2011 Constitutional Law Center Symposium
"Debating the Living Constitution"
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Drake Law School
8:30 am - 11:30 a.m.
Cartwright Hall, Room 213
(2.25 hours Iowa and 3.0 hours federal CLE credit approved)

____________________________________________________________________________

Please click here to download a registration form. Registration forms are due by Monday,
March 28, 2011.

The tenth anniversary symposium is made possible by support from the law firm of Belin McCormick, PC.

Symposium Précis

Perhaps the most important current debate concerning the Constitution is whether it should be interpreted as a living document or whether it should be interpreted as originally understood. The Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have vigorously debated this issue in cases such as District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). This symposium will address this debate. Professor David Strauss, the Gerald Ratner distinguished service professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, has written The Living Constitution (2010) which argues that the Constitution should be interpreted as a living document using the techniques of the common law. Professor Strauss and his interlocutors will debate whether the Constitution should be interpreted as a living document. The other participants include Professor Keith Whittington, the William Nelson Cromwell professor of politics at Princeton University; Rebecca Brown, the Newton professor of constitutional law at the University of Southern California School of Law; and Wil Waluchow, the Senator William McMaster chair in constitutional studies at McMaster University.

Presenters

Rebecca Brown, Newton Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Southern California School of Law

Brown is a nationally recognized constitutional law theorist who in August 2008 joined USC Law as the Newton Professor of Constitutional Law. Brown’s scholarship focuses on judicial review and its relationship to individual liberty under the U.S. Constitution. Her recently published works include “How Constitutional Theory Found Its Soul: The Contributions of Ronald Dworkin,” in Exploring Law’s Empire (Hershovitz ed., Oxford University Press 2006), “The Logic of Majority Rule” (Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 2006) and “Confessions of a Flawed Liberal” (The Good Society 2005). She serves as co-chair of the American Constitution Society’s Constitution in the 21st Century Project. Brown received her B.A. from St. John’s College (Annapolis, Md.) and her J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was an editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. She clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Spottswood W. Robinson III. Brown also worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice and practiced with Onek, Klein & Farr in Washington, D.C. From 1988 to 2008, she was a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, where she held the Allen Chair in Law from 2003 until her departure.

David Strauss, Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School

Strauss is the Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. He has published many scholarly articles, principally on subjects in constitutional law, as well as op-eds and articles for general readers in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of The Living Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2010), and he is at work on a book on constitutional interpretation. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a co-editor of the Supreme Court Review. He has served as Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and as an Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, and he has argued eighteen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Strauss is an expert in constitutional law and the Supreme Court. He was one of President Clinton's attorneys before the U. S. Supreme Court in the Clinton vs. Jones case. He has testified before Congress on many occasions and has argued 18 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has written a number of articles on subjects including the First Amendment, affirmative action, abortion, and racial discrimination. He is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford, and Harvard Law School.

Wil Waluchow, Senator William McMaster Chair in Constitutional Studies, McMaster University

Waluchow is a Professor of Philosophy and the Senator William McMaster Chair in Constitutional Studies at McMaster University. His research focuses on constitutional theory, applied ethics and social and political philosophy. Among his publications are: Inclusive Legal Positivism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Free Expression: Essays in Law and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); The Dimensions of Ethics (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2003); and A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Waluchow has a BA and MA in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario and a DPhil in the philosophy of law from Oxford University, where he studied under H.L.A. Hart.

Keith Whittington, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton University

Whittington is the author of Constitutional Construction: Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning, and Constitutional Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial Review, and Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History (which won the C. Herman Pritchett Award for best book in law and courts and the J. David Greenstone Award for best book in politics and history), and editor (with Neal Devins) of Congress and the Constitution and editor (with R. Daniel Kelemen and Gregory A. Caldeira) of The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics. He has published widely on American constitutional theory and development, federalism, judicial politics, and the presidency. He has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow and American Council of Learned Societies Junior Faculty Fellow, and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He is editor (with Gerald Leonard) of the New Essays on American Constitutional History and editor (with Maeva Marcus, Melvin Urofsky, and Mark Tushnet) of the Cambridge Studies on the American Constitution. He is currently completing a two-volume casebook American Constitutionalism (with Howard Gillman and Mark Graber) and working on a political history of the judicial review of federal statutes.