Stanford Constitutional Law Center
Stanford Constitutional Law Center
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George Washington’s Jewish Letters and the Creation of a Constitutional Republic
@ Stanford: Paul Brest Hall 555 Salvatierra Walk, Stanford, CA, United StatesView the event As president of the Constitutional Convention, and as president of the nascent United States, Washington received several letters from members of the tiny American Jewish community. These […]
Supreme Court Roundup and Preview
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the event Join Easha Anand, co-director of Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Michael Mongan ('06), California Solicitor General, and Erin Murphy, partner at Clement & Murphy, to review the most important Supreme Court cases of the past year and look ahead to the year to come. This event is being recorded and […]
Who Am I to Judge?: Judicial Craft versus Constitutional Theory
@ SLS: Room 190 Crown Quadrangle 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the event Senators at recent confirmation hearings have asked nominees about their commitments to originalism and their judicial philosophies. This lecture, based on a forthcoming book, argues that we should shift our focus. Retrospectively examining “great” Supreme Court justices and “strong” (and “weak”) Supreme Courts, I suggest that we should be looking for justices […]
Does Section 3 Trump the Voters?
@ SLS: Room 180 Crown Quadrangle 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the event In a forthcoming article, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen seek to "set[] forth the full sweep and force of Section Three" of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids holding office by former office holders who then participate in insurrection or rebellion. Their reading finds that Section Three "disqualifies former President Donald Trump, and […]
Constitutionalism without a Constitution: the Israeli Case
@ SLS: Room 190 Crown Quadrangle 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the event Like Britain and New Zealand, Israel lacks a fully codified constitution. For 75 years it has relied on informal norms, a series of Basic Laws, and a strong legal culture to provide the country with “constitutionalism without a constitution”. But has political polarization exhausted Israel's ability to accommodate differences within its existing […]
Lunch with Stephen Bright, Longtime Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, on “The Fear of Too Much Justice”
@ SLS: Room 190 Crown Quadrangle 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the Event Join Stephen Bright, longtime director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, in Atlanta, Georgia, as he discusses his work in the areas of capital punishment, indigent criminal legal defense, racial discrimination in the criminal legal system, conditions and practices in prisons and jails, judicial independence, and his new book (with co-author […]
Natural Rights at the Founding
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the event Although no longer a part of our constitutional discourse, natural rights were central to American rights jurisprudence for well over a century. This talk will explore how the Founders thought about natural rights – where natural rights came from, what role they played in the constitutional design, and who got to define […]
The Second Amendment After Bruen
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the event In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court upended generations of firearm control laws in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen. After Bruen, gun laws will be invalidated unless they are "consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition" of firearm regulation. Challenges to countless gun laws are now underway in federal […]
In Defense of Strict Scrutiny
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesTHIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. Is strict scrutiny consistent with originalism? And can strict scrutiny be implemented without involving judicial balancing? Professor Stephanie Barclay will argue yes on both fronts, offering a different conceptual framework for thinking about the protection of constitutional rights in a democracy.
Judicial Review in Times of Emergency: From the Founding through the COVID-19 Pandemic
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the evvent Whether deferring to President Lincoln’s blockade at the start of the Civil War, a state’s suspension of creditors’ remedies during the Great Depression, or President’s Roosevelt’s evacuation and mass incarceration of Japanese Americans in the West during World War II, the Supreme Court has regularly permitted the political branches wide discretion to […]
Race, Originalism, and Affirmative Action
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesWatch the event Join SLS Professor Michael McConnell and UVA Professor Kim Forde-Mazrui in conversation, moderated by SLS Professor Ralph Richard Banks, as they consider the role of history and the original meaning of the Constitution in deciding contested questions of constitutional interpretation with respect to race. Speakers will examine claims about how history does […]
Courting Censorship
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesThis talk will draw lessons from Murthy v. Missouri and other current censorship cases. It asks whether Supreme Court doctrine has invited censorship? Not deliberately, of course. Still, it must be asked whether current doctrine has courted censorship—in the same way one might speak of it courting disaster. The lecture will begin at 5:00pm. Dinner […]
Chilean Constituent Process: Reasons for two unsuccessful constitution’s replacement attempts
@ SLS: Room 280B Crown Quadrangle, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesOn December 17, 55% of Chilean voters rejected a second constitutional proposal drafted by a majority right-wing council. A previous text, written by a mainly left-wing convention, was dismissed by 62% of voters in the September 2022 plebiscite. Prof. Jorge Barrera-Rojas served as a Chief Counsel of the majority in the last attempt, and he […]
Publius Symposium with Jacob Mchangama: Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesThe lecture will begin at 5:00 pm followed by a reception at 6:30 pm. Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. In Free Speech: […]
Presidents Beware: Investigations, Impeachment, Disqualification, and Prosecution
@ SLS: Multiple Rooms Crown Quadrangle, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesConstitutional Law Center Spring Conference 2024 May 17th at Stanford Law School, Room 290 | May 18th at Paul Brest Hall, Stanford Campus Former President and now presidential candidate Donald Trump looms large over questions about investigation, impeachment, disqualification, and prosecution of presidents. This conference takes the opportunity that Trump -- and, to a lesser […]
Social Media and the First Amendment
@ SLS: Room 290 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA, United StatesThe Supreme Court is considering whether laws in Texas and Florida that regulate how social media companies engage in content moderation violate the First Amendment. This pair of cases, known as the NetChoice cases, implicate not only First Amendment issues, but broader questions about the role of social media companies in the public sphere. Join […]