“So, Renato,” begins the concerned-looking woman in the YouTube clip, “what’s the remedy when the Department of Justice turns into the Department of Injustice?”
“Ehhh…” responds Renato, “…it’s complicated.”
So begins another episode of “It’s Complicated”–legal analysis by two of the sharper legal tools in the briefcase: FBI agent-turned-Yale-law professor Asha Rangappa and her friend, former prosecutor Renato Mariotti. Sadly, this particular episode was the duo’s last (at least for now), but you can still tune in to plenty of past episodes and learn a TON about how the DOJ is supposed to work.
Being a legal nerd, I enjoyed those episodes. But what really lights me up are Asha’s deep dives into the MORAL complexity of our government’s current chaos.
That’s where Freedom Academy comes in. A teacher by heart, Asha runs weekly Q & A sessions for her Substack subscribers, where you can submit questions in advance, and then watch Asha engage with equal minds on questions like, “Why do some people cave in while others stand up?” “Where does moral courage come from?” “What does ‘complicity’ mean, anyway?”
Here she is most recently, talking with her friend, law historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, whom I featured in my previous post:
https://asharangappa.substack.com/p/our-collective-conscience
[Substack videos won’t “embed” in my blog like YouTube…but click on the link to watch]
Another aspect of Asha I enjoy is her relative youth. Many of my Guiding Lights are my age, Boomers. But Asha’s solid Gen X, with the cultural references to prove it. In my book, FBI agents are automatic badasses, and the fact that she made that pivot from gun-toting to Yale Associate Law School Dean is, to me…not complicated, but COOL.
As Asha explains:
The original vision of this Substack was a course called “Democracy in the (Dis)Information Age.” I built this course over three years, breaking down the content I teach at Yale into 52 bite-size lessons that each have an audio “lecture.” You can visit the syllabus here, and paid subscribers will have access to all the lessons to read/listen to at your leisure (and in any order you like!).
Beginning in 2026, I will be using this Substack to illuminate research that I am doing for my forthcoming book, Uncompromised: Activating Your Moral Compass in an Age of Complicity. My book will draw on my experiences assessing people in the FBI and as an admissions dean as well as research in psychology, leadership, and risk-taking to understand why some people go along to get along — even when they know it’s wrong — and why some people find the courage to push back.
If you’re at all interested in how humans tick, and how we can use that “ticking” to better shape a government that works for ALL of us, I hope you’ll join me in checking Asha out: on Substack, on YouTube, and–soon, I hope–at the bookstore!
