Elie Mystal
Elie Mystal | |
|---|---|
 Mystal in 2023 | |
| Born | Elie Ying Mystal May 10, 1978 |
| Education | Harvard University (BA, JD) |
| Occupations |
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| Employer | The Nation |
| Known for | Commentary and criticism about the U.S. Constitution |
| Spouse | Christine Nyereyegona |
| Children | 2 |
Elie Ying Mystal (born May 10, 1978) is an American political commentator, writer and former litigator. He is the justice correspondent at The Nation, where he writes about the courts and the criminal justice system.[1][2] Mystal has described himself as a liberal.[3]
Early life and education
[edit]His father, also named Elie Mystal, was the first African American elected to the Suffolk County Legislature and an influential political operative whose career ended with a fine for violating election district residency laws.[4] Mystal's middle name Ying comes from the surname of his maternal grandfather, a Chinese immigrant.[5][6]
Mystal received a Bachelor of Arts degree in government at Harvard College and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School.[7]
Career
[edit]Mystal is a former law clerk of the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm, having elected to forgo obtaining a law license to pursue work as a legal commentator.[8] He is a former executive editor of the Above the Law legal news website.[1] A description at the Above the Law website says that he "quit the legal profession to pursue a career as an online provocateur".[7] He has made guest appearances on MSNBC and Sirius XM.[1]
Mystal is the author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution, which is intended to be an "easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them."[9] Mystal's book, which was published by The New Press in March 2022, made The New York Times Best Seller list that same month.[10]
As of 2022, Mystal was a board member of Demand Justice, a liberal judicial advocacy group.[11]
Views
[edit]Mystal has described himself as a liberal.[3] He has been a supporter of civil rights and abortion rights.[12][13] Some conservative media outlets have described Mystal as "far left".[14][15]
In March 2022, he said the United States Constitution is "actually trash", pointing to the Fugitive Slave Clause and the Three-fifths Compromise.[3] In that interview, he said about the Constitutional Convention, "We act like this thing was kind of etched in stone by the finger of God, when actually it was hotly contested and debated, scrawled out over a couple of weeks in the summer in Philadelphia in 1787, with a bunch of rich, white politicians making deals with each other."[3]
Publications
[edit]- Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. New York: The New Press. 2022. ISBN 9781620976814. OCLC 1252960938.
- Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America. New York: The New Press. 2025. ISBN 9781620978580.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Elie Mystal: Justice Correspondent". The Nation. December 10, 2018.
- ^ Markay, Lachlan (March 6, 2022). "Progressives prep big spending for Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation". Axios. Retrieved December 30, 2022.
- ^ a b c d Obeidallah, Dean (March 23, 2022). "Elie Mystal: Our Constitution is "actually trash" — but the Supreme Court can be fixed". Salon. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
Elie Mystal, attorney
- ^ Brand, Rick (November 29, 2017). "Elie Mystal dead at 71; Suffolk legislator brought down by residency law". Newsday.
- ^ Mystal, Elie [@ElieNYC] (February 13, 2022). "My grandfather was Chinese. Literally from China. He married a black schoolteacher in Mississippi. My full legal name is 'Elie Ying Mystal'[.] And yet, if Joe Biden nominated me for the Supreme Court as its first Asian-American, people would call him, not me, fraudulent" (Tweet). Archived from the original on February 13, 2022. Retrieved April 1, 2025 – via Twitter.
- ^ Mystal, Elie [@ElieNYC] (July 31, 2024). "Do you notice how @KatiePhang calls me Elie "Ying" Mystal? That's because my grandfather on my mother's side is Chinese. Ying, my middle name, was his surname. My grandmother, however, can trace her Black linage to a plantation in Mississippi. And my father is Haitian" (Tweet). Retrieved April 1, 2025 – via Twitter.
- ^ a b "Elie Mystal, Author at Above the Law". Above the Law. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
He was formerly a litigator at Debevoise & Plimpton
- ^ "Elie Mystal". N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change. April 14, 2020. Retrieved March 15, 2025.
- ^ "Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution". The New Press.
- ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers, March 27, 2022". The New York Times.
- ^ Oprysko, Caitlin (December 9, 2022). "A peek under the hood at Demand Justice". Politico. Retrieved December 30, 2022.
- ^ Mystal, Elie (July 13, 2021). "My Black Generation is Fighting Like Hell to Stop the Whitelash". The Nation.
- ^ Pengelly, Martin (June 30, 2022). "Biden backs exception to Senate filibuster to protect abortion access". The Guardian. Retrieved July 7, 2022.
- ^ "Far-Left 'Morning Joe' Panelist Wants Dems To 'Eliminate' All Voter Registration Laws To Help Party Win Elections". AllSides. March 25, 2025. Retrieved April 1, 2025.
- ^ "MSNBC silent over guest Elie Mystal's long history of racially charged rhetoric". AllSides. August 2, 2022. Retrieved April 1, 2025.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- American legal writers
- 21st-century American lawyers
- 21st-century American non-fiction writers
- African-American non-fiction writers
- African-American journalists
- 21st-century African-American lawyers
- Political commentators
- The Nation (U.S. magazine) people
- People associated with Debevoise & Plimpton
- Harvard Law School alumni
- Harvard College alumni
- American male journalists
- People from Suffolk County, New York
- American writers of Haitian descent
- 1978 births
- Living people
- American writers of Chinese descent