The Volokh Conspiracy

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent | Est. 2002

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Free Speech

Even "Trumpy Judges" and "Woke Judges" Might Know More Law Than You Do

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I appreciate that many people are skeptical about judges. Indeed, it's good that people take with a grain of salt the statements of government officials, including judges. Judges are human, and humans make mistakes and have prejudices and blind spots.

At the same time, judges are generally quite well-trained lawyers, and know a good deal about what they're writing about. Conventional wisdom holds that federal judges generally are particularly well-qualified (of course, with exceptions, as is true for all institutions). Federal judges also generally employ quite well-qualified law clerks, who do much of the  research and initial opinion drafting.

This means that, for all the risk of error and ideological bias, judges generally (though not always) know what they're talking about in their legal analysis. They tend to particularly know more than non-lawyers, but also often more than lawyers who aren't specialists in the particular field. You might assume that some judge is "woke" or "Trumpy" or what have you, but there's a pretty good chance that the judge's legal analysis is still correct.

This post was prompted by a comment I saw on the Eric Coomer (of Dominion Voting) Loses Libel Lawsuit over The Deep Rig post, though this is just one example of a broader trend. The comment quotes an excerpt from the post's excerpt of the judge's opinion:

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Elections

The Law and Democrats Allegedly Recruiting Second "Dan Sullivan" to Run in Alaska Senate Race

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Election law expert and UCLA Prof. Rick Hasen (Election Law Blog) has a post about this; an excerpt:

Today's New York Times story, if true, strikes me as a political bombshell: despite public denials of a connection, people associated with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska Mary Peltola and Democratic Party officials recruited the second "Dan Sullivan" to run against the incumbent Republican U.S. Senator from Alaska, Dan S. Sullivan. The hope would be to siphon votes away from Sullivan. (As a political play, I'm skeptical that this would work, given Alaska's ranked choice voting approach would allow ranking both Dan Sullivans as 1 and 2, thereby not helping Peltola.)

But what, if any, are the legal implications of the story (if true)?

To begin with, I don't think it has any bearing at all on the current litigation in which the U.S. Department of Justice seeks to delay certification of the race if Dan S. Sullivan narrowly loses on grounds of purported voter confusion. The lawsuit is not going anywhere for any number of reasons, but even assuming DOJ's theory that it can sue to block certification, it is irrelevant as to why voters might face confusion over the two Dan Sullivans. (This has not stopped DOJ from now supporting DSCC intervention so that it can get discovery over a potential "conspiracy"). [Disclosure: I will soon be filing a motion to file an amicus brief on my own behalf supporting the State of Alaska in this case.]

Second, if there is any evidence that anyone lied under oath about the cooperation between Democrats and Dan J. Sullivan, that could be grounds for a perjury prosecution. So far I'm not aware of any such allegation in the case.

Third, this leaves the question whether this could be prosecuted as some kind of conspiracy against voters.

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Israeli Jews Vote by Economic Status, Even Though Elections Turn on Other Issues

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A fascinating chart from Yedioth Aharanot newspaper shows the voting breakdown of the Jewish electorate in the Israeli election.

 

 

 

 

People the pollsters deem to be in the bottom 10% in socio-economic status voted 96.7% for Netanyahu's Likud and parties aligned with it. Those in the top 10% voted 80.9% for opposition parties.

What makes this particularly interesting is that the election turned almost entirely on issues that are not economic in the ordinary sense, such as conscripting Haredi Jews, which factions would best resist outside pressure for a Palestinian state, who is best-positioned to finish the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, and who is to blame for 10/7. Many voters expressed concern to pollsters about the cost of living, but none of the major parties talked much about it.

So to a large and often unappreciated (at least outside Israel) extent, Israeli politics is culture-war politics. Netanyahu and his allies represent voters who are more religiously traditional, less-educated, live on "the periphery," poorer, and, importantly, of recent North African or Middle Eastern descent--Israelis who were treated as outsiders by the Ashkenazi socialists who ran the country until Menahem Begin broke their stranglehold on elections in 1977. Netanyahu's opponents rely on voters who are disproportionately Ashkenazi, better-educated, wealthier, live in Tel Aviv or Haifa, and more secular-minded.

Another interesting aspect of this is that while the religious/secular divide comes up in politicking all the time, Israeli politics mostly avoid explicit ethnic or wealth-based appeals. The de facto leader of the opposition, Gadi Eisenkot, is the son of Moroccan immigrants. Moroccans are a huge part of Netanyahu's base, but Eisenkot's potential to be the first Moroccan (and first non-Ashkenazi) prime minister barely played a role in the campaign, and he did not try to give it one.

I will leave it to those more expert than I on Israeli politics to analyze this further, but it sure seems like a big factor in the election was a visceral fear among groups that feel historically marginalized in Israel that victory by the anti-Netanyahu faction would amount to a loss in status.

Free Speech

Eric Coomer (of Dominion Voting) Loses Libel Lawsuit over The Deep Rig

The court holds that Coomer didn't prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that defendant knew the statements were false (or at least were likely false).

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From Judge Tom Barber (M.D. Fla.) Tuesday in Coomer v. Byrne:

This highly contentious defamation action arises from The Deep Rig, a documentary film concerning alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election[, which was financed by defendant Patrick Byrne, who also appeared in the film].…. Plaintiff Eric Coomer formerly served as director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, a supplier of election hardware and software with its United States headquarters in Colorado. Among other things, the film included statements by non-party Joseph Oltmann claiming that he infiltrated a conference call involving members of Antifa and heard comments from a speaker identified by another anonymous participant on the call as "Eric" and "the Dominion guy."

According to Oltmann, the speaker stated on the call in substance that President Donald J. Trump would not win the election because he had "made sure of it." Oltmann clams he later determined through research and by recognizing Coomer's voice that the speaker had been Coomer. Oltmann further stated that he concluded there was a "high probability" Coomer affected the election. Coomer denies participating in any such call or manipulating the results of the 2020 Presidential election and alleges that Oltmann's story presented in the film was false and defamatory.

Coomer sued, and the court earlier held that he had adequately "alleged sufficient facts to avoid dismissal" and to proceed to discovery. But then Byrne sought summary judgment, arguing that, after discovery, Coomer hadn't introduced evidence to support his claim. And the court concluded that Coomer had indeed not uncovered enough evidence to prove "actual malice" by clear and convincing evidence:

[U]nder Colorado law, where the alleged defamatory statement relates to a matter of public concern, a defamation plaintiff must prove actual malice on the part of the defendant, and must do so by clear and convincing evidence, even if the plaintiff is not a public figure. Coomer has expressly conceded that the statements at issue concern matters of public concern, [and] that Colorado's actual malice standard applies ….

Coomer himself asserts that Byrne believed the 2020 election was rigged immediately after the election. Byrne testified that he believed Oltmann's story and remains highly confident that the gist of Oltmann's story was true. Although the actual malice standard focuses on Byrne's subjective state of mind and beliefs, Byrne's statements as to those beliefs are not necessarily dispositive and Coomer may seek to establish Byrne's subjective lack of belief in the story through circumstantial evidence. The relevant question, then, is whether the evidence Coomer points to is sufficient to support a jury finding, under the clear and convincing evidence standard, that Byrne in fact subjectively disbelieved or had serious doubts about Oltmann's story.

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Free Speech

Cancellation, Defamation, Bankruptcy, Discharge

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From Judge Paula Xinis (D. Md.) yesterday in Shuma v. Whibley:

Appellant Shane Shuma ("Shuma") and Appellee-Debtor Erin Whibley ("Whibley") were students at Dickinson College during the 2020–21 school year. Shuma made an ill-advised YouTube video satirically opining on the "reasons why the Holocaust was a good thing." The video spread through campus, and an uproar followed. School administrators publicly condemned it, the matter was widely reported in the student newspaper, and students spoke out against Shuma.

In one of Whibley's classes, a lively discussion ensued about Shuma. One student disclosed that she overheard Shuma at a club event saying things that were "absolutely unacceptable to, to say to anyone" and that "there were some threats involved," and she expressed her frustration that his behavior continued "after reporting on Shuma and knowing people who have reported on him in terms of Title IX behavior or just Title IX in general." Another student echoed that she had heard from multiple people that Shuma had written articles in the student newspaper that expressed "racist sentiment." A third student described that Shuma had written an article arguing that "white privilege is not real … is not a thing."

After this conversation, Whibley initiated an online petition to advocate for Shuma's expulsion. The petition described Shuma as the subject of "multiple Title IX issues," and that he had written "racially charged [newspaper] articles." She also described Shuma as a "serial offender." The petition garnered 811 signatures in the first few days, and ultimately over half the Dickenson student body signed it.

Shortly after the posting, Whibley learned that Shuma had no such Title IX complaints filed against him. Within days, Whibley corrected the online petition to eliminate to the claim about Title IX. She further explained in the modified petition that "Shuma has not been in violation of any Title IX statutes," and that she did "not wish to slander [Shuma]," but simply share what she heard from other students.

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Some Reflections On The Lateral Hiring Market (Updated)

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Update: After I published this post, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky sent me a gracious note pointing out some people I had missed in my counts. I've updated the post in red so it is clear what changed.

Every year, professors move from lower-ranked institutions to higher-ranked institutions. But for the lateral market to sustain itself, schools have to continue to play the game: recruit laterals, hoping they improve the school's standing before they move onto greener pastures.

One way to measure this market is to analyze the track record of a new school that built its faculty from scratch. Over the past quarter century, the American Bar Association has granted provisional accreditation to about 20 law schools. Only three of those institutions have cracked the top 100 U.S. News rankings. Last year, FIU was at #77 and Drexel was at #82. U.C. Irvine, founded in 2007, is the outlier. The new state school has hovered between #20 and #40 over the past decade. A lot of the credit should go to Founding Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. But even after Chemerinsky departed for Berkeley in 2017, the rankings have stayed fairly consistent.

Starting from a blank slate, Irvine was able to build a faculty from the ground up, using both entry-level hires as well as laterals. I thought it might be worthwhile to analyze lateral hires and departures from Irvine over the past two decades. Here, I owe a debt to Brian Leiter and Dan Filler, who have charted these moves since 2006. Many of the posts on the Faculty Lounge, Concurring Opinions, and Leiter Reports can now be found on the Internet Archive.

I include the raw results below the jump. Here, I will offer some broader observations about the lateral hiring market. I don't think these patterns are limited to Irvine, but that institution is a useful measuring stick because it started so recently. All of my counts here are tentative. Please let me know if there are any errors.

By my count, between 2008 and 2026, at Irvine there were a total of about 50 lateral hires (including two deans).

Between 2008 and 2026, seventeen of these fifty lateral hires later departed. Here, I will note the year they were hired and the year they departed.

  1. Erwin Chemerinsky (Hired in 2008, lateraled to Berkeley in 2017)
  2. Catherine Fisk (Hired in 2008, lateraled to Berkeley in 2017)
  3. Trina Jones to Duke (Hired in 2008, lateraled back to Duke in 2011)
  4. Jennifer Chacon (Hired in 2009, lateraled to UCLA in 2018)
  5. Christopher Tomlins (Hired in 2009, lateraled to Berkeley in 2018)
  6. Olufunmilayo Arewa (Hired in 2009, lateraled to Temple University in 2014)
  7. Rick Hasen (Hired in 2011, lateraled to UCLA in 2022)
  8. Douglas NeJaime (Hired in 2013, lateraled to UCLA in 2015)
  9. Michele B. Goodwin (Hired in 2014, lateraled to Georgetown in 2023)
  10. Gregory Shaffer (Hired in 2014, lateraled to Georgetown in 2023)
  11. Sarah Lawsky (Hired in 2010, lateraled to Northwestern in 2016)
  12. Alexandra Natapoff (Hired in 2017, lateraled to Harvard in 2020)
  13. David S. Law (Hired in 2019, lateraled to Virginia in 2020)
  14. Rachel Moran (Hired in 2019, lateraled to Texas A&M in 2023)
  15. Aziza Ahmed (Hired in 2021, lateraled to Boston University in 2022)
  16. Jamelia Morgan (Hired in 2021, lateraled to Northwestern in 2022)
  17. Courtney Cahill (Hired in 2022, lateraled to USC in 2026).

In most of these moves, the professor transferred to a higher-ranked school. The average duration of a lateral hire who departed was about six years.

I exclude in this count three professors (L. Song Richardson, Mario Barnes, and Rachel Moran) who departed for administrative positions, but then returned to Irvine. I also exclude Katie Porter who left teaching to serve in the House, but then returned to the faculty. Those aren't exactly laterals in the traditional sense of the term.

At least four of the lateral hires seem to have taken emeritus status: Bryant Garth, Kaaryn Gustafson, Robert Solomon, and Grace Tonner. As best as I can tell, twenty-one recruited laterals are still teaching in a full-time status at Irvine: Christopher Leslie, Tony Reese, Mario Barnes, Katherine Porter, Sameer Ashar, Kenneth W. Simons, Victor Fleischer, Ji Li, Austen Parrish (Dean), Veena Dubal, Kevin Haeberle, Ari Waldman, Robert S. Chang, Andrew Gold, Trevor G. Reed, Charles Tyler, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Ann Southworth, Carrie Hempel, Beatrice Tice, and Chris Whytock.

If my math is right, out of a total of fifty laterals hires, twenty-nine remained and seventeen departed. The departure rate of hired laterals is about 34%. Or, you might say the retention rate is 66%, but that number is harder to rely on because some professors took emeritus status or retired, so were not really on the move.

Moreover, based on my count, there are three professors that Irvine hired on the entry-level market who lateraled out of Irvine: Seth Davis (Berkeley), Jonathan Glater (Berkeley), and Leah Litman (Michigan). If you factor in these departures, the retention rate is even lower.

In an ideal world, the number of lateral hires should far exceed the number of lateral departures. Schools that recruit scholars should be able to retain them. But the world is far from ideal. Professors who lateral to one school will often be recruited elsewhere. Indeed, I think it is a positive that a school recruits and develops scholars who go onto other institutions. More realistically, the number of lateral hires should roughly match the number of lateral departures to keep the faculty at parity: for every lateral that departs another lateral should be hired. At least at Irvine, the number of lateral hires that remained is fairly close to the number of lateral hires that depart. I don't know how Irvine's retention rate compares to other schools. This is something I might compute in the future.

Still, with all of those caveats, to keep a law school's reputation at parity, the rate of lateral departures needs to approximate the rate of lateral hires. If more scholars depart, and cannot be replaced, a school's standing might drop. Indeed, the public might wonder why so many scholars are heading for the door. One might reply that new scholars can be recruited through entry-level hiring. The entry-level market can be unpredictable, and junior scholars can take many years to develop. And again, those entry-level hires who make a name for themselves are likely to be recruited by a higher-ranked institution. It's hard to keep home-grown talent, unless the school either pays up, or the professor has some personal reason to stay.

Another premise is that laterals are expensive. It often takes a lot of money to persuade a professor to move their family from a place they built a strong reputation. Very often professors will sign a retention bonus to promise they will stay at a new law school for a few years. But once those contractual terms lapse, the professor can move up to another school that will pay a greater sum. This happens all the time.

I welcome comments, feedback, and corrections.

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Immigration

ICE is Now Even More Unpopular than the IRS

The agency's growing unpopularity may make it easier to abolish it.

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Reuters (2018).

A recent Pew Research Center survey finds that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is by far the most unpopular federal agency, easily outstripping even the widely despised IRS. According to Pew, 56% of Americans disapprove of ICE, compared to only 35% who approve. That's substantially worse than the IRS (which is disapproved by only a 46-37 margin).

 

Other recent surveys show growing public support for abolishing ICE. For example, a July YouGov poll indicates that 48% support abolition, compared to 40% who oppose it. Another survey,  conducted in March of this year, showed a similar 50-39 margin in favor of abolition.

The fact that ICE is unpopular doesn't by itself prove the agency should be abolished. Having written a book and many other publications on widespread public ignorance about government policy, I would be the last to argue that popularity is a good metric of a policy's - or an agency's - merit. But, in this case, public opinion is right. As I explained in an August 2025 article in The Hill, and a follow-up piece for the Boston Globe, (non-paywalled version here), ICE's many abuses do indeed justify abolishing it. And the case for doing so has been strengthened by more recent events, such as the brutal killing of two US citizens in Minnesota.

While ICE abuses have been exacerbated by the policies of the second Trump Administration, many predate it, and are inherent in the entire enterprise of mass deportation.

As explained in my article in The Hill, abolishing ICE would not completely end interior deportations. But it would make them heavily dependent on the cooperation of state and local governments, thereby strengthening constitutional federalism and reducing incentives for abuse, at least to a significant degree.

In that article, I also explain how support for abolition be further bolstered by combining it with shifting ICE funds to state and local law enforcement. This undermines the principal political obstacle to abolition: the fear that getting rid of ICE would increase crime. Transferring the funds to state and local police would help defuse such concerns, win the support of law enforcement agencies, and foster genuine reductions in violent and property crimes; social science evidence shows that putting more police on the streets has that effect, whereas deportations do not.

Farewell to Weil

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Today the law firm of Weil Gotshal announced that it would wind down. I don't have any connections to the firm, though I did have one vignette to share that I wrote for another project. It concerns Greg Coleman, the first Texas Solicitor General.

In 2001, Coleman returned to Weil Gotshal to head his firm's Supreme Court practice. In 2006, Coleman took on a case that would change the face of constitutional law. He represented a municipal utility district from Northwest Austin, which challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, known as the "preclearance requirement." This case had the potential to revolutionize voting rights, and bring our country closer to a colorblind Constitution. Unfortunately, Coleman's firm did not see things that way. As Senator Cruz recalled, "his partners at the firm lost their freaking minds." Coleman, who was dedicated to his client and the Constitution, left that firm and joined what would become Yetter Coleman LLP. In 2009, Coleman would argue two landmark Supreme Court cases that would set the stage for future constitutional restorations.

Farewell to Weil.

Second Amendment

How Wolford v. Lopez Refines Second Amendment Doctrine

Court's rejection of the Vampire Rule has broad implications

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The Supreme Court's June decision in Wolford v. Lopez prevented the obliteration of the right to bear arms in five States, holding that governments may not make carrying a licensed handgun presumptively illegal almost everywhere. 609 U.S. 185 (2026).  Important as the result is, perhaps of even greater significance is how Wolford clarified Second Amendment doctrine. According to Wolford:

  1. Determining whether a challenged law falls within the "plain text" of the Amendment is much simpler than some lower courts and gun control advocates have claimed.

  2. Modern gun control laws do not always have to be justified by analogies from past practices, but analogies cannot be based on oddities and outliers.

  3. Racist gun control laws from the past, which were long ago repudiated by constitutional amendment, are not valid precedents for infringing the rights of modern Americans.

This essay will also discuss the Hawaii Attorney General's argument that only a weak version of the Second Amendment should apply in the Aloha State. And the argument that Hawaii's "Vampire Rule" to prohibit licensed carry throughout the State did not even implicate the Second Amendment.

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The Bigger Problem With Judge Ada Brown's Woke Tirade: She Said The Quiet Part Out Loud About "White Saviors"

Many lawyers and judges harbor the "anti-racist" views that Judge Brown spewed, but have the mental faculties to keep it private.

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For some time, I've heard rumors about unusual behavior from Judge Ada Brown in the Northern District of Texas. I was hesitant to write about the situation, because my information was incomplete and some of it was revealed in confidence. Now, the accusations are public, in part, because Judge Brown personally disclosed items to the press and others.

At the outset, let me praise the other members of the Northern District of Texas, and in particular, Chief Judge Reed O'Connor. They have picked up all of the cases that Judge Brown has not decided. These are very busy judges, and they have quietly assumed even more responsibilities to ensure the business of the court continues. Judge O'Connor has been routinely maligned by the press but he is a gracious and thoughtful member of his court who never seeks the spotlight. Indeed, it seems that Judge Brown has attacked Judge O'Connor, who has bent over backwards to help her. No good deed goes unpunished.

Moreover, I need to praise the leadership of Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod. She has given Judge Brown every possible benefit of the doubt and made the process as transparent as possible. I need to contrast Chief Judge Elrod's performance with that of Chief Judge Moore in the Federal Circuit. Judge Newman has been subjected to a stealth impeachment through arbitrary one-year suspensions, and only after nearly two years was the case reassigned to another circuit. Judge Brown has been given shorter suspensions after she refused to decide cases. She has had every opportunity to make her case.

Now, onto the substance. There seems to be something seriously wrong with Judge Brown. Her behavior in court that has been reported in the press is extremely troubling. Her refusal to decide cases seems to be an abdication of her responsibility as a federal judge. And her unwillingness to participate in any disciplinary proceedings suggests something is amiss. I will hold off on opining on these issues in more depth, as I suspect more facts will come out.

Here, I want to focus on Judge Brown's behavior in court that gave rise to an ethics complaint earlier this year. Jacqueline Thomsen of Bloomberg Law, who has her finger on the pulse of the Fifth Circuit, offers the stunning details. Here is a summary:

A lawyer's misconduct complaint against US District Judge Ada Brown stemmed from a hearing during which she repeatedly directed racial insults at him, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg Law.

Attorney Ezra Young, who has represented a Black woman professor suing over a tenure denial, filed a complaint against Brown following the April 2026 hearing in Dallas, he confirmed in an interview with Bloomberg Law. Young's complaint and the judge's formal response were among the documents that Brown circulated in an Oct. 17 email to lawyers, judges, and members of the media.

Throughout the hearing, the judge, a Black woman with Native American ancestry, accused Young of mistreating Black attorneys, took "judicial notice" of her own background in making findings against Young, and repeatedly referred to Young, who is Latino, as being White. Brown called the hearing months after she revoked Young's ability to practice in her courtroom to weigh whether the lawyer should face sanctions.

"I think what's happening here, quite candidly, is you are very intimidated for some reason, Mr. Young, with Black excellence, in light of your White mediocrity. Yeah. Right?," Brown said, according to the transcript. "You should write that down. I mean, you — I'm — you look like a White man, right?"

"I'm not White, Your Honor," Young replied, adding that he's Latino.

"Well, you are White-presenting; is that fair to say?" Brown said, according to the transcript. Young said that he's "fair-skinned," and Brown said that Young had "White privilege" when he argued his client didn't receive key evidence in the case.

"You're the White savior, come to save all the stupid Black lawyers in Texas who need your help, from New York," Brown later said, according to the transcript. . . .

During the April 24, 2026 hearing, Brown accused Young of "racial bullying" toward Black attorneys in the case.

Brown also said that Young was acting like a "Chad," a term Young wasn't familiar with. The judge said it was the male version of a "Karen." "It's someone who calls the manager when they don't get their way. They stomp their foot when the rules are supposed to apply to them, right?" Brown said, according to the transcript. . . .

During the April hearing, Brown took issue with an article headline describing the case when it went before the Supreme Court of Texas. The article quoted a brief filed by Young that referenced another law professor apparently comparing what happened in the tenure denial to a "lynching."

The judge accused Young of making up that quote to "get a headline."

"And so when I read a headline — a sensationalized, very racialized headline that says, 'it's like I've been lynched,' and it's literally got no connection to this case, I have to ask you, Mr. Social Media, Main Character Chad, White Hero, Savior, Loves to Help Black People Be An Ally, where the lynching in this case came from?" Brown said, according to the transcript.

She also apparently gave Young a copy of a 1920 newspaper article that described a lynching. "So we don't find lynching jokes funny down here, sir," Brown said, according to the transcript.

The implication of Young's defense is that a Latino person cannot be racist against African Americans. That claim is wrong on its face, even under the misguided intersectionality pyramid. The bigger problem is that Young, a lifelong liberal, is unaccustomed to being called a racist.

Toward the end of the hearing, Young said that Brown seemed to be "using vicious stereotypes about White people, when I've repeatedly disclosed to this Court I am Latino."

He said that it appeared that Brown "is trying to tar and feather me for anti-Black animus, that has never been raised by anyone but this Court," according to the transcript.

"This Black woman?" Brown replied.

"No, Your Honor. This Court," Young responded.

Young later said he was "concerned that this Court has made light of my actual work as a civil rights lawyer." Brown asked Young what he has done for Black people, as she viewed his actions in the case toward Black attorneys as "abuse."

Young said he has gone "out of my way" to support the work of Black professors and others. When he described his interest in representing the plaintiff in the case, Brown cut him off.

"Can I pause and just tell you, I appreciate, on behalf of Black people, your White saviordom," Brown said.

"Your Honor, again, I'm not White," Young replied.

This is Ezra Young.

I'll let other people decide how "White presenting" Young is. Young has taught a class titled "Critical Race Theory, and Transgender People and the Law" at Cornell Law School. Young's scholarship "explores the rights of trans persons and is situated in the nascent field of critical trans theory." Young served as board secretary of the African American Policy Forum and was a founding board member of the National Trans Bar Association. Young's post doctoral studies focused on trans rights, Critical Race Theory, and intersectionality and were supervised by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Young is Admitted to practice in the Chickasaw Nation. In what universe can Judge Brown possibly claim Young is some sort of "white savior" who is hostile to black litigants?

Some people may be shocked at what Judge Ada Brown said in court, but the truth is that she is parroting standard dogma from Anti-Racists and Critical Racial Theorists. The charges may be completely absurd for someone like Ezra Young, but imagine the black plaintiff was represented by a white lawyer. Would that person be a "White Savior"? Think of the most famous white lawyer in American literature. Could even Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird be derided as a "White Savior"? Yes.

Welcome to the world of academia.

In 2015, Law Professor Osamudia R. James wrote an essay in the New York Times, titled Now We Can Finally Say Goodbye to the White Savior Myth of Atticus. Here is an excerpt:

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1,000,000 Miles on United

I've completed approximately 2 round trips from the Earth to the Moon.

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A few moments ago, I crossed the 1,000,000 mile threshold on United Airlines. There was nothing particularly special about this flight. (I'm en route from Denver to Birmingham for a talk tomorrow at the University of Alabama.) The flight attendant gave me a brief congratulation (shortly after I initially published the post.) It was just like any other flight. If my math is right, a million miles is roughly two round trips from the Earth to the moon.

I started accruing United miles around 2012 when I moved to Houston. United and Continental had just finished the merger. For the first eight years or so, I sought to earn as many miles, as that was the key to status. Longtime readers will recall that I took mileage runs to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney to make status at the end of the year. All of these tickets were purchased at low rates. The goal was to fly as far as possible while spending the least amount of money. By 2016, I had already accrued nearly 300,000 lifetime miles. But shortly before the pandemic, United switched the format. Now, to make status, you had to spend money, not fly miles. It made more sense to take a very expensive trip to San Francisco than to take a very cheap trip to Singapore. As a result, my pace of collecting miles dropped precipitously. I barely flew in 2020 through 2022. I ramped up in 2023. In 2024, I reached about 750,000 miles. And it took another two years to complete the goal.

Hitting the one million mile mark provides me with lifetime gold status. That status, alas, is basically meaningless. There are very few benefits with gold status that are not provided by the United Club credit card. In the past, United would let you gift your status to a companion--for me that is 1K--but United will only allow you to gift gold status.

Going forward, United had substantially increased the cost of making status. For 2026, I could earn 1K status with 60 segments and about 22,000 PQP. For 2027, segments no longer matter and I will need to hit 32,000 PQP. Unless something significant changes in my spending, I won't be able to meet that threshold. I could become a free agent, and take flights on whichever airline provides the best deal, but living in Houston severely limits my options. So I will likely stay tied to United, albeit without 1K status.

At this point, even 1K status is less desirable than it once was. I rarely receive complimentary upgrades. And even when I use plus points, the upgrades are still rare on busy routes. I can't remember the last time I was upgraded on a flight to DCA or EWR. (I was upgraded on the flight to Birmingham.) United, and the other airlines, would much rather sell an upgrade than provide it to a loyal flyer. The value proposition just isn't what it used to be.

On the plus side, United now has Starlink on most of the flights, which makes the skies far more productive.

Free Speech

Hasan Piker Sues Scott Jennings

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From the complaint in Piker v. Jennings; of course, this is just Piker's side of the story—I expect we'll get Jennings' in a forthcoming motion to dismiss:

On August 11, 2026, Scott Jennings falsely told a nationwide podcast audience that Hasan Piker was "out there calling for Black voters to be lynched." He falsely told his listeners that Mr. Piker had a "plan of returning our country to lynchings." And then he falsely told his social media followers that Mr. Piker "says the USA should resume lynchings against black people."

All of Mr. Jennings' accusations are false. Mr. Piker has never advocated the lynching of Black Americans, or anyone else. He has never called for a return to lynchings. And he has never proposed anything remotely resembling the supposed plan that Mr. Jennings falsely attributed to him.

Mr. Jennings did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said. He took a false, fabricated, and manipulated video of Mr. Piker, added a made-up quotation that Mr. Piker never uttered, and then made accusations that went beyond even what the manipulated footage purported to show. Mr. Jennings presented those accusations as fact, telling his viewers to "[l]isten for yourself" about Mr. Piker, knowing that he was playing a falsified video of Mr. Piker for those viewers, and completely disregarding the truth of Mr. Piker's actual words.

The underlying footage came from a broadcast nearly two years earlier on Twitch, an online streaming service owned by Amazon. On October 29, 2024, Mr. Piker was reacting to a debate between two Black political commentators, one liberal and one conservative. When the conservative commentator blamed "woke DAs" for policies supposedly harming Black Americans, Mr. Piker mocked him by sarcastically portraying that comment as nostalgia for an era before the civil rights movement. Laughing, Mr. Piker said:

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