Robin Miller Radner

After I read 250 immigration Judge legal opinions on gender-based asylum for research, I've got a pretty clear idea of why people flee. They made brutal calculation that staying is worse than the dangers of going. But our bureaucracy rejects them. Read our NSF funded research here:

Work in Progress: The Voting Rights Act Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS, in which I share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights ...

Today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act's passage in Congress.

Here's what happened next:

Headline from Harvard Crimson: "Harvard President Garber Tells Faculty He Is Not Considering a $500 Million Deal With Trump."

Text of story: Harvard prez Garber says report of a deal "was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials." NYT ran with it as a story.

Important details from this story:

1) Yet another news-break by student journalists (this time @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social) www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

2) Harvard saying "see you in court," not "let's make a deal."

3) Per Garber, WH/MAGA leaked news of a "deal." NYT then ran with it.

PBS: Public Broadcasting Service Watch full episodes of your favorite PBS dramas, find in-depth news analysis and explore documentaries on history, science, art and more!

For $5/month or $60/yr you get access to PBS Passport and the entire Masterpiece library plus Great Performances, etc. Defunded but not defeated. www.pbs.org/passport/lea...

It's funny to think that my preference for urban living in areas with dense, mixed-used, walkable neighborhoods, multi-family housing, small businesses, and diversity probably stems from Sesame Street. Like an early education in Jane Jacob's urbanist theories.

One like, one history opinion

1. Read the introduction, conclusion and endnotes first - in that order

Law and History Review is pleased to announce publication of this year's first issue of The Docket, our digital imprint dedicated to bringing cutting-edge legal history to our readers--no paywall, no access restrictions.

Here's our table of contents for Volume 8, Issue 1-2 (2025)

Evangelical legal group asks Supreme Court to overturn same-sex marriage ruling (RNS) — ‘We think that it’s not a matter of if, but just a matter of when, the Supreme Court will overrule Obergefell,’ said Mathew Staver, head of Liberty Counsel.

An conservative Christian legal group is asking the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the SCOTUS ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

How likely the court is to take up the case depends on who you ask — but the chances aren't zero. religionnews.com/2025/07/30/e...

Living with an urban planner (Emily Bernstein in the New Yorker).

Scholarly Programs | National Humanities Center The National Humanities Center provides scholars with an environment and resources conducive to generating new knowledge and furthering understanding of the human experience.

@acls1919.bsky.social The National Humanities Center welcomes applications from scholars engaged in advanced humanities research for the 2026–27 academic year. The deadline to apply is October 2, 2025. Please help us spread the word about this opportunity.

"Personality, knowledge, and emotion are the three things that need to exist [in art] — and I'm sorry, they don't come from a fucking app." Del Toro sums it up 🫡

Jurisdiction over Infangthief in England: The Case of John Milksop This paper uses a dispute over the franchise of infangthief between the abbot of Tewkesbury and the earl of Gloucester to shed light on jurisdictional claims over the right to try and hang hand-hav...

Interested in medieval law & order, the gallows, the right to hang hand-having thieves (i.e. infangthief), outlaws, and/or jurisdictional disputes over rights to justice? Then check out my recent-ish article on the dispute over John Milksop’s trial & execution.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The 2025 Cundill History Prize Longlist | Cundill Prize The jurors have chosen 15 exceptional titles to be longlisted for the 2025 Cundill History Prize.

Honored that my book is on the longlist for this year’s Cundill History Prize.

www.cundillprize.com/news/the-202...

About 50 Constitutions, a project of the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, aims to make state constitutions more accessible by providing a central repository of searchable constitutional text and an array of supplemental resources and research tools.

Wow. The 50 Constitutions project "aims to make state constitutions more accessible by providing a central repository of searchable constitutional text and an array of supplemental resources and research tools." Via the essential @legalhistoryblog.bsky.social

50constitutions.org/pages/about

I see grocery/takeout shaming discourse going around again, so this is your periodic historian reminder that cooking from scratch daily while working has never been sustainable, and for millennia everyone either relied on takeout & restaurants or ate in huge households w/ big dorm-like group dining.

The cover for the upcoming volume "The Campus Crisis Toolkit: Strategies and Solidarity for the Rest of Us"

IT HAS A COVER! Pleased to announce that _The Campus Crisis Toolkit: Strategies and Solidarity For the Rest of Us_ is coming from @sunypress.bsky.social in Feb. With 25 chapters from over 40 contributors, the book tackles everything from anti-DEI laws to consultants and cuts to campus violence (1/2)

FWIW, I’ve got an archive of self-created, self-hosted, open-source, non-extractive, non-surveillant class websites going back 22 years! wordsinspace.net/classes/

Scopes (bowtie) whispers to defense lawyer Dudley Field Malone as they await the verdict

The jury outside the courthouse

July 21, 1925: John T. Scopes is convicted of violating Tennessee’s law against teaching evolution in public schools. A jury in the town of Dayton takes nine minutes to reach its verdict in a case that has exposed the divide between faith and science and fueled a press frenzy. 1/10

“We wanted to rid ourselves of the fashions of historiography,” Burns summarized at one event, “and make a film that simply shows what happened.”

That’s not how history works though. You’re making an argument about what happened & what mattered even if you don’t realize you’re doing it. 🗃️

I write serious history—via biography—for a non-academic audience. So I'd like to say something about Ken Burns's remark, something that also explains why AI can't write history.

Pardon me for citing the example of one of my books, "Custer's Trials," on one of history's best-known figures.
1/12

A less-discussed tidbit in here: In addition to planting a Christ Kirk extension in DC, Wilson is *also* launching a house church at Hillsdale College.

Hillsdale is already an influential Christian school, but Wilson says he finds it "embarrassing" so many conservative intellectuals are Catholic.*

Happy Fete National (Bastille Day)! Storm a political prison, depose a king, vive la Revolution.

Revisiting Rhys Issac's work on 18th century Virginia. And I am telling you, the rage of the 18th century patriot leader Landon Carter about those who would see the revolution topple the (race and gender and class) hierarchy he felt should still obviously rule an independent America is so revealing.

The opening page of the essay. Here is the first paragraph: -HISTORIANS always note the great impact of Thomas Paine's of the most brilliant pamphlets ever written in the English lan-guage." Yet, despite the frequency of these claims, scholars rarely bring them together as mutually informing insights or controlling premises.! On the one side, the twin appeals of the pamphlet-the historical assertion of immediate impact and the literary assessment of timeless merit-make it an extraordinary source for gauging how Americans think about themselves and their country, then and now. On the other side, the same unique combination of instant effect and lasting influence welcomes rhetorical analy-sis, turning Common Sense into a seminal text for thinking about "the art of persuasion" in American life. One can go further. Precisely how the pamphlet persuades its readers is an object lesson in the workings of modern democratic culture, and the way Americans have absorbed it into collective or national memory remains an untold story in ideological formations.

Still unsurpassed as the best close reading of a non-literary text in my field.

Robert A. Ferguson, “The Commonalities of COMMON SENSE.” William and Mary Quarterly (2000)

Hey friends!

Who can recommend a good popular science book on rocks, geology, etc? Not too stuffy, but like, teach me about the history of everything from a piece of gravel, etc.

For funsies. No particular journalism need.

Thanks in advance! #books #geology 🧪

A terrific thread by my younger colleague, with a super-ominous conclusion.

Legal historian traces history of ‘marital privilege’ in American law | Penn Today Penn Carey Law’s Serena Mayeri’s new book highlights how legal battles against ‘marital supremacy’ advanced equality and the challenges that remain.

It's publication day for "Marital Privilege," by my phenomenal Penn Carey Law colleague @serenamayeri.bsky.social! If you are interested in marriage, non-marital intimate relationships, family law, inequality, 20th c. legal history, law & social movements -- this book is a must-read! #LegalHistory