Karen Tani
@kmtani
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Following
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Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor in History & Law @Penn . Blogs @legalhistory @lpeblog . Poverty, disability, rights, agencies, US state.
Philadelphia, PA
Joined December 2009
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Pinned Tweet
So thrilled to see this article w/
@katie_eyer
out in the world! - on the foundational role of
#disability
cases in SCOTUS's "new federalism" revolution, w/ ongoing significance today
Issue 3 is live! With Articles—by
@CamillaHrdy
(
@AkronLaw
) &
@cbseaman
(
@wlulaw
), and by
@jason_s_oh
& Andrew Verstein
@UCLA_Law
)—a Feature—by
@katie_eyer
(
@RutgersLaw
) &
@kmtani
(
@pennlaw
)—a Note—by Elle Eshleman (
@YaleLawSch
’23)—and a Comment—by Eric Eisner (
@YaleLawSch
’23)
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I know this isn't exactly the news of the moment, but here are two Berkeley kids saying "happy TENURE day!" to their mom. Thanks to all of you who have mentored & encouraged me along the way, esp. my amazing colleagues
@BerkeleyLaw
.
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Some professional news: This summer I head to the University of Pennsylvania, where I will be jointly appointed in the History department (
@PennHistory
) and law school (
@pennlaw
). (1/x)
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My 4yo's jacket felt a little heavy so I emptied out one of the pockets. 😮
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PSA for women considering grad school (b/c it has come up in my own advising): You can have children in grad school. Men do this. *Institutions & mentors should be more supportive than they are, & that is a real problem.* But don't let assumptions stop you from exploring this.
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Today is my 1st day teaching
#LegalHistory
@YaleLawSch
! Here's me posing awkwardly w/ some of the materials on my syllabus. (I'll tweet the full syllabus soon.) Excited to share my passion for this important subject.
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Historian friends: do you have favorite books or articles that really grapple with the constraints and biases of the archive? I'm reading Stoler, Fuentes... What else?
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.
@katie_eyer
and I found out yesterday that
@YaleLJournal
will publish our disability & federalism piece as a Feature! We are excited to work with the editors and look forward to sharing more soon!
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Have spent most of the week trying to keep a household COVID infection from spreading to an unvaxxed 4-yr-old... while trying [in vain] to keep up w/ work and help everyone stay fed & amused... Please send good thoughts - & also favorite baking or soup recipes! 😫
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I promise I'm not going to use my twitter account just for puppy photos from now on, but .... this shot is even better, right??
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We recently moved across the country to Philadelphia. It was hard, and the kids miss our old life. Yesterday one of our new neighbors called us just to tell us to look out the window and show our kids a beautiful rainbow. What a kindness.
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I love seeing pets in the TL and have been wanting to post puppy pics, but it is SO HARD to get her to sit still. Here she is in a rare moment of repose! --
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.
@CalifLRev
has a history of publishing great scholarship on
#disability
& law, from Jacobus tenBroek to
@JameliaNMorgan
. I'm so grateful the editors saw potential in my draft article on the
#LegalHistory
of the Pennhurst deinstitutionalization case & its
#federalism
legacy.
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Who else out there will immediately forget all positive comments on teaching evals and obsess over the one student in the room who hates you but won't tell you why?
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.
@ProfOsseiOwusu
& I are co-teaching an exciting new 1L elective on Law & Inequality this semester
@pennlaw
... Watch this space for our all-star lineup of outside guests and some thoughts on pedagogy!
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Prof.
@Jennifer_Nou
is literally an expert on how bureaucracy & the administrative state work. And I have never seen her make a statement like this lightly. This is a meaningful comment on the implications of the new
#PublicCharge
rule.
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I re-tooled my US
#LegalHistory
course for my visit this semester
@YaleLawSch
. Here's a thread on what I'm trying out, including some new assignments & some books I've never taught before. I'm excited! (1/x)
Today is my 1st day teaching
#LegalHistory
@YaleLawSch
! Here's me posing awkwardly w/ some of the materials on my syllabus. (I'll tweet the full syllabus soon.) Excited to share my passion for this important subject.
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Milestone moment: Just taught my first
@PennHistory
class (U.S.
#LegalHistory
) -- and I was lucky enough to have my terrific former
@BerkeleyLaw
student (now
@PennHistory
PhD student) Kimberly White by my side as my TA!
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We tried so hard and he got it anyways. Trying to focus on all the things that are going well and that we should be grateful for (vaccines work!), but this is really demoralizing.
Have spent most of the week trying to keep a household COVID infection from spreading to an unvaxxed 4-yr-old... while trying [in vain] to keep up w/ work and help everyone stay fed & amused... Please send good thoughts - & also favorite baking or soup recipes! 😫
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My 5yo watching Home Alone for the first time (thread). After Kevin gets left behind: “This is horrible. Literally, HORRIBLE.” (1/3)
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I was very sad to learn that my friend David Lieberman passed away yesterday. He was a great legal historian and a generous friend and mentor to many. He made
@BerkeleyLaw
a great place to work and learn. Some thoughts in his honor: (1/x)
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Last day in my visiting office
@YaleLawSch
. I have suffered thru a semester of sub-par produce (no offense, you can't beat California). But teaching here was super fun. I can't wait to see what my students do w/ all their
#LegalHistory
knowledge!
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It has finally happened: not only did my child zoom bomb my meeting (a lovely goodbye event hosted by my
@BerkeleyLaw
colleagues), but she did so completely naked.
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Just finished reading
@povertyscholar
's "Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, & Unequal Politics." It's phenomenal. I can't say enough good things. But I'm about to say a bunch of them (thread)
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It's the time of year to be brave and take on new challenges! First day of K over here....
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In the fall one of my 1Ls joked w/ my (then) 3-yr-old daughter that she was "coming for my job" (after I brought her to office hrs) & to this day we'll be out running errands & she'll tell strangers "I'M COMING FOR HER JOB!"
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So wonderful to find this hard copy in my office today: Vol 170(7) of
@PennLRev
, feat. our symposium on "The Disability Frame." Thank you again to the editors, the contributors, & everyone who participated in & attended the symposium. Much love to my co-organizer
@Jeharrislaw
.
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Time to celebrate my
@pennlaw
colleague
@Jeharrislaw
- recipient of our A. Leo Levin teaching award for the Access to Justice course she taught this spring. 🎉 Our students are so lucky to have been able to learn from her and from the amazing roster of guests she brought in 🙌
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.
@PennLaw
will be in great hands with Sophia Z. Lee at the helm. I am very proud to be on this faculty and excited about what the future holds!
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Do law students appreciate engagingly written fact patterns on final exams? Or is this something we do solely to please ourselves?
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Well, I haven't touched my exams yet 😫, but I did finally finish revisions on an article I've been working on for a long time: "After 504: Training the Citizen-Enforcers of Disability Rights," forthcoming 2022 in the Disability Studies Quarterly. (1/3)
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I've been seeing some people unlock some amazing achievements on here. But can I just say, I've been looking for this blazer color ever since seeing
@michelebgoodwin
rock something similar at a
@womenknowlaw
event and now it is finally here!
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Working on page proofs of this chapter today! It's part of a forthcoming edited collection featuring new histories of modern liberalism, edited by the brilliant
@BrentCebul
&
@LGeismer
:
#DisHist
#LegalHistory
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Can't believe it was my last day teaching Torts
@ColumbiaLaw
! The tiredness in these photos is real, but so is the joy. Thanks to my 1Ls for a great semester (and for the giant thank you card)!
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Very proud of my
@PennHistory
PhD student (formerly
@BerkeleyLaw
) Kimberly White! At
@The_OAH
conference, she received the George E. Pozzetta award from
@IEHS1965
to support her important dissertation research on West Indian migrants in NYC in the late 20th c.
#OAH2023
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Anne Fleming was a brilliant scholar and a treasured colleague
@penn
, where we went to graduate school together. She was also an incredibly kind, generous, & decent human being. She aspired to do good in the world & she made those around her want to be better. (1/2)
Tragic news. Anne Fleming was a wonderful scholar and person. Her work on Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co. changed the way I teach Contracts I. She was a
2013 Hurst fellow &
@legalhistory
guestblogger in 2018: This is absolutely heart-breaking.
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I really appreciate the YLS faculty letter & was about to RT, but... IDK, guys, is it healthy to care so much about what one elite law school thinks about the confirmation process (or the nominee)? Isn't that part of the problem here?
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After the big booby-trap confrontation with the burglars: "I think that boy is actually the villain. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to make them die." (3/3)
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The other new
@pennlaw
addition announced today is Prof. Jennifer Rothman (
@profrothman
)! I am so excited to welcome
@profrothman
&
@sandy_mayson
, alongside our previously announced new colleague
@Jeharrislaw
🙂
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Today was the 2nd session of the Law & Inequality 1L elective that I'm teaching w/
@ProfOsseiOwusu
. We designed this particular class around Prof.
@ZLiscow
's new paper "Redistribution for Realists: A New Law & Economics of Inequality." (1/x)
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Marta Russell's work changed the way I thought about disability -- and law. My contribution to the
@LPEblog
symposium on Russell's work challenges scholars of rights, equality, & social welfare policy to grapple w/ her insights: (1/3)
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Now on SSRN: my almost-finalized article on the “Section 504 trainings” (“After 504: Training the Citizen-Enforcers of Disability Rights”). 🧵 on writing the piece & why I hope you’ll help me spread the word about this history.
#Dishist
#LegalHistory
(1/x)
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Honored to speak today
@YaleLawSch
about SCOTUS's missed opportunities to condemn the evacuation & incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent, & why its recent "overruling" of Korematsu was anything but. (& then I promptly lost my voice b/c I live w/ sick toddlers.)
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I just posted an almost-final version of my
@CalifLRev
article on "The Pennhurst Doctrines and the Lost Disability History of the “New Federalism.” It still needs to go through final edits & blue-booking, so please excuse any errors! (1/x)
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Over
@legalhistory
, Dan, Mitra, and I tried to capture some of the reasons why Anne Fleming was so treasured and why her passing is such a loss. May many more remembrances follow: cc
@dbqur
@mjsharafi
Anne Fleming was a brilliant scholar and a treasured colleague
@penn
, where we went to graduate school together. She was also an incredibly kind, generous, & decent human being. She aspired to do good in the world & she made those around her want to be better. (1/2)
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In collaboration with the
@PennLRev
, Prof.
@Jeharrislaw
& I are excited to announce "The Disability Frame: Costs, and Constraints in the Broad Struggle for Inclusion." Join us for this online symposium Feb. 18-19, 2022: cc
@pennlaw
(1/x)
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This. I managed to complete many tasks, incl. summer teaching & (some) teaching prep for fall, writing external evals & rec letters, mentoring jr colleagues, & honoring service commitments. But made zero progress on the research projects I most care about & feel like a failure 🙁
I have 2 young kids. I did not write a single word this summer. Thank you
@ProfMMurray
for sharing your struggles and helping us all feel seen.
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Am writing something that feels very different from what I've done before, and I am feeling just overwhelmed by the generosity of friends & colleagues in helping me make this thing better. There is ugliness in academia, but also real kindness and fellowship.
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Today the
@pennlaw
#LegalHistory
Workshop welcomes
@ProfMMurray
to discuss her new article "Race-ing Roe: Reproductive Justice, Racial Justice, and the Battle for Roe v. Wade." We are honored to have her kick off our 2020-21 workshop series. Can't wait for the conversation!
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I love this reading list on Race, Space & the Law that my former
@UCBerkeley
student Desiree Valadares put together for
@PlacesJournal
: Includes work by
@karl_jacoby
@UntermanKate
@KaraWSwanson
@legalhis
@CathleenDCahill
& others.
#legalhistory
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In Spring '21,
@ProfOsseiOwusu
& I taught a new 1L elective
@pennlaw
on "Law & Inequality." One goal was to pull back the curtain on legal scholarship & empower our students to critique & contribute. So exciting to see our former students getting their own ideas out!... (1/x)
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Another 🧵on the "Law & Inequality" course I'm teaching w/
@ProfOsseiOwusu
@PennLaw
. Our most recent session focused on civil procedure (broadly construed) & its relationship to inequality. We organized this session around the work of guest Matthew Shapiro (
@RutgersLaw
) (1/x)
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FYI,
#Torts
profs,
@JohnFabianWitt
& I have sent off the 2020 edition of our
@caliorg
#torts
casebook to our editors. It should be ready for the fall semester. It's free to download and we hear that students enjoy learning from it!
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I downloaded this immediately and cannot wait to read it. Congratulations to Prof.
@MaggieBlackhawk
and kudos to
@HarvLRev
on this inspired choice of a Foreword author.
It has been the greatest honor of my career to write the Foreword for this term's
@HarvLRev
. I am grateful to have been able to tell this story and to tell it from the heart in such a prominent forum. As always, I dream of a day when words can change minds and hearts--and worlds.
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I taught Bill Novak's work on "the public utility idea" today in my undergrad
#LegalHistory
class and I am still so fired up about it. Huge development in American law & the social control of capitalism -- now papered over by the "Lochner era" narrative.
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I am obsessed with the little free library my in-laws built for our house! I also love seeing the content that our neighbors add and take.
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Big hiring plans
@BerkeleyLaw
! We're looking for ppl w/ interests in ad law, family law, race & law, environ & energy law, law & econ, crim, evidence, biz law, & more. Links to the entry-level and lateral hiring ads in the thread. Pls share widely.
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Loving this shout-out to then-law student Serena Mayeri, now my colleague
@PennLaw
. Truly a star. (And the Laura Kalman article that
@BenjaminACoates
pulled this from is a classic.)
#LegalHistory
Wow. When your final exam is so good that your professor cites it in the profession’s flagship journal...
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Today I recover from my teaching eval
#mood
by highlighting the kind of comment that will sustain & energize me going into a new semester: "This course made me reevaluate my career path. Professor Tani's expertise and passion for the subject matter was contagious..." (1/2)
Who else out there will immediately forget all positive comments on teaching evals and obsess over the one student in the room who hates you but won't tell you why?
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Happy news for today: an article that I first drafted in 2017 is now in copy edits! (forthcoming with the Disability Studies Quarterly). Some projects take a long time, for good reason. This one is on the Section 504 trainings. I hope it does this history justice!
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A truly great day for Penn Law legal history. We celebrated our fearless leader, outgoing
@ASLHTweets
president Sally Gordon, and our colleague [missing from this picture]
@MaggieBlackhawk
on her major article prize win! So proud to be a part of this group.
@careylawupenn
Penn Law's legal historians (missing
@MaggieBlackhawk
!!). Outgoing ASLH president Sarah Barringer Gordon,
@ProfOsseiOwusu
@kmtani
Serena Mayeri and Sophia Lee.
@ASLHtweets
#ASLH2019
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You love to see it: in her 1st year teaching
@PennHistory
, Hardeep Dhillon (
@migrantherstory
) wins the Richard S. Dunn Award for Distinguished Teaching. The award recognizes "the faculty member who has shown the most active commitment to the department’s undergraduates.” 🎉
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Thanks,
@ProfMMurray
! This tweet is also a testimony to how much the composition of hiring committees matters; also their processes for considering candidates. By some metrics, I was a "risky" candidate on the entry level. Very grateful that
@BerkeleyLaw
welcomed & supported me.
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I am honored that my historical research on federalism, social welfare policy, & Native people helped inform this important amicus brief in the Brackeen case. Kudos to the NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project for its leadership. .
#LegalHistory
This brief would not exist, but for work by historians to bring these issues to light: Margaret Jacobs and Karen Tani
@kmtani
first among them. Amanda White Eagle
@AmandaRockman
and Julius Chen of
@akin_gump
brought the brief to fruition. Students, though, were the engine. 1/
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For those interested in the op-ed response assignment on my
#legalhistory
#syllabus
, here's the cover sheet of a packet I put together for class today -- offering a range of sample history-based op-eds, plus how-to advice from
@pastpunditry
,
@cwschmidt1
(1/2)
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I still can't believe I'm at a career stage where people give me "honoraria" to do things. Paid one forward on this mother's day by donating to an org that advocates for pregnant women.
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"Thirty years after the enactment of the ADA, legal education and the legal profession still send the message that disabled people are not supposed to be lawyers." For specifics, read
@mattbc
(& others) in the latest issue of the J of Legal Educ.
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I just taught my students about this today in my
#LegalHistory
class! This belongs in the 20th c. U.S. Legal History canon 👇
It’s the 45th anniversary of the 504 Sit-In. Demonstrations took place at federal buildings across the U.S. to demand that the Section 504 regulations be signed. I was at the HEW office in San Francisco, where we took over the building for a sit-in that lasted 26 days.
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Historically, disability cases have had a vast and underappreciated effect on civil rights law (and public law more broadly) -- as
@katie_eyer
& I argue in a forthcoming piece in
@YaleLJournal
. Pay attention to this case!
Tester standing is a critical tool for enforcement of civil rights laws. Don’t be lulled into complacency. The cases heard by
#SCOTUS
this term may seem sleepy, but they have huge implications for racial & social justice. Read the
@ACLU
@NAACP_LDF
brief
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Some people you should be following, this week & always:
@prof_erikalee
@BethLewWilliams
@KorematsuCtr
@MelissaMayBorja
@hidehirota
@ellendwu
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Great to see our stellar
@pennlaw
#LegalHistory
group featured on the school website today! This is from
#ASLH2019
, back when haircuts were still possible. - w/ Serena Mayeri, Sally Gordon, Sophia Lee,
@ProfOsseiOwusu
(but missing
@MaggieBlackhawk
!)
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"Nondisabled adults make harmful decisions all the time, and they usually do not risk losing their civil rights for it. In this way, disability becomes a line through which different rights—or denial of rights—are articulated." --
@slooterman
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One of the new additions is Prof.
@sandy_mayson
!: We are so thrilled!
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Here's something I am beyond thrilled about: my former
@BerkeleyLaw
student Kimberly White (
@kimberlygwhite
) is headed to
@PennHistory
for her PhD! She's going to study AfAm legal & intellectual history & continue Penn's proud
#LegalHistory
tradition.
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Thx for your kind responses to my tenure post! Here are some things I plan to do in the next phase of my career (thread):
(1) learn as much as I can about disability in law & history, starting w/ the people who have lived it;
I know this isn't exactly the news of the moment, but here are two Berkeley kids saying "happy TENURE day!" to their mom. Thanks to all of you who have mentored & encouraged me along the way, esp. my amazing colleagues
@BerkeleyLaw
.
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You may recall me & my
@pennlaw
colleague
@Jeharrislaw
tweeting a LOT earlier this year about the
@PennLRev
symposium on "The Disability Frame." We just posted our co-authored Foreword to the published version of the symposium: (1/x)
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64
Must-read from my brilliant
@PennLaw
colleague Serena Mayeri: "The Critical Role of History after Dobbs" - just published in the Journal of American Constitutional History
#LegalHistory
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Tested positive for COVID today. Just because we don't talk about it anymore doesn't mean it's not there 😕
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Making a very short trip to New York, involving multiple meetings and presentations, so of course am packing 3 books I've been meaning to read. (Who out there feels seen?)
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Today
@YaleLawSch
:
@JohnFabianWitt
& Robert Post have dedicated a session of their Foundations of American Legal Thought class to
#disability
. Honored to be here w/
@Jeharrislaw
to try to do justice to this important topic. I wish this had been a part of my legal education.
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Thanks to
@chris_j_walker
&
@jdmortenson
for this fun opportunity!
@katie_eyer
& I received terrific comments on our paper from
@UMichLaw
students & faculty.
In this week's Public Law Workshop, Professor
@kmtani
presented historical research from a joint project with
@katie_eyer
explaining the critical and underappreciated role of disability law in facilitating the Rehnquist Court’s ‘new federalism’ revolution.
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One of my mentees asked a great Q today - for purposes of advising a 1L that she is mentoring: Would you have any advice for a law student who is scared to approach and connect with their professors? I suggested going to office hours w/ a buddy from class. Other tips?
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The 6th ed. (2022) of "Torts: Cases, Principles, and Institutions" is now available for FREE download
@caliorg
! .
Joining
@JohnFabianWitt
's excellent
#Torts
casebook remains a highlight of my journey as a law prof. 🙂
RT to help spread the word!
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Signed, the author of a delightful (IMHO)
#Torts
exam about a gender-reveal party gone awry (which really can happen so be careful out there!)
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.
@ProfOsseiOwusu
& I just finished teaching our last session of "Law & Inequality"
@PennLaw
. What an exhausting semester this has been, but what a joy to teach this class. Stay tuned for one last re-cap!
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Headed to Madison today to be a "guest scholar" at the Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History. So excited to meet the fellows & support this legendary
#LegalHistory
"boot camp"!
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Great to see so much recognition of the crucial intersection of law & history rn. If you're a lawyer or law prof offering an expert opinion that relies on historical knowledge, and history is not your main field of study, please do your best to recognize & credit... (1/x)
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'tis the season for preschoolers to put as many acorns as possible in their backpacks.
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#ILookLikeAProfessor
...and her name is
@ProfMMurray
. Whose style will I jack when she leaves
@BerkeleyLaw
??
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Judy Heumann was so full of life and wisdom when I interviewed her this past fall
@UCBerkeley
. Today's news is devastating. My condolences to her family and her many friends. I believe you can still view her Berkeley interview/lecture here: .
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