Category: Politics

Locked out of power throughout the country, Democrats see ruby-red Iowa as one of their best shots at mounting a conservative state comeback in the upcoming midterms.

And they believe Sen. Joni Ernst’s retirement, made public Friday, is the latest sign that a state President Donald Trump won by double digits presents an offensive opportunity for them next year.

Ernst’s pending exit comes as Iowa Auditor Rob Sand, the only Democrat elected statewide, runs for governor to replace departing Republican Kim Reynolds. Democrats are also enthused about picking off Republicans in Congress in a couple of potentially competitive House races in the Hawkeye State.

And while Iowa presents an uphill climb for Democrats, who have not won a presidential election there since 2012, the party has some cause for optimism: they overperformed in four state legislative special contests this year, including winning in a plus-11 Trump district this week. Democrats are anticipating air cover from their party nationally as they head into an election cycle that will determine whether they can claw back any control in Washington.

“We haven’t, as Democrats, had an organized, coordinated campaign since 2018 and that’s one of the many things that I think is going to happen,” said state Rep. J.D. Scholten, a Democrat who came 3 points from defeating a House Republican in a deep-red district in 2018. He predicted the state’s Senate and gubernatorial candidates would be well-funded, adding, “I think that will go a long ways.”

Catelin Drey, the Democrat whose victory this week broke Republicans’ legislative supermajority, received significant financial support from the state party as the Democratic National Committee deployed its organizing team toward the end of the campaign. From Florida to Pennsylvania, Democrats have outperformed the 2024 presidential ticket in nearly 40 specials across the country this year, but the party has found the most consistent success in Iowa.

The idea that Democrats are going to reclaim any ground in Iowa two years after they lost complete control in Washington — and while they piece their party together amid record-low approval ratings — is difficult to imagine. Many Republicans dismiss it outright. Even some strategists and party officials on the left admit they may be overly hopeful. But Democrats in Iowa think Republicans are vulnerable because they have fumbled both hyper-local and national issues in the state, and believe that anti-Trump sentiment will drag down the GOP.

The prospect of taking back the Midwestern state that was once a top national battleground — one that is home to many working-class and rural voters whom the party has lost to the GOP — is too alluring for Democrats to ignore. Former President Barack Obama won Iowa twice and Democrat Tom Harkin held a Senate seat there from 1985 to 2014.

Perhaps recognizing the state could be an opportunity for the opposing party, the White House privately tried and failed to persuade Ernst to run for reelection.

Democratic leaders said their key to success in the recent special elections has been hammering an affordability message.

“Democrats have really risen. They’re very motivated,” said Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. “They recognize how important it is that we win some elections here, and that’s why all eyes are now on 2026.”

Despite Hart’s positive assessment, Democrats were clobbered in 2024 and have yet to recover their reputation nationally, leading to endless intra-party debate about the best path forward.

Most Iowa Republicans laughed off the possibility of a blue wave in Iowa. They said they are confident about their odds of hanging onto Ernst’s Senate seat despite losing a proven incumbent. Rep. Ashley Hinson plans to enter the Senate field by the end of September with wide backing among Iowa Republicans.

However, a GOP strategist, granted anonymity in order to speak freely, said Republicans are more worried about Sand’s gubernatorial campaign, which raised $2.25 million in the first 24 hours after its launch, breaking a state record. Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra has formed an exploratory committee, and will likely face a crowded primary field.

“Rob is a proven communicator,” the strategist said. “Rob is just running as ‘I’m not actually a Democrat.’ He’s just different.”

Democrats’ spree of special election wins — starting in January when a Democrat flipped a statehouse seat in a district Trump won by 21 points — has made some Iowa Republicans uneasy. But most GOP operatives maintain that Democrats lack the necessary base of support to pull off a statewide win, and dismiss the results as isolated bursts of energy.

“While that’s a big get for the Democrats here, I just still do not see the type of organizing on the ground or the infrastructure that’s necessarily going to yield widespread statewide results in 2026,” said Tyler Campbell, a Republican strategist in Iowa.

Some in the GOP said there is a deeper dissatisfaction at play in the results.

Republican Woodbury County Supervisor Mark Nelson took to Facebook this week to unload after Drey won her state Senate race, which he said prompted “a lot of questions” and “anger” at GOP officials.

“I don’t think it was about Donald Trump at all,” he said. “I think it was about Kim Reynolds and I think it’s about what the Republicans have done in the Iowa legislature for several years now.”

He cited a state battle over eminent domain, which culminated in June when Reynolds vetoed a bill that would have limited private pipelines’ use of the controversial practice. “The taking of private property for private gain is just wrong. It just is. I’m sorry, governor,” he added.

Democrats cite other issues driving voters to question their allegiance to the GOP, including a lackluster regional economy, a controversial privatized Medicaid system and environmental concerns. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said earlier this month that “what we’re seeing is basically a recession economy in Nebraska and Iowa right now.”

Democrats also argue Iowa’s massive expansion of school vouchers under Reynolds has hurt public schools, another issue the party believes helps them with independents and Republicans. Private schools have boomed since the passage of Iowa’s school choice law in 2023 — which allows parents to send children to those institutions using state funds — while more than a dozen public schools have closed.

“The health care issue, the education issue, the water quality issues and eminent domain are kind of like a perfect storm of dissatisfaction right now in Iowa,” said Irene Lin, a Democratic strategist and veteran of races in the state.

She acknowledged Democrats might be fueled by hopium in Iowa, but added, “it’s still worth fighting for because there’s no path to the House or Senate without Iowa going blue.”

​Politics

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe said Friday that the state’s Legislature will draw new congressional maps in a special session, officially inserting the deep-red state into the nationwide redistricting battle that will reshape the fight to control the House in 2026.

Missouri’s redistricting push could see the state add an additional Republican-majority district to its eight-member congressional delegation. The delegation is currently split between six Republicans and two Democrats.

Kehoe released its proposed maps on Friday, which target the Kansas City-area 5th Congressional district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. The special session will be Wednesday.

The move is the next phase of President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure GOP-controlled states to take up mid-decade redistricting to strengthen Republicans’ chances of retaining control of the House.

Last week, Trump preemptively declared Missouri had signed up for mid-decade redistricting and stressed its importance in helping Republicans win in 2026.

“The Great State of Missouri is now IN. I’m not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!”

Trump played a key role in pushing Texas Republicans to draw new maps with five additional Republican-friendly districts. In response, Texas Democrats left the state to deny the Legislature a quorum and temporarily delay approval of the new maps.

Democrats in Missouri will face more obstacles to oppose a GOP gerrymander — Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of Missouri’s Legislature, meaning they can power through any Democratic opposition.

Republicans are hoping other states follow Texas and Missouri. Trump and Vice President JD Vance this week ratcheted up their pressure campaign on Indiana Republicans in hopes the state will redraw its maps to create another favorable district. Ohio could also produce as many as three additional Republican-leaning districts when the state takes up its mandatory redraw.

Democrats have limited paths to counter the White House’s redistricting effort beyond California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and statewide Democrats are seeking to form five new Democratic-leaning districts through a ballot measure. Some Democrats are eyeing an unexpected opportunity to potentially challenge for a seat in Utah after a judge ordered the state’s Legislature to draw new maps compliant with state rules restricting partisan gerrymandering.

But other Democratic governors have yet to take concrete steps towards redistricting — and the party is outnumbered in the redistricting arms race. Republicans control the governor’s office and the state Legislature in 23 states, compared to only 15 states for Democrats.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin attacked Missouri’s redistricting plan as an attempt to undermine Missouri voters.

“Time and time again, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe has undermined the voice of Missouri voters,” Martin said in a statement on Friday. “Now he is attempting to dilute their power altogether by removing the ability of Missourians to stand up against this power grab.”

​Politics

During the 2016 presidential election campaign, candidate Donald Trump took the unprecedented move of releasing a list of his potential Supreme Court nominees.

But Trump didn’t assemble this list himself. Instead, he outsourced the selection of his judicial appointments to leaders of the Federalist Society, an organization in the conservative legal movement.

As Trump explained in a 2016 interview, “We’re going to have great judges, conservative, all picked by the Federalist Society.”

This was a strategic decision by Trump. By turning to the Federalist Society, he was able to court conservative and evangelical voters who may have been otherwise uneasy with supporting the former New York City real estate mogul.

In his first presidential term, Trump appointed three justices affiliated with the Federalist Society – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett – in addition to hundreds of lower federal court judges. Federalist Society affiliates are current or former members of the organization, as well as individuals who interact with the group, such as by attending Federalist Society events, but who may not claim membership.

We are political science scholars who recently published research in a peer-reviewed journal showing that Supreme Court justices affiliated with the Federalist Society are more conservative and more consistently conservative than other justices, meaning they seldom deviate from their conservative voting behavior.

Our research suggests that, despite Trump’s recent criticism of the organization and its leadership, justices affiliated with the Federalist Society will advance the conservative legal agenda decades into the future. But this won’t always involve supporting Trump’s agenda.

Here’s what you should know, and why it matters.

The Federalist Society

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies was founded in 1982 with the goal of providing intellectual spaces for conservative law students who felt their views were dismissed by the legal field. It has grown tremendously over the past 40 years. Today, it boasts more than 200 chapters and over 70,000 members.

Unlike other conservative public interest groups, it does not advocate for specific issue positions. Instead, it promotes its goals primarily through education and networking.

The Federalist Society’s educational mission is pursued chiefly in law schools. That’s where it trains the next generation of lawyers in the approaches and goals of the conservative legal movement. This includes promoting the judicial philosophy of originalism – the idea that the best way to interpret the U.S. Constitution is according to how it was understood at the time of its adoption.

Originalism is often used to justify conservative outcomes.

For example, Justice Clarence Thomas, a prominent member of the Federalist Society, has called for using originalism to reconsider Supreme Court precedents involving the right to contraception, same-sex marriage and same-sex consensual relations.

The Federalist Society network also connects junior members with more senior members, helping young lawyers obtain prestigious clerkships and positions in government and the legal profession. These lawyers tend to associate with the Federalist Society throughout their careers.

Federalist Society affiliates learn that promoting the group’s interest is also a way of promoting their self-interests as they move up in the legal world.

For Supreme Court justices, this networking has tangible benefits. For instance, Justice Samuel Alito accepted a luxury fishing vacation in 2008 organized by Leonard Leo, the former executive vice president and current co-chair of the Federalist Society. The estimated cost of the fishing trip was more than $100,000.

And Thomas was treated to decades of high-end vacations and private school tuition for his grandnephew – whom he raised as a son – by billionaire businessman Harlan Crow, a Federalist Society donor.

In short, the Federalist Society is a network of lawyers and judges who share a conservative outlook on the world and aspire to etch the conservative agenda into law through judicial decisions.

Our research

Our research sought to answer two interrelated questions. Are justices affiliated with the Federalist Society more conservative than nonaffiliated justices, and are they more consistently conservative?

To illustrate this, consider former Justice David Souter, whom President George H.W. Bush appointed in 1990 and who had no connections to the Federalist Society. Despite being a Republican appointee, Souter often voted with the court’s liberal members, such as upholding abortion rights in 1992. In 2005, he wrote the majority opinion in a ruling that prevented the Ten Commandments from being displayed in courthouses and public schools.

To determine whether justices affiliated with the Federalist Society are different from even other judges appointed by Republican presidents, we examined almost 25,000 votes cast by Supreme Court justices between 1986 and 2023. We started with 1986 because that’s when the first justice affiliated with the Federalist Society – Antonin Scalia – joined the high court.

We classified votes as conservative or liberal according to a well-established methodology. For example, conservative votes support the restriction of reproductive freedom, are anti-business regulation and generally disfavor policies that promote the rights of vulnerable populations, such as the LGBTQ+ community. Liberal votes do the opposite.

We found that justices connected to the Federalist Society are about 10 percentage points more likely to cast a conservative vote than other justices, even other justices appointed by Republican presidents. And they are more consistent in their voting behavior, seldom casting votes that go against their conservative values.

The Federalist Society’s lasting impact

These findings have important implications. Justices on the modern Supreme Court serve for about a quarter century on average. And every current Republican-appointed member of the court is affiliated with the Federalist Society.

This means that Americans are likely to see justices affiliated with the Federalist Society advance the agenda of the conservative legal movement for decades to come. This has already happened in recent decisions that curtailed reproductive freedom, eliminated affirmative action in college admissions and expanded the powers of the president, including immunizing the president from criminal prosecution.

President Trump has recently had a high-profile breakup with the Federalist Society, calling Leo a “sleazebag” and expressing his disappointment with the organization.

Trump’s outburst followed a ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade that blocked his sweeping tariff program against China and other nations. This happened despite one of Trump’s first-term judicial appointees sitting on the panel.

Notwithstanding this acrimony, this term will give justices affiliated with the Federalist Society the opportunity to further solidify the conservative agenda. Cases involving LGBTQ+ rights and federal elections are on the docket. And the court will be adding other important issue areas as it fills out its caseload for the 2025-26 term, which starts on the first Monday in October.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Democratic governors are urging President Donald Trump to back off his threats to deploy National Guard troops in cities led by his political opponents across the country.

A letter signed by most of the nation’s Democratic governors argues that Trump’s deployment of soldiers ostensibly to aid in civilian law enforcement is unnecessary and illegal.

“Whether it’s Illinois, Maryland and New York or another state tomorrow, the President’s threats and efforts to deploy a state’s National Guard without the request and consent of that state’s governor is an alarming abuse of power, ineffective, and undermines the mission of our service members,” they said in the letter, organized by the Democratic Governors Association.

Trump has deployed troops to Washington and Los Angeles and threatened to send them to Chicago and other cities led by Democrats in what he has portrayed as an effort to address violent crime, though the soldiers have done little in the way of law enforcement and overall criminality has declined in the U.S.

Trump made Washington the face of his crime crackdown in mid-August, taking control of the district’s police force and sending in the National Guard. The president has also floated plans to send the National Guard to Chicago, telling reporters at the Oval Office on Monday that it is “a killing field” and “disaster.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced a contrasting plan to send additional California Highway Patrol officers to several cities in the state to assist local law enforcement in addressing auto theft and drug crimes. Trump sent troops to Los Angeles in response to protests over the administration’s deportation agenda in June.

Chicago officials are preparing for the possible arrival of federal troops by dusting off plans they used for last year’s Democratic National Convention.

Four governors — Josh Green of Hawaii, Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Katie Hobbs of Arizona and Tim Walz of Minnesota — did not sign the letter.

“Every American deserves to feel safe in their neighborhood and community,” the governors wrote. “But instead of actually addressing crime, President Trump cut federal funding for law enforcement that states rely on and continues to politicize our military by trying to undermine the executive authority of Governors as Commanders in Chief of their state’s National Guard.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement accused the Democrats of “doing publicity stunts,” and said their communities would be safer if they focused on combating crime instead of attacking the president.

“They should listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the Trump Administration’s success in driving down violent crime in Washington DC,” she said.

​Politics

When the U.S. government signs contracts with private technology companies, the fine print rarely reaches the public. Palantir Technologies, however, has attracted more and more attention over the past decade because of the size and scope of its contracts with the government.

Palantir’s two main platforms are Foundry and Gotham. Each does different things. Foundry is used by corporations in the private sector to help with global operations. Gotham is marketed as an “operating system for global decision making” and is primarily used by governments.

I am a researcher who studies the intersection of data governance, digital technologies and the U.S. federal government. I’m observing how the government is increasingly pulling together data from various sources, and the political and social consequences of combining those data sources. Palantir’s work with the federal government using the Gotham platform is amplifying this process.

Gotham is an investigative platform built for police, national security agencies, public health departments and other state clients. Its purpose is deceptively simple: take whatever data an agency already has, break it down into its smallest components and then connect the dots. Gotham is not simply a database. It takes fragmented data, scattered across various agencies and stored in different formats, and transforms it into a unified, searchable web.

The stakes are high with Palantir’s Gotham platform. The software enables law enforcement and government analysts to connect vast, disparate datasets, build intelligence profiles and search for individuals based on characteristics as granular as a tattoo or an immigration status. It transforms historically static records – think department of motor vehicles files, police reports and subpoenaed social media data like location history and private messages – into a fluid web of intelligence and surveillance.

These departments and agencies use Palantir’s platform to assemble detailed profiles of individuals, mapping their social networks, tracking their movements, identifying their physical characteristics and reviewing their criminal history. This can involve mapping a suspected gang member’s network using arrest logs and license plate reader data, or flagging individuals in a specific region with a particular immigration status.

The efficiency the platform enables is undeniable. For investigators, what once required weeks of cross-checking siloed systems can now be done in hours or less. But by scaling up the government’s investigative capacity, Gotham also alters the relationship between the state and the people it governs.

Shifting the balance of power

The political ramifications of Palantir’s rise come into focus when you consider its influence and reach across the government. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement alone has spent more than US$200 million on Palantir contracts, relying on the software to run its Investigative Case Management system and to integrate travel histories, visa records, biometric data and social media data.

The Department of Defense has awarded Palantir billion-dollar contracts to support battlefield intelligence and AI-driven analysis. Even domestic agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Internal Revenue Service, and local police departments like the New York Police Department, have contracted with Palantir for data integration projects.

These integrations mean that Palantir is not just a vendor of software; it is becoming a partner in how the federal government organizes and acts on information. That creates a kind of dependency. The same private company helps define how investigations are conducted, how targets are prioritized, how algorithms work and how decisions are justified.

Because Gotham is proprietary, the public, and even elected officials, cannot see how its algorithms weigh certain data points or why they highlight certain connections. Yet, the conclusions it generates can have life-altering consequences: inclusion on a deportation list or identification as a security risk. The opacity makes democratic oversight difficult, and the system’s broad scope and wide deployment means that mistakes or biases can scale up rapidly to affect many people.

Beyond law enforcement

Supporters of Palantir’s work argue that it modernizes outdated government IT systems, bringing them closer to the kind of integrated analytics that are routine in the private sector. However, the political and social stakes are different in public governance. Centralized, attribute-based searching, whether by location, immigration status, tattoos or affiliations, creates the capacity for mass profiling.

In the wrong hands, or even in well-intentioned hands under shifting political conditions, this kind of system could normalize surveillance of entire communities. And the criteria that trigger scrutiny today could be expanded tomorrow.

U.S. history provides warning examples: The mass surveillance of Muslim communities after 9/11, the targeting of civil rights activists in the 1960s and the monitoring of anti-war protesters during the Vietnam era are just a few.

Gotham’s capabilities may enable government agencies to carry out similar operations on a much larger scale and at a faster pace. And once some form of data integration infrastructure exists, its uses tend to expand, often into areas far from its original mandate.

A broader shift in governance

The deeper story here isn’t just that the government is collecting more data. It’s that the structure of governance is changing into a model where decision-making is increasingly influenced by what integrated data platforms reveal. In a pre-Gotham era, putting someone under suspicion of wrongdoing might have required specific evidence linked to an event or witness account. In a Gotham-enabled system, suspicion can stem from patterns in the data – patterns whose importance is defined by proprietary algorithms.

This level of data integration means that government officials can use potential future risks to justify present action. The predictive turn in governance aligns with a broader shift toward what some scholars call “preemptive security.” It is a logic that can erode traditional legal safeguards that require proof before punishment.

The stakes for democracy

The partnership between Palantir and the federal government raises fundamental questions about accountability in a data-driven state. Who decides how these tools are used? Who can challenge a decision that was made by software, especially if that software is proprietary?

Without clear rules and independent oversight, there is a risk that Palantir’s technology becomes normalized as a default mode of governance. They could be used not only to track suspected criminals or terrorists but also to manage migration flows, monitor and suppress protests, and enforce public health measures. The concern is not that these data integration capabilities exist, but that government agencies could use them in ways that undermine civil liberties without public consent.

Once put in use, such systems are hard to dismantle. They create new expectations for speed and efficiency in law enforcement, making it politically costly to revert to slower, more manual processes. That inertia can lock in not only the technology but also the expanded scope of surveillance it enables.

Choosing the future

As Palantir deepens its government partnerships, the issues its technology raises go beyond questions of cost or efficiency. There are civil liberties implications and the potential for abuse. Will strong legal safeguards and transparent oversight constrain these tools for integrated data analysis? The answer is likely to depend on political will as much as technical design.

Ultimately, Palantir’s Gotham is more than just software. It represents how modern governance might function: through data, connections, continuous monitoring and control. The decisions made about its use today are likely to shape the balance between security and freedom for decades to come.

Nicole M. Bennett is affiliated with the Center for Refugee Studies at Indiana University.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

In early August 2025, a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia stopped efforts by federal trial judge James Boasberg to consider whether to hold Trump administration lawyers in contempt of court.

In April, Boasberg had concluded there was probable cause to hold government lawyers in contempt for defying orders he had issued related to the deportation of migrants to a prison in El Salvador.

The appellate court’s ruling found that such contempt proceedings could not go forward on various technical grounds.

As someone who teaches and writes on legal ethics, I believe the questions surrounding whether administration lawyers violated Boasberg’s rulings still can be answered thanks to state bodies that license lawyers to practice law.

State discipline

Boasberg has previously indicated that he might refer lawyers who have defied his orders to state authorities.

This is an option because the U.S. legal profession is largely licensed and regulated at the state level and, in the case of Washington, D.C., by the local D.C. courts. It’s in proceedings before disciplinary bodies – such as California’s State Bar Court, New York State’s attorney grievance committees and the Board on Professional Responsiblity in D.C., for example – where lawyers have to answer for charges that they have violated their professional code of ethics. That includes lawyers in the federal government.

Egregious violations of professional obligations, such as fabricating or destroying evidence or lying to a court, can result in a lawyer being suspended from practice and even disbarred completely.

These systems are a critical component of the checks on the U.S. legal system. It ensures that lawyers uphold their professional obligations as they pursue their clients’ rights.

The U.S. legal system is adversarial in nature. That means lawyers engage in zealous advocacy when they strive to advance the interests of their clients. Lawyers then resolve their disputes within that adversarial system, but even the advocates in that system have to follow its rules of engagement.

A central tenet of that system is that lawyers may not act unethically by abusing their knowledge of the system to illegally advance their clients’ interests – and their own.

This type of abuse of the system occurred when lawyers tried to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, filing dozens of unsuccessful cases to seek to change the election’s outcome. And they made spurious legal arguments in an attempt to halt Congress’ certification of the final vote in the Electoral College.

Some of the lawyers who took part in those efforts have been punished and disbarred for their actions, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who lost his license to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C.

Recently, lesser-known lawyers such as John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, both involved in the effort to prevent the transfer of presidential power after Trump lost his reelection bid, have also faced disciplinary charges. While these processes have not yet completely run their course, state bodies have recommended that each should lose his license to practice law.

Disciplinary bodies and the rule of law

The state bodies that govern the practice of law, and which license lawyers who practice even in the federal courts and the federal government, serve as a critical check on unprofessional conduct by lawyers.

State proceedings are no panacea, however. They can take time. That’s evident in the cases against Eastman and Clark, which are still working their way through the systems in the District of Columbia, in the case of Clark, and California, in Eastman’s case, for events that happened in late 2020 and early 2021.

And there is always the risk that adversaries can start an escalating war of tit for tat, regardless of whether such complaints have merit.

The Trump administration targeted private law firms for punishment through a series of executive orders that, for example, sought to revoke the firms’ security clearances and bar their lawyers from entering federal buildings. Although all the private law firms that challenged the executive orders issued against them have succeeded in blocking them, the Trump administration has also recently filed ethics charges against at least one of the lawyers involved in a lawsuit against it.

The Trump administration has also instituted a complaint against Boasberg with a federal body that oversees judicial ethics. And just the threat of a complaint, even a baseless one, can certainly have a chilling effect on administration critics, making them less likely to take action in the future.

Sociologist Eliot Freidson notes that one of the hallmarks of a profession is that its members care more about the opinion of their peers than the opinion of the general public. Because professionals should always care about their professional reputation, they should fear taking actions on behalf of a client – no matter who that client is – that exceed the rules that govern the profession. That includes defying court orders, lying on behalf of a client, or making baseless legal arguments.

If professional reputation alone is not enough to prevent such misconduct, the specter of losing the ability to practice, or even the fear of coming before an ethics body, might cause enough lawyers to think twice before they engage in acts that exceed the bounds of permissible, zealous advocacy.

While courts are sometimes where lawyers are sanctioned for improper conduct, including for contempt of court, they are not the only site where attorneys can face discipline for unprofessional conduct.

State ethics bodies have a critical role to play in preserving the rule of law, at least with respect to the conduct of lawyers they oversee.

And if Boasberg, any other judge, or a litigant wants to make referrals to such state institutions when lawyers seek to abuse the system, those bodies certainly have an important role to play in ensuring the legal profession maintains high standards of professionalism and the proper functioning of that system in a manner that comports with the rule of law.

Ray Brescia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Universities, often perceived as bastions of progressive thought, are increasingly reflecting the broader political polarization gripping the nation.

Faculty members represent a university’s core identity and mission. They express the values of the institution in numerous ways, including teaching, mentoring, advising and researching.

In my research into the impact of college on student development and learning, I – and others – have found that faculty are the most important people influencing student learning, development, persistence and degree attainment.

However, no systematic efforts have ever been undertaken to find out how faculty’s work is influenced by their understanding of university life and religion – until now.

The Templeton Religion Trust, a charity focused on improving societal well-being through understanding individual well-being, funded a recent national survey my team and I administered to 1,000 faculty members. The survey asked faculty about their perceptions of university life, including free speech and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often shortened to simply DEI.

The survey results reveal a striking divergence in perspectives on the often divisive issues of free speech and DEI among faculty. Those differences showed up particularly along the red state and blue state divide.

Yet, amid these deep disagreements, a surprising point of bipartisan consensus emerges: faculty members’ belief in the importance of religious, spiritual and secular inclusion in diversity efforts.

State political leaning is key

Survey responses represented national trends across various factors, including region, institutional control, institutional type and academic discipline.

In part of the analysis, we uncovered that the political leanings of a state – how a state voted in the presidential election of 2024 – play a significant role in what faculty perceive about free speech and DEI programming.

Even more compelling, significant differences reported by faculty from red versus blue states showed up consistently across gender, race, religion, academic discipline, faculty rank and whether the faculty member was employed at a private or public institution.

In other words, political leanings of a state were strongly associated with faculty perceptions regardless of these other factors.

Measuring the right to free speech

We asked faculty four questions related to their First Amendment rights, which we presented as: “The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition.”

Working closely with experts in legal epidemiology, we asked faculty the extent to which they agreed with the following statements: a) the First Amendment is relevant to my job as a faculty member; b) the First Amendment is relevant to my research engagement; c) my institution provides me with my constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights; and d) I am aware of my rights and responsibilities as they relate to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

While awareness of First Amendment rights appears consistent across the board, a notable difference arises in faculty members’ perception of institutional protection of those rights.

Faculty in blue states are significantly more likely than those in red states to report that their institutions uphold their constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights. This implies a potential disconnect in how freedoms are experienced and protected, depending on the political leanings of the state where an institution is located.

Measuring attitudes about DEI

The divide deepens when it comes to DEI, defined in the survey as “campus diversity programs” in some instances and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in others.

When compared with faculty in blue states, those in red states are far more inclined to view DEI efforts as “overreach,” agreeing with the statements that “diversity programs generally do more harm than good on college and university campuses” and “the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion on college and university campuses has gone too far.”

Conversely, blue state faculty largely disagree with these assertions. When compared with faculty in red states, those in blue states were more likely to agree that “campus diversity programs support student success,” demonstrating a stark ideological chasm on the value and impact of DEI.

This partisan disagreement extends to the very concept of banning DEI programs.

Red state faculty show moderate support for banning DEI, suggesting a belief that current efforts to curtail campus diversity initiatives are, according to survey response options, “well justified.”

Blue state faculty overwhelmingly support the continuation of these programs. They gave strong endorsement to the idea that “colleges and universities should continue to offer identity-specific organizations and programming.”

This schism reflects the ongoing national debate about the role and scope of DEI in higher education. Faculty perspectives mirror the political sentiments of their respective regions.

Amid this significant polarization, a crucial area of common ground emerges: what we call religious, spiritual and secular inclusion.

That’s the idea that DEI efforts should include programming and activities designed to help students from all religious, spiritual and secular backgrounds belong and succeed.

Religious, secular and spiritual diversity

Despite their sharp disagreements on other aspects of DEI, both red state and blue state faculty overwhelmingly agree that “colleges and universities should provide support for students of all religious, secular, and spiritual identities and backgrounds.”

And both groups similarly reject the notion that “campuses should not concern themselves with religious, secular and spiritual diversity.”

The findings from this survey highlight the complex landscape of faculty opinion in higher education. While significant difficulties remain in reconciling differing views on free speech and DEI, the shared commitment to religious, spiritual and secular inclusion offers a potential path to agreement.

By focusing on areas of consensus, institutions can begin to foster more inclusive environments to serve the needs of all students, regardless of their background or beliefs. Understanding these nuanced perspectives is the first step toward building more cohesive, pluralistic and intellectually vibrant academic communities across the nation’s varied political terrain.

Matthew J. Mayhew receives funding from the Templeton Religions Trust, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Merrifield Family Trust, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Merrifield Family Trust, and the United States Department of Education.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation