Sunita Patel
@lawprofspatel.bsky.social
90 followers 120 following 5 posts
Professor of Law @UCLA, Faculty Director of the UCLA Vets Clinic, Faculty Director of the Public Interest Law Program, movement lawyer, writing about policing and labor these days. All views my own.
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lawprofspatel.bsky.social
Reminds me of Orangeburg, South Carolina where the white flight school is still almost all white and the public school is predominantly Black.
propublica.org
After the Brown v. Board decision, white people across the South opened hundreds of private schools.

70+ years later, most of the ones still open in Alabama’s Black Belt remain overwhelmingly white.

In this town, one school keeps kids divided.

(Published May 2024)
Segregation Academies Still Operate Across the South. One Town Grapples With Its Divided Schools.
Seventy years after Brown v. Board, Black and white residents, in Camden, Alabama, say they would like to see their children schooled together. But after so long apart, they aren’t sure how to make it...
www.propublica.org
lawprofspatel.bsky.social
I posted the actual decision-- read it if you want to believe in ANYTHING anymore. The fact section outlines the ways homeland security fabricated reasons to arrest and detain student activists critical of the genocide in Gaza.
democracydocket.com
A federal judge ruled Trump’s targeting of pro-Palestinian student activists violates the First Amendment, and affirmed the government “simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains” as it “poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech.”
Reagan-Appointed Judge Calls Out Trump’s ‘Full-Throated Assault on the First Amendment’
Read more here.
www.democracydocket.com
Reposted by Sunita Patel
kvanderson.bsky.social
Start working with your campus chapter of the @aaup.org to raise awareness of this "compact" and ensure your admin doesn't comply. If your campus doesn't have an AAUP chapter, start one to oppose this.
fishkin.bsky.social
The "compact" is a threat, with the administration explicitly stating that it plans to disfavor universities that don't sign in areas from foreign student visas, student loans, federal contracts as well as grants, and even tax [501(c)(3)] status.

It's a maximalist plan of 1st Amendment violation.
www.washingtonexaminer.com
lawprofspatel.bsky.social
This conversation is helpful and instructive. It offers a diff lens to the dominant conversation surrounding the authoritarian playbook. Race-conscious policy dominates the T administration, yet many Dems are avoid race & policies to uplift the most historically disadvantaged.
Reposted by Sunita Patel
lawprofspatel.bsky.social
The interlocking of executive administrative police agencies, municipal police, and ICE is a transinstitutional policing redux. Schools and hospitals really should rethink their relationships with law enforcement. harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...
dcmigrantmutualaid.org
The @nytimes.com broke down how DC became a testing ground for ICE and their conclusions are exactly what organizers have been screaming about at the top of our lungs:

“One key to the strategy: ICE’s close partnership with both [MPD] and the U.S. Park Police.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/u...
How Washington Became a Testing Ground for ICE
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Sunita Patel
lawprofspatel.bsky.social
The interlocking of executive administrative police agencies, municipal police, and ICE is a transinstitutional policing redux. Schools and hospitals really should rethink their relationships with law enforcement. harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...
dcmigrantmutualaid.org
The @nytimes.com broke down how DC became a testing ground for ICE and their conclusions are exactly what organizers have been screaming about at the top of our lungs:

“One key to the strategy: ICE’s close partnership with both [MPD] and the U.S. Park Police.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/u...
How Washington Became a Testing Ground for ICE
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Sunita Patel
propublica.org
“We didn’t have a credible or effective U.S. representative in that country. We had a mouthpiece for the government of El Salvador,” Tim Rieser, a longtime Senate foreign policy aide, said about Johnson’s time as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador.
The Trump-Appointed Diplomat Accused of Shielding El Salvador’s President From Law Enforcement
A previously undisclosed State Department report and interviews reveal accusations that U.S. Ambassador Ronald D. Johnson shielded Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele from U.S. and Salvadoran law enforc...
www.propublica.org
lawprofspatel.bsky.social
Not just troubling times, we are in authoritarian times.
cwebbonline.com
NEW: Rachel Maddow drops unseen bodycam footage of feds coordinating the arrest of Newark Mayor Baraka.

I REPEAT: the feds ordered his arrest even though he wasn’t breaking any laws.

Federal agent: “We are arresting the mayor right now per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States.”