Heidi Kitrosser
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heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Heidi Kitrosser
@heidikitrosser.bsky.social
15K followers 2.2K following 3.4K posts
Law professor focusing on constitutional law, especially free speech, the separation of powers, and government secrecy. Friend to all dogs and cats. Champion procrastinator.
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heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Weirdness/levity moment: My awesome cousin, Martin Kitrosser, directed & co-wrote the movie Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 in 1991. I've never seen it (way too scary for me), but I was just looking at the movie poster & noticed that it includes a hilariously menacing looking Raggedy Andy doll.
Movie poster for Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker. It features a sullen looking boy surrounded by a bevy of creepy looking stuffed animals, including a menacingly angry Raggedy Andy doll.
December 2, 2025 at 1:54 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
that's not how Title VI works. Here's Judge Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Mass. in the Harvard case (restoring millions in funding after Harvard rightly sued):
Specifically, Title VI provides that no action terminating financial assistance “shall be taken until the department or agency concerned has” 1) “advised the appropriate person or persons of the failure to comply with the requirement,” and 2) “determined that compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means.” Id. If the relevant department or agency determines that voluntary compliance is not possible, it may then terminate grants, but only if “there has been an express finding on the record, after opportunity for hearing, of a failure to comply with such requirement,” and the termination must be “limited to the particular . . . recipient as to whom such a finding has been made,” as well as “the particular program, or part thereof, in which such noncompliance has been so found.” Id. Further, once these procedural steps have been met, “the head of the Federal department or agency shall file with the committees of the House and Senate having legislative jurisdiction over the program or activity involved a full written report of the circumstances and the grounds for such action.” Id. After this report is filed with Congress, the action still may not “become effective until thirty days have elapsed.” Id. Only then may an agency terminate funding because of concerns about discrimination. It is undisputed that Defendants did not comply with these requirements
November 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Ah yes, we must grill prospective international students to ensure that they do not engage in wrongthink, because ... because we care so much about "free inquiry and open debate."
C. NATIONAL SECURITY 31. Northwestern will undertake a comprehensive review of its international admissions practices and policies for international students and will ensure that international students are asked questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study at Northwestern and in the United States. Northwestern will also develop training materials to socialize international students to the norms of a campus dedicated to free inquiry and open debate.
November 29, 2025 at 3:14 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Bienen to Don Corleone: "Well, I see no reasonable response to this other than to do whatever you say!"
Screenshot of Marlon Brando as Don Corleone in The Godfather, saying: "This is a real nice place you got here. Be a shame if something were to happen to it."
November 29, 2025 at 1:58 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Northwestern: We are only doing this because of government coercion.
Very helpful for any future faculty lawsuits in light of the caselaw on informal coercion / jawboning (e.g., NRA v. Vullo (2024))
1. The United States and Northwestern (collectively, the “Parties”) desire to avoid the burdens and risks of protracted litigation. This Agreement is not an admission in whole or in part by either Party, and Northwestern expressly denies liability regarding the allegations.
November 29, 2025 at 1:31 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
an excerpt:
Quote # 2: "I want to do a deal with the federal government," [Interim University President Henry] Bienen said, according to The Daily Northwestern, the student newspaper. "I don't want to get into suits with the federal government." Nothing better captures the servile cowardice of major institutions in the moment. Faced with a corrupt administration unlawfully withholding money and demanding a surrender of core institutional principles on a legally frivolous claim, the institution leader's opening position is "take our money so we don't have to fight, just allow us to say publicly that we retain control of our academic mission (even if we know that's false).
November 28, 2025 at 7:45 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Good to see WSJ Editorial Board making this point. (This is a 🎁 link but it will require you to sign in, I don’t make the rules!)

www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...
Tens of thousands are building new lives here in peace and are contributing to their communities. They shouldn't be blamed for the violent act of one man. Collective punishment of all Afghans in the U.S. won't make America safer and it might embitter more against the United States.
November 28, 2025 at 4:12 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
More troops is not the answer. The National Guard has been deployed as part of the White House's political attacks on cities run by Democrats, and the Guard members are vulnerable because politics is not a military mission.
November 28, 2025 at 4:28 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
BTW, any story about a possible Northwestern capitulation should include this detail (screenshot is from the oped linked below)
On Oct. 15, the Northwestern Faculty Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution opposing "any capitulation on the part of Northwestern University" to the Trump Administration's "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" or to "similar demands that undermine constitutional rights, democratic principles, faculty governance, institutional autonomy, and academic freedom." The vote was 595 for the resolution, four against it and eight abstentions.
November 27, 2025 at 2:31 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
No one exists but him. Nothing matters but whether you can make him feel important or can do something for him.
Even as the talks progressed, President Donald Trump lashed out at Ukraine’s leaders this morning, claiming they have “expressed zero gratitude” for his efforts to end the war. Ukraine’s president has repeatedly thanked the US publicly. Rubio later signaled that those tensions had been smoothed over and said Trump is “pleased” with the progress.
November 23, 2025 at 10:23 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Continuing my theme of 90s movies about Los Angeles, I always had a soft spot for this one too:
Beach scene from the 1991 film, LA Story.
November 23, 2025 at 8:13 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Share a 90s movie you think deserves more love.
A scene with four male characters in the 1996 movie, “Swingers.”
November 23, 2025 at 8:11 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Doing dishes is the worst, but I read this book as a kid and I swear, it still motivates me to get it done!
Photo of the classic children’s book, “The man who didn’t wash his dishes,” by Phyllis Krasilovsky, illustrated by Barbara Cooney.
November 20, 2025 at 3:48 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
This is adorable. Reminds me of my favorite standoff between my pets some years ago:
Tiny brown chiweenie dog standing on an ottoman, facing off against an orange tabby cat that is perched on an end table a few feet away.
November 20, 2025 at 2:13 AM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
A succinct description of so much that this administration does: if they don’t like longstanding, duly enacted laws and Congress isn’t prepared to amend them, they’ll just hack them to bits illegally.

wapo.st/4i6ZRr5
McMahon has acknowledged that only Congress can eliminate the department, but she has vowed to work to dismantle it from within.
November 18, 2025 at 9:52 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
Such an important point, from p. 11 of Jim Ryan's letter (link below). Universities, law firms, & NGOs have been inundated w EOs & other demands since Jan. 20th insisting that they cease any behavior inconsistent w the "president's priorities." But the president is not the law, not in this country!
Finally, as indicated earlier, the lines between policy and the law have been repeatedly blurred during this entire episode. The Board and University leaders set policy; the DOJ enforces the law. Too often, people within the DOJ and on our own Board have implied that if we were following policies that they did not favor, we were somehow doing something illegal. That is not the case, obviously. DEI, for example, is not itself illegal. One can do illegal things in the name of DEI, just like one can do illegal things in the name of promoting viewpoint diversity. But diversity itself, including viewpoint diversity, is not against the law.
November 14, 2025 at 4:49 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
At the very least, we had Board members who were apparently more complicit than other universities. To that end: Assuming the threat did come from the DOJ, I do not understand why the Board members involved did not say from the very beginning that forcing the resignation of the president because of federal pressure is off the table. It is puzzling and disappointing that they did not recognize and convey that this was an outrageous incursion into the Board’s own authority,
November 14, 2025 at 4:45 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
If the DOJ was sincerely threatening UVA if I did not resign, I think it’s important to recognize that that presented a difficult choice. What is not clear to me, however, is whether the threat was real, or whether the idea came from the Board members who spoke with the DOJ lawyers, our own lawyers, the Governor, or some combination of that group. Harmeet Dhillon emphatically and publicly stated, twice, that neither she nor her DOJ colleagues demanded my resignation or offered some sort of quid pro quo. This is not consistent with what I was told by Rachel and Paul, but I was never in the room when these conversations took place.
November 14, 2025 at 4:44 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
In the meantime, Paul Manning reached out directly to the DOJ lawyers to make sure he was not missing anything, and he said that they told him that if I didn’t resign, they would “bleed UVA white.”
November 14, 2025 at 4:34 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
It is impossible for me to know, but the timing of the DOJ letters, the ever expanding scope of their inquiries, and their willingness to give us extension after extension made me wonder more than once if the DOJ was not actually interested in our response, perhaps because they showed—from what I saw--that we were complying with the law.
November 14, 2025 at 4:10 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
More from the letter:
It was unclear, and still is, why the United States Department of Justice would have the interest or authority to enforce a resolution of the Board of a state university as opposed to enforcing federal law.
November 14, 2025 at 4:09 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
It is important to understand that in order to get outside counsel, we must get the Attorney General's permission. We were allowed to hire McGuire Woods, a law firm with which we had worked in the past. We asked for the three lawyers who had worked with us previously, but only two were approved- —Jack White and Farnaz Thompson. Both are very good lawyers who are also conservative, and Farnaz worked on Project 2025. The third lawyer-the senior most lawyer of the three-Jonathan Blank, is a UVA alum and a moderate. Despite his seniority and the volume of work required, as well as his knowledge of UVA, I was told he was not allowed to participate.
November 14, 2025 at 4:07 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
I wonder if the “girlfriend” is the “fully depreciated woman” referenced in an Epstein novelty check to Trump. Either way, these men are disgusting, trashy misogynists.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/u...
Screenshot from a New York Times headline and sub headline that say: A Phony Trump Check and a 'Depreciated' Woman in Epstein's Birthday Book An entry in Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book shows the disgraced financier holding a novelty check with a signature of "DJ TRUMP." It makes reference to a woman who dated both men in the 1990s.
November 12, 2025 at 9:18 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
As other sites headline the Epstein emails, Fox News tops its home page with something truly scandalous: university administrators in NC discussing what anti-DEI directives do and do not prohibit them from doing.
Screenshot of the top of the Fox News website home page, featuring big block letters that say: “DEI” and “Campus Radicals” and “Red state university staff caught in hidden camera spilling plans to hide DEI”
November 12, 2025 at 5:18 PM
heidikitrosser.bsky.social
I always loved his desk.
Still frame photo from the Jetsons, featuring Cosmo Spacely at his very cool and futuristic looking U-shaped desk, looking focused and stern with his arms crossed.
November 9, 2025 at 1:45 AM