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Carissa Byrne Hessick

@CBHessick

Aug 29

Since Twitter is talking about norms of engagement about scholarship, I thought I'd share a story about an experience that I had a few years back. (Warning: I'm not the hero in this story!)

Several years ago, I wrote a short article that engaged with a relatively new argument. Because the argument was kind of new, and because the folks pushing the idea were trying to get others to adopt it, I ended up getting some invitations to speak about the topic.

Without getting into too much detail, let me simply say that I thought the new idea was wrong--not just wrong, but incredibly wrong. And because the idea was starting to get more attention--including from practicing attys and judges--I wanted to show why it was wrong.

Read 15 tweets

Carissa Byrne Hessick

@CBHessick

Aug 8

So the strange tampon story about Tim Walz has gained a lot of traction on this site. It appears to be wrong, but understanding why requires some knowledge about how legislation passes and gets signed into law.
So let me explain . . .

Walz signed a bill that required schools to provide free menstrual products.
Here is the text of that bill. As you can see, it doesn't say anything about boys bathrooms.

Since the bill Walz signed doesn't say anything about boys' bathrooms, why are people on the right saying that Walz supported putting tampons in boys' bathrooms?
The answer is that the bill isn't limited to girls' bathrooms and an amendment to create such a limitation failed.

Read 15 tweets

Carissa Byrne Hessick

@CBHessick

Nov 14, 2023

This thread about the humanities seems to be getting some traction. It came to my attention because a high-profile academic reposted it.
Its message is not only based on false premises, but also deeply anti-intellectual. Let me explain.

Let's start with the first claim in the thread--the idea that the humanities "aren't empirical."
Anyone who has spent any time on an American university campus knows that this is nonsense.
It confuses methodology with subject matter.

Political science, sociology, criminology, linguistics, and other fields in the humanities have a ton of faculty and researchers engaged in empirical study.
Their findings are tested by others, and sometimes falsified.
So this is just 100% wrong as a matter of fact.

Read 11 tweets

Carissa Byrne Hessick

@CBHessick

Oct 28, 2023

https://twitter.com/tyler_a_harper/status/1717935971985924576

I know a lot of folks in the academy will disagree with this thread. But we have to grapple with the fact that much of what happens on campus right now is about enforcing a certain view of the world, not pursuing knowledge or educating students.

https://twitter.com/tyler_a_harper/status/1717935971985924576

Those who are pushing that worldview are doing so with the best of intentions. They see suffering and injustice in the world, and they want to use their position and limited power to change it.

But those good intentions have had some deeply unfortunate consequences.

For example, mainstream conservative views sometimes get short shrift in class discussions.
And some scholarship has abandoned analytical rigor and now looks indistinguishable from political advocacy.

Read 6 tweets

Carissa Byrne Hessick

@CBHessick

Oct 26, 2023

I keep getting a bunch of folks in my mentions insisting I'm wrong to criticize the Trump motion for selective & vindictive prosecution on its merits because the motion is just preserving the argument for appeal
It's apparently a popular argument on MAGA Twitter, so let's discuss

Let's start with the obvious point that, if you want the court of appeals or the Supreme Court to reverse an existing case or doctrine, then you have to file a motion on the issue in the trial court to preserve the issue

That's obviously true

But what should that motion say?

In this case, Trump's motion doesn't concede that the doctrine is against him. It does not provide a clear argument about how the doctrine should be changed or modified in a way so that he could win. And it doesn't provide much at all in terms of a substantive argument.

Read 14 tweets

Carissa Byrne Hessick

@CBHessick

Oct 25, 2023

I study prosecutorial power, so I was very interested to see what Trump's attorneys were going to say in the selective & vindictive prosecution motion they filed on Monday.
I've now read the motion and it is quite awful.
Let me explain why . . .
lawfaremedia.org/article/trump-…

First, let's start with the background idea that these motions almost always lose. Current case law gives prosecutors enormous amounts of discretion regarding criminal charging, and it basically tells judges not to review those decisions.

Unless you can show that the law has been enforced only against members of a disfavored group (e.g., a minority racial group, religion, etc) and that the enforcement patters was driven by discrimination, you will lose.

Read 10 tweets

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