Beth Thornburg

Beth Thornburg

@btsmu.bsky.social

Emeritus law professor, civil procedure nerd. Hoping to find my old friends from #LawTwitter. Also interested in supporting museums and other cultural institutions, so needed right now. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=121753

746 followers1.2K following88 posts

Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

This is a perfect example of why judges should not rely on “facts” that have not been tested through adversary presentation by the parties at trial. scholar.smu.edu/law_faculty/...

scholar.smu.eduThe Curious Appellate Judge: Ethical Limits on Independent ResearchAppellate judges in the twenty-first century find themselves in a world in which litigation - both civil and criminal - involves a vast array of complex and technical factual disputes. These lawsuits,...
The New Republic@newrepublic.com

Justice Alito relied on misleading data to support his claim that “Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate." Using the DOJ’s data, Alito omitted the fact that the racial voter gap is actually widening. trib.al/QIDuIYb

trib.alSamuel Alito Cited Fudged Data in His Ruling Gutting Voting Rights ActAlito cited data provided by the Department of Justice that used faulty methodology.
Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

And here I thought that Ian McEwan’s “What We Can Know” plot device of militarized AI bringing on the apocalypse was too cute a plot device . . . en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_We...

en.wikipedia.orgWhat We Can Know - Wikipedia
nitasha tiku@nitasha.bsky.social

WSJ reporting that the U.S. used Claude for the air strikes in Iran. Centcom has been using Claude "for intelligence assessments, target identification and simulating battle scenarios" www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

Beth Thornburg reposted

Legal AF
@legalafmtn.bsky.social

NEWS: Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos. A thunderous rebuke against ICE’s violent campaign in Minnesota. Read the order below. Link: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

storage.courtlistener.comOrder – #9 in Conejo Arias v. Noem (W.D. Tex., 5:26-cv-00415) – CourtListener.comOPINION AND ORDER OF THE COURT--The Court finds that the Constitution of these United States trumps this administration's detention of petitioner Adrian Conejo Arias and his minor son, L.C.R. The Grea...
Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

We live in dark times. University president forced to resign after not immediately firing an adjunct children’s literature professor who mentioned transgender issues. www.texastribune.org/2025/09/18/t...

texastribune.orgTexas A&M President Mark A. Welsh III to step down after a week of turmoil over viral classroom videoCalls for Welsh’s ousting intensified over his handling of a student’s complaints about gender identity discussions in a children’s literature class.
Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

Woe (again) to residents of the Fifth Circuit. En banc court says public libraries may remove books because they disagree with content. Bye bye books about racism and even In the Night Kitchen. spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-tex...

spectrumlocalnews.com5th Circuit ruling denies Texas library patrons First Amendment rightSeventeen books addressing racism and transgender topics were removed from Llano County libraries in 2021 after residents deemed them “obscene” and “pornographic.”
Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

Has anybody figured out how to REALLY turn off Copilot in Word for Mac. I have deselected it but it keeps offering me “improved” drafts that seem to incorporate their editing changes that I don’t want. #AI #ShouldBeOptional

Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

This thread is so heartening. #HandsOff

News Eye@newseye.bsky.social

A quick 🧵of the incredible sights in cities across the USA right now. Millions are on the street speaking out against Trump & Musk trampling the Constitution. Let’s start here with Salt Lake City 😳👏 #HandsOff #HandsOff2025 #FiftyFiftyOne (📸Nate Blouin)

Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

If law schools don’t stand up for the law and train students to do so, it’s a step on the road to “the law is whatever powerful people say it is.”

Joanna Grossman@joannagrossman.bsky.social

I’m proud of the deans who signed this letter. If we don’t stand up for the rule of law, what exactly are we doing in law schools? abovethelaw.com/2025/03/law-...

abovethelaw.comLaw School Deans Denounce Trump's Attacks On Biglaw Firms As Unconstitutional - Above the LawAnother core group of lawyers stands up to defend Biglaw against the Trump administration.

Beth Thornburg reposted

gelbach
@gelbach.bsky.social

Good thing that Republicans are here to promote campus free speech

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social

Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, said she’s not “quite certain” whether African American studies would be allowed under Trump’s executive order

chronicle.comHere’s What Linda McMahon, Nominee for Education Secretary, Had to Say About Higher EdShe discussed dismantling the Education Department, investigating colleges over antisemitism and DEI, and increasing access to noncollege opportunities.
Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

This may be the scariest so far.

Abe Newman@abenewman.bsky.social

1/ Musk seeking control over nerve systems of the federal government. As someone who spent a decade studying how centralized information systems are used for coercion this is a five alarm fire. We need to name it, identify risks, and seek to mitigate their impacts. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/u...

nytimes.comElon Musk’s Team Now Has Access to Treasury’s Payments SystemTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Mr. Musk’s representatives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.
Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

And Leavitt’s tweet is certainly good evidence that the pending lawsuits challenging the freeze are not moot.

Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social

1. The executive orders did *not* freeze federal funding. 2. The Monday OMB memo *did* freeze federal funding. 3. OMB rescinded Monday’s memo, thereby rescinding the funding freeze. 4. The EOs (which did not freeze federal funding) are still in effect—and, for these purposes, irrelevant. Sigh.

Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

Edith Jones’s outrage at legitimate criticism of specific behavior is laughable. Does she have a take on politicians attacking #SoCalledJudges? scholar.smu.edu/smulr/vol71/...

scholar.smu.eduTwitter and the #So-CalledJudgeTwo-hundred-eighty characters may be insufficient to deliver a treatise on the judiciary, but it is more than enough to deliver criticism of the third branch of government. Today, these tweeted critiq...
Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social

Seeing media reports portraying yesterday's Fed Soc panel on "judicial independence" in disappointingly equivocal terms. I'm just going to post the full video here and let everyone's behavior speak for itself. I start @ 41:30; Judge Jones @ 50:23; replies @ 1:12:50: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DBl...

youtube.comThe Continued Independence of the Judiciary [2024 NLC]YouTube video by The Federalist Society
Beth Thornburg
@btsmu.bsky.social

What with #Chevron biting the dust and the temptation of judges to play expert, maybe it’s time to re-up my article on the problem of independent judicial fact research. scholar.smu.edu/law_faculty/...

scholar.smu.eduThe Curious Appellate Judge: Ethical Limits on Independent ResearchAppellate judges in the twenty-first century find themselves in a world in which litigation - both civil and criminal - involves a vast array of complex and technical factual disputes. These lawsuits,...

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