E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
1. The hate mail responses to my prior posting had tapered off, but have renewed a bit since Tuesday. Just for the record -- I received the following e-mail this morning, which I suppose the writer thinks is cleverly satirical:
Dear MARK TUSHNET:
Your report date at the EASTERN UNITED STATES Re-education Camp is:
NOVEMBER 15, 2016
Bring a toothbrush.
Sincerely,
Trump Transition Team
Ross Douthat's column in the New York Times today has the title, "You Must Serve Trump," where the "must" appears to be a normative imperative (though I'm not sure that the person who gave it the title intended to introduce the ambiguity that's there). As I've been noting the rather wide range of people who have taken that or similar positions, the following question has arisen in my mind: Cutting directly to the chase of Godwin's law, assume that N (less than one) is the probability that Trump turns out to be the contemporary equivalent of Hitler. How large does N have to be for the advice to work for Trump so as to temper his excesses morally mistaken? My own estimate places N below .5 (but above .001). For me, the "fact" that N is not zero makes working for Trump morally hazardous.
2. I'm sure that the prior stuff will attract more attention than what follows, but I do have to figure out how I'm going to manage my professional life over the few years I have before retirement, and maybe the project should be theorizing how the U.S. Constitution is or became adaptable to a system of illiberal constitutionalism. ("The Future of Illiberal Constitutionalism" as a title, anyone?) Parts are relatively easy -- presidential administration in a world with an acquiescent Congress (and judiciary), adjusting the interpretation of the First Amendment to accommodate modifications in the law of libel against public officials. What other parts of the project might there be? And, on the "how it became adaptable," I'm reasonably sure that the acceptance of the (I have to say, true) insights of Legal Realism would play a role.