As a black woman and dean of a law school, the first dean of color at Boston University School of Law, I struggled with what message I should send to my students.

I even wondered if I could send a message about the deaths of Rihanna Taylor, Ahmad Arbery, George Floyd, and Tony McDade, imagining the backlash when certain words

came out of my black mouth.

The Trump administration under Attorney General Sessions and Barr have abdicated the Justice

Department's responsibility in supporting and ensuring constitutional policing and communities in this country.

Hi, and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law. And yes, that thing we call

the rule of law. I'm Dahlia Lithwick. I cover those things for the magazine. And it has been a

deeply painful week in America with grief and horror at the killing of George Floyd in

Minneapolis, at the hands of the police,

and other killings around the country of black people by police officers.

It's resulted in protests and curfews and arrests and attacks on the press.

It's also been a really busy week for lawyers,

what with having to read up on quartering soldiers

and posse comitatis and the Insurrection Act

and no quarter orders

and generalized presidential claims

that protesters are all hooligans and looters who must be dominated, if

necessary, by using military force domestically. On Monday afternoon, Donald Trump conscripted

federal security forces to clear peaceful protesters from Lefayette Square so that he and his

senior advisors could walk undisturbed from

the White House to stand in front of St. John's Church and wave a Bible aloft. That action has led to

...