7:41 AM
On resistance to immigration enforcement and the perils of legalism
“many people are acting and thinking in new and significant ways, that it is important to try to understand accurately, that I think the left has important responsibilities here that I think are not being sufficiently attended to“
“many people are acting and thinking in new and significant ways, that it is important to try to understand accurately, that I think the left has important responsibilities here that I think are not being sufficiently attended to“
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
Today I wrote in @lpeblog.bsky.social with Amna Akbar & @sameer-ashar.bsky.social about how legal scholars & teachers might act in solidarity with movements in this moment, in the face of fascism: lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
Movement Law Under Fascism
As fascist tendencies intensify across the United States, social movements continue to organize against the forces of state repression. Legal scholars must stand with these movements…
lpeproject.org
October 15, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Today I wrote in @lpeblog.bsky.social with Amna Akbar & @sameer-ashar.bsky.social about how legal scholars & teachers might act in solidarity with movements in this moment, in the face of fascism: lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
Appreciate thinking with @jocelynsimonson.bsky.social & Amna Akbar again, inspired by resistance movements confronting incipient fascism across terrains of struggle
lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
Movement Law Under Fascism
As fascist tendencies intensify across the United States, social movements continue to organize against the forces of state repression. Legal scholars must stand with these movements…
lpeproject.org
October 15, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Appreciate thinking with @jocelynsimonson.bsky.social & Amna Akbar again, inspired by resistance movements confronting incipient fascism across terrains of struggle
lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
Now on @ssrn.bsky.social, forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review. “Alas,” I think Akhil Amar’s new book, “Born Equal,” is not a success and I explain why at great length. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
October 14, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Now on @ssrn.bsky.social, forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review. “Alas,” I think Akhil Amar’s new book, “Born Equal,” is not a success and I explain why at great length. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Reposted by Sameer Ashar
“At the heart of everything Kent did was his unwavering commitment to protecting and uplifting immigrant workers.” www.latimes.com/business/sto...
Kent Wong, a champion of nonviolent resistance in the L.A. labor movement, dies at 69
Kent Wong, who spent decades teaching a doctrine of nonviolent resistance, died Wednesday at a hospital in Los Angeles at the age of 69.
www.latimes.com
October 13, 2025 at 5:09 PM
“At the heart of everything Kent did was his unwavering commitment to protecting and uplifting immigrant workers.” www.latimes.com/business/sto...