Press Highlights

What is due process? Dean Chemerinsky helps answer that question.

“Big Law’s quick court wins don’t erase Trump’s damage to the profession, underscoring that law firms must fight.” – Opinion by UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Law SF Dean David Faigman, and retired Judge Nancy Gertner of Harvard Law.

Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment weighs in as California considers a major overhaul of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Professor Amanda Tyler, constitutional law expert and expert on habeas corpus, says today’s fight over government power to detain people without due process could foreshadow a historic constitutional crisis.

“After weeks of wrangling, the House passed the bill last week by the thinnest of margins. The bill’s fate, though, ultimately depends on an obscure Senate rule: the Byrd rule,” writes Professor Jonathan Gould.

“Imagine Elizabeth Holmes being pardoned and then immediately headlining the world’s biggest biotech summit. Would never happen,” said UC Berkeley Law lecturer Hermine Wong.

Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute discusses the growing call for judges to control their security force.

“A crucial tool for police reform will be lost.,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “An increase in police violation of rights and police violence, especially against individuals of color, seems inevitable.”

“What the Trump administration is doing is a direct assault on the independence of universities and on academic freedom,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Can Trump suspend habeas corpus? Professor Amanda Tyler weighs in.

“Members of the founding generation referred to habeas as ‘essential to freedom,’” says Amanda Tyler, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. As such, she adds, they expected habeas to be suspended “only in the most dramatic of circumstances.”

A new report from UC Berkeley Law looks at how the legal landscape has changed in the past year. KQED housing affordability reporter Vanessa Rancaño spoke with Laura Riley, Assistant Dean of Clinical Education at Berkeley Law, about what she and her students found.

Expedited removal was used in ~7% of ICE arrests in the first month of the new admin, slightly up from 2024, per data from UC Berkeley Law Assistant Professor David Hausman and the Data Deportation Project.

“It’s an attempt to intimidate potential critics,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law.

“How Texas deals with this question is going to be very critical on how people see Texas, moving forward, and how people see Delaware, moving forward, and ultimately how they see corporations,” said Professor Stavros Gadinis. “I don’t think that Texas courts would necessarily be willing to be aligned with Delaware.”

Amanda Tyler, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, called habeas corpus “one of the single most foundational aspects of American law and the American constitution.”

“The federal courts are a crucial protector of the guardrails of our democracy. Now is not the time to greatly weaken their power to enforce the Constitution,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“At a time when President Trump is claiming unprecedented executive powers, the Supreme Court may be poised to eliminate a significant check on presidential authority,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. 

“Insurance is the climate crisis canary in the coal mine, and the canary is dying,” said Dave Jones, director of the Climate Risk Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Law, Energy and the Environment.

“It was thought to be a wacky idea that only political philosophers would buy. They’ve finally got a president who agrees,” said Professor John Yoo.

“All of this adds to a sense of the judiciary being under attack,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former judge in California who now runs the Berkeley Judicial Institute. “Whether or not it’s going to be successful, it’s seen as part of a broader attempt to weaken or delegitimize the judiciary.”

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky weighs in on a little-noticed Executive Order aimed at ending “disparate impact” liability.

“The importance of due process of law has been recognized for centuries. What is different now is an administration that wants to do what it chooses without meeting the requirements for due process and without any checks upon its powers,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “That is a dictatorship, not a constitutional democracy.”

The opposing positions of the national and state government create unpredictability for the companies that make vehicles. “That creates uncertainty for industry and could help ensure that we’re burning more fossil fuel and more gas guzzlers can be produced in the meantime,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Dave Jones, director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley Law discusses how climate risk is no longer a “nice to have”, especially as climate disclosure requirements are becoming a regulatory obligation globally and delves into the role of insurance in managing climate risk, the importance of nature-based solutions, and the need for transparency and proactive measures in corporate practices.

“The current draft of the GENIUS Act elevates centralized entities in overseeing stable coins,” writes UC Berkeley Law lecturer Hermine Wong. “Democrats should take the right stand against it.”

Ken Alex, director of Project Climate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, discusses the new report he co-authored  looking at the cost savings of all-electric construction.

“Lawyers, this is our time,” write UC Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center executive director David A. Carrillo and senior research fellow Brandon V. Stracener. 

Chesa Boudin, executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at the UC Berkeley Law and Kenneth E. Hartman, a formerly incarcerated lifer weigh in on Trump’s Department of Justice’s decision to terminate all funds for an effort to stop prison rape by defunding the national Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center.

Is the arrest of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan the start of Trump’s open war on judges? Berkeley Judicial Institute’s Judge Jeremy Fogel joined host Mary Harris on Slate’s “What Next” podcast to discuss.

Donald Trump’s abuse of emergency powers to impose antidemocratic measures—from sweeping tariffs and chaotic mass deportations to a so-called “national energy emergency”–represents a “quantum leap” from previous presidents, says UC Berkeley legal scholar Daniel Farber. “Trump is going further than his predecessors in really trying to weaponize the idea of emergency powers.”

The waiver was created to address California’s unique circumstances of not only pioneering and leading the country in the creation of air-quality and air-emissions control policy, but also of having very specific air-pollution challenges relating to vehicles, geography and industry, said Ted Lamm, associate director of the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s a bedrock part of the Clean Air Act.”

“If the president can violate any law, and even ignore court orders, then we are no longer a constitutional democracy,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “The word for that is a dictatorship, and it is chilling to realize how close we are to that.”

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky weighs in on cases before SCOTUS challenging injunctions against executive orders to end birthright citizenship.

“The difference between the first and second Trump administration’s legal strategy is the 2025 version’s contempt for due process and the rule of law,” said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“Even with the right regulations in place, insurers aren’t known for embracing change,” said Dave Jones, California’s former Department of Insurance head who now runs the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley Law. “It’s a very conservative industry. You need to show them that an insurer is able to (make money doing this) before others will follow suit.” 

“Trump’s attack on DEI in the name of combating antisemitism will only serve to isolate Jews further, severe them from their natural allies on progressive issues and ultimately leave them more vulnerable to attack,” writes Rebecca Golbert, executive director of the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley.

“Cutting all the security from one judge or one courthouse — stuff like that hasn’t happened, and I don’t expect it to,” said Jeremy Fogel, a retired federal judge who directs the Berkeley Judicial Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. “But, you never know. Because it’s fair to say that limits are being tested everywhere. Judges worry that it could happen.”

Scientists are closer than ever to deciphering sperm whale communication. Their breakthroughs could open the door to expanded whale rights and even legal personhood. In a new working paper to be published later this fall in UC Berkeley Law’s journal Ecology Law Quarterly, the researchers note that one result might be a world in which humans “undeniably understand” these creatures’ experience from their own perspective.

“If they are trying to work out a diplomatic solution, and if the plaintiffs are satisfied that they’re actually trying to do that, it’s really kind of in their interest to let that play out,” said Judge Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute. “One way or the other, there’s some mutual expectation that the facts on the ground are going to change” in the coming week.

“It’s enormously disturbing,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is so troubling to hear the president and top executive officials give so little regard to the Constitution. It’s important to emphasize that the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment says no person can be ‘deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.’ It doesn’t say ‘citizen.'”

“I think [the legal community is] worried that there’s going to be a loss of independence,” said retired Judge Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute. “There are a lot of fears.”

“Is the U.S. facing a constitutional crisis?” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “The answer, unequivocally and emphatically, is yes. But it also could get much worse.”

Professor Prasad Krishnamurthy weighs in on the ruling from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that Google violated antitrust law.

Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law joins Forum to discuss the impact of Trump’s approach to the environment and how California could respond.

Professor Prasad Krishnamurthy weighs in on Trump’s plan to close two of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division offices.

“The question is, do we have the guardrails for our Constitution to survive?” said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “‘We don’t know’ is the only answer anyone can give. You can play it out, and it’s very frightening.”

“As lawyers, we should be ashamed that so many in our profession have capitulated to authoritarianism, choosing silence and self-preservation over defending the Constitution and the rule of law,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. 

“Concerns about single federal judges issuing nationwide injunctions are overstated as they are a necessary tool for ensuring judicial efficiency, protecting constitutional rights, and preventing conflicting rulings across multiple courts,” writes David A. Carrillo, executive director of the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law and Brandon V. Stracener a senior research fellow at the California Constitution Center.

“The Trump administration has revoked hundreds of visas solely due to a disagreement with personal views held by these individuals,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “This blatantly violates the First Amendment: the government is never allowed to act against people in the United States because of the ideas they express.”