Tyson-Lord Gray

04/23/2026

Happy Earth Day, everyone. 🌍

I wrote something today that is equal parts satirical and genuinely alarming, because that's basically where we are in 2026.

The federal government's contribution to Earth Day this year: announcing the "Freedom to Drive" Initiative — a highway expansion program. On Earth Day. I promise I did not make that up.

That's on top of: repealing the legal foundation for all federal greenhouse gas regulation, paying $1 billion to cancel an offshore wind project, and cutting the EPA's staff by up to a third.

Earth Day was born as a protest in 1970. The people who showed up that day generated enough political pressure to create the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the EPA itself.

Some days it feels like we're having that fight all over again.

New piece is up on Substack — the link is below.

A celebration of our planet, brought to you by the people dismantling it.

04/11/2026

The Trump administration just gave hundreds of thousands of federal contractors until April 25th to certify they're complying with a legal standard that literally does not exist.

On March 26th, a new executive order redefined "racially discriminatory DEI activities" — attaching contract termination, debarment, and False Claims Act liability (think: triple damages) to that made-up definition. But no statute, no regulation, and no court has ever defined it. Companies are being asked to sign a legal document whose terms will be written after the fact by whoever brings the enforcement action.

This isn't just bad policy. It's unconstitutional. I break it all down in my latest piece. 🔗 Link below.

On March 26th, the Trump administration issued an executive order titled “Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors.” It instructed that within 30 days, April 25th, every federal agency must embed a new mandatory clause in every federal contract, at every tier, requiring contractors t...

03/09/2026

A lot of my research right now is about what happens when the executive branch operates outside the boundaries the law actually sets. I've been writing about it in the context of food policy and administrative law. But the Anthropic-Pentagon story hit differently — because it's the same pattern, just with higher stakes than almost anything I've studied.

The government demanded that a private company remove its prohibitions on mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. When the company said no, the administration threatened to wipe it from existence. And here's what troubles me most as someone who thinks seriously about ethics and the rule of law: the government's position wasn't clearly illegal. The law simply doesn't cover this yet. There's no federal statute. No regulatory framework. Just executive orders and private contracts standing between us and AI-enabled surveillance at a scale we've never seen.

That's executive overreach operating in a vacuum the law created — and it should concern all of us regardless of politics.

I wrote about it. I'd love to know what you think.

Late last month, Anthropic — the company behind the Claude AI models — refused a direct demand from the United States Department of Defense. The government wanted Anthropic to remove two restrictions from its contracts: a prohibition on using Claude for mass domestic surveillance of Americans, a...

03/06/2026

I was quoted in USA TODAY about the wave of SNAP food restriction waivers now sweeping 22 states — and the legal problems hiding in plain sight.

"For 60 years, the Department of Agriculture under presidents of both parties denied state requests to restrict SNAP-eligible foods, saying it could not waive the definition of 'food' for purchase with SNAP benefits that Congress set in law."

Nothing in the statute changed. Only the administration did.

I also flagged that businesses operating across multiple states are facing "compliance chaos" — and that those multi-state retailers likely have the greatest legal standing to challenge these waivers in court. I'm still surprised no lawsuit has been filed.

This is a separation of powers issue that cuts across party lines. Whether you support or oppose restricting soda and candy from SNAP, the executive branch does not get to implement what Congress has repeatedly refused to authorize.

Read the full USA TODAY piece here:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/05/snap-food-restrictions-soda-candy/88999054007/

Kansas, Ohio, Nevada, and Wyoming join 18 other states in restricting what SNAP recipients can buy with benefits.

03/04/2026

📢 New piece out today in The Hill's Opinion section.
"The new SNAP food restrictions aren't just confusing — they're illegal."
The USDA has approved waivers for 18 states to restrict what SNAP recipients can purchase — despite the fact that Congress never granted that authority and has repeatedly rejected food restriction proposals. This isn't a demonstration project. It's the executive branch rewriting legislation and dressing it up as administrative flexibility.
The separation of powers violation is blatant. Someone needs to sue.
Read the full piece here:

The Department of Agriculture has approved waivers for 18 states to restrict what SNAP recipients can purchase at grocery stores, despite the fact that it lacks legal authority to do so, and this c…

02/28/2026

Always great to see my research featured in the Cardozo School of Law newsletter 👨🏾‍🏫 https://www.law360.com/articles/2442747/snap-rule-confusion-risks-a-compliance-crisis

02/20/2026

I'm excited to share my latest article in Law360 analyzing the massive compliance crisis facing grocery stores and food retailers as 18 states roll out contradictory SNAP food restriction waivers.

For anyone working in food retail, administrative law, or regulatory compliance, this is worth a read.

Full article in Law360: https://www.law360.com/articles/2442747

Recent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food restriction waivers pose a compliance crisis for legal practitioners advising food retailers, amid higher costs and lack of a coherent national standard, says Tyson-Lord Gray at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

02/19/2026

"There is no doubt that animals deserve protection. So do people. This isn’t a choice we have to make — we should do both. The fact that this administration has chosen to ignore one while championing the other is not accidental; it reflects a set of political priorities that are as revealing as they are troubling."

Pam Bondi wants you to know she cares deeply about justice — just not for people.

02/18/2026

"Keep hope alive" was never naive optimism. It was a command. A moral imperative. A refusal to let despair be the final word.
We need that same fire today.
🕊️

Jesse Jackson (1941–2026). Rest in Power. In 1988, he stood before the Democratic National Convention and declared: "We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive." He said it at a moment when Black America was still fighting for a seat at the table — Reagan's Amer...

02/17/2026

Two Trump policies announced 48 hours apart look different—EV chargers and climate regulation. But both do the same thing: keep more fossil fuel vehicles on the road in neighborhoods where Black communities already struggle to breathe.

The impact:
→ Black women die from asthma at 4x the rate of White men
→ Black children at 8x the rate
→ 156M Americans breathe failing-grade air (up 25M from last year)
→ The EPA stopped calculating health costs in air pollution regulations

Last year, a fifth grader in Detroit died from an asthma attack.

The administration calls this economic policy. But fossil fuel companies get to keep burning while Black communities struggle to keep breathing.

Two policies. 48 hours apart. Both push the same direction: more fossil fuels, worse air for Black communities already dying from asthma at four times the rate of White men.