Michael Plaxton

Michael Plaxton

@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

Law professor. Books: Implied Consent & Sexual Assault; Sovereignty, Restraint, & Guidance; The Tenth Justice (w/ Carissima Mathen).

247 followers338 following80 posts

Michael Plaxton reposted

Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

A follow-up to my announcement that we will be going device-free in my Evidence Law class this term. I've been asked on several platforms about accommodations. Some thoughts here. open.substack.com/pub/michaelp...

open.substack.comLaptops and AccommodationsLast week, I announced that my course on Evidence Law will be ‘device-free’, in the sense that students will be barred from using electronic devices - such as laptops, smartphones, smart-glasses, etc.
Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

A follow-up to my announcement that we will be going device-free in my Evidence Law class this term. I've been asked on several platforms about accommodations. Some thoughts here. open.substack.com/pub/michaelp...

open.substack.comLaptops and AccommodationsLast week, I announced that my course on Evidence Law will be ‘device-free’, in the sense that students will be barred from using electronic devices - such as laptops, smartphones, smart-glasses, etc.

Michael Plaxton reposted

lastpositivist.bsky.social
@lastpositivist.bsky.social

As a philosopher I hate to say it but I agree. Because narrowly in philosophy we do, genuinely, use "social construct" to neutrally classify a class of things in social ontology. But we're clearly outliers in this in the humanities, and the vulgar usage better gets the typical spirit of the thing.

This post is unavailable.

Michael Plaxton reposted

Mark Elliott
@profmarkelliott.bsky.social

That AI isn't yet "good enough" to mark students' essays ought to be beside the point. Outsourcing such tasks to AI is fundamentally incompatible with the intellectual engagement between student and professor that should be central to higher education. /1 www.cam.ac.uk/stories/ai-u...

cam.ac.ukAI not yet good enough to mark university essays, rewarding ‘style over substance’Top AI systems show bias towards rewarding overly complex prose styles and only match human examiners for grade bands around half the time, research finds.

Michael Plaxton reposted

Mathias Hong
@hongmathias.bsky.social

Plaxton: "[T]hese cases, and the constitutional interpretive methodology for which they stand, are fundamentally based on bedrock ideas of political morality and philosophy...".

Lawrence Solum@lsolum.bsky.social

Plaxton on the Contestability of Interpretative Methodology in Canada I recommend the excellent discussion at Michael Plaxon's Substack: Interpretive Methodology: Is Anything Ever Really Settled?. Here is a taste: Yet I believe we have reached a kind of tipping point in Canadian constitutional…

legaltheoryblog.comPlaxton on the Contestability of Interpretative Methodology in CanadaI recommend the excellent discussion at Michael Plaxon's Substack: Interpretive Methodology: Is Anything Ever Really Settled?. Here is a taste: Yet I believe we have reached a kind of tipping point in Canadian constitutional discourse. No matter what the majority in Taylor said, the idea that alternative constitutional methodologies are inherently implausible or beyond-the-pale or unworthy of attention by constitutional scholars in Canada is simply not a serious intellectual position in 2026.

Michael Plaxton reposted

Jordan Furlong
@jordanfurlong.com

Replying to @jordanfurlong.com

"Law firms" 10-15 years from now will so little resemble firms today that we'll need a different name for them (many of today's law firms won't make it through). The same is even more true for law schools: The future legal landscape simply will have no place for these entities as we've known them.

Michael Plaxton reposted

Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

My reply to @emmettmacfarlane.com's thoughtful post on methodological inconsistency in the Supreme Court. Thoughts and comments welcome. open.substack.com/pub/michaelp...

open.substack.comConsistency and Flux in Constitutional InterpretationA reply to Emmett Macfarlane
Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦@emmettmacfarlane.com

NEW POST. Inspired to vomit this out by recent posts from @michaelplaxton.bsky.social and @doubleaspect.blog. A (admittedly rushed) contribution from a different disciplinary perspective on 'consistency' and interpretative method. emmettmacfarlane.substack.com/p/on-debates...

emmettmacfarlane.substack.comOn debates about the Supreme Court, 'consistent' constitutional interpretation, and the notwithstanding clauseMichael Plaxton has an excellent new post on the apparent whiplash-like oscillations in the Supreme Court of Canada when it comes to describing and applying an approach to constitutional interpretatio...
Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

My reply to @emmettmacfarlane.com's thoughtful post on methodological inconsistency in the Supreme Court. Thoughts and comments welcome. open.substack.com/pub/michaelp...

open.substack.comConsistency and Flux in Constitutional InterpretationA reply to Emmett Macfarlane
Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦@emmettmacfarlane.com

NEW POST. Inspired to vomit this out by recent posts from @michaelplaxton.bsky.social and @doubleaspect.blog. A (admittedly rushed) contribution from a different disciplinary perspective on 'consistency' and interpretative method. emmettmacfarlane.substack.com/p/on-debates...

emmettmacfarlane.substack.comOn debates about the Supreme Court, 'consistent' constitutional interpretation, and the notwithstanding clauseMichael Plaxton has an excellent new post on the apparent whiplash-like oscillations in the Supreme Court of Canada when it comes to describing and applying an approach to constitutional interpretatio...

Michael Plaxton reposted

Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

This is great. I appreciate the kind words, and may address one or two points in a future post.

Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦@emmettmacfarlane.com

NEW POST. Inspired to vomit this out by recent posts from @michaelplaxton.bsky.social and @doubleaspect.blog. A (admittedly rushed) contribution from a different disciplinary perspective on 'consistency' and interpretative method. emmettmacfarlane.substack.com/p/on-debates...

emmettmacfarlane.substack.comOn debates about the Supreme Court, 'consistent' constitutional interpretation, and the notwithstanding clauseMichael Plaxton has an excellent new post on the apparent whiplash-like oscillations in the Supreme Court of Canada when it comes to describing and applying an approach to constitutional interpretatio...
Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

This is great. I appreciate the kind words, and may address one or two points in a future post.

Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦@emmettmacfarlane.com

NEW POST. Inspired to vomit this out by recent posts from @michaelplaxton.bsky.social and @doubleaspect.blog. A (admittedly rushed) contribution from a different disciplinary perspective on 'consistency' and interpretative method. emmettmacfarlane.substack.com/p/on-debates...

emmettmacfarlane.substack.comOn debates about the Supreme Court, 'consistent' constitutional interpretation, and the notwithstanding clauseMichael Plaxton has an excellent new post on the apparent whiplash-like oscillations in the Supreme Court of Canada when it comes to describing and applying an approach to constitutional interpretatio...

Michael Plaxton reposted

Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

My latest on Substack: On rational arbitrariness in the construction of both regulatory offences and true crimes. Thoughts and suggestions, as always, welcome. open.substack.com/pub/michaelp...

open.substack.comRational Arbitrariness in True CrimesIn Monday’s post on Robertson, I ended by expressing the concern that all the Court of Appeal’s talk about bright-line rules and regulated fields seems to obscure or distort something important about ...
Michael Plaxton
@michaelplaxton.bsky.social

My latest on Substack: On rational arbitrariness in the construction of both regulatory offences and true crimes. Thoughts and suggestions, as always, welcome. open.substack.com/pub/michaelp...

open.substack.comRational Arbitrariness in True CrimesIn Monday’s post on Robertson, I ended by expressing the concern that all the Court of Appeal’s talk about bright-line rules and regulated fields seems to obscure or distort something important about ...

Michael Plaxton reposted

Lawrence Solum
@lsolum.bsky.social

Law-Smith on Criminal Trials and Truth Michael Law-Smith (University of Ottawa - Faculty of Law; University of Toronto - Department of Philosophy) has posted Criminal Trials and Truth on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The traditional account of the criminal trial holds that its fundamental purpose is…

legaltheoryblog.comLaw-Smith on Criminal Trials and TruthMichael Law-Smith (University of Ottawa - Faculty of Law; University of Toronto - Department of Philosophy) has posted Criminal Trials and Truth on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The traditional account of the criminal trial holds that its fundamental purpose is to search for the truth—that is, the truth of whether the accused factually committed the alleged crime. However, purely truth-seeking accounts, as well as more nuanced side-constraint and pluralist accounts, fail to adequately explain the relationship between the epistemic principles and those of political morality shaping the criminal trial.

Michael Plaxton reposted

Tanner Allread
@tannerallread.bsky.social

Honestly still in shock by its placement, but my article (and job talk paper), “Indigenous Constitutionalism,” is officially out in the Harvard Law Review. A brief thread on this project🧵 harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

harvardlawreview.orgIndigenous Constitutionalism - Harvard Law ReviewBy standard accounts, there are fifty-four constitutions across the federal, state, and territorial governments of the United States. But in fact, there are 230 other governmental constitutions that currently govern peoples and territories within the United States. These constitutions not only flow from a sovereignty that existed prior to the United States but also came out of a legal movement that asserted its independence from both the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions. This Article tells the story of these constitutions — the constitutions of Native nations.