Chris Yarrell

To all my Bar takers you got this. I know this because I’ve seen your keen analytical and writing skills up close. Your conscientiousness knocks me over. Now you are doing so for your Bar examiners. YOU GOT THIS.

They had one thing right. There really isn’t any such thing as halfway crooks.

How Anti-Affirmative Action Crusaders Are Escalating Their War on Inclusive Democracy This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news...

Across the country, schools and universities are now getting sued not for using race—but for trying not to. talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/how-ant...

How Anti-Affirmative Action Crusaders Are Escalating Their War on Inclusive Democracy Challenges to school admissions policies in Baltimore and Boston show how conservative activists are transforming principles of equal protection into tools for preserving racial hierarchy.

Good post from @chrisyarrell.bsky.social on the absurdity of legal challenges to race-neutral admissions policies: If tuition assistance for low-income students "discriminates" against white people, charging tuition should also be suspect. Oddly, Stephen Miller types never make that argument.

COPAA and fellow advocacy groups file an amicus brief with Ninth Circuit urging affirmance of lower court’s correct ruling on IDEA statute of limitations.
🔗 cdn.ymaws.com/www.copaa.or...

really important to emphasize that roberts' view of the executive branch as comprising a single individual is literally contradicted by the text of the constitution itself

Screen grab of a Boston Globe article on a recent lawsuit filed by Pacific Legal Foundation against Boston’s specialized school admissions plan.

A similar “racial discrimination by proxy” suit was filed yesterday by Pacific Legal Foundation, albeit in the k12/exam school admissions context:

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/17/m...

We're in court today challenging an Arkansas law that forces public schools to display the Ten Commandments.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Public schools aren't Sunday schools.

Parents’ group sues over BPS exam school admissions, alleging discrimination against white students - The Boston Globe The same group also sued the district over a zip code-based admission policy it used during the pandemic.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/17/m...

The Supreme Court teaches that the president’s control over the executive branch is so complete and perfect that it is beyond the reach of criminal law and the president can destroy agencies and fire whomever he wants. But DOJ is “out of the president’s control.”

Justice Dept. Asks for 1-Day Sentence for Ex-Officer Convicted in Breonna Taylor Raid

They mean to be as insulting to Black people, as dismissive of our lives, as resistance to our status as full citizens in this country as they can be.

There is no common ground to be had at the expense of our sisters & daughters’ lives and our dignity as a people.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/u...

CFP: Inaugural Association of Law and Political Economy Conference A forthcoming conference will launch the The Association of Law and Political Economy (ALPE): a membership organization with a regular annual conference, elected leadership, and an architecture for…

Have you heard the good news?

A forthcoming conference will launch the The Association of Law and Political Economy: a membership organization with a regular annual conference, elected leadership, and an architecture for open participation and collaboration.

Couldn't be more excited about this CFP - and the new organization it will help launch. Check it out, and get together w/ your pals to think up the panels, roundtables, and papers you might want to present!

It occurs to me that lots of folks have forgotten or never knew why Rahm Emmanuel is utterly unacceptable to segments of our community. I will not forget #LaQuanMcDonald, or who helped conceal evidence of how he was killed.

inthesetimes.com/article/laqu...

So let me see if I have this straight, they don’t want a federal education department, “send it back to the states,” except they also don’t want to actually send any federal money to help states provide education, except...
1/

"Let's return ___ to the states"

When politicians say this—eg regarding FEMA, or the Department of Education—is this "federalism"?

Or is it a cowardly way of saying "let's eliminate ___, and when it's gone, I'd like to deflect blame to the states"?

(Hint: it's never about federalism.)

A brief 🧵

Agreed. Re-upping a piece I wrote for @commondreams.org back in March that touches on some of these issues.

www.commondreams.org/opinion/stud...

Yeah, let’s run an experiment that re-traumatizes children to make an AI that won’t ever be able to detect trauma in children. If that’s not the AI industry’s motto, I don’t know what is??

Also, how does something like this even pass IRB?

Congress created a Department of Education and made clear that the President can't unilaterally shut the department down. If the Supreme Court is going to overrule two lower courts and let that happen -- and it will be effectively irreversible -- they have an obligation to tell us why.

Yes, and with many apologies to my beloved colleague @leahlitman.bsky.social .

American Teachers in Red States Are Walking Away for Good The predictable consequences of the right wing’s war on public schools are being felt as educators leave their communities—and their profession.

"We don’t make enough money to put up with this."

Last year, US K-12 schools opened short 55,000 teachers. Between book bans and political attacks on schools and educators, it's looking like this year's shortages will be even more dire, especially in red states.

newrepublic.com/article/1967...

Lifting the District Court’s injunction will unleash untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended. The majority apparently deems it more important to free the Government from paying employees it had no right to fire than to avert these very real harms while the litigation continues. Equity does not support such an inequitable result. * * * The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed, not set out to dismantle them. That basic rule undergirds our Constitution’s separation of powers. Yet today, the majority rewards clear defiance of that core principle with emergency relief. Because I cannot condone such abuse of our equitable authority, I respectfully dissent.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to move forward with the abolition of the Department of Education. It gives no explanation for its order. All three liberals dissent. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

From Sotomayor's dissent:

167. The Inconsistent Court Strikes Again Comparing Monday's unexplained grant of emergency relief in the Department of Education downsizing case to how the justices handled President Biden's student loan program is ... telling.

My quick take on Monday afternoon's unexplained #SCOTUS ruling in the Department of Education downsizing case—and how the justices' inconsistent treatment of the (similarly postured) student loan cases during the Biden administration illustrates in technicolor why the Court needs to explain itself:

Justice Jackson is easily the most clear eyed expositor of the concrete stakes of administrative law and executive power on the Court. An exemplar of public reason.

Today is UVA President Jim Ryan’s last day. He is a prince of princes, a sage of sages, a mensch of mensches. Having never known my President at two schools before I joined UVA Law, I can say with confidence there is no leader like him. I’m grateful he will be back to the law school.

How Harvard’s Ties to China Helped Make It a White House Target

Nothing that any university has done has "helped make it a White House target". Universities are targets bc they are *always* targeted by authoritarian regimes, and anything would have been a pretext. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/u...

Trump’s $7 Billion Education Funding Freeze Blindsides Schools Superintendents are scrambling to figure out what to do with programs funded by the money now under review.

It's not a "funding freeze" or "hold." It's an unlawful seizure of federal funds and it's categorically unconstitutional.

www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

The elites are failing us because they enjoy the luxury of living with democracy, not needing to live for it or through it.

They hoard its opportunities & privileges and feign concern for its troubles & misfortunes. Those intractable problems, after all, help keep them elite

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Cases Involving Transgender Athletes

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/u...

The next Democratic president can just impound the billions of extra ICE funding on day one, right? Withhold it without any explanation? Since that’s a thing presidents can do now?