Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses how incoming law students should approach AI use in law school, addressing academic integrity, exam and classroom policies, the Socratic method, and AI’s proper role in legal research and practice. Professor Dorf advises that students should follow institutional AI rules to avoid cheating classmates and clients, avoid using chatbots to shortcut genuine engagement with course material, rigorously verify any AI-generated legal research, and extend patience to instructors who are also adapting to unprecedented technological change.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Board of Immigration Appeals’ request for amicus briefs on whether it must follow U.S. Supreme Court and circuit precedent on constitutional questions even when doing so would require finding a statute or regulation unconstitutional, a power agencies otherwise lack. Professor Dorf argues that while the two obligations can often be reconciled through careful distinctions (such as those between facial and as-applied challenges), he warns that a BIA now dominated by Trump appointees may exploit this tension in bad faith to consistently rule against immigrants, leaving the courts to correct any opportunistic or inconsistent application of these principles.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses Chief Justice John Roberts’s characterization of citizenship as “the right to have rights” in his Trump v. Barbara opinion, tracing this formulation’s origins through Chief Justice Earl Warren’s 1958 opinions back to Hannah Arendt. Professor Dorf argues that Roberts’s claim is correct despite non-citizens holding many constitutional rights, because citizenship uniquely secures the right to remain in the United States and to avoid the harms of statelessness—making the phrase especially apt given the Trump administration’s attempts to strip birthright citizenship and its aggressive termination of protections like Temporary Protected Status.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf examines the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Landor v. Louisiana, which held that individual prison officials cannot be sued for damages under RLUIPA even after knowingly violating a Rastafarian prisoner’s religious freedom rights. Professor Dorf argues the majority opinion is constitutionally flawed and urges future litigants to plead the Commerce Clause as an independent basis for RLUIPA and similar Spending Clause statutes.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf examines the Democratic Senate primary in Maine, where progressive candidate Graham Platner—despite a compelling populist platform—has faced mounting scrutiny over a series of personal controversies including offensive social media posts, a controversial tattoo, and allegations of infidelity and abusive behavior. Professor Dorf argues that, while Platner’s character flaws are genuine cause for concern, Democratic voters can rationally support him in the general election against incumbent Susan Collins, because his flaws—more akin to Bill Clinton’s than Donald Trump’s—do not threaten constitutional democracy and should yield to the practical calculus of a binary electoral choice.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the settlement of a lawsuit between Donald Trump and the Department of Justice, which established a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and granted the Trump family permanent immunity from various tax claims. Professor Dorf argues that this arrangement constitutes a corrupt exploitation of the Federal Judgment Fund and urges Congress to implement structural reforms to prevent future presidents from bypassing the constitutional power of the purse through collusive litigation.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Supreme Court’s role in enabling racial gerrymandering under the guise of partisan strategy and the resulting limitations of current legislative remedies like the Voting Rights Act. Professor Dorf argues that Congress should use its constitutional authority to mandate independent redistricting commissions or, more effectively, adopt a system of statewide proportional representation to ensure fair minority voice without using the specific racial classifications the current Court finds objectionable.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Nathan v. Alamo Heights Indep. School District, which disregarded Supreme Court precedent regarding the Establishment Clause. Professor Dorf argues that the Fifth Circuit improperly bypassed the Supreme Court’s exclusive authority to overrule its own precedents by unilaterally declaring Stone v. Graham dead.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf examines the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, which applied strict scrutiny to Colorado’s conversion therapy ban as applied to a licensed talk therapist, including the strategic reasoning that led Justices Kagan and Sotomayor to join the conservative majority. Professor Dorf argues that neither the limiting principles the Court articulated nor Justice Kagan's concurrence provide coherent guidance, leaving professional regulation—especially of lawyers—dangerously exposed to First Amendment challenges.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the constitutional and policy dimensions of Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court case challenging Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship, examining both the legal merits and the broader arguments for and against jus soli citizenship. Professor Dorf argues that the executive order is clearly unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, that the policy case for restricting birthright citizenship is empirically weak and practically disruptive, and that the real motivation driving the effort is racist “replacement” ideology rather than any legitimate demographic or governance concern.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf examines Judge Lawrence VanDyke’s notorious dissent in Olympus Spa v. Andretti—a Ninth Circuit case involving the constitutionality of applying Washington State’s transgender-inclusive public accommodations law to a women-only spa. Dorf argues that VanDyke’s opening phrase “swinging dicks” was not merely gratuitous and attention-seeking (in contrast to cases like Cohen v. California, where the use of profanity was justified), but reflected genuine anti-transgender bigotry that disqualifies it as legitimate judicial discourse and vindicates the ABA’s earlier finding that VanDyke was unfit for the bench.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the recent standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon over Anthropic’s refusal to permit its AI tools to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, leading the Trump administration to designate Anthropic a national security supply-chain. Professor Dorf argues that while both mass surveillance and autonomous weapons deployment may already be unlawful under the Fourth Amendment and customary international law respectively, Anthropic had sound reasons to seek explicit contractual carveouts rather than rely on those legal limits—and that the Pentagon’s unwillingness to accept those carveouts raises the alarming inference that the administration intends to pursue both activities.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses widespread speculation that Justice Samuel Alito may retire from the Supreme Court soon, examining both the evidence (particularly his book’s release date and strategic timing before the 2026 midterms) and the broader institutional problems this speculation reveals. Professor Dorf argues that the real issue is not the Supreme Court’s lack of transparency, but the combination of life tenure and ideological polarization, which creates an unhealthy obsession with Justices’ retirement timing and makes Supreme Court appointments depend on accidents of health and political calculations rather than a sensible democratic process.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax information by former IRS employee Charles Littlejohn, examining the legal basis and problems with the case. Professor Dorf argues that while the lawsuit has some factual merit, it should be dismissed because the damages claim of $10 billion is fantastical and implausible, Trump himself was responsible for IRS management during the breach, the case likely falls outside the two-year statute of limitations, and it represents an unprecedented and improper attempt by a sitting president to sue his own government for monetary damages.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses two Supreme Court cases challenging laws in West Virginia and Idaho that exclude transgender female athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, focusing on whether such laws constitute unlawful sex or transgender status discrimination. Professor Dorf argues that the states’ defense—claiming the laws don’t discriminate against transgender individuals because the exclusions are based on “biological sex”—is a formalistic maneuver that hides clear discrimination and aims to sidestep substantive legal scrutiny rather than engage with the underlying scientific and constitutional issues.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf analyzes Chief Justice John Roberts’s 2025 Year End Report, which, though seemingly apolitical on the surface, reflects on the American Revolution and the Constitution to emphasize the value of judicial independence and the evolving meaning of constitutional principles. Professor Dorf argues that while Roberts’s rhetoric aligns with a progressive, non-originalist view of constitutional interpretation akin to that of Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Court’s recent rulings—including those Roberts has joined—fall short of embodying those ideals, making his words ring hollow without corresponding judicial action.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf critiques President Trump's proposal to issue rebate checks funded by tariff revenue, focusing on its legality, economic impact, and policy implications. Professor Dorf argues that while such payments could be legal if authorized by Congress, the plan is economically unsound and politically harmful because it risks increasing inflation, adds to the deficit, and reinforces damaging tariff policies.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) to reinstate Texas’s new redistricting map, despite a lower court’s finding that it was likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Professor Dorf argues that the Court unjustifiably presumed good faith on the part of Texas legislators, ignoring strong evidence of racial motivations, and thereby undermining judicial scrutiny of racially discriminatory practices under the guise of partisan neutrality.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf explores the legality and implications of prosecutors repeatedly presenting the same charges to multiple grand juries, in the context of the weak and potentially politically motivated prosecution of James Comey. Professor Dorf argues that the current legal framework undermines the Fifth Amendment’s Grand Jury Clause by allowing endless prosecutorial attempts to secure an indictment, and urges the Supreme Court to limit such practices unless new evidence is discovered, in order to preserve the grand jury’s function as a safeguard against governmental abuse.
Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the contrasting legal outcomes of Sean Dunn, who was acquitted for throwing a turkey sandwich at a federal agent in protest of government actions, and Zoe Rosenberg, who was convicted for rescuing chickens from a slaughterhouse as an act of animal rights activism. Professor Dorf argues that Dunn’s acquittal reflects juror sympathies with political protest against authority, while Rosenberg’s conviction exposes society’s deep normalization of animal agriculture and the judicial system’s resistance to acknowledging nonviolent civil disobedience that challenges that norm.
