Season 5, Episode 16 (Show 225): No School For You – Special Guest Vikram D. Amar

April 23, 2025

Universities threatened with loss of billions in federal funding; law firms threatened with barriers that might prevent them from representing clients.  What’s going on here?

CLE Credit Available for this episode from podcast.njsba.com.

Law firms are threatened with draconian penalties, with scarcely disguised vengeful and politically destructive motive.  Universities are dragged on the carpet, with demands that they forfeit their academic freedom, choice in hiring, and internal mission priorities.  What’s going on here?  What is likely to happen in Court?  Are the firms and universities defensible on constitutional grounds as well as because of procedural and statutory reasons?  We bring on Vik Amar, former Dean at the Law School at University of Illinois, Urbana, and author of recent articles on both these crises.  And while we are at it, we take a look at the forthcoming Supreme Court oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case, which superficially is about nationwide injunctions.  Is that really what it’s about, and in any case, is there more than that there?  Three of our current crises in one sweeping conversation.

(LAWYERS AND JUDGES ARE ELIGIBLE FOR CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION CREDIT by visiting podcast.njsba.com after listening.)

Show Notes:

How to get Continuing Legal Education Credit for listening!

Virtually all lawyers and judges admitted to practice anywhere in the USA can obtain CLE (Continuing Legal Education) credit after listening to this episode by visiting podcast.njsba.com.  You do not have to be a New Jersey lawyer or resident or admitted to the NJ Bar; essentially every state has reciprocity arrangements with New Jersey.  When you visit the site you fill out a form and provide the code Andy read during the episode, pay a small fee, and within two weeks you will receive the certificate from New Jersey.  It couldn’t be easier.  Thanks to the New Jersey Bar Association for making this possible!  Note, too, that other podcast episodes from our “back catalog” now qualify for this credit as well.

Click to go to the website for CLE credit

Why Coordinated Resistance by Law Firms to The Trump Administration's Targeted Executive Orders Against BigLaw Would Not Run Afoul of Antitrust Restrictions - Justia

Professor Vik Amar writes in Justia on the legality of collective action by law firms to resist the Adminstration’s attacks.

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The Internal Incoherence of the Trump Administration’s Demand Letter to Harvard - Justia

Once again, Professor Vik Amar weighs in, this time on the absence of logic in the Administration’s attacks on Universities.

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University of Pennsylvania v. EEOC,(1990)

This time, Professor Vik Amar appears behind the scenes, in this opinion which addresses issues related to academic freedom.  This is a Justice Blackmun opinion from the year that Vik clerked for the  Justice.  He also elaborates on this in the podcast.

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Residual State Power After Trump v Anderson - Vikram Amar

Professor Vik Amar provides you with a pre-publication look at his forthcoming article in the Wisconsin Law Review discussing how Section 3 of the 14th Amendment potentially lives on in state legislatures and state constitutions; in our podcast we discuss how this has an ironic twist in the upcoming Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship.

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