The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says: “all persons born are naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” But on his first day back in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that changed that understanding. According to the President's executive order, going forward, the only people who will be U.S. citizens at birth are people who are born in the United States to parents who are citizens, at least one of whom is a citizen, or at least one of the parents is a legal permanent resident of the United States. And what does all of this mean for Native Americans?

In this episode, Greg Ablavsky, a Stanford Law professor and scholar of federal Indian law, joins Pam Karlan to discuss President Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship--a case now at the Supreme Court.

The discussion centers on the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and, in particular, the meaning of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Ablavsky explains why federal Indian law has become part of that debate. He traces the distinctive legal status of Native nations within the United States, the historical exception for members of tribal nations, and the way that history appears in seminal cases such as Elk v. Wilkins. The conversation also looks at the relationship between Elk and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case that recognized birthright citizenship for a child born in the United States to Chinese parents. Along the way, Karlan and Ablavsky break down why history matters to the government’s current effort to argue for new limits on birthright citizenship--and more.

Links:

• Gregory Ablavsky >>> Stanford Law page
• Federal Ground: Governing Property and Violence in the First U.S. Territories >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:00) Who qualifies as a U.S. citizen at birth?

(00:03:54) The Origins of the 14th Amendment

(00:05:58) "Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof"

(00:11:42) Citizenship at the Supreme Court

(00:17:03) Native Americans, the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, and the Presidency

(00:18:49) The Supreme Court Oral Argument in Trump v. CASA (Barbara) — Analogies, Originalism, and the Native American

(00:28:31) Practical Chaos, Hard Cases and What the Court Should Do

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On this episode of Stanford Legal, host Professor Richard Thompson Ford talks taxes with Darien Shanske, JD '06, a UC Davis law professor and visiting professor at Stanford Law, who helped draft California’s proposed Billionaire Tax Act, which supporters hope to place on the November 2026 ballot. Shanske explains why he believes critics have often attacked a distorted version of the proposal, not the measure itself: a one-time 5% tax on net worth above $1 billion, payable over five years, aimed at helping California respond to widening wealth inequality and cuts to the social safety net. The conversation explores the legal design of the measure, the politics surrounding it, and the larger questions it raises about tax fairness, concentrated wealth, and what tools states should have when public needs are acute.

Links:

• Darien Shanske >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Diego Zambrano >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

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The Trump administration came in promising mass deportation. What has followed goes well beyond border control to matters of local policing, detention, federal power, and the limits of the law inside the United States. On this episode of Stanford Legal, co-host Professor Richard Thompson Ford talks with immigration expert Jennifer Chacón, the Bruce Tyson Mitchell Professor of Law, about the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda and the profound consequences it is having in cities and communities across the country. They discuss racial profiling, ignored court orders, pressure on states and localities, and the widening reach of immigration enforcement into everyday civic life. Professor Chacón, author of a casebook on immigration law, elaborates on some of the themes in her recently published paper “The Law of the Immigration Raid.”

Links:

• Jennifer Chacón >>> Stanford Law page
• Legal Phantoms >>> Stanford Law page
• Immigration Law and Social Justice >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Diego Zambrano >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

• (00:00:00) Immigration Enforcement in 2026
• (00:03:47) The Economics of a Closed Border
• (00:09:58) Closing the Border to Asylum
• (00:10:44) Profiling in Immigration Enforcement
• (00:16:48) Courts, Defiance, and Detention
• (00:25:40) Sanctuary, Commandeering, and the Weaponization of Immigration
• (00:32:26) How States Can Restore the Humane Dimensions of Immigration Law

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When President Trump declared a national emergency and imposed sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), businesses challenged the move, arguing the president did not have authority under that statute to impose tariffs. The Supreme Court recently agreed.

On this episode of Stanford Legal, co-host Professor Pamela Karlan sits down with international trade expert Alan Sykes, professor of law and Warren Christopher Professor in the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, to unpack the Court’s 6–3 decision. Sykes is a leading expert on the application of economics to legal problems and the author of the book The Law and Economics of International Trade Agreements.

At the heart of the case, Sykes explains, was the question of whether a statute that allows the president to “regulate importation” can be stretched to authorize taxes on imports. The majority said no, emphasizing that the Constitution assigns the taxing power to Congress, and that if Congress intended to hand that power over, it would have said so clearly. The conversation explores the statutory arguments, the role of the Major Questions Doctrine, and the unusual alignments among the justices.

But the ruling raises as many questions as it answers, Sykes notes. What happens to billions in tariffs already collected? Do international trade deals struck in the shadow of these tariffs still stand? And with other statutory tools available is this really the end of the tariff saga, or just the next chapter?

Links:

• Alan O. Sykes >>> Stanford Law page
• The Law and Economics of International Trade Agreements >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:00) Tariffs and IEEPA

(00:10:53) Statutory text and the history of tariffs

(00:13:54) “Regulate importation” and the Major Questions Doctrine

(00:17:56) Liquidation Timing, finality, and the 314‑day rule

(00:19:11) The Court of International Trade

(00:29:53) From IEEPA to Section 122 and what’s next under Section 301

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The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced it was rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, the legal foundation for federal regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The administration has called the move the largest deregulatory action in U.S. history. What does it actually do? And what happens next?

On this episode of Stanford Legal, Professor Deborah Sivas, an expert in environmental law, joins co-host Pam Karlan to unpack the legal strategy behind the repeal, the role of recent Supreme Court decisions, and what’s likely to unfold in the courts. Among other ramifications, they also explore California’s authority to adopt its own, more aggressive emissions standards and what this latest move by the Trump administration signals for the future of federal climate regulation.

Links:

• Deborah Sivas >>> Stanford Law page
• Environmental Law Clinic >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:00): The EPA’s rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding

(00:06:43): Climate science consensus and legal strategy

(00:16:01): The litigation roadmap: process vs. substance

(00:29:53): Wind power on the cusp

(00:30:10): Solar economics and federal land authority

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In a timely conversation about the ACLU’s massive docket of cases, Pam Karlan speaks with Anthony Romero, JD ’90, executive director of the ACLU, about the surge of civil rights and civil liberties battles facing the country right now.

Romero discusses major pieces of litigation spanning immigration, free speech, voting rights, and government accountability. A key focus is the Supreme Court showdown over birthright citizenship, where the Trump administration is attempting to deny citizenship to certain children born in the U.S., a move Romero calls an attack on one of the core promises of the Fourteenth Amendment. They also explore what happens when the government pushes the boundaries of compliance with court rulings and what that means for the rule of law.

Tune in for a compelling conversation about the cases that could help define the next chapter of civil liberties law in the United States.

Links:

• Anthony Romero >>> ACLU page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Diego Zambrano >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00) Introduction and ACLU’s Rapidly Expanding Docket

(02:30) Small but Mighty—ACLU vs. Federal Power

(07:00) Inside a Burgeoning Docket

(11:30) Birthright Citizenship at the Supreme Court

(16:00) Enforcement at Scale and the Rule of Law

(21:00): An Inflection Point in Public Sentiment

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In a world where confidence is rewarded and humility can feel like a liability, Stanford Law professor Robert MacCoun argues for something radical: fewer unwavering opinions, more critical reflection, and a better way to disagree. On Stanford Legal, MacCoun joins co-hosts Pamela Karlan and Diego Zambrano for a conversation about how “habits of mind” borrowed from science can help citizens, lawyers, and policymakers think more clearly and function more effectively in a pluralistic society.

MacCoun is the James and Patricia Kowal Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, a professor by courtesy in Stanford’s Psychology Department, and the university’s senior associate vice provost for research. Trained as a social psychologist, his work sits at the intersection of law, science, and public policy, with decades of research on decision-making, bias, and the social dynamics that shape how evidence is interpreted. In the episode, he draws on his most recent book, Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense, co-authored with Nobel Prize–winning physicist Saul Perlmutter and philosopher John Campbell, to explain why probabilistic thinking, intellectual humility, and what he calls an “opinion diet” are essential tools for modern civic life.

Links:

• Robert MacCoun >>> Stanford Law page
• Third Millennium Thinking >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Diego Zambrano >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X

(00:00:00) Introduction and Noise vs. Bias

(00:04:42) The Power of Probabilistic Thinking

(00:12:20) Juries, Community Judgment, and Reasonable Doubt

(00:13:23) Habits of Community

(00:25:08) Motivation, Tools, and Decision Processes

(00:26:14) When Evidence Won’t Settle It

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Professor Kim Scheppele has spent much of her career watching democracies rise and fall. She went to Hungary in the early 1990s expecting to study democratic optimism after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead, decades later, she found herself documenting how constitutional democracy can be dismantled from the inside out.

That experience frames a wide-ranging conversation on the latest episode of Stanford Legal, where host Professor Pam Karlan speaks with Scheppele, the Lawrence S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton and a visiting professor at Stanford Law School, about how democracies crumble, and why the United States is not exempt.

Drawing on years of on-the-ground research in Hungary, Russia, and other countries, Scheppele explains a central shift in democratic collapse: it no longer arrives through overt rupture, but through elections followed by legal and constitutional maneuvering. Leaders campaign as democrats, win office, and then use technical changes to the law, including court rules, budgetary controls, and civil-service structures, to weaken checks and rig the system in their favor.

The discussion turns to the United States, examining how party polarization, shifting institutional loyalties, and expanding claims of executive power have made familiar safeguards less reliable than many assumed.

Links:

• Kim Scheppele >>> Stanford Law page

Connect:

• Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast Website
• Stanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn Page
• Rich Ford >>> Twitter/X
• Pam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School Page
• Stanford Law School >>> Twitter/X
• Stanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X
  

(00:00:00) Learning in Wartime: A scholar’s antidote to the “cataract of nonsense”

(00:08:17) Patterns abroad and at home—are U.S. checks in danger?

(00:15:04) Naming the playbook

(00:32:07) More litigation—access, risk, and the pace of change

(00:32:39) Restoring democracy through law

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