I’m just spitballing here, but maybe we should take Nazi tattoos seriously as an indicator of character?
Kirsten Widner
@kirstenwidner.bsky.social
Assistant professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I study the political representation of marginalized groups. Co-author of Race, Gender, and Political Representation: Towards a More Intersectional Approach.
Just a thought about that injustice of the tariffs being permitted to continue while the Court can to a decision that was always going to be the answer if they followed the Constitution: importers will get refunds. The consumers who overpaid and the businesses that struggled or closed, not so much
Immigration officials should not carry deadly weapons. Ever.
Have you considered ordering them to work on it with all deliberate speed? www.politico.com/news/2025/11...
Justices wonder how Trump could refund tariffs, if they decide against him
Justice Amy Coney Barrett cautioned during oral arguments Wednesday that the logistics of refunding companies that have paid the disputed duties would be “a mess.”
politico.com
NEW: By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to cancel Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants. KBJ, dissenting, says she "cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference" while "lives hang in the balance." www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
Never thought I’d say this, but I kind of miss the major questions doctrine
UTK graduate students crushing it at the #APSA2025 judicial poster session. Stop by and see Hannah and Matthew in the Exhibition Hall!
We had one of these Charlie Kirk events on our campus last spring. It was right outside my building. Life lost to violence is always tragic, but I can’t stop thinking about the poor students who witnessed it. They have a right to feel safe on their campus
SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool
These decisions are so discouraging. Where is the remedy if the Court won't uphold basic constitutional standards? www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...
Trump Administration Live Updates: Supreme Court Lifts Restrictions on Immigration Stops in L.A.
nytimes.com
University of Tennessee Political Science is hiring! We have two open positions, one in comparative politics with a focus on China/Asia (apply.interfolio.com/1714560, and one in American Institutions (apply.interfolio.com/171457)! Come be my colleague! Knoxville is a great place to live!
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apply.interfolio.com
Look, I know that it’s not the only/best reason to love Justin Jones, but THAT JACKET
Raider@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · last yr.As TN State Rep Justin Jones reminds us, our elders and ancestors in the fight for equality were fighting for us. Now, it is our job to fight for the next generation and the generations to come after that. Join the fight in your community.
CBS has lost all credibility/integrity
Elizabeth Warren@warren.senate.gov · last yr.CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery. America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons. Watch and share his message.
Laughing in front of cages designed to hold migrants and refugees, many of whom came to this country fleeing extreme violence and poverty, and hoping to raise their children in a more compassionate country. And many of whom followed all the legal procedures to enter the country.
Look, I don’t have to think Mandami is the best candidate to celebrate the fact that the sexual predator might not win
New publication alert! @elizabethlane.bsky.social and I examine how the institutional interests of the Office of the Solicitor General shape its positions and the justices' reactions to them 1/3 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Mixed Signals? Rethinking How Ideology and Institutional Motivations Shape the Solicitor General’s Positions - Kirsten Widner, Elizabeth A. Lane, 2025
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) wins more cases before the US Supreme Court than any other party. Recent scholarship shows that justices are most like...
journals.sagepub.com
As J. Sotomayors dissent says, the Republican Justices seem to think the Trump admin is injured “any time a court orders…it to refrain from doing something it would like to do.” But it cares nothing for the people sent to countries they don’t know - places they’re at risk of slavery, torture, more.
Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social · last yr.#BREAKING: Over a (sharp) public dissent from the three Democratic appointees, #SCOTUS clears the way for the Trump administration to remove migrants to third countries *without* giving them an additional opportunity to contest whether they face persecution or other forms of mistreatment there:
Teared up talking to my students about the Abrego Garcia case today. This is an absolutely wild time to be teaching Constitutional Law
My brilliant honors student just gave a great talk about the Tennessee anti-suffrage movement to a packed public audience 1/2
Disappeared Tufts Human Dev. PhD student Rumesya Ozturk is also a graduate of Teachers College - she’s a dev. psychologist studying children’s media & prosocial development. She also bakes without recipes and binge-watches cartoons. She is our colleague & she was abducted on the street w/ our tax $.
Rereading Trump v. US in prep for tomorrow's class and struck by language from Thomas's concurrence and its relevance to DOGE: "By requiring that Congress create federal offices by Law, the Constitution imposes an important check against the President—he cannot create offices at his pleasure." 1/2
AUSA Hagan Scotten, former clerk for John Roberts, really put some mustard on his resignation letter.
Framing matters. Stop saying racially charged when you mean racist. Stop letting DEI operate as a pejorative catch-all. Refer to the group(s) being targeted. Stop contrasting DEI with merit as if they are mutually exclusive rather than intertwined. DEI exists due to the past ABSENCE of merit.
Academic Bluesky: I have a grad student who needs to do a bunch of open records requests for his dissertation. To avoid re-inventing the wheel I was wondering if anyone had a primer on FOIA requests already put together that you’d be willing to share