Profs and Pints DC presents: “Legal Guardrails for Trump 2.0,” an examination of where laws and the judiciary offer checks to overreach by Donald Trump’s incoming administration, with Scott Michelman, Legal Director of the ACLU-D.C. and lecturer on law and Shikes Fellow in Civil Liberties and Civil Rights at Harvard Law School.
In a time of political uncertainty and increasing threats to civil liberties, it’s more important than ever to understand how our democracy and civil rights are protected. Join Scott Michelman, a veteran law-school teacher and civil-rights lawyer who has litigated cases from the Supreme Court on down, for an insightful discussion of how we can defend our freedoms and what the courts can—and can’t—do to protect us.
You’ll get a crash course on various checks on presidential power and on areas where presidents have substantial leeway. Michelman will talk about specific threats to our rights, including free speech, the right to protest, the potential for domestic military deployment, retaliatory prosecution, and the creation of a new “Schedule F” to reclassify federal employees as political appointees to make it easier to fire them. He’ll highlight how the lack of statehood leaves the District vulnerable to congressional interference. He’ll discuss how historically oppressed communities’ civil rights and civil liberties may be impacted and what steps are being taken to defend them.
You’ll learn how courts’ powers to invalidate executive actions are limited in areas where the president has broad discretion, such as deploying the military, enforcing immigration laws, or using federal forces for crowd control. In response to President-elect Trump’s stated willingness to use military forces during protest, Michelman will provide an in-depth discussion on protest rights, including your rights have when interacting with law enforcement, and how to document potential abuses of police power. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: An official White House photo shows President Donald J. Trump walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church in June 2020. Police had used riot-control tactics to clear protesters and members of the media from his path.