proud husband dad of 3 boys | Law Professor @UofSC | thetenuretrack.com | freedompapers.substack.com
Joined March 2012
- Tweets 16,831
- Following 812
- Followers 9,243
- Likes 32,186
957 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
30 Aug 2025
Stuck in endless drafts?
Most legal scholars waste 60–80% of writing time because they build without a blueprint.
My new guide, Law Review Launchpad, gives you a 6-step system to turn ideas into clear outlines & publishable articles.
👉thetenuretrack.gumroad.com/l…
1
5
1,694
I’ve been loving this song recently!!
And this morning, I played it for the kids on the way to school and they loved it.
It might just be our new morning ritual!
Tye Tribbett - "Only One Night Tho" [Performance Video] youtu.be/kWF_gsv6Esw?si=Zzlh… via @YouTube
1
189
I've noticed something about academic writing in several fields concerned with justice.
The writing is often emotionally empty.
Pages about systems of suffering, all written in an objective register that keeps the author at arm's length from any of it.
I understand why.
1
3
9
698
The academy rewards it. Peer review punishes vulnerability. You learn early that getting personal can become a liability.
But here's what I've also come to believe:
The self isn't a bias to be corrected.
It is a form of evidence.
1
1
5
322
When you strip the human out of the writing about human suffering, something essential gets lost.
And readers feels it, even if they can't name it.
The work that changes people—work that stands the test of time—is work that costs the writer something.
What are you risking?
1
3
4
268
We spend enormous energy analyzing systems of oppression.
And we should.
The systems are real. The harm is documented and ongoing.
But here's something I've been sitting with . . .
1
204
If every structure changed overnight—laws, policies, institutions—we would still have to do the inner work.
The work of healing what we weren't taught how to heal.
The work of grieving what we were never allowed to grieve.
The work of learning to feel safe in our skin.
1
1
89
These aren't separate from the political work.
They're the foundation of it.
You can't build a free world if the builders aren't working on their own freedom.
That's not an excuse to retreat from the struggle.
It's a demand to bring your whole self to it.
73
Today is my birthday.
I'm sharing an essay I wrote a few weeks ago for anyone in a hard season who needs to hear that what feels like falling apart might actually be something being rearranged.
freedompapers.substack.com/p…
More like this every week at freedompapers.substack.com
3
92
The documents enslaved people carried to prove their freedom were called “freedom papers.”
Papers. To prove you were human.
We tell ourselves that era is behind us. But Black men are still stopped at higher rates. Immigrants still fear the knock at the door.
1
4
7
360
The unhoused are asked to produce ID just to exist in public space.
The form of the papers has changed. The underlying question hasn't:
Who belongs here, and who will always have to keep proving it?
3
5
269
I’m grateful to have my first poems published with Scalawag.
These pieces were inspired in part by the movie "Sinners" and sit with questions of memory, movement, and longing.
Would be honored if you gave them a read:
scalawagmagazine.org/2026/04…
104
Law school taught me how to disappear from my own writing.
You learn to speak in the third person. To cite instead of feel. To argue instead of confess.
The discipline rewards distance. The further you stay from the thing you’re describing, the more credible you appear.
1
2
19
1,111
But there’s a cost to that kind of writing, there's a cost to that kind of living.
When you spend years performing objectivity, you start to lose access to your own interiority. You get very good at analysis.
You get worse at truth.
The question I keep returning to is this
1
4
2,380
Who is truly free?
Not as a constitutional matter. As a lived one. As the thing you feel in your body when you move through the world.
I don't have a clean answer.
But I've stopped pretending the question doesn't matter.
2
223
etienne toussaint ✊🏽 retweeted
Apr 14
I already know this is going to be good!
My book is out today. It examines how legal training shapes issues that impact all of us (e.g., policing, work, healthcare, the environment). It’s written for a broad audience—nonlawyers, law students, and professors alike. I think it can move some urgent conversations forward.
1
3
456
What can a monster-hunting comic tell us about American law, racial terror, and justice?
A lot. My wife @ebonyt_phd’s passion for Bitter Root sent me down this rabbit hole.
I came out with a new essay on how art reveals what legal scholarship can't.
currentaffairs.org/news/bitt…
1
179
My new article, The Spirit of Oligarchy in American Agriculture, is out in @ColumLRev .
Black farm ownership has declined by 90% since the 1920s. I argue this reflects a durable agricultural oligarchy—not isolated discrimination.
Read: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
15
26
1,870
etienne toussaint ✊🏽 retweeted
12 Aug 2025
If you’re pursuing legal academia (or mentoring someone who is) this guide busts myths, explains the process, and offers encouragement along the way.
📖 Read it here:
thetenuretrack.com/p/breakin…
2
3
435