Karen Tani (@kmtani) Bsky

I'm so curious, Liz! I, too, want to judge these authors...

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Congratulations to all of our 2026 award winners!!

#OAH26

A thread - 1/

3 days ago 13 9 1 2

Book cover for Rachel A. Shelden, The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History

Not sure whether this is apt or terrible timing but here’s the official cover of my book due out with @uncpress.bsky.social W. Hodding Carter III imprint this fall. 🎉

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Allread, "Indigenous Constitutionalism" The Harvard Law Review has published " Indigenous Constitutionalism ," by Tanner Allread (University of California, Los Angeles). The abstr...

Legal History Blog: Allread, "Indigenous Constitutionalism" legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/allr...

5 days ago 3 3 0 0

sorry it took so long! It's been on my radar for months!

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NEW: Historians sue over OLC opinion claiming that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional.

Suit seeks declaration that the PRA is constitutional—and an injunction to bar Trump from taking Presidential records at conclusion of his term in office.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Current Issue | Duke Law Journal

New Duke Law Journal symposium on history & constitutional law co-edited with Joseph Blocher & Tim Lovelace, hosted with @bolchjudicial.bsky.social: dlj.law.duke.edu/current-issue/, pieces by Karen Tani, Christine Hammock Jones & Darrell Miller, Jake McAullife, Daniel Rice, Saul Cornell

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We loved participating in the event, including talking with judges who are grappling with the historical tests they are increasingly asked to apply. Thanks to the organizers for drawing attention to this topic and for including us! (4/4)

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We draw on case studies from the history of disability rights (my focus in recent years) & repro rights (Christen's area of expertise): scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcont... (3/4)

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My contribution, co-authored with the phenomenal Christen Hammock Jones, is about personal accounts (from oral histories, testimonials, etc.) as a source of relevant--but often unwanted--historical information. (2/4)

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Current Issue | Duke Law Journal

New from the Duke Law Journal: a symposium on "Historical Facts and Constitutional Law: New Challenges for Lawyers, Judges, and Scholars" - spearheaded by @brandonlgarrett.bsky.social Joseph Blocher & Tim Lovelace: dlj.law.duke.edu/current-issue/ (1/4)

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ASLH "In Memoriam" for William E. Nelson The American Society for Legal History has posted a memorial for William E. Nelson, whose passing we noted in December. The "In Memoriam," by Hendrik Hartog (Princeton University), begins: Bill Nelson, who died three months ago, was a pivotal and transformative figure in the growth of the field of American legal history. His scholarship included several monuments and field defining works. His mentorship was unmatched. Because of him, the Golieb Seminar at NYU Law School became a necessary way station for two generations of budding legal historians. And his generosity of spirit was legendary. He changed many lives, all for the better. Bill was both an intense and serious historian and an even more intense and serious lawyer. But he also engaged with both law and history with an incredible sense of fun and joy. His work was always marked by an amazing work-ethic and what can only be called sitzfleisch. He read cases and cases and cases. He believed in reading everything, all the primary documents. When he covered a subject, he did so in ways that no else one ever did. Selectivity and sampling were not his ways. Coverage was. And the results could be immensely revealing. He worked hard, and he worked fast. And he left an extraordinary body of scholarship. Read on here. -- Karen Tani

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Birthright Citizenship Roundup * From the op-ed pages of the New York Times: "Trump Says Birthright Citizenship Was Only for the Children of Slaves. He’s Wrong" -- by Martha S. Jones (Johns Hopkins) and Kate Masur (Northwestern). * Over in the Washington Post: "Trump officials cite white supremacists in bid to end birthright citizenship" --with quotes from legal historians Lucy Salyer (University of New Hampshire) and Sam Erman (University of Michigan). * Over in The Economist: What the Supreme Court will make of birthright citizenship--with quotes from Anthony Michael Kreis (Georgia State University) and Anna Law (Brooklyn College). * Over in the Wall Street Journal: Randy E. Barnett believes that Trump Is Right on Birthright Citizenship: The 14th Amendment's authors would exclude illegal and visiting aliens from U.S. “jurisdiction. * The NYT reports that Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order at Supreme Court Splits Conservative Scholars. * And many legal historians make or criticize what Mother Jones calls The Nonsense Case Against Birthright Citizenship. This Roundup has been compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.

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Editorial | Penn has an AI problem The Daily Pennsylvanian Editorial Board argues that Penn’s choice to embrace AI is detrimental to the institution of higher education. 

From the editorial board at Penn's student-run newspaper: www.thedp.com/article/2026...

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2026 Annual Meeting Call for Papers | American Society for Legal History Call for Papers 2026 American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting (November 12 - 14, 2026) The Program Committee of the American Society for Legal History invites proposals for the 2026 meeting t...

If you study legal history, please consider submitting a proposal for the 2026 conference of the American Society for Legal History in Banff, Canada in November! The Program Committee accepts proposals until March 24! #ASLH #legalhistory 🗃️

aslh.net/2026-annual-...

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What History Brings to the Study of Law & Political Economy: Tani on Winant I have been thinking lately about the intersection of law and political economy, thanks in part to the recently created Law and Political Ec...

YES to all of this. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time (almost 8 years, according to my receipts!) but that we have not yet figured out: legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/what...

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Contracting Around Generative Legal Writing In a recent post, I looked at how AI vendors use contracts to disclaim responsibility for their products.

A must read for legal academics and law reviews from @hoffprof.bsky.social

profhoffman.substack.com/p/contractin...

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DOGE fed grant descriptions into OpenAI’s ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence chatbot, asking it to decide if grants were “DEI.”

(5/7)

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Major news: A @nytimes.com story today reports on developments in our lawsuit, filed with @modernlanguage.bsky.social and @acls1919.bsky.social, opposing the illegal dismantling of the NEH.

The article covers newly released discovery in the case.

Here’s what discovery confirmed:

🧵(1/7)

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Projects and Proposals Funding | American Society for Legal History The Projects and Proposals Committee of the American Society for Legal History invites proposals for the funding of new initiatives in the study, presentation, and production of legal historical schol...

I'm excited to be chairing the American Society for Legal History Projects and Proposals Committee this cycle. We look forward to receiving funding applications for conferences, museum exhibits, pedagogical experiments, and more! We are accepting submissions until Sept. 1.

aslh.net/award/projec...

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My latest, "Free Exercise and the Redistribution of Liberty," is now posted (and forthcoming in @yalelawjournal.bsky.social). It argues that free exercise doctrine uses selective market logic to redistribute both public resources and liberty itself.

Comments welcome: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=618...

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Here's a link to Prof. Portuondo's article -- "Free Exercise and the Redistribution of Liberty"-- forthcoming in @yalelawjournal.bsky.social: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers..... [2/2]

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Weekly Roundup: Feb 13 Vincent Joralemon on the flawed legal architecture behind drug pricing, Eamon Coburn on the anti-worker character of "no taxes on overtime," and Emmanuel Mauleón on the gradual erosion of law…

The weekly roundup from @lpeblog.bsky.social is here - lpeproject.org/blog/weekly-..., and it flags some exciting new work by Prof. @lauraportuondo.bsky.social (which I learned about at the fantastic recent ALPE conference) [1/2]

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Writing a History of Marital Privilege in an Age of Retrenchment As the government seeks to erase the past injustices and achievements of marginalized groups, it is worth recalling how those gains were made. Parents, partners, students, and lawyers pursued a more…

Over at @lpeblog.bsky.social: My brilliant colleague @serenamayeri.bsky.social on "Writing a History of Marital Privilege in an Age of Retrenchment." #LegalHistory

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Skrmetti, Trump, and the Coming Sex Equality Realignment This Essay considers the Supreme Court’s decision in <i>United States v. Skrmetti</i> alongside the Trump Administration’s recent actions. In <i>Skrmetti</i>, w

Excited to read the latest from @kateshaw.bsky.social & @profmmurray.bsky.social! The article "view[s] judicial and executive-branch developments in tandem" to reveal the emergence of "a coherent—and deeply revanchist—vision of sex and the Constitution."

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What a treat it was to have @unlawfulentries.bsky.social at the @upenn.edu legal history workshop today and to get a glimpse of her forthcoming book! global.oup.com/academic/pro...

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Call for Papers: Eleventh Annual Administrative Law New Scholarship Roundtable - Yale Journal on Regulation Vanderbilt Law School is very pleased to host the Eleventh Annual Administrative Law New Scholarship Roundtable on June 2-3, 2026. For the past ten years, the Roundtable has offered administrative law...

Attn junior admin law scholars--submit your abstracts by 2/27 for the annual new scholarship roundtable--a fantastic venue for getting feedback & making connections in the field--this year at Vanderbilt Law. Details at the link:
www.yalejreg.com/nc/call-for-...

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Berger-Howe Legal History Fellowship: Deadline Approaching [We are moving this previously posted announcement up because the deadline of January 15 is approaching. DRE.] Harvard Law School invites applications for the Raoul Berger-Mark De Wolfe Howe Legal History Fellowship for the academic year 2026-2027. Eligible applicants include those who have made substantial progress on their doctoral dissertations or who have recently been awarded a doctoral degree. A first law degree is preferred, but not required. The purpose of the fellowship, which is awarded annually, is to enable the fellow to complete a major piece of writing in the field of legal history, broadly defined, as the fellow seeks to begin an academic career in legal history. There are no limitations as to geographical area or time period. Previous fellows have gone on to pursue faculty appointments or other fellowships in American universities, primarily on law faculties. The fellow is expected to spend the majority of their time on their own projects. The fellow will also participate in the Harvard Law School Legal History Workshop, a for-credit semester-long seminar, and assist with occasional other legal history sessions, both under the direction of Harvard faculty affiliated with the Program in Law and History. The term of the fellowship is July 1 through June 30. The fellow will be required to be in residence at the law school during the academic year (September through May). Applicants for the fellowship for 2026-2027 should submit their applications and supporting materials electronically to Professor Bruce H. Mann. Each interested applicant should submit: * a detailed (five pages maximum) description of a proposed project; * a writing sample; * a comprehensive résumé or curriculum vitae that gives the applicant's educational background, publications, works in progress, and other relevant experience; * two academic letters of reference, which may be submitted electronically by the recommenders to Professor Mann at the above email address; and * copies of official transcripts of all academic work done at the graduate level, which may be sent electronically or by regular mail to Professor Mann at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 The deadline for applications is January 15, 2026. Announcement of the award will be made by February 27, 2026. The fellow selected will receive a stipend of $60,000.

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Posts by Karen Tani