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Jamal Greene

@jamalgreene.bsky.social

21K followers 440 following 1.3K posts

Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School. Ex-DOJ/OLC. Becoming familiar with your game. How Rights Went Wrong available at Bookshop.org (https://tinyurl.com/se32my4r), Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/3vbcfwa4), or a decent public library.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · Jun 10

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Deborah Pearlstein @debpearlstein.bsky.social · Jun 10

Zaitsev, a 36-yr-old Russian citizen w/a pending asylum case, said he was beaten by ICE agents...Photos in court filings show Zaitsev with bruises and scabs on his face. “We came to the US for protection because of what we encountered in Russia. It seems that we are encountering here what we fled.”

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Reposted by Jamal Greene

Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 18h

Feel free to attribute the following to a former OMB General Counsel: The supposed "new legal analysis" is, to use a technical legal term, horseshit. What the law actually says is that when Congress enacts a law ending a lapse, furloughed employees get paid at the earliest date possible. Period.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

Johnson: "It's true that in previous shutdowns, many or most furloughed employees have been paid for the time they were furloughed, but there is new legal analysis - I don't know the details, I just saw a headline - but there are some legal analysts saying that might not be appropriate or necessary"

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 19h

Just so. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

A Compact for Control (opinion)

No self-respecting institution of higher education should accept the Trump administration’s unconstitutional terms, Robert Post and Tom Ginsburg write.

www.insidehighered.com

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

Law review article, symposium piece, book

Anil Kalhan @akalhan.bsky.social · 1d

University general counsel, university trustee, university president

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

Also worth reading, as always: @richardprimus.bsky.social

Richard Primus @richardprimus.bsky.social · 1d

Worth reading: Judge Immergut’s decision in Oregon v. Trump, granting a TRO enjoining DJT from federalizing the Oregon Nat’l Guard and deploying them to Portland. I link it at the next post in this thread, followed by some thoughts. (1/18)

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

I think someone who traffics in large quantities of coins (a bank?) who says they lack confidence that this will be accepted as valid legal tender might have a decent Art. 3 standing argument, but many courts (and SCOTUS for sure) would disagree.

Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

It does *seem* clear, which is almost verbatim what Anthony said, while offering what he thought they would argue and saying it seems to be a bad argument. WaPo read his lawyerliness as a hedge, and ran with "could." I would have preferred "Legal experts say this appears to violate federal law."

Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

Had he said, "Yes, this clearly violates federal law," maybe they take out the "could," but law profs shouldn't say that about things they haven't studied. Astronomers shouldn't (and wouldn't) either.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

I suspect the issue here is with "experts say it *could* violate federal law" when the law seems clear. The expert quoted is @anthonymkreis.bsky.social, who basically says "sure looks like it violates federal law" but (appropriately) isn't more definitive than that. WaPo then apes his qualifier.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

Old ICE game, new scale.

David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 1d

ICE abducts people and then immediately moves them around to prevent access to lawyers and habeas corpus petitions. @emmarjanssen.bsky.social has the story on this consistent game being played to frustrate due process.
prospect.org/justice/2025...

How ICE Hides Detainees From Their Lawyers

‘It seems like cruelty is the point,’ one attorney said.

prospect.org

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

I'm not surprised at what he has tried to do. I am surprised at the lack of resistance from those in power and the number of putatively serious people who seem to find the situation unalarming.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 1d

If they decided to do that, they'd have to decide whether to make a show of retaliating against Texas, which would serve the political purpose but would make them highly vulnerable to litigation.

Reposted by Jamal Greene

Raffi Melkonian @rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social · 2d

Is it good when federal judges have to schedule Sunday night 10 pm hearings about absurd military invasions of their state.

Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 2d

COMING UP: Judge Immergut has set a hearing for 10 pm ET tonight (!) on Trump's effort to circumvent her temporary restraining order re: Oregon national guard deployment by calling up the federalized California national guard.

Date Filed
Oct 5, 2025
Description
* CSV
SCHEDULING ORDER: This Court, having received Plaintiffs' Second Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and request for Expedited Hearing, ECF 59, sets a hearing by Telephonic Conference at 7:00
p.m. tonight, October 5, 2025, before Judge Karin J. Immergut. Access information for "LISTEN ONLY" phone number for the Hearing. Telephone Number: 1-571-353-2301 (toll-free 1-833-
990-9400); Guest Meeting ID: 812-980-
324#. Note: If dropped from the conference, please rejoin the conference.
For complete conference connection instructions and etiquette guidelines, refer to ord.uscourts.gov/cms. Ordered on 10/5/25 by Judge Karin J. Immergut. (jy)
(Entered: 10/05/2025)

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 2d

I often think of Charles Black’s description of Hugo Black’s formalism not as a promise or commitment but as an “attitude” toward the law (and a laudable one). Because of course there’s nothing you should *actually* insist on doing though the heavens fall. Today’s formalists don’t get that.

Reposted by Jamal Greene

Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 2d

The very first statute authorizing domestic use of the military during domestic emergencies, enacted in 1792 by a Congress full of the same folks who wrote and ratified the Constitution, expressly provided for judicial review in certain circumstances *before* the President could even send troops.

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Reposted by Jamal Greene

Genevieve Lakier @genevievelakier.bsky.social · 4d

The Trump Administration’s “Compact of Excellence” for Universities is... far from excellent! Indeed, it’s unconstitutional. In this post, let me count the ways.

blog.dividedargument.com/p/the-uncons...

The Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine and the Compact for Excellence

Members of the Trump administration love to say that federal funding is a privilege not a right and therefore something that can be granted or withheld based on changing administrative priorities.

blog.dividedargument.com

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 3d

The Biden DOJ indicted Trump for both of these acts. One case was hampered by SCOTUS’s immunity decision and the other was slow-walked by Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee. There’s lots of legit debate to have about the conduct of those cases, but FTR it isn’t true that there was no prosecution.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

I suspect we would have never heard of it if the politics were reversed.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

FIRE is, I assume, basing its view on the Free Beacon's reporting, which I do not regard as a balanced source. In any event, schools, esp. private ones, are under no obligation to ignore security logistics in scheduling speakers and rooms (quite the opposite). I withhold judgment without more info.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

Mitch, Hart, Clarkson, Deuce and Brunson lineup in the first quarter. Yes, I know preseason, but Thibs is rolling over in his armchair.

Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

Fast Knicks is disorienting.

Reposted by Jamal Greene

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 5d

They folded the big First Amendment violations in with a bunch of other stuff, including things that are totally unobjectionable and that universities are already doing, in order to make the overall document read as reasonable to someone who doesn't know the ins and outs of it. Don't be that person.

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

Fast Knicks is disorienting.

Reposted by Jamal Greene

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 5d

A series of short posts from leading scholars about the constraints the First Amendment imposes on the government's authority to impose conditions on federal funding. Seems relevant! This is a @knightcolumbia.org series from earlier this year. knightcolumbia.org/research/fed...

Federal Funding and the First Amendment

knightcolumbia.org

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

As @genevievelakier.bsky.social notes, this scheme is squarely unconstitutional under existing cases. There's some tricky nuance in the doctrine, but the thrust is that the government may not condition receipt of federal funds on ideological agreement with the government (or on refusing to speak).

Genevieve Lakier @genevievelakier.bsky.social · 5d

The admin’s efforts to get universities to agree to a list of demands in exchange for preferential access to federal funding isn’t just “troubling” as Ted Mitchell, prez of the @aceducation.bsky.social says in this article; it looks blatantly unconstitutional.🧵
www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

www.wsj.com

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

www.nokings.org

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Jamal Greene @jamalgreene.bsky.social · 5d

Bivens has certainly been gutted, but if there's a hurdle to a damages suit here (and there shouldn't be, but I'm not naive), it would be substantive, based on whether there was probable cause, not jurisdictional/procedural, right? Unless Bivens has literally been overruled, or is about to be.

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