Abstract
Featuring Monica Haymond, Northwestern University, and Ilya Somin, George Mason University
How can the courts police federal government overreach? Earlier this year, in the landmark case of Trump v. CASA, Inc., the Supreme Court severely limited the authority of federal courts to issue nationwide (or universal) injunctions against the federal government. Even if a court finds a federal policy to be illegal, the government may still enforce that policy against anyone who was not actually a party to that particular lawsuit.
As part of the Murphy Institute's ongoing "Hot Topics: Cool Talk" series, Ilya Somin, Professor of Law at George Mason University, and Monica Haymond, Assistant Professor of Law at Northwestern University, will analyze the path forward in a spirited yet civil dialogue. Is the Supreme Court’s ruling against universal injunctions a major blow against checks and balances in our constitutional system? Or, instead, do alternative judicial remedies remain to protect constitutional and statutory rights from abuse of power by the federal government? The discussion will be moderated by Professor Gregory Sisk of the University of St. Thomas.
Approved for 1.0 CLE credit. The CLE event code is 538856.
Speakers
Ilya Somin, is Professor of Law at George Mason University and B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, rev. ed., 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, rev. ed. 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Atlantic, and USA Today. He is a regular contributor to the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, affiliated with Reason magazine.
Monica Haymond, Monica Haymond is a civil procedure, federal courts, and remedies scholar. Her work examines the relationship between procedural rules and government power. Her current projects focus on how emerging civil-litigation practices shape the behavior of parties, the exercise of judicial discretion, and the federal government’s capacity to represent the public interest. Her latest article, Intervention and Universal Remedies, appeared in the University of Chicago Law Review and analyzed how procedural rules give courts the discretion to influence the outcomes of cases seeking nationwide injunctions.
Before joining the Northwestern faculty in 2024, Haymond taught at Harvard Law School as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law. She previously clerked for two federal appellate judges (Judge Bibas of the Third Circuit and Judge Jordan of the Eleventh Circuit) and practiced as a managing associate in the Supreme Court & Appellate practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.