Edley Center Faculty

“We’re experiencing now an unprecedented assault on the Constitution, on the First Amendment, and of freedom of speech,” said Dean Chemerinsky at the 2026 Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Symposium. “The closest analog that I can think of would be in the early 1950s during the McCarthy era, but that was not led by the president of the United States.”

Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said the barrage of investigations amounted to “performance art” that grabbed attention but had little impact. After pushback from schools, she said, the Trump administration is backing off. “It stopped putting itself in a position to lose,” said Lhamon, who now leads the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley.

“President Donald Trump’s deal with the Department of Justice raises corruption to a level never seen before in this county,” write Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Burt Neuborne, founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “It can — and must — be stopped.”

“On an almost daily basis, we are seeing the failure of the Constitution to provide adequate checks against a president determined to use the enormous powers of his office for the sake of retribution,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. 

“Much rightly has been written criticizing the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which effectively nullified Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But one point that has not received sufficient attention is the decision’s blatant inconsistency with the principle that federal courts should not alter the conduct of elections soon before they are to occur.”

“Constitutional amendments that were adopted to protect the civil rights of Black individuals were used by the Supreme Court to deal a devastating blow to voting rights for people of color last month.” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“After all the court had done in its earlier decisions to limit the protection of voting rights, the one potent tool for protecting voting rights that remained was Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But as Kagan said, the court’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.”

“Justice Thomas is the most radically conservative justice to serve on the Supreme Court in modern times,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “I say this because ​in addition to being conservative he has taken positions that would dramatically change the law that the court never has accepted.”

“The Voting Rights Act is, simply put, one of the most important federal laws adopted during my lifetime,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“The Ten Commandments do not belong on the walls of public school classrooms. This was the conclusion of the Supreme Court in 1980, and that ruling is binding on every court in the country,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But in a stunning decision on April 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, by a 9-8 vote, upheld a Texas law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom. For many reasons, this decision is wrong.”

“The courts should simply hold that the War Powers Resolution requires the president to end our involvement in the war with Iran unless and until Congress authorizes it,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “This shouldn’t be — and isn’t — different than any other injunction on any administration to comply with the law.”

Dean Erwin Chemerinksy weighs in on a recent speech given by Justice Clarence Thomas in which he said that the rise of progressivism since the beginning of the 20th century has caused great harm. 

“Federal courts should not be used for collusive litigation. They should not handle cases where there is a manifest conflict of interest, which certainly exists when Trump would be settling suits with his Justice Department,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Burt Neuborne, founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s civil rights office under both Biden and Obama, said she found the Epstein correspondence stunning. “When I saw that text in the Epstein files, my jaw dropped,” said Lhamon, who now leads UC Berkeley Law’s Edley Center on Law and Democracy. “It is very surprising to me to see the crass and dismissive terminology, as reported, from the White House about survivors of discrimination … and the ugliness of the explicit planning and strategizing and which of our kids in school our federal government disdains.”

“Chiles v. Salazar is not the first time the Supreme Court has had to deal with a First Amendment challenge to laws that regulate speech by professionals in advising clients and patients,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “What is striking about the decisions is their inconsistency.”

“Senate Democrats are absolutely right in doing everything they can, including holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security, to impose limits on behavior by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But it is not enough.”

“There just is no constitutional power for the president to really get involved in the election process at all,” said Professor Dan Farber. “The framers of the Constitution clearly saw elections as a state function, and they’ve really only allowed these very limited exceptions.”

“However unpopular such companies are at the moment, they are being held liable for their speech and that is unconstitutional,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“Conservative justices constantly say the Constitution should be interpreted based on history and its text and its original meaning,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “All of these sources make the Trump executive order on birthright citizenship unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decision should be unanimous in striking it down.”

The Supreme Court case “could upend her life’s work,” said Catherine Lahmon, executive director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy. “It has potentially devastating consequences for the country. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and she’s eyes wide open about what that means. And, to her credit, this is not just academic for her.”

“The fate of the SAVE Act in Congress is uncertain despite the strong pressures from Trump,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But if enacted, it is sure to be challenged in the courts. While requiring photo identification for voting would likely be upheld, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote seems clearly unconstitutional.”

“I don’t think it should have ever gotten to a jury trial,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and an expert on the 1st Amendment, which also protects the platforms. “All media tries to keep people on [their platform] and coming back.”

“Calling it a constitution is entirely rhetorical,” Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of U.C. Berkeley’s law school, said, since, although you can call anything a constitution—a city charter, a corporate mission statement—the word “constitution” signifies to most people a popularly written and ratified document that limits what a government can do.

“As is so often the case with ballot initiatives, Uber’s Protecting Automobile Accident Victims from Attorney Self-Dealing Act is being promoted in a very misleading manner, as if it will help automobile accident victims,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “In reality, it just will help businesses like Uber and automobile insurance companies.”

“Under the First Amendment, the press decides how it wants to report the war. The government cannot control what the press says,” explained Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. Chemerinsky’s fear, he continued, is that the worse the war goes, “the more it [the administration] might escalate pressure on the media.”

“The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, aggressively championed by President Donald Trump, would be an unconstitutional restriction on the right to vote that would keep many citizens from voting—with little benefit for our electoral system,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy.

“The genius of the Constitution’s design of separation of powers is that it is meant to require the involvement of two branches of the federal government for any major action,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. 

“What the Trump administration is doing in cutting off funds to universities is clearly illegal,” Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School, who served as co-counsel on a case to restore some of the University of California system’s research funding, told me. The administration, he explained, hadn’t followed any of the procedures spelled out by federal law to revoke funds: “The response needs to be to go to court and challenge them.”

“President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have badly abused their authority in an effort to punish AI company Anthropic for not capitulating to their demands,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It is one thing for the government to decline to contract with a company based on a disagreement over terms. It is something quite different — and illegal and unconstitutional — for the government to use its enormous power to retaliate against a company because of disagreement in a contract dispute.”

“President Donald Trump’s disdain for the Constitution is evident in his launching a war in Iran without any semblance of congressional approval,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “Congress must act quickly to protect its role in a Constitution that was meant to prevent such unilateral action by the president.”

UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said that both the SAVE Act and proposed ballot measure in California are not only unnecessary, but harmful to democracy. “Both are aimed at solving problems that don’t exist,” Chemerinsky said.

Catherine Lhamon, the executive director of the UC Berkeley Edley Center on Law and Democracy, said the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs lawsuit appears to express a vote of “no confidence” in California’s recent legislative efforts to address antisemitism at schools.

“The tariffs decision is important in showing that a court that overwhelmingly has sided with Trump over the last year will, at least sometimes, be a check,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But the many different opinions, especially among the conservative justices, are also revealing of underlying disagreements that could matter greatly in future cases. Although it always is dangerous to generalize too much from one decision, the tariffs case shows a clear divide among the conservative justices in their willingness to curb presidential power.”  

“It sends a message that the justices aren’t going to be a rubber stamp approving President Trump’s actions,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school.

“The greatest significance of the tariffs decision is that it shows a court willing to say no to Trump on a significant issue,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“The job of the Office for Civil Rights is to protect all people,” said Catherine Lhamon, who served as assistant secretary of education for civil rights during the Biden administration and now works at UC Berkeley Law School. “This administration is picking and choosing who it will protect.”

“Masked police are common in foreign countries with authoritarian governments,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “Police officers there want to hide their identity to prevent being held accountable for their misconduct. But masked police do not exist in countries that operate under the rule of law.”

“After the February 2025 bar exam disaster, California should adopt the NextGen Uniform Bar Exam for July 2028 and restore confidence in the licensing process,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“After the court in December upheld the Texas legislature’s gerrymandering, intended to benefit Republicans, it did the “right” thing on Feb. 4 in dismissing the challenge to California’s gerrymandering which was to benefit Democrats,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But by allowing unchecked partisan gerrymandering, the court is encouraging ever more extreme efforts and undermining democracy.”

“The Trump administration has chosen a small handful of issues that it is interested in enforcing through civil rights, and it’s noisy about those and noisy about its disdain for everything else,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led OCR under the Obama and Biden administrations. “And that is unprecedented and dangerous and illegal.”

Minnesota should investigate and prosecute the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. State and local governments have the authority to prosecute federal officials who violate state law when their conduct is “objectively unreasonable.”

“The Supreme Court has made a mess of the law concerning the Second Amendment,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

In this interview, Professor Daniel Farber discusses when political leaders choose to break the rules meant to restrain them — and what truly stops them.

“If he carries out his threat to cut off funds to jurisdictions that resist his immigration policies, President Donald Trump will violate the Constitution,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“There is a strong tradition of not using the military for policing in the United States. The image of soldiers roving the streets is something we see in countries with authoritarian governments, not this country,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “Police — and not soldiers — are trained to respect constitutional rights in policing and to use deadly force only if necessary.”

“When politicians, not instructors, control what is taught, academic freedom is dead,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“Freedom of speech by instructors must be protected, but it is not absolute and the 9th Circuit here misapplied the law in finding constitutional protection for expression where none was warranted,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“What will be the fate of Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the Supreme Court’s 2020 landmark ruling protecting gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals from employment discrimination?” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky in his Courtly Observations column. “Over the last year, the court has failed to follow the logic of Bostock in upholding discrimination against transgender individuals.”

“If Renee Good had been killed by a state or local police officer rather than an ICE agent, her family could sue the shooter for excessive force and violating her rights,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But there is no law that allows federal officers to be sued for their constitutional violations.”

Catherine Lhamon, executive director of the Edley Center and CLEE Executive Director Louise Bedsworth hosted a panel  entitled “Science, Democracy, and the Environment: Developing a Community of Practice for Strategy and Action,” which  highlighted what might be the path to a more scientifically informed democratic future.