Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
- Publication Year
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 28 of 28
Full-Text Articles in Law
Response To Bruce Frohnen’S Review Of Fidelity To Our Imperfect Constitution: For Moral Readings And Against Originalisms, James E. Fleming, Bruce P. Frohnen
Response To Bruce Frohnen’S Review Of Fidelity To Our Imperfect Constitution: For Moral Readings And Against Originalisms, James E. Fleming, Bruce P. Frohnen
Faculty Scholarship
It is a privilege to participate in this exchange with Bruce Frohnen concerning our books. In my Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution, I observe that in recent years, many have assumed that originalists have a monopoly on concern for fidelity in constitutional interpretation. I reject all forms of originalism and defend a moral reading of the United States Constitution. Such a conception views the Constitution as embodying abstract moral and political principles, not codifying concrete historical rules or practices. It sees interpretation of those principles as requiring normative judgments about how they are best understood, not merely historical research to …
Linnaean Taxonomy And Globalized Law, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.
Linnaean Taxonomy And Globalized Law, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.
Michigan Law Review
Review of The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities by Stephen Breyer.
¿Es Posible Y Deseable Inaplicar La Jurisprudencia De La Corte?, Juan Luis Hernández Macías
¿Es Posible Y Deseable Inaplicar La Jurisprudencia De La Corte?, Juan Luis Hernández Macías
Juan Luis Hernández Macías
No abstract provided.
The Vitality Of The American Sovereign, Todd E. Pettys
The Vitality Of The American Sovereign, Todd E. Pettys
Michigan Law Review
The proposition that "the people" are the preeminent sovereign in the United States has long been a tenet of American public life. The authors of the Declaration of Independence characterized the American people's sovereignty as a "self-evident" truth when announcing the colonies' decision to sever their ties with Great Britain, the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 invoked the people's sovereignty when framing the nation's Constitution, and Americans today exercise their sovereignty each time they cast their ballots on Election Day. Yet what prerogatives, precisely, does the people's sovereignty entail? In modern America, where neither a bloody revolution nor …
Leaps And Bounds, Nestor M. Davidson
Leaps And Bounds, Nestor M. Davidson
Michigan Law Review
Imagine how stunted our understanding of the federal government would be without any detailed scholarly examination of the U.S. Constitution itself. As remarkable as that sounds, that is essentially the problem that Gerald Frug and David Barron have set out to remedy for local governments in their superb City Bound. In the book, Frug and Barron take a comprehensive, empirical look at the legal frameworks under which cities and other local governments operate, providing an invaluable roadmap for understanding the hidden architecture of legal constraints that-largely without notice-are shaping America's urban future. Why this kind of analysis has rarely been …
Free Speech And The Case For Constitutional Exceptionalism, Roger P. Alford
Free Speech And The Case For Constitutional Exceptionalism, Roger P. Alford
Michigan Law Review
Embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the evocative proposition that "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression." Beneath that abstraction there is anything but universal agreement. Modern democratic societies disagree on the text, content, theory, and practice of this liberty. They disagree on whether it is a privileged right or a subordinate value. They disagree on what constitutes speech and what speech is worthy of protection. They disagree on theoretical foundations, uncertain if the right is grounded in libertarian impulses, the promotion of a marketplace of ideas, or the advancement of participatory democracy. They …
An "Unintended Consequence": Dred Scott Reinterpreted, Sam Erman
An "Unintended Consequence": Dred Scott Reinterpreted, Sam Erman
Michigan Law Review
Austin Allen's monograph marks the 150th anniversary of the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford with a revisionist interpretation of that oft-examined case. Many scholars have portrayed the case as a proslavery decision that fanned sectional fires. After all, the Court held that blacks were not U.S. citizens and that Congress was impotent to bar slavery in U.S. territories. Allen, by contrast, understands the case primarily as a judicial attempt to rationalize federal commerce and slavery jurisprudences. Part I argues that this ambitious reinterpretation enriches, but does not topple, existing Dred Scott historiography. In the case of the Court's citizenship …
Sovereignty As Discourse, Robert L. Tsai
Sovereignty As Discourse, Robert L. Tsai
Faculty Scholarship
This is a review of Howard Schweber's book, "The Language of Liberal Constitutionalism" (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Schweber argues that "the creation of a legitimate constitutional regime depends on a prior commitment to employ constitutional language, and that such a commitment is both the necessary and sufficient condition for constitution making." I critique the power and limits of this reformulated Lockean thesis, as well as Schweber's secondary claims that, for constitutional language to remain legitimate, it must increasingly become autonomous, specialized, and secular.
Weakening The Bill Of Rights: A Victory For Terrorism, Stephen Reinhardt
Weakening The Bill Of Rights: A Victory For Terrorism, Stephen Reinhardt
Michigan Law Review
What is most remarkable about Richard Posner's latest book-and he has written many-is that he argues that we should repose full confidence in the executive branch to handle the most sensitive constitutional issues of our time without once mentioning the flagrant breaches of law and critical falsehoods with which President Bush and his administration have deluged the public since 9/11. This only seven years after he composed a lengthy tome regarding President Clinton's impeachment in which he appropriately, if harshly, condemned the president for his unethical and illegal conduct, principally his deliberate lies and purposeful lack of candor with the …
Taking Text Too Seriously: Modern Textualism, Original Meaning, And The Case Of Amar's Bill Of Rights, William Michael Treanor
Taking Text Too Seriously: Modern Textualism, Original Meaning, And The Case Of Amar's Bill Of Rights, William Michael Treanor
Michigan Law Review
Championed on the Supreme Court by Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas and in academia most prominently by Professor Akhil Amar textualism has emerged within the past twenty years as a leading school of constitutional interpretation. Textualists argue that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with its original public meaning, and in seeking that meaning, they closely parse the Constitution's words and grammar and the placement of clauses in the document. They have assumed that this close parsing recaptures original meaning, but, perhaps because it seems obviously correct, that assumption has neither been defended nor challenged. This Article uses Professor …
A Syllabus Of Errors, Douglas Laycock
A Syllabus Of Errors, Douglas Laycock
Michigan Law Review
Modern American society is pervasively regulated. It is also religiously diverse to a degree that is probably unprecedented in the history of the world. It is inevitable that some of these diverse religious practices will violate some of these pervasive regulations, and equally inevitable that if we ask whether all these regulations are really necessary, sometimes the answer will be no. If we take free exercise of religion seriously, sometimes it will make sense to exempt sincere religious practices from generally applicable laws - but only some laws, and only some applications. Hardly anyone thinks that human sacrifice should be …
A Response To Professor Laycock, Marci A. Hamilton
A Response To Professor Laycock, Marci A. Hamilton
Michigan Law Review
Almost a hundred years ago, the American Association of University Professors established guidelines for civility among scholars, saying that academic exchanges "should be set forth with dignity, courtesy, and temperateness of language." I agree wholeheartedly with these principles, and I will not succumb to the temptation to respond in kind to Professor Laycock's review. Tone is much less important than having a frank exchange of views. It is well known that Professor Laycock and I have very different perspectives on the proper interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. His review and my response should be an opportunity for us to …
The D'Oh! Of Popular Constitutionalism, Neal Devins
The D'Oh! Of Popular Constitutionalism, Neal Devins
Michigan Law Review
This Review will be divided into three parts. Part I will both summarize The Most Democratic Branch and highlight some of the difficulties that the Supreme Court would face in implementing Rosen's decision-making model. In particular, by allowing the Court to invalidate laws for a host of "antidemocratic" reasons, Rosen's matrix does not constrain the Court in a predictable way. Part II will examine some of the empirical evidence about public attitudes toward the Supreme Court, including public awareness of Supreme Court decisions. I will contend that the Court cannot look to the people to sort out the Constitution's meaning …
The Current Landscape Of Race: Old Targets, New Opportunities, Richard Delgado
The Current Landscape Of Race: Old Targets, New Opportunities, Richard Delgado
Michigan Law Review
It is difficult enough identifying areas within a current field of scholarship that are underdeveloped and in need of further attention. In science, one thinks of missing elements in the periodic table or planets in a solar system that our calculations tell us must be there but that our telescopes have not yet spotted. In civil-rights law, one thinks of such areas as women's sports or the problems of intersectional groups, such as women of color or gay black men. One also thinks of issues that current events are constantly thrusting forward, such as discrimination against Arabs or execution of …
The Originalist And Normative Case Against Judicial Activism: A Reply To Professor Randy Barnett, Steven G. Calabresi
The Originalist And Normative Case Against Judicial Activism: A Reply To Professor Randy Barnett, Steven G. Calabresi
Michigan Law Review
In Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty, Professor Randy E. Barnett lays out a bold defense of the theory of originalism in constitutional interpretation. Professor Barnett's book is perhaps the most important book about originalism since Robert H. Bork's The Tempting of America. Barnett presents a normative case as to why contemporary Americans should agree to be governed by the original meaning of the Constitution, and, like most sophisticated originalists, he nicely distinguishes between original meaning and original intent. Barnett correctly notes that what really matters in constitutional interpretation is not what the Framers intended that provision …
Against Interpretive Supremacy, Saikrishna Prakash, John Yoo
Against Interpretive Supremacy, Saikrishna Prakash, John Yoo
Michigan Law Review
Many constitutional scholars are obsessed with judicial review and the many questions surrounding it. One perennial favorite is whether the Constitution even authorizes judicial review. Another is whether the other branches of the federal government must obey the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution and what, if anything, the other branches must do to execute the judiciary's judgments. Marbury v. Madison has been a full-employment program for many constitutional law scholars, including ourselves. Larry Kramer, the new Dean of Stanford Law School, shares this passion. He has devoted roughly the last decade of his career, with two lengthy law review …
Does The Supreme Court Matter? Civil Rights And The Inherent Politicization Of Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Lassiter
Does The Supreme Court Matter? Civil Rights And The Inherent Politicization Of Constitutional Law, Matthew D. Lassiter
Michigan Law Review
More than a decade ago, in a colloquium sponsored by the Virginia Law Review, scholars of the civil rights movement launched a fierce assault on Michael J. Klarman's interpretation of the significance of the Supreme Court's famous school desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Klarman's "backlash thesis," initially set forth in a series of law review and history journal articles and now serving as the centerpiece of his new book, revolves around two central claims. First, he argues that the advancements toward racial equality generally attributed to Brown were instead the inevitable products of long-term political, …
Mathematics And The Legal Imagination: A Response To Paul Edelman, Michael I. Meyerson
Mathematics And The Legal Imagination: A Response To Paul Edelman, Michael I. Meyerson
All Faculty Scholarship
This article, a response to a review by Prof. Paul Edelman of Prof. Meyerson's book "Political Numeracy: Mathematical Perspectives on Our Chaotic Constitution," explains how the study of mathematics can spur creative legal thinking.
The Constitution Outside The Courts, James E. Fleming
The Constitution Outside The Courts, James E. Fleming
Faculty Scholarship
In this Book Review, Professor Fleming examines Professor Tushnet's arguments against judicial supremacy and in support of making constitutional interpretation less court-centered to pursue a populist constitutional law. The review concedes that Professor Tushnet's arguments that the “thick Constitution”--in particular, its commitments to federalism, states' rights, and separation of powers--is self-enforcing through the political processes are compelling. But it contends that he fails to make the case that the “thin Constitution”--for example, its fundamental guarantees of equality, freedom of expression, and liberty-- should be treated as similarly self-enforcing. Furthermore, Professor Fleming charges that Professor Tushnet does not adequately elaborate how …
In Search Of A Substantive Republic, James E. Fleming, Linda C. Mcclain
In Search Of A Substantive Republic, James E. Fleming, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
The publication of Michael J. Sandel's Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy is a long-awaited and important event in political and constitutional theory. In 1982, through his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice,1 Sandel emerged as a leading communitarian or civic republican critic of liberalism. That book became prominent, not because its criticisms of liberalism were dispositive, but because it eloquently and elegantly captured discontent with liberalism and evoked yearnings for an alternative. Since then, Sandel has occupied a position on the American intellectual landscape as a placeholder for a *510 communitarian or civic …
Silva: Presidential Succession, Wilber M. Brucker, Jr. S. Ed.
Silva: Presidential Succession, Wilber M. Brucker, Jr. S. Ed.
Michigan Law Review
A Review of PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION. By Ruth C. Silva.
Freund: On Understanding The Supreme Court., Michigan Law Review
Freund: On Understanding The Supreme Court., Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of ON UNDERSTANDING THE SUPREME COURT. By Paul A. Freund.
Patterson: Presidential Government In The United States. The Unwritten Constitution, Michigan Law Review
Patterson: Presidential Government In The United States. The Unwritten Constitution, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. THE UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION. By C. Perry Patterson
Rutledge: A Declaration Of Legal Faith, Merrill N. Johnson S.Ed.
Rutledge: A Declaration Of Legal Faith, Merrill N. Johnson S.Ed.
Michigan Law Review
A Review of A DECLARATION OF LEGAL FAITH. By Wiley Rutledge.
Dicey's Law Of The Constitution: A Review, William A. Robson
Dicey's Law Of The Constitution: A Review, William A. Robson
Michigan Law Review
The first edition of this celebrated work appeared in 1885; and such was its vogue until ten or fifteen years ago that there is scarcely anyone over thirty-five years of age who studied law, politics or constitutional history at a university or professional law school in England and the British Dominions who was not "brought up" on Dicey. "Dicey on the Constitution" was regarded for generations not merely as a perfect, accurate and comprehensive statement of the principles of the British system of government; but also as a reliable explanation of its superior virtues and liberties. The book attained an …
Review: The Revival Of Natural Law Concepts, Fowler Vincent Harper
Review: The Revival Of Natural Law Concepts, Fowler Vincent Harper
Michigan Law Review
A Book Review of THE REVIVAL OF NATURAL LAW CONCEPTS By Charles Grove Haines.
Review: Cases On Constitutional Law, Thomas C. Lavery
Review: Cases On Constitutional Law, Thomas C. Lavery
Michigan Law Review
A Review of: CASES ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW By Dudley O. McGovney.
Review: The Constitution And What It Means Today. By Edward S. Corwin, Forrest Revere Black
Review: The Constitution And What It Means Today. By Edward S. Corwin, Forrest Revere Black
Michigan Law Review
A Review of THE CONSTITUTION AND WHAT IT MEANS TODAY. By Edward S. Corwin