Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, Justice, And The Courts

In January, Dahlia Lithwick spoke to Ruth Bader Ginsburg about the women of Harvard Law School’s class of 1959. Slate Plus members heard the interview in August as part of our feature on the women of Ginsburg’s class. We’re now making it publicly available for the first time. Go to Slate.com/RBG for more on all the women of the class. To support our work, join Slate Plus at Slate.com/amicusplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is Bill Barr doing, and why is he doing it? Donald Ayer, former U.S. attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, on the attorney general’s ideology, how it predates Trumpism, and why it’s so dangerous.  In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern breaks down the latest voting breakdown in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, the latest Census case dead end, and the stupidity of Trump’s latest SCOTUS list.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Professor Samuel Bagenstos of the University of Michigan School of Law, to discuss the status of voting rights litigation as we count down to November’s election. Then Dahlia is joined by Slate’s own Mark Joseph Stern to talk about the alarming developments in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  In this week’s Slate Plus segment, Mark sticks around to explain the Supreme Court’s shadow docket, and why it matters.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In July, Slate published "The Class of RBG,” a print piece and two podcast episodes about the nine other women in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Harvard Law School class. June Thomas talked to Dahlia Lithwick and Molly Olmstead about the making of the package on the July 26 episode of Working, Slate’s podcast about the creative process. We thought Amicus listeners would enjoy a slightly extended version of that interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exclusive to Slate Plus members, Dahlia Lithwick’s January interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg about the women of Harvard Law School’s class of 1959.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen to the full interview and support our show. Go to Slate.com/RBG for more on all the women of the class. Find the print version of this interview here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the second woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the women who went to law school with her knew something of what it had taken to get there. In the second part of this special series, Dahlia Lithwick talks to Justice Ginsburg’s classmates about their lives in the law after Harvard, and to Justice Ginsburg herself about what women in the law today can take from their stories.  Read Slate’s full interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg about her own time at Harvard Law School and her memories of her female classmates here. Read the full stories of each woman’s life here.  Archive of President Bill Clinton announcing his intent to nominate Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court courtesy; William J. Clinton Presidential Library. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick goes back to where one of the most influential legal careers in US history began—Harvard Law School, September 1956—to find out what we can learn from the other women of the class of 1959, and their notorious classmate.  Read Slate’s full interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg about her own time at Harvard Law School and her memories of her female classmates here. Read the full stories of each woman’s life here.  Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who were the nine other women of Harvard Law School's class of 1959? Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg remembers them all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of Berkeley Law, associate law professor Zephyr Teachout of Fordham University, and Slate’s own Mark Joseph Stern to rake over the end of the Supreme Court term, taking a close look at the Trump financial records cases, the ministerial exception cases, and a landmark decision about tribal lands in Oklahoma.   Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Melissa Murray of NYU School of Law and Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker for a round table discussion of the big abortion case of the term, why Chief Justice John Roberts chose to strike down the Louisiana abortion law in June Medical Services LLC v Russo, and why opinion about Roberts’ opinion seems to be divided along very gendered lines. In the Slate Plus segment, Dahlia and Mark Joseph Stern break down the other big opinions of the week and their implications for executive power and the separation of church and state. Finally, they look ahead to what remains of the term. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Luis Cortes Romero, the attorney and DACA recipient who was part of the team that prevailed in this week’s DACA ruling. He will restore some of your faith in the American courts. And then Dahlia talks to Professor Pam Karlan about this week’s landmark LGBTQ employment rights case, in which she argued successfully for Title VII protections to apply to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees. In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern tries to help Dahlia figure out who this new Chief Justice John Roberts is and what that can tell us about the remaining (huge) opinions still to be issued this term. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig of Boston University School of Law to share the feelings and thinking behind her letter to her students reflecting on recent protests and killings. (Also mentioned, the letter from the Washington State Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.) Next, Vanita Gupta of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and former head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in the Obama administration discusses America’s overpolicing problem and what’s needed for real change. In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern on the midnight decision in a case brought by churches who objected to state lockdown orders, and why the GOP strategy to block voting by mail has a big swing state problem.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A big show for the long weekend. First, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Leah Litman of the University of Michigan Law School to discuss oral arguments in the Trump financial records cases, and to get granular with the question of who gets interrupted most in oral arguments over the phone. (Guess what? It’s gendered.) Next, a big picture conversation about the rule of law and global justice before, during, and after COVID-19, with David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee.  In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern takes us through arguments in the faithless electors case, the big religious freedom case that most people missed, and why you shouldn’t read too much into the Supreme Court’s latest order regarding the Mueller Report.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Susan Hennessey, national security analyst and executive editor of Lawfare to discuss the ramifications of the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case against Michael Flynn. Later in the show, Lithwick is joined by veteran Supreme Court watcher Linda Greenhouse to unpack the new format for Supreme Court arguments: a teleconference carried live on C-SPAN, with a close look at the birth control case you might have missed.  In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern on how Flushgate could affect post-pandemic openness at the Supreme Court and which justice is crushing the conference calls. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Colorado State Attorney General Phil Weiser to talk about how states’ rights fit into the picture of America that’s emerging in this pandemic.  In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern joins Dahlia to talk about the big decisions that came down from the high court this week and what they mean for other, even bigger, decisions yet to come this term. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Marc Elias, chair of Perkins Coie’s Political Law Group, he represents the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Together, they reconstruct how the Supreme Court stepped into Wisconsin’s April election, and what the path to that decision—and the fallout from it—can teach us ahead of November.  In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern talks about Mitch McConnell’s continued campaign to stack the judiciary, the dissonance between conservative positions on election law and reproductive rights in the time of COVID, and the piece he wishes he and Dahlia had written together this week, but didn’t. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Ian Bassin, former associated White House counsel from 2009-11 and co-founder of Protect Democracy for a look at the pain points, tensions, and glimmers of hope in how this constitutional democracy is handling the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19.  In the Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern on why Justice Elena Kagan is voting with the conservatives, the unanimous decision in Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American Media and what it means for future civil-rights cases, and the crisis unfolding in the immigration courts. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Michele Goodwin, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California Irvine School of Law. Professor Goodwin unpacks the oral arguments in this term’s big reproductive health case, June Medical Services, and delves into the history of racism and civil-rights trampling in the name of public health.  For plus members, Mark Joseph Stern joins Dahlia with what to expect from a SCOTUS closed to the public, the Obamacare case, and which record was met at the Supreme Court this week.  Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick asks the new president of the American Constitution Society, Russ Feingold, if it’s too late for progressives to respond to the conservative steamroller that is the Federalist Society.  Slate Plus members have access to a bonus segment in which Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern breaks down the headlines, cases, cert grants, and conundrums from the Supreme Court and federal appellate courts. To start your free two-week trial go to slate.com/amicusplus Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brendan Nyhan is a political science professor at Dartmouth College who focuses on misinformation and so-called fake news. His views on how fake news affects election outcomes might surprise you.  Try Slate Plus free: slate.com/amicusplus Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices