Maggie Blackhawk

Opinion | No Empire. No Kings.

Gift link to Beinart's op-ed, which is very much worth reading.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/o...

Opinion | Trump’s Strikes on Iran Were Unlawful. Here’s Why That Matters.

The strikes on Iran are blatantly illegal. I explained in June why the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were unlawful under US and international law. Everything I wrote then is true today, but this is a far larger assault with far graver consequences.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/o...

The Central Fire of the Iroquois A comprehensive history of the Native American community at the heart of the HaudenosauneeThe people of the Onondaga Nation have lived in central New York St...

Our release date is still seven months away, but my book is now up on the Yale website. Grateful to so many people who helped make this possible.

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

University of Michigan: On Friday, come participate in a day-long conference discussing/criticizing my new book *The Oldest Constitutional Question: Enumeration and Federal Power.*

With Profs. Jack Balkin (Yale), Maggie Blackhawk (NYU), Sam Erman (Michigan), Jonathan Gienapp (Stanford)…

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This material drawn upon for this essay is part of two larger book projects, so feedback welcomed.

Our History Is the Future In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous p...

Title, The History of the Constitution is Our Future is an homage to the great Nick Estes www.versobooks.com/products/600...

As constitutional interpretation becomes rooted ever more deeply into the past the Constitution seemingly has less and less to say about our present. It seems to offer little principled direction for navigating what many describe as a constitutional crisis. On questions ranging from birthright citizenship and territorial acquisition to aggressive federal immigration enforcement, executive intervention beyond U.S. borders, and the “history and tradition” of annexed territories such as Hawai’i, the Constitution’s familiar sources of authority and traditional narratives seem to falter. These domains appear to tread into empty constitutional landscapes and newly discovered territory. Scholars have increasingly traced this backward-looking orientation to conservative legal movements of the last half century. But the impulse to seek constitutional meaning in the past is not new. Long before the Supreme Court embraced originalism, and long before the modern turn to “history and tradition,” jurists and scholars assumed that the Constitution could not be understood apart from its origins and development. Constitutional meaning was thought to emerge from historical inquiry. The question, then, was not whether constitutional interpretation should engage with the past, but which past—and through what historical method. This Foreword argues that our present constitutional impasse stems, at least in part, not solely from excessive attention to the past but from fixation on a particular kind of past. Modern constitutional theory, I suggest, has been increasingly bounded by what scholars in the historical and social sciences call a methodological nationalism. By nationalism, I do not mean to invoke familiar federalism debates. Nor do I use the term nationalism as a pejorative or a critique of those whose research centers the United States and its founders. Rather, in identifying mainstream constitutional theory as operating within a nationalist frame, I seek to draw attention t…

New Foreword up on SSRN, previewing new projects on the history of constitutional history and what it can teach about legal frameworks at the heart of our "constitutional crisis"-federal Indian law, territorial law, expansion, immigration, and executive power. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Rediscovery of America National Bestseller Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction • Finalist for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History • Winner of 2024...

Ned Blackhawk's magisterial epic reimagining of American history ftw. @maggieblackhawk.bsky.social

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

NTSB blames 'deep' systemic failures for deadly midair collision near Washington, D.C. After a yearlong investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board did not find a single cause for the deadly collision near Washington, D.C., but blamed the crash on multiple systemic failures.

Worth noting you likely wouldn't have this pointed but helpful kind of interagency critique in a world without agency independence--at least not unless a president wants it. I don't think people realize how much we gain from structured conflict in the executive branch.

www.npr.org/2026/01/27/n...

Open Letter to Minnesota Law CommunityJanuary 25 January 25, 2026 To the Minnesota Law Community: We, the undersigned faculty of the University of Minnesota Law School, write in our individual capacities to address the federal government's ongoin...

Standing with 65 of my UMN Law colleagues (and counting) to condemn ICE’s lawless conduct towards Minnesotans: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Former Native American concentration camp lies beneath current immigration detention center - ICT Fort Snelling, the site of a Dakota War era concentration camp, is once again being used to detain Indigenous people

Sometimes we talk about the enduring presence of genocidal institutions in a metaphorical way. But sometimes it’s physical.

ictnews.org/news/former-...

my Blackest opinion is that the presumption of conflict between "America has a long and deeply rooted history of violence" and "we can and should fight against today's version of that, as did those who came before us" is less a philosophical debate about how to treat the past and more a skill issue

At a time when federal agents are taking "non-citizen" children to detention camps in Minnesota, I offer that Minnesota has been here before. My ancestors have been here before. Perhaps there are deeper lessons in these histories to understand U.S. authoritarianism, as well as forms of resistance.

With respect, I understand the need to foster a national identity that resists authoritarianism. But reminders of the Trail of Tears don't undermine this effort; they strengthen it. Excluding these histories makes U.S. authoritarianism harder to recognize because its patterns no longer feel familiar

The incomparable @maggieblackhawk.bsky.social with a short explainer worth your attention

But it is an especially pernicious constitutional rule for a nation with borders that have shifted profoundly from the Founding--incorporating hundreds of millions of acres through force and military might. It should not surprise that Hawai'i is at the heart of this question.

This could result in a rule that rights will be defined by the "history & tradition" of a "national tradition." "National tradition" preempts property law, local custom, and even general practice within plural communities. This strikes me as strange even under the mythic view of "our federalism"

The justices are more comfortable with a 1771 law from New Jersey (before independence), than the laws of a jurisdiction overthrown with a"Bayonet Constitution" and brought into the union through resolution (without even a treaty). In contrast with the Black Codes, they take no issue with this act.

The justices emphasize, as has counsel for the challengers, that Hawai'i's "history & tradition" until 1958 is less relevant, because Hawai'i is "part of the U.S."

Ironically, the same justices also take issue with the "Black Codes" because they are unconstitutional and morally questionable.

#SCOTUS hears oral argument today in Wolford (2d Am (right to "bear arms")). An issue lurks behind the scenes: whether Bruen's history & tradition preempts property/customary law, supplanting local law with a "national tradition." Here, preempting Hawai'i's tradition banning guns for over 200 years.

Oglala Sioux Tribe demands the release of Lakota men detained by ICE The Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota has demanded the Department of Homeland Security release tribally enrolled citizens held by ICE, according to a statement released by the tribe.

Oglala Sioux Tribe demands the release of Lakota men detained by ICE www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Friendly reminder, apropos of nothing: Greenland is a nearly autonomous Indigenous-governed nation, not an empty landscape to be "discovered" and "protected" by the United States (or any other "civilized" European nation).

"This map shows pre-colonized North America, depicting the approximate territories of Indigenous peoples prior to European colonization." https://www.thecollector.com/maps-resources/pre-columbian-north-america-map/

🗃️ Time to rewrite immigration history with Native history in mind. The US was founded on the conquest, dispossession, removal, exploitation, or genocide of Native people. Denial of that fact generated counter-myths: empty land, waste land, Manifest Destiny—and the slogan “nation of immigrants.” 🧵1/7

Trump says US oversight of Venezuela could last years, NYT reports "We will rebuild it in a very profitable way," Trump said.

Trump says US oversight of Venezuela could last years, NYT reports reut.rs/3Z26kLj

Friends, I hope you’ll share this widely. The @jcblibrary.bsky.social is hiring 2 3-yr research associates for collaborative work on religions and freedoms in the early Americas. Info is here and I’m happy to take questions offline: brown.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/staff-...

A project I am organizing is hiring a part time workshop coordinator. Applications due January 1. Do you have experience working with Indigenous young people? Do you have experience in creative writing? This job might be right for you! App link in thread -->

Opinion | The Great Unraveling Has Begun

My latest, in the @nytimes.com:

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/o...

Jeff Landry is the Governor of Louisiana.

Opinion | The Great Unraveling Has Begun

Hathaway: "The relative peace of the last eight decades should not be taken for granted. []The peace was never perfect. Yet the pact accomplished something remarkable: Conquest, once common, became rare, and fewer people died as a result of nations joining in conflicts outside their own borders."