Chihiro Isozaki

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.

The Power of State Constitutional Rights Judges, practitioners, and scholars explore critical issues facing state courts and constitutions.

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...

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.

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.

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 👇👇

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.

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.

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.

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.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Republican challenger concedes a 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court election to the Democratic incumbent.

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.

everyone seeing how when you takeaway the DEI the planes start falling out of the sky

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.

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...

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.”

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.

Loool this one also just GETS me bc my hippie leftie men/women/nonbinary friends are also the ones who kick back some of the strongest beer out there (….not that that really matters)

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."

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."⬇️

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 👇🏻👇🏻

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).

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

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.

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.

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.

As I've stated before, and as these AGs stress, most of what constitutes orgs' "diversity, equity, and inclusion" practices remain not only legal, but legally required under federal law that help ensure that everyone gets a fair shot to achieve their full potential.

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...

@brennancenter.bsky.social

Do your part to fight back against this moment. Don't be fooled by harmful "colorblind" rhetoric. Set the record straight: DEI *promotes* meritocracy by recognizing individual potential, opens doors for those who weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth & gives everyone a fair shot. /11

+ Orgs still have legal obligations (through fed laws like Title VII (gender), ADEA (age), USERRA (veterans) & ADA (disability) to give everyone a fair shot to succeed, regardless of what they look like and what groups they belong to. /10

Those standards are set by Congress (through the Civil Rights Act and related laws) and interpreted by the courts (i.e., through cases like SFFA v. Harvard). /9

But there’s a limit to what Trump can do through these EOs. Trump can’t make DEI illegal for private actors or increase the threshold for liability. /8

Trump’s anti-DEI EOs are trying to sow fear & confusion & turn the public narrative against DEI. They want private orgs to voluntarily backtrack on their DEI commitments beyond what’s legally necessary. /7

Let's make one thing clear: DEI is fighting *for* meritocracy and *against* the affirmative action of racism, sexism & generational wealth. /6

Designed to Ameliorate the Condition of People of Color: The Reconstruction Republicans and the Question of Affirmative Action by Kate Masur & Gregory Downs What we confront here is not the familiar (to us) struggle between competing historically and archivally grounded interpretations but something quite different: a confron...

(For more on the fiction of the “color-blind” Fourteenth Amendment, see @katemasur.bsky.social and @gregdowns.bsky.social ’ recent article: jach.law.wisc.edu/reconstructi...) /5

The Originalist Fiction of a Race-Neutral Constitution is Damaging Civil Rights Law A Supreme Court ruling based on an ahistorical reading of the Constitution has encouraged attacks on race-inclusive policies and diversity and social justice initiatives.

The laws of the civil rights revolution weren’t colorblind, just like the Fourteenth Amendment wasn’t. It’s not a new thing for the government to account for race (or gender… or disability…) with laws and policies. /4

The Originalist Fiction of a Race-Neutral Constitution is Damaging Civil Rights Law A Supreme Court ruling based on an ahistorical reading of the Constitution has encouraged attacks on race-inclusive policies and diversity and social justice initiatives.

In doing this, the EOs expressly invoke the myth that civil rights laws were "colorblind.” But that’s just historical fiction. /3