Rob Mickey

Abstract Academic freedom is an unusual and complex set of norms and practices. It arises out of the combination of the corporate self-governance of medieval universities and the spirit of disciplinary scientific inquiry in modern research universities. It combines a principle of antiorthodoxy as to conclusions with the robust associational self-governance of scholarly communities whose members evaluate one another as participants in that shared enterprise. It has never been easily or wholly embraced by wider societies; today it is under wholesale attack. This article combines conceptual, normative, and historical analyses of academic freedom as a general norm with attention to conflicts over it in the mid-to-late 2010s and early 2020s. Some genuinely hard cases and questions tested the meaning of academic freedom and university values well before the current crisis.

Now posted ahead of print:

"Conceptualizing Academic Freedom," forthcoming, Annual Review of Political Science.

(Uncorrected proofs, so a few minor edits different from the version that will be published in June.)

doi.org/10.1146/annu...

Picture of No Option But Sabotage

My book—No Option But Sabotage: The Radical Environmental Movement and the Climate Crisis—comes out today!

It's the result of 3+ years of research and 150+ interviews with 100+ activists and experts.

210. The President's Lack of Power Over Elections President Trump keeps insisting that he can unilaterally change the rules for voting in the midterms. It's not just that he's *wrong*; it's that there's no mechanism through which he could even *try.*

President Trump keeps threatening to unilaterally impose rules (like voter ID requirements) on upcoming elections.

Today's "One First" explains why, whether as a matter of constitutional law, existing federal statutes, or simple, practical logistics, his (ominous) threats are ultimately empty ones:

President Trump's Claim of an "Irrefutable" Argument Supporting His Right to Unilaterally Impose Voter ID and Election Rules May Be Based on Insane Claim that Marriott Hotel Manager Found Secret Text ... Yesterday I noted the latest set of unhinged social media posts from President Trump in which he declared that voter id requirements and other election changes would be imposed in the midterms via exe...

🚨 President Trump’s Claim of an “Irrefutable” Argument Supporting His Right to Unilaterally Impose Voter ID and Election Rules May Be Based on Insane Claim that Marriott Hotel Manager Found Secret Text in the Shadows of a Microfilm Copy of the U.S. Constitution electionlawblog.org?p=154326

Wut.

How the Democrats Can Play Offense on Immigration Typically, Democrats run for the hills when immigration comes up. But as two blue-state governors are showing, the winning play is actually to confront ICE and MAGA xenophobia head on.

The extraordinary courage of people who are documenting ICE atrocities in places like Minneapolis, at great personal risk, are also achieving something else: They're changing the public's mind about immigration. We have a rare opportunity here. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/2059...

Current state of things: One Fox News host casually declares that Epstein’s money comes from “Jewish billionaires” and a “Jewish banking family,” another responds that he was a “sex rabbi.” www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/jes...

Yesterday we learned that the Department of Justice is monitoring and tracking members of Congress’s searches of the Epstein files. There’s no sugar coating it: the administration is spying on lawmakers as they exercise their constitutional oversight responsibilities. 1/10

Sen. Murphy: “So, your belief is that white Americans face more discrimination. at least prior to the Trump administration…than Black Americans?”

Jeremy Carl, Trump's nominee to be assistant secretary of state for international organizations: "Yes, that's correct.”

Local and State Police Can Investigate Federal Agents, But Rarely Do It doesn’t happen often, but local law enforcement can arrest and charge federal agents. Legal experts say there’s a moral obligation to at least try to hold federal immigration officers accountable w...

“Unfortunately, because Congress is not taking any steps to rein ICE officers in, there really is no option other than states protecting their constituents’ rights," said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at UCLA.

Every photo from Minneapolis looks like this. Cops decked out with guns and full tac gear facing off against people in bathrobes, parkas, and sweatpants armed only with whistles and cell phones.

Yet every verified MAGA chode on X dutifully calls it a riot or violent insurrection.

Minnesota FACE Off: A Deep Dive Into the St. Paul Church Protest Case Unpacking the Don Lemon indictment, its factual allegations, the elements the government must prove to convict, and the potential defenses available to the accused.

NEW: Don Lemon is set to be arraigned this week on charges tied to a protest at a church.

The case has raised press freedom concerns. But the constitutional provision most likely to derail the indictment isn’t the First Amendment—it’s the Commerce Clause.

⬇️⬇️⬇️

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/minn...

Important & timely working paper from East, Cox, and my colleague @caitlinpatler.bsky.social

Trump II systematically using "community arrests" (ICE arrests on the street, workplace, in the community, etc) and not targeting immigrants w/ criminal convictions

NBER link: www.nber.org/system/files...

This is a great piece. Loved this anecdote.

Senator Chuck Schumer conducts a news conference in the U.S. Capitol in May 2025. Image: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images FORUM How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism Moderation used to help Democrats win, but its advantages now have been greatly exaggerated. Adam Bonica, Jake Grumbach With responses from → Cori Bush, Amanda Litman, Matthew Yglesias, G. Elliott Morris, Julia Serano, Eric Rauchway, Suzanne Mettler & Trevor E. Brown, Thomas Ferguson, Timothy Shenk, Jared Abbott & Milan Loewer, Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, Lily Geismer, Danielle Wiggins, William A. Galston, and Henry Burke

We have a Boston Review Forum out today on the Democratic Party in a time of authoritarianism

www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

we've entirely dispensed with even the faintest veneer of DOJ independence

Mike Johnson on Trump calling for Rs to "nationalize" elections: "We had 3 Republicans who were ahead on election day in last cycle & every time a new tranche of ballots came in they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost. It looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove it? No"

Donald Trump’s ego might just save democracy Minnesota provides a blueprint for how to prevent a slide into authoritarianism we’ve seen in other countries.

My latest in @vox.com. Spectacle is the president's greatest strength, and his administration's greatest weakness

“Enough Police, but Not Enough Police Work: An Institutional Explanation of Under-Policing in the U.S.” with Robert Mickey and Daniel Ziblatt. While there is a growing consensus that aggressive criminal sentencing does not tend to reduce crime in the U.S., a popular view is that the country is ``under-policed.'' Although police officers per capita are above the median among OECD countries, the U.S. is an outlier in having few police per homicide. We argue that the U.S.'s low police-per-homicide rate is explained not by police staffing levels but by high levels of bureaucratic shirking, characterized by inefficient allocation, low effort, and the avoidance of bodily harm. We show that U.S. officers are paid significantly more (in relative and absolute terms) while not being at greater risk in the line of duty than their international counterparts. We argue that comparatively high agency loss in policing is explained by institutional features of American federalism, which make possible both the cartel power of American police and the policy pathologies that follow from its deployment.

While I have you here, check out my mixtape with @robmickey.bsky.social and @dziblatt.bsky.social:

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/35o94...

Definitely a positive correlation between age and prob(can't remember).

Colts banner reading "Denied Bill Belichick 1st-ballot HOF"

Time to hang another banner, you sore, sore losers.

"You raise your voice, I erase your voice."

ICE in Minneapolis are erasing your rights.
Please share our new video of what's happening in our city. youtu.be/W1dyNcRGRXY

The killing of Alex Pretti and the grotesque lying was an overreach by the administration. They've paid a price and had to pull back a bit. But it's when there's some disarray that the democratic opposition needs to intensify the offensive, and turn a marginal tactical success into a major victory.

Literally all of this is a lie. We are about to find out who is state media, because they will be the ones to parrot a justification for state-sanctioned murder.

During the 2020 protests, the uniformed military, national guard, did a far better job not escalating than regular police forces and that’s very much what they don’t want

Also, may I say that I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.

Yep. And now, well after Reconstruction’s defeat (let’s say that instead of “failure”) the central state has developed a robust repressive capacity. This time it’s deploying it not to defend multiracial democracy but to defend a very different vision.

Both of Nevada's senators--Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen--have officially come out against the DHS funding bill following the execution of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis this morning. This effectively ends the DHS funding bill in the Senate.

This was murder. Pretti did not initiate the confrontation. He didn’t strike them. He didn’t brandish his gun. They tackled him, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him.

over-complicated hot take: you'd be a very good traitor, but if you were a faithful, fellow faithfuls wouldn't trust you.