I'm delighted to work with UCLA Law Review @uclalawreview.bsky.social to publish Skrmetti's Shell Game. Here's an updated version of the article with more discussion of how lower courts are interpreting that case. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Honored to find out that I am on this list of top-cited legal scholars again this year: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers..... Lots of others on this list whose work I deeply admire, including @jessicaclarke.bsky.social @miriamseifter.bsky.social @jdmortenson.bsky.social and many others! Congrats, all!
I wrote on the shameful situation re: the recession of a deanship to Emily Suski at the University of Arkansas Law. What was the reason? Prof. Suski signed an amicus brief supporting trans rights. The Arkansas legislators admitted that was it! Horrible outcome. ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...
I spoke with Reuters about the transgender rights cases argued in the Supreme Court today. www.reuters.com/sports/us-su...
Watch my friend @mary-anne-case.bsky.social take on conservatives on their own terms in this debate over whether parents have a constitutional right to insist that schools misgender their children. fedsoc.org/conferences/...
I'm honored that Chief Justice Guerrero of the California Supreme Court found my article helpful to this case. www.courthousenews.com/california-s...
The reason for this recommendation is that court centered strategies run into reasoning like this piece of obtuse cruelty from the US Supreme Court
Public health authorities should reconsider the form birth certificate and make information about sex at birth private health data. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
Even though it mustered only 356 words to justify putting Trump's spiteful anti-trans passport policy back into effect, #SCOTUS managed to show us two of the flawed analytical moves it keeps making *only* in Trump cases to provide cover for granting emergency relief.
My latest, via "One First":
Preach, @jessicaclarke.bsky.social : "contrary to the claims of its proponents, formalism in equality law fails to ensure predictable results, does not meaningfully constrain judicial decisionmaking, and detracts from judicial accountability."
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I've posted a draft article on the Supreme Court's Skrmetti decision on SSRN. I argue that this harmful decision represents the worst sort of legal formalism, but does not predetermine the results in other transgender rights cases or eviscerate sex discrimination law. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Oh dear. RIP to one of the great ones, as a scholar and as a person.
Devastating
It was an honor to be part of the UCI Law Supreme Court term in review event with Mario Barnes, Courtney Cahill, Erwin Chemerinsky, and Mark Joseph Stern. @mjsdc.bsky.social youtu.be/Zj3T7ZAxjYM?...
To understand this moment, we need more investigative journalism into the right's "war on gender ideology," so we can better understand what led to this wave of anti-transgender laws and their connection to anti-feminist and LGBTQ rights movements more broadly. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/m...
I think the frame of not obeying in advance is exactly the way to think about it. As with so many other things, the vector is going in a bad direction. But slowing it down makes a huge difference in protecting real people right now.
My heart is with those who have been harmed by the Skrmetti decision and those who have no faith in this Supreme Court. This thread is meant to provide support for those who would continue to fight despite Skrmetti and those who wish to resist demands to obey in advance.
And Skrmetti says nothing about disability discrimination claims, like the one that prevailed in Williams v. Kincaid (4th Circuit). (Thanks to @ezrayoung.bsky.social for pointing this one out). glad-org-wpom.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/wp-content/u... 2/2
Two more important notes on Skrmetti's limits. It does not mean that legislatures can simply frame rules enforcing sex stereotypes at a higher level of generality, i.e., requiring men and women to do jobs "consistent with their sexes," to avoid heightened scrutiny. It's limited to health care. 1/2
Great explanation from @chasestrangio.bsky.social on the legal arguments that remain to challenge anti-transgender policies after Skrmetti. Do not obey in advance!
I don't agree. Skrmetti applies narrowly to classifications based on "treatments" and "medical uses" for purposes of treating gender dysphoria. It is very important to the majority that this law targeted medical treatments that "are uniquely bound up in sex." We do not need to read this broadly.
As a matter of formalistic logic, a sex classification is a sex classification, even if the law contains other classifications. But on p.5 of the opinion, the Court says the age limit is important to its holding, even though no party contested it. So it must be doing work. Let's take them seriously.
An important thread on today’s Skrmetti decision from my colleague, @jessicaclarke.bsky.social—one of the leading sex discrimination scholars in the country.
Thank you David. Please everyone--do not overread Skrmetti, and do not obey in advance!
More later as I continue to process this opinion. End.
More in the weeds: Skrmetti does not endorse the "circular" reasoning of the Sixth Circuit that in order to constitute a sex classification, a law must also constitute stereotyping, invidious discrimination, or unfair treatment. Justice Sotomayor explains this in her dissent: 12/x
Nor does Skrmetti change the fact that many of Trump’s executive actions against transgender people violate our separation of powers—only Congress has the power to legislate and appropriate funds under our Constitution. 11/x law.justia.com/cases/federa...
It was very important to the Court that Tennessee’s laws seemed to be motivated by interests in children’s health. But we know the Trump Administration’s actions are motivated by sex stereotyping and transphobia, because they usually say the quiet parts out loud. 10/x
