Jamal Greene
@jamalgreene.bsky.social
21K followers 440 following 1.4K posts
Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. Ex-DOJ/OLC. Becoming familiar with your game. How Rights Went Wrong available at Bookshop.org (https://tinyurl.com/se32my4r), Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/3vbcfwa4), or a decent public library.
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jamalgreene.bsky.social
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
debpearlstein.bsky.social
Zaitsev, a 36-yr-old Russian citizen w/a pending asylum case, said he was beaten by ICE agents...Photos in court filings show Zaitsev with bruises and scabs on his face. “We came to the US for protection because of what we encountered in Russia. It seems that we are encountering here what we fled.”
Reposted by Jamal Greene
jamellebouie.net
kavanaugh seems to be channeling bradley. “When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he…ceases to be the special favorite of the laws.”
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Justice Kavanaugh in the Callais oral argument keeps alluding to some longstanding requirement of strict scrutiny that use of race have a time limit. This is invented.
Reposted by Jamal Greene
originalsp.in
ICE arrested comedian Robby Roadsteamer for singing a parody of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” in a Jeffrey Epstein the Giraffe costume outside their facility.

He sings “If you hate brown people / and you are a Nazi” and ICE thugs grab him and drag him into detention. No violence—just speech.
Reposted by Jamal Greene
dfroomkin.bsky.social
Unlike affirmative action, Section 2 of the VRA (as interpreted by Gingles) has a built-in sunset. If there is no longer residential segregation or if there is no longer racial polarization in voting, then Section 2 will cease to require any racial considerations in redistricting.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Justice Kavanaugh in the Callais oral argument keeps alluding to some longstanding requirement of strict scrutiny that use of race have a time limit. This is invented.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Justice Barrett really seems to want to say the congruence and proportionality test applies to VRA sec. 2. This is hardly obvious for a 15th Amendment statute, and I would say the existing blackletter law is that it's either rational basis or at most a kind of McCulloch reasonableness.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Where Callais seems it could be going is a holding that the LA map wasn't properly remedial because of the litigation posture of the prior sec. 2 case, possibly saving the constitutionality of a race-based remedy for another day. If that's where they go, it would still be quite disruptive.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Yes. But the tunic rending over time limits in that case was specific to the dynamics of the diversity rationale, whereas this is a remedial statute. SOC wasn't making a general statement about strict scrutiny. Also, that wasn't a holding!
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Which was not a case about the permissibility of the government's use of race. Totally separate issue.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Justice Kavanaugh in the Callais oral argument keeps alluding to some longstanding requirement of strict scrutiny that use of race have a time limit. This is invented.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Justice Alito keeps pronouncing Gingles with a hard G. I find that surprising. (Niche skeet.)
jamalgreene.bsky.social
The strategy is to make all of us lose our minds.
atrupar.com
Mike Johnson: "They berated a Capitol police officer, screamed at him. He was merely standing his post. It shows, again, their disdain for law enforcement, the Democrats, screaming, assaulting officers."
jamalgreene.bsky.social
I don't think one needs to invoke "public authority" for a due process defense to be sensitive to whether the advice comes from someone upon whom reliance would be reasonable.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
I hadn't meant exactly this. I had understood "public authority" to work for things public authorities can do, to excuse the behavior of a non-public actor who thinks they're clothed with that authority, but I had thought it doesn't work for things they can't lawfully do, whether OLC says so or not.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Yes, this has been my assumption, ie, that the government can’t authorize someone to do something the government itself can’t lawfully do, but if it subsequently tries to prosecute, there’s a due process defense based on unfairness. But I defer to others more expert.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
I am not a criminal law expert so was asking if that is relevant to a distinctly “public authorities” defense. I have long found public authorities a bit mystifying in the context of government defendants.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
I am asking about the label for that defense (itself a pedantic question!), and the distinction between doing something public authorities themselves have the power to do under some circumstances (run red lights, possess drugs, etc.) versus doing something they don’t.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Is public authority the right rubric for an act that would be illegal no matter who committed or authorized it? Is due process not the right rubric to apply, if anything?
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Yup, @weedenkim.bsky.social seems to get the sequence right. More details in this story, including that his lawsuit also, and appropriately, raised a First Amendment claim (a detail omitted from the OP's linked article).

universitystar.com/33285/news/t...
jamalgreene.bsky.social
*Almost* rescheduling a talk.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Oh, I said that before I saw the Fisk video!
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Yes, that's right -- missed that. And I'd guess that has happened, though obviously rare.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
I'm OK with reminding people to show courage even in defense of those they disagree with. I do not find it plausible that NYU moved the talk because they disagreed with Shapiro personally. But even if they did, these examples are so wildly incongruent that the point gets lost in the execution.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
I would amend to "any other outside speaker event likely to generate protest." I don't think it serves free expression to ignore that possibility. The broader point for me is that administrators make mistakes, and maybe this was one--I don't know enough--but this is not evidence of a crisis.
jamalgreene.bsky.social
And being so, is in fact not a model of "civil dialogue"?
jamalgreene.bsky.social
Do you disagree that the line from <<dropping a criminal case to coerce the mayor into assisting with deportations>> to <<almost holding Ilya Shapiro's talk on a day other than Oct. 7, but then holding it then anyway>> is a bizarre non sequitur that misunderstands the stakes of the issues?
jamalgreene.bsky.social
If she wanted to avoid that impression, she might mention any other problem involving academic freedom on university campuses. I can think of a few.