Keith E. Whittington
@kewhittington.bsky.social
11K followers 130 following 330 posts
David Boies Professor of Law, Yale Law School. Founding Chair, Academic Freedom Alliance; Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution. All opinions are mine alone.
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kewhittington.bsky.social
Plenty of those need to be cleaned up in revisions
kewhittington.bsky.social
If I’m ever elected president, I will work into every speech my grievances with Reviewer 2
savchenkoua.bsky.social
🇺🇸🇺🇳 Trump: Years ago, I bid $500 million to rebuild the UN complex, marble floors, mahogany walls, best of everything.

They chose another plan, cost $2–4 billion, far worse, massive overruns, no marble floors. I was right.
kewhittington.bsky.social
Some excellent news regarding my new center at Yale. Maybe there’ll be some work for him to do at some point

Joe Cohn Joins the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech as Executive Director law.yale.edu/yls-today/ne...
Joe Cohn Joins the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech as Executive Director
Cohn joins the center after a legal career dedicated to defending free speech rights and campus civil liberties.
law.yale.edu
Reposted by Keith E. Whittington
osamet.bsky.social
I know there's a lot happening today, but this is sneaking in under the radar. This proposed new rule would absolutely crush foreign PhD students, potentially making it impossible for them to enroll with any certainty of their ability to finish www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
kewhittington.bsky.social
I’d say the appropriate reaction in a constitutional democracy is to keep someone with that attitude the hell away from the White House, but here we are
Reposted by Keith E. Whittington
kewhittington.bsky.social
Ok, let’s take a look at this flag burning executive order. As usual, much less than meets the eye, but great for culture war fodder on both sides 1/
atrupar.com
Trump signs an executive order: "If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail."
kewhittington.bsky.social
As predicted, the flag-burning EO is a nothing burger from a legal or policy perspective, but I’m sure it will help everyone with their small-dollar donors. But I would advise criminals to avoid desecrating American flags while they do their criming. 12/12
kewhittington.bsky.social
Foreign nationals might have more to worry about, but again not because there’s now a new legal constraint but because burning flags will be a good way to prioritize your deportation on other grounds. 11/
kewhittington.bsky.social
Let’s litigate to “clarify the scope of the First Amendment exceptions in this area”! Sure, good luck with that. And for those saying “But the Roberts Court!” The Roberts Court is extremely 1A friendly and even Alito has favorably cited the flag burning opinions. Loser. 10/
kewhittington.bsky.social
There is already evidence that cops arrest people in such cases that prosecutors refuse to prosecute. EO might encourage cops to be more aggressive in making such arrests, even if arrestees continue to get immediately kicked by prosecutors and magistrates. 9/
kewhittington.bsky.social
Same with the referral to local officials for local crimes, but one can easily imagine some overreach in prosecutions that courts will predictably bat down. 8/
kewhittington.bsky.social
The actual directive to the AG here is festooned with legal limitations. Maybe this changes prosecutorial priorities, but that’s it. If you are going to beat someone up, you might not want to do it at the same time you desecrate the American flag. 7/
kewhittington.bsky.social
Administration will prosecute lawless actions that also involve flag-burning? Ok, whatever. The prosecuting criminal behavior is doing all the work here. The flag add-on is boob bait. 6/
kewhittington.bsky.social
The EO wants to pretend that there are unanswered legal questions regarding flag burning that opens a door to greater enforcement action. This is a frequent Trump EO tactic, but it is a mirage in this case as in others. 5/
kewhittington.bsky.social
This is unlikely to fly. Flag burning as a type of “fighting word” is a non-starter under existing precedent. Flag-burning adds nothing to actions that otherwise qualify as incitement & flag-burning in itself won’t meet that standard. 4/
kewhittington.bsky.social
There is a pitch that some instances of flag burning might fall under existing 1st Amendment exceptions despite the Court’s ruling that flag burning as such is protected expression. 3/