Ben Eidelson

Update: I pointed out this tension with Trump DOJ guidance, and the EEOC Chair responded that it's "[e]mbarrassing that a Harvard Law professor has this degree of reading and listening comprehension issues." Ok then!

Isn't this message from the EEOC blatantly unconstitutional under Trump DOJ guidance? A nice exhibit for any university challenged over targeted recruitment or the like!

"Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim..."

It seems to me Congress should hold off on funding elaborate conspiracies to violate the Constitution.

YouTube video by Minuteman Media Network Protecting Free Speech in K 12 & Beyond - January 15, 2026

P.S. The Bluesky embed above is the whole event, which is interesting & worthwhile, but the part I meant to link to is here and should now embed below ... : youtu.be/uNaTmCdzx94?...

And here are some of the slides, meant to capture what the hard question is, what I think the bottom line is, and why the IHRA definition, as it's been construed, is problematic:

YouTube video by Minuteman Media Network Protecting Free Speech in K 12 & Beyond - January 15, 2026

I spoke yesterday at a local event here in MA about efforts to restrict criticism of Israel in K-12 schools and how schools should think about defining antisemitism in light of the 1st Amendment. Here's the video (~20 minutes): www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNaT...
CC @concernedjfaculty.bsky.social

The latest version of Case Viewer (www.caseviewer.app) includes a beta of an integrated chatbot that's pretty distinctive and genuinely useful (IMHO). It reads the case, answers directly based on the text, and scrolls you to the relevant passages. @caseviewerapp.bsky.social

New experiments with an integrated chat/assistant for Case Viewer. Still pretty amazing what LLMs can do, especially when they have full access to the relevant text

I am trying to keep most of the Case Viewer content on @CaseViewerApp.bsky.social, but I'm especially proud of this innovation and can't resist sharing it here too. The best way to read a judicial opinion, IMHO. (The magic is that none of the section titles below are actually in the opinion.)

Harvard Law professor launches Case Viewer app for easier access to court decisions - Harvard Law School Harvard Law Professor Ben Eidelson tapped into a childhood passion to build a tool for lawyers and law students.

A nice write up about Case Viewer, my legal browser app: hls.harvard.edu/today/harvar...

If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac and haven't tried it, you should! Learn more at www.caseviewer.app, follow @caseviewerapp.bsky.social, or download for free from app store: apps.apple.com/app/apple-st...

Based on the @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social's new reporting, Harvard's commitment to scrubbing discussion of race from the admissions process (left) appears to go far beyond what the conservative Supreme Court majority actually required in SFFA (right).

Check out the latest version of Case Viewer on the App Store — now with detailed AI annotations, on iPhone, iPad, and macOS

apps.apple.com/app/apple-st...

Kagan’s short dissent is unanswerable.

Case Viewer is one of those tools you didn't know you needed. Apple-only for now, but it brings a simple, clean interface to reading case law, and it's finally out of beta!

We're proud to have our APIs and data integrated into the tool and we encourage folks to give it a try!

Case Viewer, my quirky side project of building my ideal legal search & reading app, has come a long way. With lots of help, it's grown into the best way to find & read cases on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Check it out or download on the App Store below. And follow @CaseViewerApp for updates!

Trump Administration Live Updates: President’s Order on Burning Flag Reveals Its Own Limits

Even with its professed limits, Trump’s flag-burning order appears blatantly unconstitutional. “Prosecute disfavored acts of expression insofar as they also constitute criminal acts under some content-neutral law” is not content-neutral. @charliesavage.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

I have learned a ton from engaging across differences with Sherif and this essay is a wonderful example. Highly recommended!

Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and Title VI: A Guide for the Perplexed - Harvard Law Review The past eighteen months have seen an unprecedented wave of claims by public officials and private plaintiffs that universities are violating their legal obligations...

The op-ed draws on my co-authored article on "Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and Title VI" with @hellmandeborah.bsky.social in the Harvard Law Review Forum, available here: harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-13... (3/3)

Most glaringly, it treats speech acts (like putting an anti-Israel sign on your laptop) as discrimination against a group if they disproportionately _affect_ that group—no intent needed. This is a form of disparate impact, a linchpin of civil rights that Trump has pronounced unconstitutional. (2/3)

Trump goes ‘woke’ in report on antisemitism at Harvard - The Boston Globe What is most striking is the brazen hypocrisy — one might even say chutzpah — of the Trump lawyers’ arguments.

As I explain in this @bostonglobe.com op-ed, the new Trump ruling on antisemitism at Harvard is deeply ironic—it quietly embraces ideas about anti-discrimination law that the administration has repudiated for civil rights claims by every other group. (1/3)

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/03/o...

P.S. if somehow I missed what they're actually citing there, I will delete this. But I looked pretty hard before posting this and I really don't see it.

Is it possible OCR turned “As a Muslim woman who wears hijab, I have been spat on and harassed in multiple places on campus” into "reports of Jewish and Israeli students being spit on in the face for wearing a yarmulke"??

If so, that pretty well sums up the seriousness of this investigation. (3/3)

But the only mention of spitting in that part of the report is a complaint by a "Muslim woman who wears hijab." And there are no complaints of spitting anywhere else in the report either (though there's another mention of "spitting at pro-Palestinian demonstrators"). (2/3)

A stunning and telling error in the Title VI "notice of violation" against Harvard:

One of the document's most striking claims is that Harvard ignored "reports of Jewish and Israeli students being spit on in the face for wearing a yarmulke." This is repeated in their letter & in news coverage.(1/3)

Reading the Title VI "notice of violation" against Harvard makes stark that, to a large extent, the target is not antisemitism (not even trumped up claims of antisemitism) but protests. Where in these descriptions of alleged misconduct is the discrimination against Jewish (or Israeli) students?

www.hhs.gov/sites/defaul...

Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and Title VI: A Guide for the Perplexed - Harvard Law Review The past eighteen months have seen an unprecedented wave of claims by public officials and private plaintiffs that universities are violating their legal obligations...

But if the administration thinks "faculty members from the Harvard Law School ... are presumably familiar with legal evidentiary burdens of proof," they might be interested in one such faculty member's explanation of why these Title VI claims are very dubious: harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-13...

There is much that's far-fetched and remarkable about Trump admin's new Title VI finding against Harvard. One example is this bizarre bit about why claims in Harvard's antisemitism report can be treated as evidence—despite the task force's explanation that it 'did not require ... evidence'! (1/2)