Nationwide Injunctions Scholarship of Suzette Malveaux Gets National Exposure Her 2017 article “Class Actions, Civil Rights, and the National Injunction” argues against the elimination a key judicial mechanism.

By Law Communications
April 3, 2025

The scholarship of Washington and Lee School of Law Professor Suzette Malveaux involving nationwide injunctions is garnering attention following a recent congressional hearing.

On April 2, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss a bill that would eliminate universal injunctions, a mechanism through which judges can pause administrative policies and executive orders nationwide pending further review or likely legal challenges. Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck testified against the bill in the hearing and later promoted Professor Malveaux’s scholarship in this area through his popular Substack newsletter, “One First.”

In particular, Professor Vladeck discussed the relationship between nationwide injunctions and nationwide class actions, the latter of which has been proposed as the proper avenue for challenging administrative actions. He noted that Professor Malveaux is one of the few scholars to look closely at this issue.

In her article “Class Actions, Civil Rights, and the National Injunction,” published in the Harvard Law Review Forum in 2017, Professor Malveaux argues against a proposal for an outright ban on national injunctions, concluding that a “rule banning all national injunctions that apply to nonparties would remove an important check on the executive branch of government. The American political system’s tripartite balance of power requires a robust and effective checks-and-balances system.”

Her article was then cited in opposition by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence in the Court’s 5-4 decision in Trump v. Hawaii, which upheld the travel ban implemented during the first Trump presidency.

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