Tag Archives: Courts

Scholars’ Circle – Alien Enemy’s Act invoked to deport people from US without due process on civil charges – April 6, 2025

April 7, 2025 host

The Trump Administration is using the Alien Enemies Act to seize Venezuelans and ship them to a notorious prison El Salvador without due process. What can be done to protect and uphold the rule of law and human rights in the face of the Trump Administration’s rejection of them? What are some means of legal and political resistance when human rights are being violated? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Jennifer Selin is Associate Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. She’s written numerous articles, and in particular, Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador sparks light Legal questions likely to reach the Supreme Court.
Victor Narro is Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center and Core Faculty for the UCLA Department of Labor Studies. He teaches immigration law and is author of The Activist Spirit – Toward a Radical Solidarity and No One Size Fits All: Worker Organization, Policy, and Movement in a New Economic Age (Cornell University Press, 2018) and others.
Andrea Pitzer is an author and podcaster. She’s written One Long Night, a global history of concentration camps. This traces the idea of mass civilian detention without trial from its beginnings through Auschwitz and beyond, including up to today. She’s also the host of the podcast, Next Comes What.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Title IX history and compliance struggle for women’s equality in higher education – March 9, 2025

March 10, 2025 host

Title IX, the landmark legislation on women’s equality in higher education, was passed to equalize funding between men’s and women’s athletics. What has it achieved? Where does it fall short?

When some schools failed to implement Title IX for athletics, activists sued. We look at the landmark cases and what they have achieved. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Lisa S. Kaplowitz is Associate Professor of Professional Practice in the Finance and Economics department at Rutgers Business School. She is co-founder and Executive Director of the Rutgers Center for Women in Business. She is the author of the opinion article Title IX increased opportunities for women athletes, but there’s still work to do and Thought Leadership: How men can advance gender equity at work.
Bonnie J. Morris, Lecturer, Department of History at University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Feminist Revolution, the award winning Women’s History for Beginners and What’s the Score? 25 years of Teaching Women’s Sports History.
Nancy Hogshead-Makar is the CEO and Founder of Champion Women. She is the co-author of Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change, with Andrew Zimbalist, and author of Pregnant and Parenting Student-Athletes: Resources and Model Policies and won three Gold medals and one Silver medal at the 1984 Olympics.

Link to report on Title IX compliance by Champion Women Advocacy: https://titleixschools.com/

This interview was recorded March 2024.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s violations of US Constitution – March 2, 2025

March 2, 2025 host

Is the US in a Constitutional crisis? Is the constitution itself a crisis? What are the specific actions of the Trump Administration that has led to this? How will the courts respond? And what is the unitary executive theory and how has it undermined the checks and balances of the system? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Heidi Kitrosser is Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She is the author of the book, Reclaiming Accountability: Transparency, Executive Power, and the U.S. Constitution, and the articles, The Shadow of Executive Privilege, and Accountability in the Deep State.
Sanford Levinson is W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School. He is the author of many publications including Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It) and Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Deep State, Public Services in a democracy – February 16, 2025

February 16, 2025 host

The Trump Administration is actively seeking to destroy the public service and the protections offered by government. What does this mean for the future of the democracy and for the future of the country? Who will will stand up for public services that we’ve long come to rely on for public safety, clean water, air, health and financial protections? What is the role of the courts in preventing Trump’s complete takeover of the government. Can the courts slow down the the destruction of the public service? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Mark Tushnet is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School. He’s the author of The Pasts and Futures of the Administrative State And Trust the science, do your research. Comment on the unfortunate revival of the progressive case for the administrative state.
Stephen Skowronek is Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political Science and Professor in the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. His publications include, The Policy State: An American Predicament, The Search for American Political Development and co-author of the book Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive
John A. Dearborn is a Assistant Professor of Political Science and Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Dean’s Faculty Fellow at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Power Shifts: Congress and Presidential Representation and co-author of the Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Why voters should strike down Dark Money in politics – December 22, 2024

December 21, 2024 host

Money can distort politics. And the lack of transparency where this money comes from can further distort politics and invite corruption. Since much of the money in campaign finance is not subject to transparency laws, it has taken the name dark money. This specifically references spending by nonprofit organizations created for political spending. How much has dark money skewed American democracy? What role does transparency in spending play in ensuring the legitimacy of democracies? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Stan Oklobdzija is Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy. He is the author of Public positions, private giving: Dark money and political donors in the Digital Age and Closing Down and Cashing In: Extremism and Political Fundraising.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is Professor of Law at Stetson Law School. She is the author of Corporate Citizen? An Argument for the Separation of Corporation and State and Political Brands.
Maurice Cunningham is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He is the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.

This interview was recorded October 2022.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Abortion/reproductive rights & access post presidential election – November 17, 2024

November 17, 2024 host

In the 2024 election, voters reaffirmed the right to abortion in many states while the nation still elected an anti-abortion president, and anti-abortion majority in both the senate and the house of representatives. What does this mean for abortion rights in the US.

Aziza Ahmed is Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. She is the author of The Future of Facts: The Politics of Public Health and Medicine in Abortion Law, Informed Decision Making and Abortion: Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Informed Consent, and the First Amendment, and Medical Evidence and Expertise in Abortion Jurisprudence .
Carole Joffe is Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe v. Wade, Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients and the Rest of Us and co-author of Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America.
Robin Marty is Executive Director for the West Alabama Women’s Center and a freelance reporter. She’s the author of Handbook for a Post-Roe America and co-author of The End of Roe v. Wade: Inside the Right’s Plan to Destroy Legal Abortion.
Rachel Rebouché is the Interim Dean of Temple University Beasley School of Law and the James E. Beasley Professor of Law. She is the author of Abortion Rights as Human Rights, co-author of “Eugenic Abortions” and the Problematic Popularity of the Reason-Based Ban and The New Abortion Battleground.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Reforming Supreme Court of United States ; How proxy wars are dominating international relations – August 18, 2024

August 18, 2024 host

With the upcoming election Democrats have proposal to reform Supreme Court with term limits, ethics oversight and many more. Our panel look at how and why people are concerned over the influence peddling related to recent decisions. Hosted by Maria Armoudian. [ dur: 35mins. ]

Erwin Chemerinsky is the Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. His many publications include, most recently, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights, and The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State (with Howard Gillman).
Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Increasingly Dangerous Variants of the “Most-Favored-Nation” Theory of Religious Liberty and The Supreme Court and the new religious aristocracy in the Hill.

Why do states choose to use third parties to intervene in other nation’s civil wars and political conflicts? On today’s show we interview Andrew Mumford on the legality, efficacy, and implications of the waging of proxy warfare. Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 21 mins. ].

This interview was recorded in February 2020.

Andrew Mumford is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at The University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author about Proxy Warfare Counterinsurgency Wars and the Anglo-American Alliance.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – When democracies prosecute corruptions of its former political leaders – July 7, 2024

July 7, 2024 host

The criminal indictments of former President Trump have created a political crisis in their unprecedented nature. Historically, U.S. presidents have not faced criminal charges, even in cases where there is a high likelihood of guilt, in large part due to respect for the office. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon embodies this norm.

What can the U.S. learn from other countries that have prosecuted former presidents? And what can we learn from American history about the prosecutions of political figures? Is the prosecution of former heads of state simply the weaponization of justice mechanisms? And how common is this political charge? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office and his latest book Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight For Democracy. He hosts the podcast This is Democracy.
Tom Ginsburg is Leo Spitz Professor of International Law and Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author of the books The Endurance of National Constitutions, Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes,and co-author of the paper The Comparative Constitutional Law of Presidential Impeachment.
Ezequiel González Ocantos is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, and a Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College, at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America, The Politics of Transitional Justice in Latin America: Power, Norms and Capability Building, and co-author of Prosecutors, Voters, and the Criminalisation of Corruption in Latin America(w/ Paula Muñoz, Nara Pavao & Viviana Baraybar).

This interview was recorded August, 2023.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – SCOTUS overturns Colorado State Supreme Court decision to bar insurrectionists from its state ballot – March 10, 2024

March 10, 2024 host

The US Supreme Court overturned Colorado’s State Supreme Court decision to remove Donald Trump from its ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists holding office. What might this signal about the court and its role in the 2024 election and in electoral politics more generally?

Polls suggest that voters want to know if Donald Trump is a criminal before voting in November. But the Supreme Court’s decisions make it less likely that this occurs before the election. What does this mean for the future of the US and for democracy and the constitution? [ dur: 58mins. ]

John R. Vile is Dean and Professor of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of, The Writing and Ratification of the U.S. Constitution: Practical Virtue in Action, Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015, and ReFramers: 170 Eccentric, Visionary, and Patriotic Proposals to Rewrite the U.S. Constitution.
Sanford Levinson is W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School. He is the author of many publications including Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It) and Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today.
Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Increasingly Dangerous Variants of the “Most-Favored-Nation” Theory of Religious Liberty and The Supreme Court and the new religious aristocracy in the Hill.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – 14th Amendment of the US constitution, it’s history and enforcement today – February 18, 2024

February 18, 2024 host

Colorado disqualified former president Donald Trump from running on its ballot for President, arguing he violated the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists from holding public office. What do history and law say about this amendment and its purpose? What would so-called originalism mean as applied to the case? [ dur: 58mins. ]

John R. Vile is Dean and Professor of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of, The Writing and Ratification of the U.S. Constitution: Practical Virtue in Action, Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015, and ReFramers: 170 Eccentric, Visionary, and Patriotic Proposals to Rewrite the U.S. Constitution.
Frank Bowman III is Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law. He is an expert on the impeachment of the president and other federal officers. Bowman is the author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump. His writes the blog “Impeachable Offenses”.
Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office and his latest book Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight For Democracy. He hosts the podcast This is Democracy.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Tag Archives: Courts

Scholars’ Circle – Alien Enemy’s Act invoked to deport people from US without due process on civil charges – April 6, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Title IX history and compliance struggle for women’s equality in higher education – March 9, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s violations of US Constitution – March 2, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Deep State, Public Services in a democracy – February 16, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Why voters should strike down Dark Money in politics – December 22, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Abortion/reproductive rights & access post presidential election – November 17, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Reforming Supreme Court of United States ; How proxy wars are dominating international relations – August 18, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – When democracies prosecute corruptions of its former political leaders – July 7, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – SCOTUS overturns Colorado State Supreme Court decision to bar insurrectionists from its state ballot – March 10, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – 14th Amendment of the US constitution, it’s history and enforcement today – February 18, 2024

By Maria Armoudian