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Micah Schwartzman

@micahschwartzman.bsky.social
6K followers 715 following 330 posts

Law professor at the University of Virginia.

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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 8h
I wrote my first piece on the age of federal judicial nominees 17 years ago (with David Fontana, newrepublic.com/article/6257...). This kind of piece seems obligatory every few years now. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...
politico.com
Trump is putting a generation of young judges on the bench — for life
Trump has nominated at least 33 people in their 30s to lifetime federal judgeships.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
SCOTUS granted cert today on what counts as substantial burden under RLUIPA’s land use provisions. If this wasn’t on your radar, Amir Downing has an excellent note forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review, taking a deep dive into the circuit conflict. A preview here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
Religious Land Use Exceptionalism: The Meaning of "Substantial Burden" in RLUIPA
Religious organizations have fairly predictable needs that come into conflict with the interests of local government. In a land use context, a religious organiz
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
As Linda Greenhouse writes, St. Mary v Roy is a case asking a fundamental question about religious freedom: “Equality or preference?” She links my article with @nelsontebbe.bsky.social and @richschragger.bsky.social, arguing that the Court is committed to the latter — a doctrine of preference.
nytimes.com
Opinion | This Case Has Flown Under the Radar. It Won’t Stay There.
This case has flown under the radar, but it won’t stay there.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Still a sucker for the hard copy. (global.oup.com/academic/pro...)
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Publication day for this volume. My thanks to co-editors @nelsontebbe.bsky.social and Cécile Laborde, and to a terrific set of authors, for seeing it through. Thanks also to Anna Schuleit Haber for allowing us to include her artwork in the cover design. global.oup.com/academic/pro...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
In my capacity as secretary-treasurer of NOMOS: The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, I'm happy to announce our upcoming conference. This is a hybrid event, and you can register here: www.political-theory.org/event-657172...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
In a concurrence to his own majority opinion in a Title VII vaccine exemption case, a Ninth Circuit judge claims that the administrative state is “inherently hostil[e]” to religion because administrators rely on rational and secular reasons to make decisions. /1 cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A majority of the Indiana Supreme Court sounds hostile to the religious claims in this abortion exemption case. That’s not surprising, but the case remains an important test of whether “religious liberty for all” is a principled commitment or a hollow promise (cf papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....).
papers.ssrn.com
Religious Freedom and Abortion
The demise of Roe v. Wade has raised a host of religious liberty questions that were submerged prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s
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Jim Oleske @jimoleske.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Two add'l notes: 1. RFRAs are designed to restore a constitutional exemption regime created by Justice Brennan in 1963 that was never rooted in history. 2. Impossible to see principled cabining of state RFRA claims & Tandon claims that precludes claims in abortion cases but not vaccine cases.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
In the story below, First Liberty's GC argues that abortion exemptions weren't available historically. But that historical objection somehow disappears when he argues for vaccine exemptions, even though no court in U.S. history granted one before COVID. Cf. news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-a...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
As fusionist/libertarian organizations succumb to integralist ralliement:
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
If you’re interested in the conservative legal movement’s self-understanding, it’s worth reading through this syllabus — from Straussian to new natural law, to Catholic integralism (aka “common good” constitutionalism), to various originalisms.
fedsoc.org
Virtue at the Founding — America at 250
Exploring the moral foundations of the Republic on the occasion of America's 250th anniversary.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
This piece by @tmbejan.bsky.social strikes me as mistaken about what "American liberals" believe about Locke, religious establishment, and the role of Locke's arguments in the case for disestablishment. /1
persuasion.community
What Locke Knew About Elites
How liberals learned to stop worrying and love the establishment.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
If there is still a distinction between liberty and license, vaccines should be the easy case. @andrewkoppelman.bsky.social www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...
usatoday.com
Trump has made 'freedom' a cover for killing kids | Opinion
Measles and SSPE kill more often than doctors once believed. The Trump administration's vaccine exemptions could expose thousands of children to it.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Reasonableness is underrated.
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Guillaume A.W. Attia @gawattia.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Libertas has to do with being generous and open-handed. Liberalism expressed at the intellectual level is about being open-minded. Liberals are reasonable. That is a pro-social disposition that is hard to practice. Read more @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/the-reasonab... me
liberalcurrents.com
The Reasonable Liberal
We must begin the process of making our political rivals not just more legible but human in a way we can also recognize in ourselves.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This was apparent from the beginning. (See, e.g., papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....) But it also helps to read Eliot and his appeal to Southern Agrarians. Religious authoritarianism and anti-industrial/capitalist views have a long history of running together.
papers.ssrn.com
The Unreasonableness of Catholic Integralism
Catholic integralism has reemerged as a radical critique of liberalism and as a potential source of justification for illiberal regimes. Integralists argue that
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Those darned progressives hijacking RFRA, a law sponsored by Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy and signed into law by Bill Clinton to overturn a Supreme Court ruling written by Antonin Scalia.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
This thread is 🔥 — and some great links to history and tradition.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
This piece revives Josh Blackman’s “tentative thoughts” that liberal Jews are lying about their religious beliefs in claiming free exercise exemptions from abortion bans. He says these claims “also give progressives a way to accuse conservatives of hypocrisy.” /1
dailycaller.com
The Left’s Fake Conversion To Religious Liberty
The progressive legal establishment treated religious freedom exemptions as obstacles to be dismantled, threatening livelihoods and institutions.
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Michigan Law Review @michlawreview.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
In their recent #MLR piece, @lsepper.bsky.social, @profjdnelson.bsky.social, & @charlottegarden.bsky.social argue the right of expressive association shouldn't presumptively cover employment relationships given key distinctions between employment & membership. READ: bit.ly/MLRVol124Iss7SepNelGard
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
There is apparently some kind of meltdown happening over there about what the “common good” means. Various abstract conceptions are being debated, with the predictable need to defend appealing to such abstractions. /1
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I agree about the importance of the subject matter, but the argument would benefit from engagement with the literature on appeasement.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Reading up on St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, I went back to look at Lemon v. Kurtzman, which I'd forgotten was unanimous on Pennsylvania's law; 8-1 on Rhode Island's. Justice White was the sole dissenter. Interestingly, he included the footnote below. Will this hold up after St. Mary is decided?
As a postscript I should note that both the federal and state cases are decided on specified Establishment Clause considerations, without reaching the questions that would be presented if the evidence in any of these cases showed that any of the involved schools restricted entry on racial or religious grounds or required all students gaining admission to receive instruction in the tents of a particular faith. For myself, if such proof were made, the legislation would to that extent be unconstitutional.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
A couple Third Circuit judges cite Aquinas and Catholic integralists in support of deregulating AR-15s and other high capacity semi-automatic weapons. If you want to know what “common good constitutionalism”/Catholic integralism (they are the same thing) really means, see how it’s applied.
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Jay Swanson @jayswanson.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
The Supreme Court is wrong about what the Constitution means. THREAD www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...
wsj.com
Changing the Constitution: Five Proposals for a More Perfect Union
We asked five experts across the political spectrum: What would you change about the U.S. Constitution if you could?
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Can I get some help on the math for this one? 75 years takes us back to 1951 (Eisenhower). Since then there have been 21 Republican confirmations to the Court and 9 Democratic. Going back only 50 years doesn’t fix the problem. www.senate.gov/legislative/...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
The Supreme Court has been dodging cert petitions in vaccine exemption cases for several years now. It granted, vacated, and reversed (GVR’ed) a Second Circuit decision — see below. And now CA2 has responded, saying to the Justices, in effect: if you really want this, you have to come and get it.
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Liz Sepper @lsepper.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
HHS is laying the groundwork to encourage refusals of healthcare and go after states that safeguard reproductive care. The reorganization of the Office of Civil Rts to prioritize and separate "conscience" claims also tells the antiabortion flank that their day is coming
theguardian.com
Trump administration puts religious freedom at heart of US health policy
Critics say the new focus could reshape LGBTQ+ healthcare, abortion access and vaccine policy
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com
White House Religious Liberty Commission Releases ‘Embarrassing’ Report
INSIDE: JD Vance ... Todd Blanche ... Mike Johnson
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Tell me you haven’t been to job talk in decades.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Another good one from the Religious Liberty Commission report. Apparently Nietzsche is the patron saint of accreditation boards and research grants — you know, the will to apply for federal funding.
In the decades that followed, ideologies like those promoted by Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Dewey began to tighten their grip on the American college campus.
The cultivation of reason and virtue was replaced with the formation of accreditation bodies, research grants, and ideologies. Though adherence to traditional moral and religious conventions was at first tolerated on campuses in the 19th and 20th centuries, over time, this framework has resulted in an increasingly hostile view towards those who embrace Judeo-Christian values.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
The Religious Liberty Comm’n section on vaccines (pp. 143-50) contains no citations to cases reviewing vaccine exemption claims — and there are hundreds of them. It would be generous to call this report misleading. It is better described as anti-vax propaganda. www.justice.gov/religious-li...
Chapter 10: Conscience and Coercion in Vaccine Policy
Vaccines carry significant theological implications for many religions. Religious beliefs about the sanctity of human life and the duty to avoid harm often arise in this context because of the ways in which vaccines are researched, developed, and administered. 314
Vaccine mandates during COVID-19 required individuals to take vaccines to receive a benefit, such as employment or education. For individuals whose sincerely held religious beliefs lead them to decline a vaccine, these mandates are extremely coercive. The individual is left with the choice to renounce their faith or lose their way of life.
Because the stakes are so high, respecting religious liberty in the context of vaccine mandates is an absolute necessity. The First Amendment and applicable law forbid discrimination against individuals who have requested religious accommodations. In the context of public actors, such as government employers or public schools, vaccine mandates must be narrowly tailored to the relevant public health interests at stake.
Religious accommodations cannot be treated differently than secular accommodations to mandates. 315 And, certainly, hostility and anti-religious rhetoric toward those seeking religious accommodations is contrary to the spirit of the First Amendment and, in some contexts, can be evidence of animus that violates applicable civil rights laws.
Unfortunately, the Commission heard many stories and has received hundreds of written testimonies from individuals who had been subjected to unfavorable treatment because of their religious beliefs. Perhaps most troubling was the fact that religious children and families were excluded at institutions that did not require 100 percent vaccination, but these institutions welcomed students with medical exemptions as well as students without any medical records.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
I’ve been reading the Religious Liberty Commission report. It is an embarrassing document. This passage, blaming separation of church and state on the American reception of Nietzsche, Sartre, and Foucault (lol) in the 1900s, makes you wonder: who writes this stuff? www.justice.gov/religious-li...
Building Walls of Separation between Church and State
In the 1900s, however, a new philosophy emerged in Europe, which laid the intellectual foundations for threats to American religious liberty which persist even today.?2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others famously embraced the belief that "God is dead," rejecting God and dismissing ideals of objective truth and morality as simply pretenses used to gain power.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
The contrast here with Masterpiece Cakeshop, which also applied the Arlington Heights factors (via Lukumi), is devastating and inexplicable — and so invites explanations like this one.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Some years back, I wrote this paper arguing that the Court had adopted an etiquette of animus. This doctrine was born in the hypocrisy of Trump v Hawaii. But after Mullins v Doe, is there even any point in observing the hypocrisy? harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...
harvardlawreview.org
The Etiquette of Animus - Harvard Law Review
There is a difference between deciding how to talk about a problem and sorting out the principles for resolving it. In Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd....
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Some years back, I wrote this paper arguing that the Court had adopted an etiquette of animus. This doctrine was born in the hypocrisy of Trump v Hawaii. But after Mullins v Doe, is there even any point in observing the hypocrisy? harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...
harvardlawreview.org
The Etiquette of Animus - Harvard Law Review
There is a difference between deciding how to talk about a problem and sorting out the principles for resolving it. In Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd....
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
The Virginia Law Review has published a tribute to Fred Schauer. I am grateful to the editors for making this possible and for bringing together this set of reflections on Fred's life and work. virginialawreview.org/articles/in-...
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James Nelson @profjdnelson.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Glad to see this — bosses should not impose religion on employees virginialawreview.org/articles/cor...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Here is the text of the Virginia Supreme Court decision in the redistricting case — a 4-3 decision along predictable lines. The difference in tone between the majority and dissent also has a familiar asymmetry to it. www.vacourts.gov/static/opini...
vacourts.gov
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
An especially apt piece to read today. @jacobtlevy.bsky.social www.liberalism.org/p/liberal-ne...
liberalism.org
Liberal Neutrality and How to Fight For It
Defending liberal political norms doesn’t mean always reaching across the aisle. Sometimes, liberal neutrality means playing hardball.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
This piece by Lael Weinberger (h/t @shbarclay.bsky.social) argues that a Texas law requiring public schools to post the 10 Commandments in all classrooms isn’t coercive — and so not a violation of the Establishment Clause. I have some questions. /1 wng.org/opinions/a-s...
wng.org
A sensible ruling
Lael Weinberger | A display of the Ten Commandments at a school doesn’t compel any response from students
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Now that we’re talking about the most boring lectures we’ve heard by famous philosophers, there was Habermas at Newcomb Hall (maybe part of Rorty’s theory seminar in 1997?), but easily topped by Alasdair MacIntyre in the Dome Room droning on about the prelinguistic rationality of dolphins.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Which religious liberty clinic is going to represent religiously affiliated public accommodations that refuse to comply with this anti-trans bathroom law? Maybe Harvard, Stanford, or Yale’s? religionnews.com/2026/05/05/j...
religionnews.com
‘Jesus said to draw them in’: Idaho Christians push back on transgender bathroom law
(FāVS News) — Pastors at two Boise churches say welcoming transgender people is a matter of faith — and the new state law puts them in an impossible position.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
If only Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Dewey were more *readable*. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/o...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
It’s for times like this that I have this profile picture. “i mean, John Rawls was obviously a great philosopher of the 20th century. But on the caliber of John Locke or John Stuart Mill, I don’t see any.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Book That Changed How I Think About Liberalism
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
This DOJ report on "anti-Christian bias" under Biden runs 535 pages. The task force is going to need multiple volumes of this length to catalogue the current administration.
justice.gov
Task Force Publishes Report on Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias and Restoring Religious Liberty
WASHINGTON—Today, the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias published a report detailing how the Biden Administration’s prosecutions, policies, and practices demonstrated anti-Christian bias thr...
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Looking forward to reading the book reviewed here on “Being Reasonable,” by Krista Lawlor.
newyorker.com
In Defense of the Moderate
In an era that prizes passion, “reasonableness” gets caricatured as political cowardice or bloodless neutrality. A new book says it’s exactly what we need.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
If you’re a law professor thinking about reposting the claim that the Unite the Right rally was staged or faked, I’d encourage you to read the transcripts from Sines v Kessler. I know they run several thousand pages of testimony from the organizers, but they’re easily accessible and linked below.
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