Rachel Rothschild

@profrrothschild.bsky.social

Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Law School https://michigan.law.umich.edu/faculty-and-scholarship/our-faculty/rachel-rothschild Author of Poisonous Skies: Acid Rain and the Globalization of Pollution (Chicago, 2019)

New draft posted: The Collision of State Climate Tort Suits with Federal Deregulation, forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal Forum. This Essay examines the preemption arguments in the Suncor Energy v. Boulder case, which the Supreme Court will review in Oct. term 2026: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Collision of State Climate Tort Suits with Federal Deregulation

In its October 2026 term, the Supreme Court will review <i>Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder</i>, a tort case with significant implications for t

papers.ssrn.com

New draft paper on SSRN: "Fact Avoidance," forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review Supreme Court Issue. This Essay identifies a recurring feature where the Court decides presidential power cases entirely on legal grounds without engaging at all with the facts /1 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Fact Avoidance

<p><i><span>The legality of the President’s exercise of statutory power depends on questions of both law and fact. Yet courts often focus exclusively on the for

papers.ssrn.com

New paper draft: A New Administrative Law for the Production of Scientific Knowledge. The Trump administration has eviscerated scientific research and advising; my hope is that these proposals can help us imagine ways for federal law to better protect science: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

A New Administrative Law for the Production of Scientific Knowledge

<p>Federal support for scientific research has paid enormous dividends to Americans from the mid-20<sup>th</sup> century to today. Investments in science have l

papers.ssrn.com

New paper draft: A New Administrative Law for the Production of Scientific Knowledge. The Trump administration has eviscerated scientific research and advising; my hope is that these proposals can help us imagine ways for federal law to better protect science: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

A New Administrative Law for the Production of Scientific Knowledge

<p>Federal support for scientific research has paid enormous dividends to Americans from the mid-20<sup>th</sup> century to today. Investments in science have l

papers.ssrn.com

With all the July model runs now in, it is very likely that 2026 will see the largest El Niño event since records began in the late 1800s – and potentially by a truly mind-blowing margin. The median estimate is now 3.6C, roughly 0.8C hotter than the prior record (2.75C). www.theclimatebrink....

Bild

a huge win for these brave FL faculty members and a good reminder for the rest of us that sometimes putting your head down and hoping things don’t get worse is not the right strategy. sometimes you need to fight in order to win.

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 4w ago

BREAKING: Eleventh Circuit, on a 2-1 vote, upholds injunction blocking Florida from enforcing its 2022 Stop WOKE Act in the university context. The majority opinion is from Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Before GRANT, LAGOA, and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
GRANT, Circuit Judge:
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." U.S. Const. amend I. The First Amendment, incorporated against the States in 1868, is this country's written commitment to the idea that freedom of speech is essential to freedom of thought, and that both are essential to maintaining our liberty. The Supreme Court has long been clear that teaching and scholarship are due some measure of protection under the Amendment. But how much? And in what contexts? That Court has not had to say, but this one is now put to the test. The State of Florida legislated a broad set of speech restrictions banning certain viewpoints relating to race, color, sex, and national origin in various settings. The provision at issue here bars Florida's educators from promoting or endorsing those distavored ideas when instructing students. Its prohibition applies not only in primary and secondary education, where states traditionally exercise a great deal of control, but also in public colleges and universities, where the state government's role has been far more limited.
When several groups of professors challenged Florida's new restrictions, the State cast about for an existing case or doctrine that could support its speech ban in the university setting. Finding none, it tried to marry public-employee speech cases with government speech doctrine, resulting in a new rule: if the