We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid; The New York Times, April 9, 2025

Erwin Chemerinsky and Laurence H. Tribe. 

Mr. Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Tribe is an emeritus university professor of constitutional law at Harvard., The New York Times; We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid

"Of all the lawless acts by the Trump administration in its first two and a half months, none are more frightening than its dumping of human beings who have not had their day in court into an infamous maximum-security prison in El Salvador — and then contending that no federal court has the authority to right these brazen wrongs.

In an astounding brief filed in the Supreme Court on Monday, the solicitor general of the United States argued that even when the government concedes that it has mistakenly deported someone to El Salvador and had him imprisoned there, the federal courts are powerless to do anything about it. The Supreme Court must immediately and emphatically reject this unwarranted claim of unlimited power to deprive people of their liberty without due process.

That would seem to be the obvious response. It was Thomas Jefferson who called the right of habeas corpus to protect against unlawful detention one of the “essential principles of our government.”

Jefferson’s concerns are underscored by the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a lawful resident of the United States, whom the federal government admits it wrongly deported to El Salvador. He has been incarcerated in El Salvador along with some 200 Venezuelan migrants deported there last month by the Trump administration, which says they were involved in criminal and gang activity...

If the government can disappear any people it wishes, dump them in a Salvadoran dungeon and prevent any court in this country from providing relief, we all should be very, very afraid."

Trump Wants to Merge Government Data. Here Are 314 Things It Might Know About You.; The New York Times, April 9, 2025

Emily Badger and Sheera Frenkel, The New York Times ; Trump Wants to Merge Government Data. Here Are 314 Things It Might Know About You.

"The federal government knows your mother’s maiden name and your bank account number. The student debt you hold. Your disability status. The company that employs you and the wages you earn there. And that’s just a start...

These intimate details about the personal lives of people who live in the United States are held in disconnected data systems across the federal government — some at the Treasury, some at the Social Security Administration and some at the Department of Education, among other agencies.

The Trump administration is now trying to connect the dots of that disparate information. Last month, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the “consolidation” of these segregated records, raising the prospect of creating a kind of data trove about Americans that the government has never had before, and that members of the president’s own party have historically opposed.

The effort is being driven by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and his lieutenants with the Department of Government Efficiency, who have sought access to dozens of databases as they have swept through agencies across the federal government. Along the way, they have elbowed past the objections of career staff, data security protocols, national security experts and legal privacy protections."

Mississippi libraries ordered to delete academic research in response to state laws; Mississippi Today, April 8, 2025

 Michael Goldberg and  Candice Wilder, Mississippi Today; Mississippi libraries ordered to delete academic research in response to state laws

"A state commission scrubbed academic research from a database used by Mississippi libraries and public schools — a move made to comply with recent state laws changing what content can be offered in libraries.

The Mississippi Library Commission ordered the deletion of two research collections that might violate state law, a March 31 internal memo obtained by Mississippi Today shows. One of the now deleted research collections focused on “race relations” and the other on “gender studies.” 

The memo, written by Mississippi Library Commission Executive Director Hulen Bivins, confirmed the scrubbing of scholarly material from a database used by publicly funded schools, libraries, community colleges, universities and state agencies. The database, MAGNOLIA, is funded by the Mississippi Legislature."

I’m Not Convinced Ethical Generative AI Currently Exists; Wired, February 20, 2025

REECE ROGERS , Wired; I’m Not Convinced Ethical Generative AI Currently Exists

"For me, the ethics of generative AI use can be broken down to issues with how the models are developed—specifically, how the data used to train them was accessed—as well as ongoing concerns about their environmental impact. In order to power a chatbot or image generator, an obscene amount of data is required, and the decisions developers have made in the past—and continue to make—to obtain this repository of data are questionable and shrouded in secrecy. Even what people in Silicon Valley call “open source” models hide the training datasets inside...

The ethical aspects of AI outputs will always circle back to our human inputs. What are the intentions of the user’s prompts when interacting with a chatbot? What were the biases in the training data? How did the devs teach the bot to respond to controversial queries? Rather than focusing on making the AI itself wiser, the real task at hand is cultivating more ethical development practices and user interactions."

Justice Barrett has set a new judicial ethics standard — and it’s about time; The Hill, April 8, 2025

 CAROLINE CICCONE, The Hill; Justice Barrett has set a new judicial ethics standard — and it’s about time

"Unlike every other federal court, the Supreme Court operates without mandatory ethics rules. The justices alone decide if their conflicts merit recusal, with no obligation to explain their reasoning. This self-policing system creates an accountability void that would be unacceptable in any other branch of government.

However, a recent decision by a member of the court’s conservative supermajority shows us that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett bucked this trend with her recent recusal from Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond. Although Barrett provided no public explanation, it’s plausible if not likely that her decision stemmed from her close ties to Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Clinic and personal friendship with one of the case’s legal adviser, Notre Dame law Professor and Federalist Society Director Nicole Stelle Garnett. 

This choice reflects the longstanding principle, mostly abandoned by the Roberts Supreme Court, that judges should step aside when personal relationships might bias them, or even create the appearance of impropriety."

In a World of Pete Hegseths, Be a Maya Angelou; The Bulwark, April 8, 2025

 

WILLIAM KRISTOL, 

ANDREW EGGER

, AND JIM SWIFT, The Bulwark; In a World of Pete Hegseths, Be a Maya Angelou

"Last week, pursuant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order to purge so-called DEI content from military libraries and classrooms, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was removed, along with 380 other books, from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library.

Why?

Because impressionable midshipmen might follow in the footsteps of millions of other Americans, young and old, white and black, and be . . . what? Educated in aspects of American history and society they hadn’t personally experienced? Even—God forbid!—possibly influenced to have too favorable a view of diversity, equity, and inclusion?

To be clear: My sense is that the DEI movement over the last decade or two has featured a fair amount of foolishness, some of it overbearing and even offensive. There is no reason for public and private institutions not to review materials that were being used to promote DEI.

But Maya Angelou?

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is not “DEI content.” It’s a quintessentially American autobiography—a popular and important one. It’s a book a student at the Academy might want to read for his or her education, or for pleasure.

Angelou’s reputation and readership will survive being purged from the Nimitz library. Midshipmen can presumably still order the book from Amazon.

Still, it’s not a moment for national pride that Angelou’s book is being purged from a military academy.

And it is a moment to acknowledge that the attack on DEI by the Trump administration, and by many on today’s right, is not some kind of good-faith reconsideration of the excesses of the DEI industry over the last couple of decades. It’s far more an attack on the real diversity that characterizes today’s America, the real equity that a nation can aspire to, the real inclusion that marks a healthy society.

When I heard of the purge, I went back and read Angelou’s inaugural poem, “On the Pulse of Morning.”

These lines struck me now in a way they hadn’t in 1993:

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

Instead, as Angelou urges us earlier in the poem:

Give birth again
To the dream."

OpenAI Copyright Suit Consolidation Portends Consistency, Risk; Bloomberg Law, April 8, 2025

 

Annelise Levy

, Kyle Jahner , Bloomberg Law; OpenAI Copyright Suit Consolidation Portends Consistency, Risk

"OpenAI Inc.'s tactical win consolidating a dozen copyright suits against it nevertheless carries risks for the company, as the matters proceed before a judge who’s already ruled against the company in key decisions.

The US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation last week centralized casesacross the country in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York for pretrial activity, which could include dispositive motions including summary judgment, as well as contentious discovery disputes that have been common among the cases.

“This will help create more consistency in the pre-trial outcomes, but it also means that you’ll get fewer tries from different plaintiffs to find a winning set of arguments,” Peter Henderson, an assistant professor at Princeton University, said in an email...

While streamlined, the pretrial proceedings figure to remain contentious as the parties press novel questions about how copyright laws apply to the game-changing generative AI technology. The disputes carry vast ramifications for companies reliant on millions of copyrighted works to train their models."

ABACLE launches rule of law CLE series to promote democracy; American Bar Association (ABA), March 31, 2025

 American Bar Association (ABA); ABACLE launches rule of law CLE series to promote democracy

"The series will explore the integrity of the legal system and the vital role of an independent judiciary. Participants will hear from experts about safeguarding the rule of law, preserving public trust and ensuring justice remains free from political influence.

Programs will be added regularly to the ongoing series, which will feature nonpolitical, nonpartisan programming focused on support for the rule of law and the role lawyers and courts play in defending the constitutional framework and democratic processes, as well as topics that more broadly address the legal implications of recent administrative changes, court rulings and more.

A real-world example of the issues that will be explored in the series is the impact of recent presidential executive orders on the legal profession and the country."

Being a librarian was already hard. Then came the Trump administration; The Guardian, April 7, 2025

Rainesford Stauffer, The Guardian; Being a librarian was already hard. Then came the Trump administration

"For many librarians, the stakes of the job are high – they’re facing burnout, book bans, legislation pushed by rightwing groups, and providing essential resources in an effort to fill gaps in the US’s social safety net.

Now, as Donald Trump’s administration rolls out their agenda, many librarians are describing his policies as “catastrophic” to accessing information and the libraries themselves – institutions considered fundamental to democracy...

Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” recently gutted the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which the American Library Association noted greatly affects the important services they offer, including high-speed internet access, summer reading programs, veterans’ telehealth spaces and more, with the most intense losses in rural communities.

While the majority of public library funding comes from city and county taxes, according to EveryLibrary, the IMLS provides grants that support these critical services in every state...

Librarians are speaking out about what communities could lose, including internet access and workforce development in Kentucky, the Talking Book and Braille Center in New Jersey, digital hotspots in North Carolina, and much more outlined in reporting from Book Riot. As librarians grappled with losses that would directly affect their work, the IMLS Instagram accountissued posts appearing to mock grantees."

List of Books Removed from USNA Library; America's Navy, April 4, 2025

America's Navy; List of Books Removed from USNA Library

[Kip Currier: The freedoms to read, speak, and think are fundamental American values enshrined by our Constitution. Libraries should and must have books and resources that represent a wide range of information, views, and lived experiences. Whether or not we as individuals or members of groups agree or disagree with every book in a library is immaterial and contrary to our freedoms. As the late Robert Croneberger, Director of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (1986-1998), aptly observed, a library is not doing its job if it doesn't have at least one book that offends every person.

Military service members have served, fought, and died to preserve our freedoms and core values. Enlisted persons and their families should and must have access to a broad continuum of ideas and information. Anything less is blatant censorship that is antithetical to the American way of life.]

[Excerpts from list]

     "How to be an antiracist / Ibram X. Kendi.

Uncomfortable conversations with a black man / Emmanuel Acho.

Why didn't we riot? : a Black man in Trumpland / Issac J. Bailey.

Long time coming : reckoning with race in America / Michael Eric Dyson.

State of emergency : how we win in the country we built / Tamika D. Mallory as told to Ashley A. Coleman ; [forewords, Angela Y. Davis and Cardi B].

How we can win : race, history and changing the money game that's rigged / Kimberly Jones.

My vanishing country : a memoir / Bakari Sellers.

The gangs of Zion : a Black cop's crusade in Mormon country / Ron Stallworth, with Sofia Quintero.

American hate : survivors speak out / edited by Arjun Singh Sethi.

The rage of innocence : how America criminalizes Black youth /
Kristin Henning.

Our time is now : power, purpose, and the fight for a fair America /
Stacey Abrams.

What's your pronoun? : beyond he & she / Dennis Baron.

Rainbow milk : a novel / Paul Mendez.

The genesis of misery / Neon Yang.

The last white man / Mohsin Hamid.

Light from uncommon stars / Ryka Aoki.

Everywhere you don't belong : a novel / by Gabriel Bump.

Evil eye : a novel / Etaf Rum.

Lies my teacher told me : everything your American history
textbook got wrong / James W. Loewen.

Gender queer : a memoir / by Maia Kobabe ; colors by Phoebe
Kobabe.

The third person / Emma Grove."

Joe Rogan breaks with Trump, calling Venezuelan deportations ‘horrific’; The Guardian, April 2, 2025

Dani Anguiano , The Guardian; Joe Rogan breaks with Trump, calling Venezuelan deportations ‘horrific’

"Joe Rogan, the influential podcast host and prominent supporter of Donald Trump, has criticized the president’s administration over the deportation of a professional makeup artist and hairdresser to a prison in El Salvador, calling it “horrific”.

Andry José Hernández Romero, who is gay, had sought asylum in the US, telling officials he faced persecution because of his sexual orientation and political views. But US immigration officers argued the crown tattoos on his wrists were proof he was part of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang, despite Hernández Romero telling them he was not. Last month, he was flown from Texas to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, a facility that his lawyer said was “one of the worst places in the world”. His removal comes as the administration undertakes what Trump has pledged would be a mass deportation campaign.

In a 29 March episode of his popular podcast, Rogan, who endorsed Trump for president last year, said it was “horrific” that “people who aren’t criminals are getting lassoed up and deported”."

Trump official's stingy worldview fits American Calvinist ethics without obligations; National Catholic Reporter, April 2, 2025

MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS, National Catholic Reporter; Trump official's stingy worldview fits American Calvinist ethics without obligations

 "The political genius of Catholicism is that it insists on the dignity of the individual, the significance of rootedness in particular and familial groups, and the universal application of our ethical norms. It is a genius the country needs, but history is littered with clamant needs that no one recognized at the time. 

Ours is not an epoch that warms to Catholicism's "both/and" approach to the intellectual and moral life. The contours of both our ideological polarization and of our social media have created an "either/or" world. That fact is killing our culture."