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Stephen E. Sachs

@stephenesachs.bsky.social
4.4K followers 84 following 451 posts

Antonin Scalia Professor of Law, Harvard Law School Reporter, Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules (speaking only for myself) stevesachs.com

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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
October:
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Six years ago. Shanah Tovah!
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
September:
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The application deadline is this Thursday, August 6—so apply now!
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
August:
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Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
If you're starting law school this fall, you might be interested in my short essay, "How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students." You can download it for free here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Dispatches from the AI frontier: Planning a dinner with tres leches cake, I asked ChatGPT to write about it in the spirit of the classic Onion "Five Blades" piece. Blocked from downloading the piece itself, it thought for 31 seconds and wrote this. For comedy writing, at least, AGI is already here.
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Parties exist partly to vet candidates & vouch for them so voters don't pick someone bad out of ignorance. Primaries short-circuit this function since primary electorates can no more do this vetting than can general election ones.
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
youtu.be/Vmc-pEyUHTs
youtu.be
Irving Berlin "God Bless America" on The Ed Sullivan Show
YouTube video by The Ed Sullivan Show
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
July:
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Itemizing is deductions, no? You still need to report income!
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Proposal: Congress should tax residents of rent-controlled apartments on the extra imputed income (and give a corresponding deduction to the owner, whose reporting would help the IRS match the two)
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Ben Sasse is correct—“Cameras in the Court” is a bad cause. (And what he says about committees is a very strong argument for keeping them off C-SPAN. The floor is theater anyway; the committees need to be a place for real work.) (h/t @orinkerr.bsky.social) www.wsj.com/opinion/free...
wsj.com
Opinion | Ben Sasse: Keep Cameras Out of the Supreme Court
The last thing the judicial branch needs is to become a platform for partisan gasbags.
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MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Out 7/7: An essay collection on the challenges, risks, and opportunities of this historic moment in American law and governance. Featuring essays by more than 50 Harvard Law School faculty members, including Stephen Breyer, Jill Lepore, & Annette Gordon-Reed. mitpress.mit.edu/978026206043...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
And here's the full list of first-year seminars this fall: firstyearseminarprogram.college.harvard.edu/seminars/
firstyearseminarprogram.college.harvard.edu
Seminars
First-Year Seminars are designed to intensify the intellectual experience of incoming students by allowing them to work closely with faculty members. They are also the ideal space to explore interests...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Readings: 2/2
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Readings: 1/2
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Starting at Harvard College this fall? Consider applying for my first-year seminar, "Abortion in Controversy"! Limited to 15 students, meeting Tuesdays 3-5. Syllabus and reading list linked below: stevesachs.com/syllabi/abor...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
June:
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Bentley, 2008?–2026
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Congratulations to my Conflict of Laws students on finishing their semester! Now the rest of you can try out the final exam for yourselves at home: stevesachs.com/Exam_Conflic...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Whacking Day!
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Plenty of blame to go round! But to the extent that there’s still a material difference in content & temperature between the two versions, as I think there is, some of it falls on the speaker
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
I am here to tell you as part of your graduation ceremony not only that you happen to be substantively mistaken, but also that your views are antithetical to what is best about our institution.” This is the statement as understood by its audience; why treat the shorthand as any better?)
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
(And to peek at the merits a bit: Imagine that he had been more explicit. “To those of our students who take a different view than I do of a hotly contested set of moral and empirical questions,
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
and describes his mistake as failing to acknowledge personal trauma from 10/7, not his abuse of a captive audience.
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
The bad: claims this is just ordinary extemporization, despite negotiated wordsmithing; refuses to acknowledge that adding “Pro-Palestinian students” and “the inhumanity … of Israel's war” is *still* a knowing and material departure that greatly raises the rhetorical temperature;
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
The good: admits deviation, expresses some contrition, and provides text.
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
For completeness’s sake, a new statement from Peterson facultysenate.umich.edu/statement-fr...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
He had a set text. He knew the text had been wordsmithed and was highly sensitive. He did *not* “follow the text”: he “added a phrase.” If the Univ & a lot of people get upset—and if he genuinely “didn’t want to unnecessarily provoke strong emotions”—why isn’t *he* contrite?
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Was sent an excerpt; doesn't seem exculpatory. "inhumanity in Gaza" can include the inhumanity of war generally—even the hostage-takers! Adding "Pro-Palestinian students" and "the inhumanity and injustice of Israel's war" is a material departure, hard to claim he didn't know it.
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Thanks — just posted this update: bsky.app/profile/step...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Peterson now casts doubt on the extent to which he departed from shared remarks, but the unpaywalled excerpt still conveys a meaningful departure. Not sure why we don’t have the actual text to compare.
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
In insignificant ways, sure; less often in ways expected to produce objections were the approvers informed in advance
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
This, from David Bernstein, is a key point. When I first saw the story I thought it boorish for Peterson to misuse his captive audience (merits aside); to provide one text for preapproval and then deliver another is worse. Surprised so many prominent folks at @umichlaw.bsky.social have defended that
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
What’s the prevailing view on why Justices Sotomayor and Kagan joined today’s order?
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ERA_No_Shortcuts @eranoshortcuts.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
A landmark, must-read article on the Equal Rights Amendment by Harvard Law's Stephen E. Sachs, in the University of Chicago Law Review (5-1-26). Here is the link to his full article, "The Twelfth Amendment and the ERA"; there is a "Download PDF" button there. lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archiv...
lawreview.uchicago.edu
The Twelfth Amendment and the ERA | The University of Chicago Law Review
How many amendments are in the Constitution? Americans should be able to know. But whether the Equal Rights Amendment is—right now—part of the Constitution remains controversial. Thirty-eight states h...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Link: lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul... @ssrn.bsky.social : papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
NOW OUT IN @uchilrev.bsky.social: "The Twelfth Amendment and the ERA" In the 12th & 17th amendments, Congress put operative text in amending resolutions, not just in a proposed article. This suggests the ERA’s 7-year limit is valid—and that the article it proposed isn't part of our Constitution
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UChicago Law Review @uchilrev.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Volume 93.3 is now live, featuring pieces by Charles Capps; @joshuamacey.bsky.social, Ketan Ramakrishnan & Brian Richardson; @stephenesachs.bsky.social; and Grant Christensen. You can find them all here: lawreview.uchicago.edu.
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
May:
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
On National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day, we should think of ways to get pets out of shelters and into loving homes. Here are our shelter cats, present and past, adopted from NC's Chatham Animal Rescue: reason.com/volokh/2019/...
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
I think that's a question of construing the SCt's code of conduct, what counts as official duties, whether it even applies to ex-Justices, etc. If a currently serving Justice leaked them, as the article authors might know, that may have violated 4.D.4.
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
If you don't want a world where every internal judicial memo serves as a potential weapon in a political fight, available to whoever's willing to violate the ethics rules first, you need the attorney discipline system to take leaks like these seriously. 6/6
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Court confidences aren't a 'culture of secrecy' any more than atty-client privilege is. A culture of leaking would make it impossible for judges to disagree on paper w/o it becoming a rhetorical weapon—or a real one, given the assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh. 5/
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
There's no First Amendment right to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, including by soliciting leaked materials from a court employee. If attys can't post confidential documents online, they can't do so via the NYT either. 4/
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Stephen E. Sachs @stephenesachs.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
If there's a public interest in a memo—or a document under seal, etc.—the choice of whether to release it is for the court, not an individual leaker. And attys don't get a free pass from their ethics rules by getting jobs as journalists, any more than dr's or social workers. 3/
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