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Laura Heymann

@laheymann

Law professor at William & Mary. Opinions always my own.

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14.11.2024
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Latest posts by Laura Heymann @laheymann

And the perils of using AI for charting!

25.02.2026 17:57 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Plans for proposed ICE facility in Merrimack, N.H., won’t move forward, governor says - The Boston Globe β€œWe can breathe easy again,” said the chair of the Merrimack Town Council, which had opposed the warehouse.

β€œToday, the people of Merrimack and all of New Hampshire proved that organized, local voices are more powerful than a federal agency’s ruthless expansion,” she said. β€œThis is a victory for us and all of New England but it is not the end of the fight.”

www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/24/m...

24.02.2026 16:58 πŸ‘ 8188 πŸ” 2270 πŸ’¬ 185 πŸ“Œ 140

Is the president mocking the U.S. women’s hockey team on a celebratory call with the men’s team going to attract even an iota of the sustained handwringing that the idea of trans athletes disadvantaging women’s sports has gotten

23.02.2026 16:23 πŸ‘ 7245 πŸ” 1760 πŸ’¬ 76 πŸ“Œ 57
Assistant Dean for Expressive Activity Support and Engagement - HigherEdJobs Jobs in higher education. Faculty and administrative positions at colleges and universities. Updated daily. Free to job seekers.

UT-Austin is hiring a free speech czar. Among the "preferred qualifications" is experience in law enforcement.

What could possibly go wrong?

22.02.2026 18:27 πŸ‘ 51 πŸ” 35 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 8

When I wrote Section 230 I did so knowing it would be critical for protecting free speech online. 30 years later and it’s one of the last things standing in the way of Republican censorship of the internet. Here’s to many more years of defending this vital safeguard of free speech.

08.02.2026 18:28 πŸ‘ 1483 πŸ” 409 πŸ’¬ 29 πŸ“Œ 18
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Stop Meeting Students Where They Are What I learned when I finally started assigning the hard reading again.

A thoughtful perspective: "We need to help students grow into the difficulty of reading. The best way to do that is not to 'meet them where they are,' a bromide that has become doctrine for higher education. We have to do as Whitman says instead: Stop somewhere ahead and wait for them to catch up."

07.02.2026 17:12 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Related:

bsky.app/profile/lahe...

06.02.2026 15:35 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

My sense is that it comes from at least two places: growing up with much more parental involvement in decision making than in previous generations, and increased anxiety about failing. In both cases, having someone else (including ChatGPT) tell you what "the answer" is can be comforting.

06.02.2026 14:24 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Saw this last week and very much agree with your review. While the production design was strong, and I'm glad I saw it, the production felt both too much and not enough. Too much making the subtext text; not enough of what it could truly mean to recognize the themes Wilde could not overtly discuss.

02.01.2026 20:44 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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It’s the β€œseason of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a β€œseason of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans.

🧡 1 of 9

21.12.2025 02:51 πŸ‘ 22965 πŸ” 5957 πŸ’¬ 824 πŸ“Œ 1616
Knowing How to Know: Secondary Liability for Speech in Copyright Law Contributory copyright infringement has long been based on whether the defendant, β€œwith knowledge of the infringing activity,” induced, caused, or materially co

Highlighting this article in light of today's Supreme Court argument in Cox v. Sony:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

01.12.2025 19:29 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Jim Ryan's letter is not just surreal and troubling; it provides a series of deeply sobering lessonsβ€”about the perils facing public universities today; about what it means to "work with" this Department of Justice; & about what leadership does (and doesn't) entail at this especially fraught moment.

14.11.2025 14:42 πŸ‘ 1388 πŸ” 449 πŸ’¬ 13 πŸ“Œ 9

No notes.

09.11.2025 18:30 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Tomorrow. Let’s win this, Virginia.

abigailspanberger.com/vote

03.11.2025 13:47 πŸ‘ 993 πŸ” 197 πŸ’¬ 19 πŸ“Œ 20
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Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down How Linda McMahon’s latest β€œcompact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

Really excellent piece by @sivav.bsky.social. Anyone who cares about higher education (or free expression or democracy) should read this essay.

08.10.2025 09:03 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Opinion | Trump’s β€˜Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

Essential reading. Universities must stand together on this.

03.10.2025 12:52 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This is great. Maybe it's already implicitly included in the chart, but I would also highlight the practice of asking questions that assume the legitimacy of their premise -- "Do you plan to investigate/What is your response to [bonkers claim by opponent/random person on the Internet]?"

02.10.2025 22:55 πŸ‘ 13 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

bsky.app/profile/lahe...

02.10.2025 03:10 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Seems like a governmental pyramid scheme -- the early joiners are promised untold riches and expected to recruit others, and everyone but the one at the top loses in the end.

02.10.2025 02:51 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Also, her statement seems to ignore that Section 230 doesn't just apply to "these companies" -- it applies to any "provider or user of an interactive computer service."

17.09.2025 19:10 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
I write letters To Alan Garber & John Manning: As a member of the law faculty (and, not for nothing, a professor of the First Amendment), I am writing you...

A letter to Alan Garber & John Manning

31.07.2025 14:38 πŸ‘ 23 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 2

bsky.app/profile/lahe...

28.07.2025 22:40 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

All this built-in generative AI is starting to feel like a technological snowplow parent -- popping up at the first opportunity to offer to clear the path and ease the difficulties that actually foster cognitive development, leaving a thin sheet of ice in its wake.

28.07.2025 15:35 πŸ‘ 11 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 2
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Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump

You can never bend the knee enough to appease an authoritarian bully.

This is a devastating blow to academic freedom & freedom of speech at Columbia.

Never in the history of this nation has there been an administration so intent on the utter destruction of higher education as we know it.

24.07.2025 01:37 πŸ‘ 1786 πŸ” 636 πŸ’¬ 58 πŸ“Œ 41

Talk about The Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones all you want, but the greatest US television program ever made is Sesame Street. It's not even close. 50+ years of treating kids across class, ethnicity, religion not as mini-consumers...but as citizens with a stake in this world.

18.07.2025 11:06 πŸ‘ 12814 πŸ” 2924 πŸ’¬ 154 πŸ“Œ 169

"Alligator Alcatraz" is wrong and media should not use it. It's propaganda. Alcatraz held people convicted of crimes, particularly violent crimes.

The Florida camp holds people *not* convicted of any crime. If they had been, they'd be in prison elsewhere.

The site is a textbook concentration camp.

02.07.2025 00:31 πŸ‘ 7587 πŸ” 2486 πŸ’¬ 237 πŸ“Œ 163
Risk Aversion and Rights Accretion in Intellectual Property Law Intellectual property's road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because liability is difficult to predict and the consequences of infringement are dire, risk-averse intellectual property users oft...

Jim Gibson's article on this is well worth reading: scholarship.richmond.edu/law-faculty-...

26.06.2025 16:05 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ’― Modeling this is one way: "That's a great question. I'm not sure of the answer myself. Let's talk through how we might get there, and then I'll think about it some more and get back to you."

18.06.2025 21:51 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0