Sue McMahon

AAUP-UC-Trump Lawsuit -- Uploaded by Jaweed Kaleem of the Los Angeles Times

I'd like to commend the lawyers who wrote this complaint on behalf of the professors and employees of the University of California against the Trump administration.

It's a sober legal document with strong claims, but also, this is a fight for public opinion, and this reads like the writers know it.

The fate of the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship still hangs in the balance.

Let’s get educated.

UC workers, alums, community members, please send Governor Newsom and your state legislators encouraging them to sue the federal government like Harvard did and release the feds' demand letter so Californians know what is at stake.

It takes 2 minutes: actionnetwork.org/letters/uc-s...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Competency and Restoration Reimagined from Practice to Possibility: Level Setting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining th... Competency and Restoration Reimagined from Practice to Possibility This three-part webinar series will provide insight and recommendations on how to make improvements in competency to stand trial sys...

I’m thrilled to be part of this webinar series on competence to stand trial, co-hosted by @nacdl.org and @statecourts.bsky.social. Our first session on Wednesday (11a PST) lays out the current state of play across the U.S. Join us!

ncsc-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

My fearless colleague David Kaye, speaking truth to power.

Friendly reminder that things don’t go back to normal if he kicks the bucket. They could even get worse! And even when they lose an election there’s years, decades, generations of repair and remaking to be done.

also, responses matter—social opprobrium at institutions that caved helped push other institutions to stand up, and institutions that stood up made it more difficult for others to cave

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So very proud to have my name on this excellent letter. Huge thanks to my UC colleagues who took the laboring oar in putting it together.

Harvard faculty won’t cave to Trump demands - The Boston Globe Unlike our distant governing boards, we will not give up easily — no matter what kind of deals are signed in our name.

“We have committed our professional lives to learning and free inquiry, working together with students to advance truth for the collective benefit of society. Unlike our distant governing boards, we will not give up so easily — no matter what kind of deals are signed in our name.”

I'm so tired of hearing that we need to "teach our students how to use AI" when the thing they most need to use it is a critical-thinking skill set that can only be acquired by NOT using it. I'm tired of hearing that it's inevitable. I'm tired.

“You think I showed up with ChatGPT? . . .Dickinson? Obsessed. David Foster Wallace built a temple of footnotes in my name. I am not some sleek, futuristic glyph. I am the battered, coffee-stained backbone of writerly panic—the gasping pause where a thought should have ended but simply could not.”

Opinion | I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It’s Happening Here. The real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence.

Democracies collapse not just through force, but through the naïve self-confidence of elites. What should alarm us isn’t that strongmen follow similar playbooks, but that our elites do too. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

Big Law Firms Bowed to Trump. A Corps of ‘Little Guys’ Jumped in to Fight Him.

A reminder that our profession is not just big firms, and that countless lawyers are stepping up in this critical moment. GIFT LINK
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...

a woman wearing a mask stands on a red carpet in front of a street Alt: woman filming workout video as military coup happens in the background.

Video of me teaching legal research and writing in the fall.

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Here’s the thing with universal injunctions.

I’m agnostic on them, generally. I think there’s great scholarship on both sides (anti: Bagley & Bray) (pro: Mila Sohoni).

But if there’s any reason for courts to have the power, it’s for attempts at unilateral constitutional amendment.

a man in a suit and goggles is holding a hammer and breaking a wall . Alt: a man in a suit and goggles is holding a sledgehammer and breaking a wall .

Finally got a terrible first draft done.

Time to tear it apart.

“magical realist Zohran Mamdani” would be like if everyone on his team was human except for his ghost campaign manager and you could see a bodega cat levitating in one of his ads

I'm in the minority, and maybe a small one, but I think these administrative stays are genuinely harmful and should not be treated as routine.

A federal court has ruled that a dramatic step of national significance was illegal and unconstitutional. It ruled.

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We Are All Harvard Now This is a battle for a free society, not a debate about higher education.

This. Exactly. Thanks, @biblioracle.bsky.social .

open.substack.com/pub/academic...

It’s a writing day and every paragraph is followed by a little note like [ugh] or [fix this] or [YUCK].

Twenty-plus years into this whole writing thing and first drafts never get easier.

He was awfully slow and couldn’t keep up so we parted ways quickly. But our bond is eternal.

My 8yo was fascinated. It was his first time seeing one in person!

A snail on a dirt path.

I made a friend on my morning walk.

Universities that prioritize “commercializable” fields over the humanities have long had it exactly backwards. Maybe one thing that comes out of all this is that we’ll finally realize this.

Policymaking and pretrial fairness: Evaluating Illinois' ban on cash bail beyond Chicago Over 400,000 people are incarcerated awaiting trial each day in the United States. Many of these individuals are held because they are unable to post …

And @kaitsims.bsky.social paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Here’s the paper I presented: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Huge thanks to my co-panelists @kaitsims.bsky.social, Cynthia Alkon, Jon Marshall & @chiarapackard.bsky.social for engaging with brilliance and good humor!