Jack Fruchtman
Student speech: Free, or not so much?
School administrators, staff, and faculty have a legal and moral obligation to act as surrogate parents while children are in school. The legal principle...
Immigration reform: Long overdue
“Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”
–Franklin Delano Roosevelt, addressing the Daughters of...
Whom does the Senate represent?
The above question is incorrectly framed. We ought to ask not who but what does the Senate represent. The answer is the 50 states....
Comparing 1861 and 2021
An astonishing and eerie chain of events chillingly links the pre-Inauguration days of two presidents-elect: Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and Joe Biden this year....
The arc of time
The passage of time is a continuum, and it is relentless. After a year of the spread of a deadly disease, shootings of unarmed...
The persistence of a paranoid style
A standard definition of paranoia is when a person experiences a deep, anxious fear of threats or conspiracies founded on delusion and irrationality. In...
The new Congress, the next president
In the days before the next Congress convenes on Jan. 3 and the inauguration of the new president, 17 days later, the House and...
Violating law and principle
As of now, the Trump campaign has lost more than 30 lawsuits, and won two on minor technical grounds, with no impact on the...
Americans and the rule of law
For over 40 years, I told my classes that Americans were not a particularly revolutionary people. By and large, they accepted the vote of...
Some lessons from Judge Barrett’s confirmation hearing
During her confirmation hearing, like most nominees to the Supreme Court since 1987, Judge Amy Coney Barrett declined to set forth her views on...
An election with, without the president
The worst-case scenario concerning President Trump’s recent bout with COVID-19 is unthinkable, even though his doctors released him to return to the White House...
RBG, her constitutional legacy
Tributes to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have rightly focused on her leadership in promoting human rights, especially gender equality, throughout her entire...
A modest plea for precision, Part Two
In these pages, I recently set out some basic ideas concerning terms and phrases used without precision by politicians and the media. They say...
A modest plea for precision
Sometimes when speaking and writing, we may use words and phrases so loosely that we overlook their true meaning. This is particularly true during...
America’s founders and Confederate generals
A wide gap separates Confederate generals memorialized on plaques, statues, and monuments, and the American founders and framers of the Constitution. It is no...
Independence Day, 2020 — a time to unite
Fourth of July celebrations commemorate the most American of all holidays. We have traditionally invited friends and family to join us for cookouts, parades,...
The Trump social media executive order
Last week, Twitter added fact-checking labels, then a warning, to several tweets by President Trump. The president responded by signing an executive order that...
The coming climate
One possible good outcome of the pandemic and its impact on the economy is having the cleanest air and water in decades, thanks to...
Congressional action, congressional deadlock
One remarkable outcome of COVID-19 is the recent congressional cooperation. Since March 6, the body has passed four major measures, costing trillions of dollars,...
Patriot’s Day 2020
Today, as I write this, is Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts. It is a holiday in a few states, but Massachusetts is key because it...