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Daniel Sharfstein

@danielsharfstein.bsky.social
2.5K followers 688 following 18 posts

Vanderbilt law prof, American legal history, property, federal Indian law, author of THUNDER IN THE MOUNTAINS and THE INVISIBLE LINE

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Reposted by Daniel Sharfstein
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 16/09/2026
Oh. That's a heck of a subsidy.
At MIT, Harvard, or any other school, supervising an undergraduate researcher is a lot of work, costs a lot of money, involves a lot of meetings, and the results are not reliably excellent. Asking Claude is easier, faster, and may produce better results. It’s also cheaper, which is no accident: Harvard allows every Harvard student and faculty member to request a Claude token budget of $2,500 per month, even as research funding is continuously threatened and the University lays off staff.
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Amy Stanley @astanley711.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
What is the point of trying so hard to maintain your academic freedom if you’re going to abandon the entire educational enterprise, sacrifice the undergrads to the tech companies, and then light your reputation on fire?
thecrimson.com
Harvard Humanities Faculty Push Back on Deming’s Call for AI Use in Writing Courses | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard faculty in the humanities and social sciences expressed broad concern over an email Harvard College Dean David J. Deming sent students Wednesday suggesting that artificial intelligence be inte...
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Howard French @hofrench.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/a...
nytimes.com
Cassandra Wilson, Star Jazz Singer, Dies at 70
With a low and smoky voice, she conjured the blues tradition of her native Mississippi in both her own songs and in covers.
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Shame on @yale.edu
As the event was beginning, Yale public affairs staffers Fred Mamoun and Bess Connolly told reporters, including those from Connecticut Public, Hearst Connecticut Media Group, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, that they were not allowed to cover the event on campus. The reporters were told to leave university property.
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Dana Stevens @thehighsign.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Always two lakes battle within me
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Howard French @hofrench.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
For fun. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/a...
nytimes.com
6 Feet Under in Art Coffins That Are Over the Top
Elaborate coffins, produced by Ghanaian artisans, are the centerpieces of funerals that celebrate the life of the deceased and get them to the afterlife in style.
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
If Dems win a trifecta in 2028 and don't push forum-shopping reform (and related judicial reforms) as their first bill, they'll doom everything else they try to do. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/u...
nytimes.com
How Trump’s Policy Agenda Runs Through One Federal Court, in Texas (Gift Article)
For years, conservative litigants flocked to Judge Reed O’Connor’s district. Now, North Texas has become a favorite destination of the Justice Department.
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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Heartbreaking stuff from @citizencohn.bsky.social on the likely long-term toll of Trump/RFK destruction of our public health system. Great reporting: www.thebulwark.com/p/cancer-bre...
thebulwark.com
This Cancer Breakthrough Has Scientists Cheering—and Crying
They know RFK Jr. and Donald Trump are destroying the research ecosystem that made it possible.
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
On the day of Dolly Parton’s death, 87-year-old Reagan appointee David Hittner namechecks Dolly (and her only goddaughter, Miley Cyrus) in a decision that Dolly no doubt would have agreed with.
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Bo Thompson @gaudipern.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
(1/3) With Dolly Parton's passing, I want to put good words on the wind for her. Feel free to quote reply with your own. Dolly became the single largest donor for the Moderna COVID vaccine because of a chance encounter and friendship with a Vanderbilt researcher Dr. Naji Abumrad years earlier. She
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
My latest on yesterday’s order in the mail-in ballot/voter list case is up! sherrilyn.substack.com/p/conservati...
sherrilyn.substack.com
Conservative Majority Shows Its Hand Again in Mail-In Ballot Case
Civil Rights & American Democracy
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New York Times Opinion @nytopinion.nytimes.com · 24/08/2026
“The wartime experience suggests something many modern policymakers seem reluctant to admit: Markets often need active public direction, especially during emergencies,” Christopher Serkin and Daniel Sharfstein write.
nyti.ms
Opinion | How to Fix the Housing Crisis: Look to WWII
World War II proves the government can intervene directly to fix the housing crisis.
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Daniel Sharfstein @danielsharfstein.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Looking to history to rethink the housing crisis — an op-ed @serkinc.bsky.social & I wrote for @nytopinion.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | How to Fix the Housing Crisis: Look to WWII (Gift Article)
World War II proves the government can intervene directly to fix the housing crisis.
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Holly Brewer @earlymodjustice.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
That’s the story. That’s why Trump and Hegseth fired the journalists and editors. The journalists and editors at Stars and Stripes care about the troops and their families. Trump and Hegseth care only about their own reputations.
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Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
JUST IN: Judge Jeanette Vargas (Biden/SDNY) overturns State Dept 75-country hold on immigrant visas based on concern they could become "public charges" Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com
Memorandum & Opinion – #83 in Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. v. Rubio (S.D.N.Y., 1:26-cv-00858) – CourtListener.com
Memorandum & Opinion
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Howard French @hofrench.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
This is very good.
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...
theatlantic.com
Why the Closing of Harvard’s Writing Center Matters
Students, faculty members, and alumni are asking how seriously the school is taking human learning in the age of AI.
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Read the full memo written by Serena Mayeri and Amanda Shanor urging Yale’s leadership to reject a settlement deal put forth by the Trump administration, noting its likelihood to chill freedom of expression and academic inquiry on campus. knightcolumbia.org/blog/the-ful...
knightcolumbia.org
Memo to Yale's President and General Counsel Opposing a Trump-Yale Deal
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The Era of Literal AI Book-Chomping Has Begun talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-e...
talkingpointsmemo.com
The Era of Literal AI Book-Chomping Has Begun
Here is an update on a story you may not yet have...
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Published in the Boston Globe a few weeks before ChatGPT was released in 2022.
I tell my students that writing — in the classroom, in your journal, in a memo at work — is a way of bringing order to our thinking or of breaking apart that order as we challenge our ideas. We look at the evidence around us. We consider ideas we disagree with. And we try to bring a shape to it all. Sometimes my students see the process differently. They see writing a paper as a hoop they are being asked to jump through, a way for me to evaluate them and pronounce them successful or not. In other words, they see writing solely as a product. If the end point rather than the process were indeed all that mattered, then there might be good reason to turn to GPT-3. But if, as I believe is the case, we write to make sense of the world, then the risks of turning that process over to AI are much greater.
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Hidetaka Hirota @hidehirota.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Honored to contribute a module on Japanese incarceration during WWII -- "Making Citizens Internal Enemies" -- to the American Historical Review's "Authoritarianism 101: A Global History." @historians.org www.historians.org/module/makin...
historians.org
Making Citizens Internal Enemies – AHA
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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
If you work on the history of law and capitalism or of law and technology, you should check out the Call to join an ASLH Virtual Working Group in AY2026-27. Applications due 31 Aug. 2026: aslh.net/virtual-work... #legalhistory @nfyahaya.bsky.social @zacharyherz.bsky.social @siobhanbarco.bsky.social
aslh.net
Virtual Working Groups | American Society for Legal History
ASLH Themed Virtual Legal History Workshop Themed Virtual Legal History Workshops provide a space for scholars with common interests to discuss or present innovative work in their fields, and cultivat...
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
This seems so clear to me as a teacher and is what drove me to develop a course and a first-year AI curriculum that are *about* gen AI rather than focused on "how to use it." But there is a lot of FOMO driving the decisions to focus on making sure students "know how to use it" instead
“It’s a hard time to be a college student,” Fiesler said. “People who have been out of college for a long time are telling students that everyone needs to use AI, but those people already know how to do things. They learned how to do them without AI. If people are using ChatGPT to do things for them from the very beginning, then they will never learn how to do those things.”
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Howard French @hofrench.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The Ceuta history you've never heard before. My piece. foreignpolicy.com/2026/08/06/c...
foreignpolicy.com
What Everyone Is Missing About Ceuta
The history of the disputed exclave should inform what Spain does next.
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Lauren Harper @laurenleharper.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Processing DNA for nearly a million people in a year? No problem, ICE says. Attaching a $300 camera to an agent’s vest? Logistical nightmare. That's one of the most remarkable ironies of this great story (based on FOIA requests by @georgetownlaw.bsky.social's Center on Privacy and Technology).
wired.com
ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children
Internal documents show ICE's DNA collection has skyrocketed in the second Trump administration. Now hundreds of thousands of people never convicted of a crime are in an FBI criminal database forever.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
So, I really hope I get to tell this story in longer form in the near future, but it it’s burning a hole inside me. Most of it comes from an interview with Bob Hirst this weekend. Bob has been Exec Editor of the Mark Twain Project for 47 years, before which he was part of its staff for ~15. 1/16
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Ilya Somin @ilyasomin.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
My new @brennancenter.org article explains to use state constitutions to combat exclusionary zoning, and thereby alleviate the housing crisis: statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...
statecourtreport.org
Using State Constitutions to Combat Exclusionary Zoning
The U.S. Constitution may not provide an immediate roadmap out of the nation’s housing shortage. But state constitutions can help.
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HüskerBlü @inimitablevi.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
By effectively putting our ideas and positions on paper and improving upon them, we not only learn how to communicate but how to think critically and effectively. If this is gone, what are they going for?
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Thomas Noriega @nhomastoriega.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Abysmal decision. Say what you will about Harvard standing up to the Trump admin, they're letting their students and faculty down in a thousand little ways
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Mary Lewis @profmarylewis.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
First it was the writing center, now Dudley House. This was the place where people like married veterans & other students who had reasons to live off campus found community at Harvard. I refuse to believe this was extremely costly. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
Harvard to Shutter Dudley Community After More Than 90 Years | News | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard College will shutter the Dudley Community, ending an institution founded more than 90 years ago to provide advising and a social home for generations of undergraduates living outside the House...
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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
There is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.
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Annette Gordon-Reed @agordonreed.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Yes
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Virginia Scharff @vscharff.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
David Blight brings the gravitas and the passion.
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Aaron Bruhl @aaronbruhl.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Former Solicitor General Don Verrilli, among others, representing Rogoff. Interesting remedial issues here, along with the merits.
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Niko Bowie @nikobowie.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
This state supreme court opinion pulls no punches: “This court does not anchor Hawaiʻi’s due process rights to the federal floor. Especially one that keeps sinking. . . . State constitutionalism makes it easy to consider Roberts Court jurisprudence ‘white noise.’”
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Jordan Ellenberg @jsellenberg.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2026/07/19/p...
quomodocumque.wordpress.com
Proposed World Cup rules change
Correct outcome, but imagine if Argentina had won this on penalties without taking a single shot on goal in 120 minutes of actual play! That could easily have happened, and what an embarrassment. M…
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
CABO VERDE CABO VERDE CABO VERDE
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Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
NEW: Trump administration turns to never-used Alien Terrorist Removal Court, which can order deportation based on evidence the target never sees. And DOJ has already met resistance. w/ @kyledcheney.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2026/07...
politico.com
Trump administration activates never-before-used ‘alien terrorist’ deportation court
The court has been dormant since it was created in 1996.
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Law & History Review @lawandhistrev.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
We’re back! The Law and History Review is excited to announce the publication of our first article this year in our digital imprint, The Docket. Anna O. Law (@unlawfulentries.bsky.social) told us about her new book. End the week on a strong note—check it out! lawandhistoryreview.org/article/anna...
lawandhistoryreview.org
Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: An Interview with Anna O. Law – Law & History Review
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Now @apnews.com has a deeply reported story confirming the recently-hired ICE officer who shot a man in Maine had serious mental health issues and a long history of violence against women. This comes after ICE slashed hiring standards and rushed some into the field before background checks cleared.
By  JACK BROOK, MICHAEL R. SISAK, AMANDA SWINHART and CLAIRE GALOFARO
Updated 7:59 PM EDT, July 16, 2026
Comments 115
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press.

David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.

Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford.

DHS, which hasn’t released the name of the officer who killed Durán Guerrero, has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”
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Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Read this cdt.org/insights/faq...
cdt.org
FAQ: Voting System Vulnerabilities and How They Can Be Weaponized
Vulnerabilities in voting systems are real and worth fixing. At the same time, the manner in which they are used to fearmonger does not reflect the actual security of elections.  Security researchers ...
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Jamie Dupree @jamiedupree.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
The story of the day - abcnews.com/US/white-hou...
abcnews.com
White House teleprompter operator made more than $100K betting on Trump's speeches: Sources
President Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on the contents of Trump's speeches, sources say.
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Joanna Schwartz @jcschwartzprof.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Yes, please. In 2029, a Democratic Congress and President should take these basic but important steps to allow people to sue federal officers and supervisors for constitutional violations. In the meantime, states can take - and are taking - these steps today.
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Blanche can’t meet with the Epstein survivors without going through their counsel. But if he does, and they approve, he can indeed meet with them.
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Ian Bassin @ianbassin.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Huge win here for the rule of law. Remarkable ruling and kudos to @normeisen.bsky.social @democracydefendersaction.org and the judges who helped bring it about.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 12/07/2026
Lindsey Graham was one of the main subjects of a @theatlantic.com cover story I wrote in 2020, on why people collaborate with regimes they know are immoral. Here's a gift link: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
theatlantic.com
History Will Judge the Complicit
Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
It didn't work out today, but Haaland is still likely to win in November
Deb Haaland, Democratic nominee for governor in New Mexico
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 10/07/2026
Reminder: Memphis is still “under full-blown occupation” by ICE. Task force members have reportedly killed at least two people in four days.
motherjones.com
Memphis is “under full-blown occupation” by ICE. Here’s why you may not know that.
Community members face retaliation for trying to spread the word out, a lawsuit alleges.
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