Noah Smith-Drelich

There are too many people to thank, most not on this site. But to those who are (I think just @abonisaenz.bsky.social & @billwatson-law.bsky.social ), thank you! Also thanks to @jerryedwards.bsky.social, @patsobkowski.com, & @yeargain.bsky.social for encouraging me to get this up on SSRN + here. 7/7

This has been the best sort of gap-filling project. I've touched on the idea of a fundamental right in my previous travel writing (as have a few others, such as @anthonymkreis.bsky.social in his Harv. L. Rev. Blog piece). But I needed a citation. It turned out more interesting than I'd hoped. 6/7

Moreover, the right to free movement has been consistently recognized by the Supreme Court. Although the Court has called it by different names and located it in different parts of the Constitution (& sometimes no specific part), it has been near-unanimous in affirming this right to travel. 5/7

This idea that people have a right to move freely both within and across borders has persisted, serving as an important touchstone of both policy and popular culture. Put simply, the right to free movement is robustly represented in history and tradition--however you spin it. 4/7

Travel rights were also an important part of the tensions leading to the Civil War, which is reflected in the Reconstruction Amendments and associated legislation. And travel rights were protected in every state constitution (37/37) at the time of the ratification of the 14th Amendment. 3/7

This broad-reaching travel right is recognized in the Magna Carta, in Blackstone's Commentaries, and throughout colonial-era America. It was a key motivator in the Revolutionary War and it's protected in various ways by all but two (& arguably all) of the state constitutions in force as of 1791. 2/7

New to @ssrn.bsky.social, I just posted the Forgotten Fundamental Right to Free Movement, 119 Nw. U. L. Rev. 811 (2025). In this, I argue that free movement -- intrastate, interstate, and international -- is a fundamental constitutional right. 1/7

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

*In defense of Luddites...* was a good one.

In rural areas, there are few choices because there aren't many kids. My hometown district was consolidating while I was a student. After college, I taught on the Pine Ridge Reservation and there was one HS in my community. Adding an 'option' in either place would have jeopardized what was there.

I graduated from Allegany, a public HS in rural Appalachia. Discussions of school choice (see Drummond) don't give enough credence to the fact that most parents have little effective choice. The practical result of publicly funding religious schools will be to force that education on many students.

Travel rights (which are reasonably robust, if regularly overlooked) can provide a bulwark against these sorts of anti-travel provisions. I wrote about this in Travel Rights in a Culture War, 101 Tex. L. Rev. O. 21 (2022),
texaslawreview.org/travel-right.... But litigants need to assert them!

I think this is a (grim) illustration of what Alex Yelderman @alexyelderman.bsky.social writes about in Danger as Deterrent, 65 B.C. L. Rev. 113 (2024). bclawreview.bc.edu/articles/311....

Before now, law students largely struggled to differentiate one big law firm from another. One effect of Trump's individualized targeting of these places, and the various reactions that it's provoked, is to reveal meaningful differences that might not have been obvious to students before.

The total amount of funding for the police isn't all that matters; the source of funding does as well. Cuts in federal funding may well be offset by increases in local funding (in many/most jx). But -- at least from an accountability standpoint -- that could still be a meaningful positive change.

Here's a possibly good $$ cut, which could help with police accountability. One effect of external funding for the police is to smooth the local costs of police misconduct liability, diminishing local pressures to reform. I write about this in Funding the Police, 84 Ohio State L. J. 717 (2023).

SCOTUS throws out Glossip conviction, prosecutors to decide on new trial The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025.

It's not every day that you get to stop an execution. Congratulations to my co-counsel (in a different case) and law school classmate, Amy Knight, on the Glossip decision! nondoc.com/2025/02/25/s...

Wait, wait, wait…how is that?

Fascinating take on Mexico politics/policy and AMLO specifically.

The colors in the 1896 Appalachia map read to me--as someone who grew up there--as the difference between Appalachia as a cultural region (dark green) and as a geographic region (light green), and they mostly track my current impressions. But I'm not seeing a key; what do they actually represent?

I guess it depends on what you think most upset people about the Pinto case. Was it the # of deaths, or Ford's apparent willingness to tolerate some horrible customer deaths if it could save ~$10/car?

"The punitive damage award [is] more difficult to justify. ...It rested on the premise that Ford had behaved reprehensibly when it balanced safety against cost.... Such trade-off[s] seem[] not only to be anticipated but endorsed by the prevailing risk-benefit standard for design liability." --GS

"[A]s for safety, the Pinto was a car that was neither admirable nor despicable. [I]ts design features apparently gave it a worse-than-average record [for rear-end fire]. Hence, there was nothing clearly wrong in subjecting Ford to liability for harms resulting from that latter category of fires."

Not to defend Tesla's safety record, but I'm not sure that we should benchmark things to the Pinto case. Check out Gary T. Schwartz, The Myth of the Ford Pinto, 43 Rutgers L. Rev. 1013 (1991).

Federal Indian Law follow-up: would Noem's move to the federal executive allow her to visit these reservations? I can't imagine she'd try, but that'd put the tribes' sovereign power to exclude in direct tension with the federal government's authority over tribal nations.

It's an area the size of Connecticut!

Interesting twist on the Kristi Noem nomination: she's been barred from stepping foot on each of the reservations located within South Dakota (all 9). DHS is relatively new, but has there ever been a Secretary of Homeland Security who can't legally visit all of the parts of the 'homeland'?