Jacob T. Levy

@jacobtlevy.bsky.social

62K followers 1.1K following 14K posts

Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory, Associate member of Philosophy, Coordinator of Research Group on Constitutional Studies, McGill.
Posts here speak only for myself.
Americo-Canadian; liberaltarian; aging geek.
http://jacobtlevy.com .. more

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Jacob T. Levy is an American political theorist and Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at McGill University. Levy is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at McGill, as well as the coordinator of McGill's Research Group on Constitutional Studies and the founding director of McGill's Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds. Levy is also a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and the Institute for Humane Studies. He is known for his expertise on multiculturalism, liberalism, and pluralism. .. more

Political science 68%

Law 8%

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 4h

I reiterate my view that American Beauty is a particularly bizarre choice for Hanania to keep using as “normal healthy heterosexuality.”

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · Nov 19

Plus, you know, Alan Ball, that renowned observer of healthy heterosexuality.

(Ball is obviously very smart and very talented, but American Beauty taken together with Six Feet Under suggests a perspective on straight people that I do not think straight people should want to accept as normative.)

✨[redacted]✨ @britculpsapp.bsky.social · Nov 18

MAN WHAT?

using kevin spacey for a comparison or example here is definitely… a choice

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

First Wordle Problems @fwordleproblems.bsky.social · 4h

Your knowledge and experience are for a world where "protest" is a defined activity with unspoken codes and hierarchies. Where your authority is real. But once "normal" people are involved, when it's MASS protest, you're not in that world anymore! That stuff doesn't matter, or is actively harmful.

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 5h

Soon as I saw the NYT headline that the administration was dropping the $200m demand on Harvard I knew, just absolutely knew, that he would tweet out an escalation to ONE BILLION DOLLARS while denouncing the FAKE NEWS.

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 5h

Unsubscribing right damn fast because my inbox will get out of control if it decides to notify me every time there's a strike in Montreal.

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 5h

I got signed up for some new travel alert system by an institution's travel agency, and now I'm getting warnings on both sides of an upcoming round trip between the US (possible political violence) and Montreal (municipal strike means possibility of delays in official functions.)

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 5h

Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine has had that white streak in her air since Steranko created her in 1967 which is the only, and I mean only, reason to think that the MCU didn't model the unpleasant, villainous, and at best semi-competent version played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Gabbard.

Reposted by Maya Sen, Jacob T. Levy, David Darmofal

Paul Gowder @gowder.io · 5h

Once again the Crusader Against Antisemitism proves himself the biggest antisemite of all.

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 6h

Trump is now demanding One Billion Dollars from Harvard, threatening criminal punishment, and insinuating Harvard’s president was chosen because of his religion (?)

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 13h

It doesn't always cover itself in glory but one thing the American legal profession has going for it is most of them have seen Judgment at Nuremberg.

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 16h

But “plenty” is pretty minor compared to Musk’s hate campaign about The Odyssey.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Richard E. Lenski, Scott L. Greer , and 6 more Anna O. Law, Richard E. Lenski, Scott L. Greer, Steve Peers, Mark D. White, Laurent Pech, David R. Miller, Jacob T. Levy, Joanna L. Grossman

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 18h

Judge Reyes starts with a comparison: George Washington versus Kristi Noem.

[start quotation] MEMORANDUM OPINION
On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: “America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of
all Nations & Religions.”1
More than two centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President
Washington’s vision by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. See 8
U.S.C. § 1254a (TPS statute). It provides humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United
States who come from disaster-stricken countries. It also brings in substantial revenue, with TPS
holders generating $5.2 billion in taxes annually. See Part VI.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem has a different take."[end quotation]

Underneath is a screenshot of a tweet, which reads: " Secretary Kristi Noem
@Sec_Noem
I just met with the President.
I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.
Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom-not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS.
WE DON'T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.
6:52 PM
Dec 1, 2025
13.2M Views

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 18h

Cannot emphasize this enough, federal judges only do this when they're extremely distressed

Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 18h

Haiti’s TPS continues for now!!!!! And zowie: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.283214/gov.uscourts.dcd.283214.124.0_1.pdf

VII. CONCLUSION
There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the
facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table.
Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side or at least has
ignored them. Does not have the law on her side or at least has ignored it. Having neither and
bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X (f/k/a Twitter).
Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement
junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both
our Constitution and the APA to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS
program. The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.
By accompanying Order, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs' Renewed Motion for a Stay
Under 5 U.S.C. § 705.
Ara C. Regr

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

guggenheim42.bsky.social @guggenheim42.bsky.social · 21h

It's only a betrayal of the source material if the new character appearance is non-white. Otherwise it's sparkling adaptation choices.

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 23h

Weird how no one is making a big fuss out of the fact that this character is explicitly canonically not blonde. Has this director "lost all integrity"?

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 23h

www.cbc.ca/comedy/it-s-...

It's official! Punxsutawney Phil predicts "an eternity of darkness from which we will never escape" | CBC Comedy

The moment of truth has arrived!

www.cbc.ca

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

May Be Writing @hrbw.bsky.social · 1d

"You don't seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me."

Rorschact from The Watchmen in the prison scene.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy, Richard Pettigrew

James Goodwin @jamesgoodwin.bsky.social · 1d

CHOTINER: Have you ever seen a petard in person?

INTERVIEWEE: No, I haven't

CHOTINER: *reaches into bag on table*

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 1d

CHOTINER: That's very interesting. It reminds me of this rope I have here. The rope is tied into a noose. Would you like to try it on? It might look good on you.

INTERVIEWEE: yes, I think that would suit me very well. Let me see how it fits around my neck.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Research Group on Constitutional Studies, McGill University @rgcs-mcgill.bsky.social · 1d

RGCS PhD student Rhona Goodarzi (Law) and RGCS faculty member Catherine Lu (Political Science) were members of McGill's Advisory Panel on Campus Expression whose valuable and important final report was issued last week.

The Report is available here:

www.mcgill.ca/president/si...

www.mcgill.ca

Reposted by Henry Farrell

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 1d

Oh. My. God.

Reposted by Steven S. Smith, Jacob T. Levy

John Moe @johnmoe.bsky.social · 1d

From FB regarding Pizza Luce in Minnesota.

I like it when I can do something to help people displaced by ICE and then after I do that thing I get to eat a pizza.

I want to let you know about something that happened at Pizza Luce and encourage you to thank and patronize them. One of the drivers at Parkway Pizza who is a friend of mine told me tonight about something that happened at the downtown Mpls Pizza Lucé where his wife works.
A kitchen manager has been giving rides to workers afraid to take public transportation to work. Last week, two ICE SUVs pulled her over. There was a young Latina women in the car and ICE grabbed her. She is here legally, but apparently, if you are not white, you need to carry a passport or other documents with you.
Despite the fact that she is here legally, ICE flew her to their detention facility outside of El Paso, TX. Fortunately, the owner of the Pizza Lucé chain paid for a lawyer to expedite her release. Unfortunately, when ICE is forced to release people they have unlawfully detained and flown to Texas, they do not fly them back. They just dump them on the streets of El Paso. But again, fortunately, the owner of Pizza Lucé paid for a plane ticket to fly her home. So please thank the folks at Pizza Lucé if you have the chance.
Dozens of Minnesotans have not been so lucky as this woman and are trying to find their way back from Texas. Today's NY Times has a story about "Selamawit Mehari, an Eritrean single mother of three.... federal agents showed up at her apartment in St. Paul...(even though) her older daughter produced paperwork proving her mother was in the United States lawfully, the agents shackled Ms. Mehari and took her away." The story cites many like her who "were eventually released in Texas, leaving them to find their own way home."

Reposted by Lilian Edwards, Jacob T. Levy

Parker Molloy @parkermolloy.com · 1d

Absolutely brutal interview

Do you know-
Also, it was a great pleasure for me to work with Brett again, because I did movies years ago with Brett.
Well, he's been down on his luck a little bit lately, so that was nice of you to give him some help.
And I always felt that as you do a movie with somebody, you're very intimate with this person.
Brett Ratner, you are talking about?
Yeah. Not the intimacy level of when you go out with a girl. But, you're close. It's like a family. You live twenty-four hours with someone shooting a movie. So I know Brett very well, and I know he is a very good, generous soul.
Aw.
He's not an aggressive person.
I have read different things.
He is not an aggressive person, so I was very happy to see him being happy again, to be able to work, because he's been without work for a few years, which I think is kind of unjust. It makes no sense to me, knowing Brett very well.
I know you've said that Brett's been "frustrated" these past eight years, and there were all these accusations against him—that he forced women to perform sex acts, that he masturbated in front of women, all these things. So you didn't believe them, or you weren't concerned about them?
Well, I don't know. I was not present. What I can tell you is that Brett might have made some mistakes, but his character is very gentle—he is a very gentle, generous person, always kind to everybody in the crew, men or women, always very respectable. So that's why I wanted to go back and help him, because I felt that what happened to him was kind of unjust.

So is that because you don't believe the accusations, or because you think that it's time to move on?
I don't know. I'm not informed about the accusations. I wasn't there. I wasn't present, but I know his personality. I know his character. I can't tell because I wasn't there, and he might've made some mistakes, but he's a very good guy at heart. He's a very generous and human kind of person.
You told the Times that Brett "made some mistakes." Has he told you that he made mistakes?
No. No. No. Isaac, no. All I'm saying is that I worked with him twelve hours, fifteen hours, a day, and then everybody went their own way. Our age difference is wide. I could be his father.
I read that Roman Polanski is a father figure to him. So that role might already be filled. There are a lot of people who feel affection for Brett.
Yeah, yeah. Because he's a good kid. [In 2007's Paris-based "Rush Hour 3," Ratner gave a cameo to Polanski, who had fled to France after being accused of anally and vaginally raping a thirteen-year-old. He was later accused of sexually assaulting other teen-agers, which he denies. In the cameo, Polanski has a comic scene where he prepares to do an anal-cavity search of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. J
The Times has you saying that he made some mistakes. That's what I was curious about.
What I'm saying is, he might've made some mistakes. I don't know. It's not like 1 was with him when he was interviewing actresses to do a movie or that kind of activity.
It's the same with Trump. A lot of accusations have been made against him, but neither you nor I were in the room. So who's to say, really?
Yeah, exactly.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Anna O. Law @unlawfulentries.bsky.social · 1d

Every academic book is a conversation with the work of other scholars. Here are some of the works I cited & one I did not and how they influence me. Alison LaCroix's Interbellum Constitution was out before mine. She generously forwarded me her page proofs so I could learn from her book. 1/

cover of Alison L. LaCroix's The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms by Yale University Press. Painting of people on a waterfront admiring ships sailing.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 1d

so, you see the bernie or bust people were actually right because libs failed to persuade them

now, when we tried *that was also considered illegitimate* any argument they didn't like was considered 'vote shaming'

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 1d

Sure, Jan.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy, Stuart Shapiro

Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 1d

"resistance liberals can't have been that right about trump if they couldn't stop him"

-- the last gasp of people who've run out of arguments but don't want to admit it

Reposted by Marc Lynch, Steven Heydemann, Jonathan M. Gilligan , and 7 more Marc Lynch, Steven Heydemann, Jonathan M. Gilligan, Philip Nel, Bonnie Honig, Jacob T. Levy, Brian Keegan, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 1d

“Let us be clear: we want the power of the state. We wish to hold the criminals of the regime accountable. We wish to seize back the public funds looted by Trump and his cronies. We wish to undo the damage he has done to the government. More than any of that we wish to rebuild.”

From Powerlessness to Power

We will not achieve any of our ultimate goals without exercising state power, and the most effective way to take state power is through nonviolent but confrontational resistance.

www.liberalcurrents.com

Ian Bassin @ianbassin.bsky.social · 1d

I was a White House ethics lawyer.

I used to advise people not to even accept a free cup of coffee from someone who had interests before them. And staff followed those rules.

I can’t even find the words to describe the scale of Trump’s corruption here.

Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 2d

Foreign countries are bribing our president to sell out the American people.

Trump family businesses made $187 MILLION from this deal, and just months later he gave the UAE some of our most top-secret AI tech.

They are selling our national security to the highest bidder.

Reposted by Marc Lynch, Lisa W. Fazio, Ben H. Ansell , and 24 more Marc Lynch, Lisa W. Fazio, Ben H. Ansell, Richard E. Lenski, Brendan Nyhan, Mor Naaman, Richard Price, John Horgan, Robert W. Wallace, Michael A. Clemens, Mark D. White, Rosemary A. Joyce, Philip Nel, Aaron Sojourner, Adrian Daub, Jacob T. Levy, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Juan Moreno‐Cruz, Michael D. McDonald, James Goodwin, Brian Keegan, Sarah Roberts, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Dan Immergluck, Élisabeth Vallet, Maria Sobolewska, David Darmofal

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 1d

University of Illinois college republicans advocate for executing protesters as “traitors” with art that takes a disturbing killing and makes it even more extreme.
dailyillini.com/news-stories...