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Ronit Stahl

@ronitstahl.bsky.social

309 Posts2042 Follower 629 Folgt

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 3w ago

BLM was often criticized for being supposedly over the top in their claims about some Americans disdain for Black life. Here is evidence, from a Presidential advisor and OMB director, that the euphemism of gutting "DEI" policies means Black kids will die. It is quite literally a policy goal.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

TINA SMITH: Researchers in MN made a breakthrough in childhood cancer in Black kids with a grant. But it seems that according to your proposed rule, this type of research wouldn't allowed bc it's 'DEI.' VOUGHT: We are against DEI policies. We have intended to rid of them whenever we possibly can.

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 3w ago

Wrote about the Roberts Court’s highly selective aversion to identifying racism, echoing the logic of the infamous Korematsu decision, which the Roberts Court has both condemned and imitated. Call it Neo-Korematsu doctrine. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

In Trump v. Hawaii, Roberts wrote that “the forcible relocation of U. S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority.” But the author of the Korematsu opinion, having exchanged his white robe for a dark one, would have agreed. After all, Hugo Black wrote that “pressing public necessity”—not “racial antagonism”—motivated the Japanese-internment policy. Black upheld Fred Korematsu’s conviction because he argued that the presence of a national-security motive meant the racism against Japanese Americans didn’t count. And that is exactly the logic the Roberts Court has followed in so many cases. This reasoning—Black’s reasoning—has been reiterated again and again by Roberts and his right-wing colleagues to sanction discrimination against the vulnerable populations targeted by the Republican Party.

The Korematsu decision may be overturned by the “court of history.” But its legacy lives on in the Roberts Court.

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · 4w ago

The tension between AI and inclusive pedagogy/universal design for learning strategies is creating complicated problems with no good answers—issues that many folks in both the AI and accommodations spaces ignore. Take-home exams, typed notes, note-taking apps, study guides, etc have huge trade-offs.

Rachel Gunter, Ph.D. 🗃️@phdrachel.bsky.social · 4w ago

I struggle w/ this b/c I want an accessible course too. Thinking of going back to handwritten notes & in person exams where students can bring their notes & I bring printouts of readings. Online students still have to do exams online though so sticking with citations and limiting sources there.

Eric Rauchway @rauchway.bsky.social · last mo.

Apparently people would be surprised by how little of the archival corpus is digitized.

Staci D. Kramer@sdkstl.bsky.social · last mo.

>>Many of the records in Chicago have not been digitized and are only available in person.<<

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · last mo.

As @lsepper.bsky.social points out in the article, this admin won’t acknowledge, much less protect, the rights of conscientious providers who are — theoretically, anyways — also protected by the Church Amendment they so fondly hail (and per the recent DOJ Religious Liberty report, want posters of).

Liz Sepper@lsepper.bsky.social · last mo.

HHS is laying the groundwork to encourage refusals of healthcare and go after states that safeguard reproductive care. The reorganization of the Office of Civil Rts to prioritize and separate "conscience" claims also tells the antiabortion flank that their day is coming

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · last mo.

Justice Jackson is the historian’s justice.

Screenshot of a page of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s concurrence in the birthright citizenship case, a 5-4 case about the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause which should have been 9-0. The concurrence is about the history of the 14th A. The highlighted section states: “The distortion of historical facts—retellings that reimagine and repurpose past events to lend credence to misbegotten aims—may be an even greater threat. Yet here we are. The Government, the principal dissent, and a handful of revisionist commentators now vigorously promote an interpretation of the Citizenship Clause that diverges sharply not only from what the text says, but also from the historical record as interpreted by the keepers of ‘the call of remembrance’ (trained historians).”

Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · last mo.

Lotta great cameos in the footnotes in Jackson's concurrence.

Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · last mo.

Really well put criticism by Sotomayor here: the majority describes trans girls as an existential threat to women's sports but also so insignificant that excluding them doesn't raise any equal protection concerns.

"The majority's position is thus fundamentally inconsistent. It credits the West Virginia Legislature's concern that a class consisting of transgender girls like BPJ is large enough to pose an existential threat to girls' sports, but at the same time holds that this class is too small to be protected by the Equal Protection Clause. In other words, this potentially overbroad generalization is both necessary to furthering substantially the State's interests in girls' sports and effectively irrelevant to assessing the classification's lawfulness. The Court's equal protection precedents neither require nor support this contorted logic."

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · last mo.

Justice Jackson: "Justice Thomas's telling elides the entire point of the Second Founding: The Reconstruction Amendments were an anticaste, antisubordination reset for the Nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery."

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · last mo.

I am stunned that the constitutional question was so close. I thought it would be 6–3 or 7–2. It is profoundly disturbing that four justices would allow either the president or Congress to rewrite the plain text of the 14th Amendment. This is obviously a good outcome, but the margin is alarming.

Josh Block @joshablock.bsky.social · last mo.

Contrast this with the kind of statements the Supreme Court routinely finds to be smoking guns of anti-religious animus in cases like Masterpiece.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last mo.

Trump once again benefits from a Supreme Court that is too cowardly to call the president a racist. Alito won't even print a single one of his statements (because he knows how bad they are) and instead tries to frame them as not "overtly racial," which, to be blunt, is BS.

None of the cited statements by either the President or
the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications. For example, one may oppose TPS and favor
tighter restrictions on immigration for economic or other
reasons that have nothing to do with race. And a person
without racial bias can provide a harshly unfavorable description of living conditions in some of the countries with
TPS designations. The criteria for TPS designations guarantee that many, if not most, designated countries have
such characteristics.

Karl Jacoby @karl-jacoby.bsky.social · last mo.

By Alito's reasoning, even lynching in the old South would not constitute racism, since vigilante violence was usually justified as a law enforcement measure.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last mo.

The Supreme Court ALSO gives Trump another pass on racism, declaring that his horrific and bigoted comments against Haitians are actually not evidence of racism and that the plaintiffs cannot show evidence of racial bias, essentially plugging their ears and letting Trump spew filth as policy.

The Court assumes for the sake of argument that heightened scrutiny applies and that it must determine whether a “discriminatory purpose [was] a motivating factor in the decision” to terminate Haiti’s TPS
designation, Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development
Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 265–266. Because application of that standard
calls for consideration of the context in which a challenged statement
was made, id., at 267–268, the immigration context is an important
factor.
None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary
was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that
could rest on race-neutral justifications. Viewing all the relevant evidence, Miot respondents are unlikely to prove that race was a motivating factor in the decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS designation, and it
follows that they are not entitled to interim relief on their equal protection claim. Pp. 20–24

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · last mo.

Compare Alito's description of Trump's racist statements (on the left) to Justice Kagan's anthology of Trump's racist statements (on the right). These are passages from this morning's opinions in Mullin v. Doe.

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · last mo.

"Many [students] perceived certain assignments as tedious rather than engaging and emphasized a desire to reduce 'busy work.'" "Perceived" is key. I've noticed an increase in (some) students labeling assignments their predecessors enjoyed as "busy work." But busy work can mean many things.

John Warner@biblioracle.bsky.social · last mo.

This piece by high school students shared at @janerosenzweig.bsky.social's The Important Work should be read by anyone working in secondary education, particularly those responsible for providing the resources for the experiences of learning. open.substack.com/pub/theimpor...

Dr. Liz Norell @liznorell.bsky.social · last mo.

Faculty: Help us build a wish list for accommodation requests! We invite instructors to share perceptions of disability support services for students in #HigherEd. Take a short survey (IRB approved) here. Questions? Get in touch! Corrected link: uofmississippi.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management

The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.

uofmississippi.qualtrics.com

Melody Schreiber @melodyschreiber.com · 2mo ago

Harmonie Perrone knew she was having another ectopic pregnancy, and she knew she needed medication as quickly as possible. But she was denied twice -- and lost her fertility, she says in a lawsuit. My latest: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

A religious hospital denied her a life-saving drug during an ectopic pregnancy. She lost her fertility

Harmonie Perrone, 28, is suing Advocate Good Shepherd in Illinois, where reproductive rights are enshrined in law

theguardian.com

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Somehow it took the DoD (sorry, "dept of war") over 3 months to produce the list of religious affiliations it cut/still uses. In WWI, the War Department managed to keep track of over 31 (fine-grained) denominations of chaplains. There's much to be said about which denominations count, then and now.

Screenshot of chart "Number of Army Chaplains, By Denominations, Who Served During the World War." There is a list of denominations and columns for regular Army, National Army, National Guard, and Total. The list of denominations is as follows [terms are WWI-era]: Baptist, Colored; Baptist, Imanuel; Baptist, North; Baptist, South; Baptist, United; Baptist, Regular; Christian; Christian Science; Church of the Brethren; Congregational; Congregational, Colored; Disciples [of Christ]; Evangelical; Evangelical, United; Jewish; Latter-day Saints; Methodist Episcopal, African; Methodist Episcopal, North; Methodist Episcopal, South; Methodist, Protestant; Moravian; New Jerusalem; Presbyterian, Colored; Presbyterian, Cumberland; Presbyterian, North; Presbyterian, South; Presbyterian, United; Protestant Episcopal; Protestant Episcopal, Colored; Protestant Episcopal, Reformed; Reformed, American; Reformed, Christian; Reformed, Dutch; Reformed, US; Roman Catholic; Salvation Army; Seventh Day Adventist; Unitarian; United Brethren; Universalist.

King Algamemnon@adamrothman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"warfighters of all faith groups" - phrase used by DoD spokesman apnews.com/article/us-m...

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2mo ago

We do not have voting rights in this country anymore. We just don’t. We did for a while because Congress codified them pursuant to a constitutional amendment enacted by the people in a great repudiation of the original sin of slavery. But the Supreme Court has nullified that law and that amendment.

Weeks ago, I warned that vacating the District Court’s
injunction in these cases would “unleash chaos and . . . con-
fuse voters.” Caster, 608 U. S., at ___ (dissenting opinion)
(slip op., at 4). Nevertheless, the Court forged ahead. Now
the Court is squarely faced with a record of the turmoil it
has caused and the harm it has wrought. Yet just as Ala-
bama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court to-
day doubles down on chaos. Because I choose to defend the
rule of law and the right of all Alabamians to participate
equally in democracy, I respectfully dissent.

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This heinous ruling confirms a worst-case-scenario reading of Callais as an all-purpose shield for racist lawmakers who want to gerrymander Black communities into electoral oblivion. And it’s outrageously partisan—a totally unprincipled gift to the GOP. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BREAKING: In an unsigned, per curiam opinion on the shadow docket, the SCOTUS conservatives allow Alabama to use a congressional map held repeatedly by a lower court to have been enacted with discriminatory intent.

At this preliminary stage, the State has shown that it is entitled to interim relief from the District Court's injunc-tion. See Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citi-zens, 607 U. S.
一
(2025) (slip op., at 1-2). The
State is likely to succeed on the merits as to both claims. As to intentional vote dilution, the District Court did not heed the presumption of legislative good faith, see Alexander v.
South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, 602 U. S. 1, 10 (2024), because it interpreted the State's legal disagreement with the court's earlier remedial order as proof of discriminatory animus. Cf. Abbott v. Perez, 585 U. S. 579,
608-609 (2018). And, as to both claims, the District Court's analysis departed from Callais. Under Callais, the District Court was required to deny relief unless the plaintiffs' alternative map performed "just as well" with respect to all of the State's constitutionally permissible districting crite-ria. 608 U. S., at— (slip op., at 29). Yet, the District Court found a violation even though the plaintiffs' alternative map would not perform just as well as to the State's constitutionally permissible criteria of keeping together the Gulf Coast community of interest and avoiding the pairing of in-cumbents. The District Court also failed to follow our instruction in Callais that the mere fact that voters of different races vote for different parties is not relevant to proving racially polarized voting patterns. See id., at _ (slip op., at 30).

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is truly one of the worst things the court has done — both in terms of legitimacy and in terms of the law — since I have been covering the court.

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 2mo ago

elizabethginexi.bsky.social @elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule

Russell Vought is going destroy American Science

elizabethginexi.substack.com

Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 3mo ago

FDR’s Fireside chat on March 9, 1937 explaining his proposal to expand the Supreme Court stands up surprisingly well. “We have reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself.”/1

We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself….We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.
I want—as all Americans want—an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution. That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as writtten, that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the artibrary exercise of judicial power—in other words by judicial say-so. It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of which which are universally recognized.

Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Suspending elections where people have already started voting so you can gerrymander their voting power away. Very democracy.

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

WaPo reports Louisiana’s governor will announce on Friday that he is suspending the House primaries where people have already started voting and redraw the map; I’d expect them to go for an all-Republican map and eliminate both majority-Black districts, not just one.

Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I woke up today somehow even angrier about yesterday’s decision completing the Republican Courts dream of demolishing the Voting Rights Act. The law made the country a multiracial democracy - increasing the # of Black reps from 4 to 10x that within years. The neo-confederate court eviscerated it.

Sherrilyn Ifill@sifill.bsky.social · 3mo ago

No sugar-coating the Court’s decision today. Real talk. @allinwithchris.bsky.social

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 3mo ago

8. So while I don't think Callais is *apocalyptic* for Democrats, it's still a hideous perversion of the Constitution that will undermine democracy and racial equality for years. The Voting Rights Act is essentially dead. The 15th Amendment has been repurposed to greenlight racism. It's a dark day.

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

When I teach the social history of the military, students read soldiers' diaries from the Am. Revolution, letters from the Civil War, notes from WWI, etc. They always note the prevalence of illness & the desire to avoid/cure it. Smallpox, yellow fever, flu, malaria... all big problems.

bobby@bobbylewis.bsky.social · 4mo ago

it’s so funny that the drunk tv host in charge of the military is like “real warriors don’t need vaccines” when all the greatest generals in history would have done anything for a jab that kept their armies safe from disease

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This is NUTS www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...

Disappointed, though not surprised, I began to describe various life- saving components of USAID’s global health portfolio, highlighting how we prepare for and respond to emerging pandemic threats; support the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV; and immunize millions of children from the deadliest childhood diseases. I spoke for about five minutes, focusing primarily on our infectious diseases work and hoping to keep the attention of people who seemed to have no experience—or interest—in global health.

When I finished, the room was silent, the political appointees looking at one another in what appeared to be disbelief. The silence was broken by Ken Jackson, who chuckled softly and shook his head. “Wow, there really is so much that USAID does that we never knew,” he said. “This is the story that needs to get out there.”

Joel, also smiling, chimed in next, echoing Jackson’s amazement. “I had no idea you did all this,” he said. “As a Republican, when I think of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it was just, you know, abortions.”

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I can’t overstate how unusual it is for a chief of chaplains to be fired. Green was very well respected. He entered the army as a chaplain in 1994, at the end of the term of Matthew Zimmerman, the first Black Chief of Chaplains. Green was the 3rd. Which appears relevant for… reasons.

Jack Jenkins@jackjenkins.me · 4mo ago

"Mr. Hegseth also fired Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the Army’s top chaplain, an official said." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/u...

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Great to talk to @gregsargent.bsky.social about how unusual it is for an American military leader to glorify and sanctify killing as an ultimate higher good like Hegseth is doing. (Historically, most tend to talk about violence as an unfortunate but necessary means to a better and peaceful end.)

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Pete Hegseth just held a prayer service in which he appealed for God's help in killing our "enemies" with maximal violence and brutality. Hegseth's bloodlust and sadism are drawing sustenance from his particular brand of far-right Christianity. 1/ (new piece from me) newrepublic.com/article/2083...

Ronit Stahl @ronitstahl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Terrible for many reasons, but also just completely impractical. People move, at all times and for many reasons, and there’s no way that list would be accurate for more than a millisecond.

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Breaking: Trump is attempting — again — to exert control over American elections, signing an executive order that aims to create federal lists of citizens and ask the U.S. Postal Service to transmit mail ballots to only those people.