“Black female judges, law students and more on what the Supreme Court nomination means to them”: Janay Kingsberry and Julianne McShane of The Washington Post have this report, which includes a quote from a federal appellate judge.

“Why Can’t We Make Women’s Equality the Law of the Land?” Online at The New York Times, columnist Jesse Wegman has an essay that begins, “Even if you are a political junkie, there’s a good chance you didn’t realize that the United States Constitution grew 58 words longer this week.”

“It’s Time to End Race-Based Affirmative Action”: John McWhorter has this essay online at The New York Times.

“As Breyer Pondered Retirement, Biden Bet on a Hands-Off Strategy; The president believed pressuring the court’s oldest justice to retire might backfire; A chorus of liberals took a different approach”: Katie Rogers and Charlie Savage will have this article in Saturday’s edition of The New York Times.

“Race, Gender and the Supreme Court: Criticism of Biden’s forthcoming black woman nominee isn’t ‘racially tinged.'” This editorial will appear in Saturday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

“Texas Republicans pressure court to reverse decision blocking attorney general from prosecuting election cases; Republicans from Gov. Greg Abbott on down are pressuring the all-GOP Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reverse a December ruling that gutted the attorney general’s power to go after election cases on his own”: Patrick Svitek of The Texas Tribune has this report.

“Who Decides? Depends on What the Federal Government Allows.” Online at the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Clark L. Hildabrand and Ross C. Hildabrand have this review of Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton‘s new book, “Who Decides?: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation.”

“The Breyer Patch (with Tiffany Atkins)”: You can access yesterday’s new episode of the “In Loco Parent(i)s” podcast, featuring Steve and Karen Vladeck, at this link.

At about the 16 minute and 45 second mark, Karen learns that Steve’s Bland SCOTX victory last week wasn’t actually his first appellate win ever in a case he orally argued.

“The Administrative State Goes to Court: A ‘Halftime’ Analysis of the Supreme Court’s Term.” The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School of George Mason University will host this webinar on Monday, January 31, 2022.

Scheduled to participate in the event are Deepak Gupta, Hashim H. Mooppan, and Adam White, with Jennifer Mascott moderating.

“Presidents Have Long Wanted a Diverse Supreme Court; The enduring goal has been to choose justices who ‘look like America’; What’s changed is their view of what America looks like”: Law professor Stephen L. Carter has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion.

“Breyer’s Supreme Court Pragmatism Will Be Missed; The retiring justice’s practical-minded temperament infused the dominant jurisprudence of a less ideological era; Its demise is having painful consequences”: Law professor Noah Feldman has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion.

“NAPABA in Conversation with Justice Breyer”: This YouTube clip — which U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria (N.D. Cal.) linked to in his “SCOTUSblog” guest post titled “The diversity of Justice Breyer’s legacy” — included a tribute from then U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (D.D.C.) among other former Breyer clerk luminaries.

“Tributes to Justice Breyer”: “SCOTUSblog” has published this series of posts.

“A Pennsylvania court overturned the state’s mail voting law, but an appeal means it’s still in place; Democrats believe the state Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law, which passed with bipartisan support before becoming toxic in GOP politics after Trump’s election loss”: Jonathan Lai and Andrew Seidman of The Philadelphia Inquirer have this report.

My earlier coverage of today’s Pa. Commonwealth Court ruling can be accessed here.

“Biden’s Supreme Court Promise Underscores A Reality: Black Women Rarely Get to The Federal Judiciary; Biden pledged to nominate the first Black woman for the US Supreme Court. The rest of the judiciary hasn’t fared much better in representing them or other women of color.” Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News has this report.

“‘Who Decides?’ Review: The Supreme Court, the States and the Contest for Control; Political conflicts, legal battles and overlapping claims set one level of government against another.” Online at The Wall Street Journal, law professor Josh Blackman has this review of Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton‘s new book, “Who Decides?: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation.”

“Did You Know Reagan Picked Scalia for the Supreme Court Because He Was Italian? Some useful context for our current moment in Supreme Court–nomination politics.” Jordan Weissmann has this essay online at Slate.

“Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife? Justice’s wife, Ginni Thomas, sits on the board of conservative group that backs lawsuit seeking to end affirmative action, raising concerns it could present potential conflict of interest.” Ed Pilkington of The Guardian (UK) has this report.

“The internal jockeying begins as Biden selects his Supreme Court nominee”: Joan Biskupic of CNN has this news analysis.

“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s library sells for nearly $2.4 million in auction”: Kevin Breuninger of CNBC has this report.

“Let’s Be Real: The Supreme Court Is Political and Always Has Been. And the public is just fine with that.” Jack Shafer has this essay online at Politico.

“Incoming Georgetown Law administrator apologizes after tweets dean called ‘appalling’; Ilya Shapiro is set to begin his role as senior lecturer and executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution on Feb. 1”: Lauren Lumpkin of The Washington Post has this report.

“Who is potential Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson? And the inside story behind her name. She has spoken about her upbringing, her family and her views on race.” Monica Dunn of ABC News has this report.

“Penn Law’s Amy Wax doubles down on racist comments, says she will not resign ‘without a fight'”: Jared Mitovich of The Daily Pennsylvanian has this report.

And Christine Charnosky of Law.com has an article headlined “‘I Wouldn’t Give Them the Satisfaction’: Penn Law Prof Amy Wax Says She Won’t Resign, Doubles Down on Comments About Black Students; ‘Blacks are not being represented at top of the class. Anyone who teaches law school knows this to be true,’ Wax said during a podcast interview Monday.”

Gad Saad has posted on YouTube episode 1368 of his “The Saad Truth” podcast, titled “My Chat with Law Professor and Neurologist Dr. Amy Wax.”

“The Lonely Liberal Minority: What can Stephen Breyer’s successor accomplish?” Irin Carmon has this post online at the “Intelligencer” blog of New York magazine.

Also online there, Jonathan Chait has a post titled “Biden Didn’t Invent Affirmative Action for the Supreme Court; Conservatives attack Biden for promising to appoint a Black woman.”

And Ed Kilgore has a post titled “Democrats Are Playing Catch-up on Supreme Court Nominations.”

“Handicapping President Biden’s Supreme Court Shortlist; Here are my odds on the leading contenders — and some interesting historical analysis”: David Lat has this post at his “Original Jurisdiction” Substack site.

And at BriefCatch, Ross Guberman has a post titled “Kruger Is to Roberts As Jackson Is to Sotomayor? An Opinion-Writing Faceoff.” [Update: Shortly after I published this post, Guberman removed this post from his site without any contemporaneous explanation. You can still access the post via Google’s cache at this link.] [Second update: The Google cache link no longer works either.]

“Justice Stephen Breyer to Retire”: You can access the new episode of the “Advisory Opinions” podcast, featuring David French and Sarah Isgur, via this link.

“Breyer leaves a court more conservative than one he joined”: Jessica Gresko of The Associated Press has this report.

“Pennsylvania court strikes down expansive mail-in voting law”: Marc Levy of The Associated Press has a report that begins, “A statewide court on Friday declared that Pennsylvania’s expansive two-year-old mail-in voting law is unconstitutional, agreeing with challenges by Republicans who soured on mail-in voting after then-President Donald Trump began baselessly attacking it as rife with fraud in 2020’s campaign.”

You can access today’s 3-to-2 en banc ruling of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania at this link.

“The carping over Biden’s Supreme Court pledge is historically inaccurate and racially tinged”: Columnist Ruth Marcus has this op-ed in today’s edition of The Washington Post.

“11th Circuit vacates previous ruling on Alabama’s abortion consent bypass law; The 11th Circuit vacated its previous ruling that found parts of Alabama’s abortion consent bypass law unconstitutional; In a two-page notice released Thursday, the court granted a petition for rehearing the case en banc”: Kirk McDaniel of Courthouse News Service has this report on an order granting rehearing en banc that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued yesterday.

You can access the now-vacated three-judge panel’s ruling at this link.

“With shadow docket, Supreme Court puts Band-Aids on a bullet hole; The justices are creating a new approach to solving urgent matters but it’s just the first battle in a longer war”: Kelsey Reichmann of Courthouse News Service has this report.

“I once told a Supreme Court justice that affirmative action got me into Harvard and Yale. Today they wouldn’t listen.” Law professor Paul Butler has this op-ed in today’s edition of The Washington Post.

“Comeback Kid”: You can access the new episode of the “Strict Scrutiny” podcast, featuring law professors Leah Litman, Melissa Murray, and Kate Shaw, via this link.

And in related news, Todd Spangler of Variety reports that “Crooked Media Makes First Podcast Acquisitions: ‘Strict Scrutiny’ and ‘Hot Take.’“

“The Supreme Court Appears Ready, Finally, to Defeat Affirmative Action; Moderate conservative Justices voted with liberals to protect the program in the past, but there are no such Justices now”: Nicholas Lemann has this Daily Comment online at The New Yorker.