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Alongside former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig and Drexel Law Professor Lisa Tucker, Chemerinsky created the nationwide effort to promote freedom, equality, and democracy through public education about the protections provided by the U.S. Constitution.

Elena Chachko, a law professor at UC Berkeley Law School, said that both Trump and Biden employed emergency power in broad and ambitious ways. When it comes to the president’s power, Chachko said the court is typically a check on the executive branch.

“The Supreme Court on Friday dealt a grievous blow to separation of powers by holding that federal courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions to halt unconstitutional actions by the president and the federal government,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Collins won the 2025 UC Berkeley Distinguished Librarian Award, which recognizes excellence in librarianship and exceptional work in fulfilling the university’s missions of teaching and research.

“Over time you’ll see even more insurance company insolvencies, more insurance price increases and less insurance availability, more mortgage defaults, and falls in asset values and credit freezes; as opposed to a single catastrophic event or events where a bunch of financial institutions nationally go down at once,” said Dave Jones, director Climate Risk Initiative, CLEE. Although, he added, “There is some risk of that as well.” 

After helping teach an environmental justice course Jamil went to law school himself, represented the American Bar Association at the United Nations Climate Summit, and is now a federal judicial clerk.

“It is stunning that the Ninth Circuit paid no attention to American history and how rare it is for a president to federalize a state’s national guard,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Professor Khiara M. Bridges joins NPR’s It’s Been A Minute to discuss the the case of Adriana Smith’s pregnancy in which after being declared brain dead, a Georgia hospital kept her on life support without her family’s consent because of the state’s abortion laws

“Wagner has deftly leveraged information and communications technologies to cultivate and promote its global brand as ruthless mercenaries. Their Telegram network in particular, which depicts their conduct across the Sahel, serves as a proud public display of their brutality,” said Lindsay Freeman, director of the Technology, Law & Policy program at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law.

Mark A. Bertelsen ’69, Monique E. Liburd ’08, and Maxine M. Chesney ’67 were honored along with Professor Daniel A. Farber.

“It is not clear what exactly the law prescribes and permits in cases like this,” Khiara M. Bridges, a University of California, Berkeley law professor, told HuffPost. “In an abundance of caution, risk-averse doctors and hospital counsel will do exactly what they did in Smith’s case.”

“We see AGs banding together, governors banding together, as advocates work on the ground,” said Arneta Rogers, executive director of the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at UC Berkeley’s law school. “That feels somewhat more hopeful — that people are thinking about a coordinated strategy.” 

“The Supreme Court’s decision upholding a Tennessee ban on gender affirming care for transgender youth is a tragic abdication of the judiciary’s responsibility to protect minorities,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, said the Supreme Court has made it clear that it is hostile to policies that include “racial preference,” even those that are meant to remediate past instances of discrimination. They could be declared unconstitutional, he said

Scholars from the California Constitution Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law submitted an amicus curiae brief siding with Gov. Gavin Newsom in the lawsuit, Newsom v. Trump, regarding the federalization of the California National Guard.

“The crucial question … is whether the judges seem inclined to accept Trump’s argument that he alone gets to decide if the statutory requirements for nationalizing the California national guard are met,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

“Unfortunately, the opinion establishes that courts now have discretion whether or not to analyze under heightened scrutiny a law that treats men and women differently,” said Professor Russell K. Robinson. “This creates an opening for justices to rely on policy arguments instead of legal principles.”

Eager to help develop “workable tools for navigating real-world, cross-border issues,” Kang is getting a close view of hot-button trade issues affecting businesses across myriad industries.

“What’s important to remember is that criminalization is not a solution to homelessness,” UC Berkeley Law Assistant Dean of Clinical Education Laura Riley said. “It’s a way to hide homelessness from view of people who are housed.”

Professor David Hausman discusses the state of immigration in the United States.

The report from UC Berkeley Law’s student-led Homelessness Service Project analyzes the impact of a crackdown on California’s unhoused population since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v. Johnson decision last summer.

“The administration is constructing the visual spectacle to accompany its assertion of an ‘insurrection’ demanding a militarized response,” said Leti Volpp, a professor of immigration law at the University of California at Berkeley. “The administration wants the American public to take away from these videos the sense that immigrants are completely dehumanized ‘bad people’ who need to be removed from this country; their continued presence threatens law and order.”

Catherine Crump, technology law professor at UC Berkeley School of Law gives insight on location data tech used to track dissidents. 

“The discount is nice and it’s a positive development, but it doesn’t matter if they won’t write you the insurance,” says Dave Jones, former insurance commissioner of California and now director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley Law.

“No president in history has asserted the ability to control federal spending as Trump has done,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “The federal courts must stop this if we are to remain a democracy under the Constitution.”

“In fighting to uphold the law, we also must not lose sight that we are fighting for the human beings who are protected by it,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Focused on four main areas — climate and energy, water, sustainable land use, and oceans — the center has become a leading voice in guiding innovative policy solutions.

“This view of women and women’s roles is precisely what feminists reacted against in the mid-19th century, and then again in the 1960s and 1970s,” said Professor Khiara M. Bridges.

New research by Professor Ofer Eldar and Mark Ørberg unpacks the economic rationales behind nonprofit business ownership, challenge the idea that it’s all about purpose, & highlight the overlooked risks of nonprofit control.

Elena Chachko, an assistant professor of law at Berkeley Law School, says it’s the president’s pushing of boundaries — and the legal challenges that follow — that will ultimately define how emergency powers can be used.
“This is what happens when you take an instrument that has been very useful for many administrations, for many years, and now you overextend it,” she says. “You use it to do novel things with questionable legal basis, and what you do is invite pushback and invite criticism and invite limitations.”

“The use of the military to quell protests is something associated with dictators in foreign countries, and as of Saturday night, with a president of the United States.,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Professor Katerina Linos weighs in on potential legal challenges to President Trump’s travel ban affecting 12 countries.

“No modern presidential administration has undertaken such an effort to staff the entire government with political loyalists,” write Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor Catherine Fisk. “It is plainly inconsistent with good government, with federal law and with the Constitution.”

Their wide-ranging work reflects the school’s deep commitment to public service that champions justice, equality, civil rights, transparency, fairness, and accountability.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky speaks with Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd about Trump’s new travel ban and student visa restrictions.

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.

UC Berkeley’s only full-time AmeriCorps program, designed by the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, was recently recognized for its success — and hit with the loss of federal funding.

The author of two books on habeas corpus, Tyler describes how current debate over the government’s power to detain people without due process could signal a 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.

The school revives its annual Celebration of Faculty Books, highlighting a sampling of books published by faculty members since 2022 and offering a glimpse into their collective importance.

UC Berkeley School of Law professor Ofer Eldar joins the Activist Investing Today podcast to discuss the evolution of poison pills. 

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.”

Professors Jacobs and Farber filed a comment opposing an Administration proposal to strip thousands of experienced, expert government workers of civil service protections.

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